Vinny
"Hell no," Lucie said. "Hell no."
My eyes were on Eden, fixed there. There was no way. Lucie had told me she'd died, that she'd seen it. Shaking, I blurted, "But you're—Eden, you're dead. Lucie, isn't she dead?"
"Yes!"
I sputtered. "Then how—"
"Imagine my surprise when you reappeared, then," Eden said to me. She wasn't bitter, merely factual, almost toneless. "I don't have long here. I'm just here for a little while. So can I talk to you, please?"
I stared at her until I couldn't anymore. She stood there before the door to my father's office—which no one had touched since he'd left—with her arms at her sides, dark eyes fixed on the ground, her hair done up to match the elegant red cocktail dress she wore. I wasn't sure what to feel—relief? Terror? I looked at her and I saw all the days of my life, my normal life, yet I looked at her and I saw all the pain she'd caused me.
Nura piped up, "Something's off. A soul shouldn't be able to cross back over once it's gone, not without a body. That must mean—"
"The balance," Eden grumbled, like it was a word she'd heard too much. Lucie's eyes went a little round, and so did mine. That little girl in Chinatown had said the same thing, had pointed at me like I was a criminal and said, The balance. It is all wrong. "It's not right. So, like I said, I don't have long before I'm tugged over again. Vinny, if I could please—"
"Why?" I snapped. "Why do you think anything you're going to say is going to fix...I don't know, anything?"
Eden gnawed at her lip. "God, you have every right to hate me, but please give me a chance. It's important."
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting out a sigh. I wanted to speak with her, but I didn't. I hated her, but I didn't. I'd never felt so clueless.
Lucie was at my shoulder. "You don't have to," she said. "You really don't."
My eyes opened, and I inhaled. Everyone's eyes were on me: Eden's and Nura's, Lucie's, even Caprice's, who was still slumping drunkenly against the far wall. I made a mental note to hide all of Mom's champagne from her.
I told Lucie, "I need to."
I expected a flash of triumph to cross Eden's face, but her steady, solemn frown remained. I hesitated, but walked over to Dad's office, pulling it open. Eden whisked inside, bringing with her a rush of cold that chilled me well below the surface of my skin. I saw Lucie's skeptical gaze before I shut the door after us, and turned away.
Eden stood by the desk, looking uncomfortable, out of place. I shivered, both because her presence made the air freezing, and because it was strange to be here, in a place that was so intrinsically my father's. Cian and I used to play on the oriental rug upon which the mahogany desk sat, building block towers while Dad filed paperwork. Sometimes Cian would teach me to read with some of the business and medical books that filled the tall bookshelves. I never understood any of it, and I don't really think Cian did either, but just the minimal grasp for knowledge was enough.
I'd always thought my dad was the coolest person ever, sitting behind his big desk and drinking mug after mug of coffee, creating and selling medicines that would help people worldwide.
That was before I'd known that he was a liar, a trickster. That was before I'd known that he hadn't ever really cared.
Heaving a long breath, I hoisted myself up on the desk, leaving my legs dangling over its edge. Eden watched me warily, and I wondered if she could see it on my face, how torn I was, just how lost.
"So?" I asked.
"I'm sorry."
I paused, then huffed. "Oh, okay. You're sorry for sedating Cian, ripping me to shreds, and then sending a demon after us; you're sorry for abducting Lucie, you're sorry for conspiring with Nick and just—ruining everything. You're sorry."
Eden's eyes shut, ethereal eyelashes settling upon her high cheekbones. "Vince."
"No. Don't 'Vince' me. I almost killed myself. Lucie got shot, in the head. Cian was nearly devoured by demons—is a demon himself now, and all because you—"
"I tried to stop it!" Eden exclaimed. "All of it! I tried to—wait, what did you say?"
Her eyes had flown open, and in them was toss-up of utter terror and disgust. I cocked my head at her before I realized it made sense that she didn't know all of this. She hadn't been here, after all.
I looked away, at an old family portrait that hung a bit awkwardly over an arm chair in the corner. I hadn't been more than two in that picture; my hand was enclosed trustingly in my brother's. "Cian," I said. "He's become a demon and gone AWOL. More of the poison got in him after Nick's little stunt, enough to change him this time."
Eden pinched the skin between her eyebrows. "Jesus," she breathed. "I told him to be careful. I thought—"
"We all thought everything would be fine, Eden," I said, "but that's not how the real world works."
"And Lucie?" asked Eden after a beat, her eyes momentarily flitting towards the closed door. The door was glass, and semi-transparent; I couldn't see more than a few different-colored blobs moving within the foyer. "If she was shot, but she's here..."
"She's not exactly here," I countered. My tone was monotonous, likely because I was only repeating what Lucie had said herself. "But she's not exactly dead. Her body's comatose, so she's just not in it right now."
"And that's the second thing," said Eden. "Besides my apology, which you don't seem to want to take."
I considered telling her that I wasn't angry with her, not really, just frustrated at how—despite everything—I still couldn't seem to forget her. I considered telling her that an apology just wasn't going to fix anything. I considered saying everything I wanted to say, but I didn't. "The second thing?" I asked, kicking my feet against the wood, drawing comfort from the rhythmic thunk of contact. "Is it about this balance?"
Eden nodded. "People on this plane can't feel it, but for those of us on the other side, it's always there: this odd feeling. It's just a vague something wrong, like noticing something different about a person but not exactly what."
My eyebrows furrowed. "What does this have to do with Lucie?"
"If all was well and good between the living and dead world, Vinny, she wouldn't be able to just be out of her body like this," Eden explained. "Sure, it's possible to be Split, like Cian, but he at least stays anchored in his body."
"It's why you managed to come back over, too," I mused, folding one leg. The ceiling fan over my head turned in slow, languorous circles, casting droves of cool air around the room. I shivered again. "So if there's not a balance, then dead people don't stay in the dead world, and living people don't stay in the living world."
My eyes lifted, meeting Eden's. "That's what you're trying to tell me."
She nodded. "No one knows what the hell's causing it, but it could be a problem if it isn't resolved soon. I had to come back to warn you, Vinny. And I had to come back to try...to try and fix what I'd done."
At her last few words, her voice dropped again, rivaling that of a whisper. She looked away, and I was reminded of the shy girl she'd been before the fallen angels had corrupted her, twisted her in all the wrong ways until she was someone else, something else. It had always taken Eden a while to open up, to care, but once she did, it was like no other companionship in the world.
Maybe that's why I couldn't hate her, no matter how hard I tried.
The blobs beyond the office door had disappeared; I didn't know whether to feel anxious or relieved. "Eden," I began, and she still didn't look at me, "Cian and I trusted you, searched for you, and you came back and screwed us over. You understand why that's hard for me to forgive, don't you?"
"But I stopped myself," Eden pleaded. "I realized how much you two meant to me, and I tried to help you. Don't you understand that? You don't have to accept it, but I just...I never got to tell you how sorry I am."
Eden's eyes lifted. My mouth perked up a bit, with just an inch of mirth. "You messed up, Edie."
She nodded. "I know."
"But God—I still miss you," I admitted, and was stunned to find that my voice cracked a little. I hadn't realized it until then, but the backs of my eyes were burning with the beginning of tears. "I still do."
Eden laughed, though the gesture was rueful, her eyes shiny with nostalgia and sorrow, a common and painful mix. "We were quite the trio, weren't we?" she said. "Look at us now. We're a mess. We're a goddamn mess, Vince."
I was so busy trying to fight tears, to retain my dignity, that I didn't notice for a while that she was fading, the very tips of her fingers beginning to turn from translucent to invisible. It took a lot of effort for me to find words, like swimming in molasses, searching for the right ones to say. "Eden."
She heard the urgency in my voice, and sighed when she, too, noticed that she was beginning to dim. "Must be time," she said, then looked up at me, a half-smile at her lips. "You'll find Cian, and you'll bring him back. I know you will; he listens to you."
"Sometimes."
She moved forward until she was right at my side. I tried to focus on her eyes, not on her disappearing form, not on the fact that I was losing her for another time. Not on the fact that she was just another person leaving me behind in this world. "He loves you like crazy," she told me, "but you already know all that."
"Thank you, Eden," I said, and found that I mirrored the smile on her face, as if an upturn of the mouth could somehow hide all the fear, the loss, the grief, I was fighting. "For warning me, and for trying."
She was mostly gone, but in a final gesture, she thrust forward, throwing her incorporeal arms around me. I didn't feel anything, and they fell through me, but I was shredded at the memory of what she really felt like—when everything had been fine, back when it had been Eden and Cian and Vinny versus the world. "I guess," she said, "that I just never try hard enough."
And she was gone.
I was sitting there underneath the breeze of the ceiling fan, letting the air dry my tears, when Lucie burst through the door. She moved with such speed that I was worried something was wrong, but my apprehension died when I noticed the smile on her face. "Hey, Vinny—oh," she said, noticing my somber expression, which I hadn't wiped off my face in time. "Everything okay? Is Eden gone?"
"Yeah," I said. "She's gone. And I'm fine."
Lucie nodded. "Well, good, because you'd better start packing. We're getting out of here."
I raised my eyebrows. "Fresno?"
Lucie's smile grew wider; it was only a city, but it was the first flicker of hope we'd gotten in days. "Fresno."