Wake

Chapter 10

Cian

It felt like it took hours of reassuring to get Vinny to let me go. Even after we somehow made it back to the house, despite the fact that Vinny took a couple turns that were too sharp for comfort, he insisted on gripping my arm and helping me up the stairs. I had to snap at him to make him release me. My predicament was already bad enough; Vinny's parent-like hovering was just making things worse.

Besides, if I let him carry me, if I let him worry over me, that would be accepting the fact that something was wrong. And nothing was wrong. I'd just sleepwalked; I'd used to do that when I'd been little, anyway. People sleepwalked all the time.

As I climbed up the stairs, I glanced back over my shoulder. Vinny was watching me, his gaze wary, from the bottom of the staircase. There was something strange in my little brother's eyes, something gnarled and twisted and wrong, like there was something he was begging to say.

Vinny remained silent, however, and I just sighed and staggered into my bedroom. I pulled the door all the way shut, turned to go to my bed, and halted in place.

My room had never been neat, certainly, but it had never been this messy. I didn't remember leaving it like this: the floor littered with papers and pencils and puddles of something dark and ink-like, my window shattered, my mattress thrown off the bed frame.

I closed my eyes.

Perhaps it was a little worse than sleepwalking.

I tried my best at tidying the space. I redid my bed, swept the jagged glass shards into a corner for later disposal, gathered up all the looseleaf paper the floor had been strewn with. Then I knelt, examining the puddles of dark liquid. It was thick, sticky as burnt sugar, bitter-smelling as spoiled milk. My gut wrenched with recognition; it was the same fluid I'd coughed up when that demon had tainted my wings. It was likely I'd thrown it up, today, too, and I just didn't remember.

I ran my tongue over my lips; I could almost taste it.

I let out a groan, throwing myself on my bed. There was no way. When the Order had taken my wings, they'd gotten rid of the demon's infection. Besides, even if they hadn't, why would it take so long to resurface? There was no way. I was fine. I was just fine.

I rolled to my side, forcing my eyes shut, hoping sleep would allay some of the worry. It didn't matter how much I told myself I was fine, because I still had the awful feeling that I was not. I hated bad feelings, how they gnawed and gnawed at you, only twisting you further in their grip with the more you struggled.

All I needed was a few minutes, really, of oblivion. Just to center myself again—

"Cian?"

I jolted, then stopped moving altogether. It wasn't Vinny's voice, wasn't my mother's voice. It was hers. It could only be hers.

Slowly, I rolled back over. She stood there beside the bed, clad in the same shorts, tank top, and flannel she'd been wearing the day Nick had shot her, her black curls tumbling towards her shoulders. Her skin was the same warm chestnut I'd always loved, a splatter of freckles across her nose.

It was Lucie—my Lucie.

Most of her was the same, yet she seemed faded, the edges between her and her surroundings a bit fuzzy. I stared at her for a moment, then laughed bitterly. "This demon stuff is cruel. I could have hallucinated anyone, but no, I see you. I just had to see you."

Lucie's eyebrows drew in, but it was an evanescent movement. Her silence was all the proof that I needed—she wasn't here. She was my hallucination, an illusion my own sick brain had created to torture me.