A Portrait of Pain Read online

  He stared back at me, his expression giving nothing away. “Kissing,” he eventually supplied, his mouth inching up at the corner, heat creeping back into his eyes.

  Just kissing.

  “Er, right,” I managed. “My valcrick slipped out, but just like the forecasting, it turned on me.”

  “It turned on all of us,” Cabe noted, cocking his head at Miro.

  “I’m only responsible for turning her on.” Miro held his hands up. “You can’t blame the evil valcrick on me.”

  Silas shifted, and I grabbed the arms of his chair, preventing him from rising out of it to attack his twin. But he wasn’t attempting to.

  He was laughing.

  I blinked, turning my head to look at him. As soon as my eyes connected with his, the hands on my legs shifted an inch higher. I immediately turned back to face the others, just in time to see Cabe tossing one of the pillows at Miro’s head.

  “Anyway,” I quickly spoke up, “when we got back here, I blacked out again and it pulled me into another vision—except, I don’t think it was a vision.”

  “What did you see?” Noah asked me.

  “Daichi.”

  Yet again, I managed to render them speechless.

  “Daichi?” Cabe spluttered.

  “It wasn’t actually him,” I quickly amended. “I mean, now that I know what he actually looks like. He was robed, with white eyes—he was just an image that my mind had conjured. A symbol. The man with the glowing orb between his hands. He told me not to turn my back on my people. I think he wants me to do something—I mean his power, the forecasting magic, wants me to do something.”

  “Do what?” One of Silas’s hands had abandoned my leg, catching my chin and turning my face to his.

  “Reach for power.” My voice was uneasy, because I wasn’t entirely sure.

  “Your forecasting has always acted to keep you alive, even if it will harm others,” Noah noted. “Why is it changing now?”

  “Maybe this was the plan all along,” Silas muttered, still watching me, his eyes spilling over with inky darkness. “The power needed her to be kept alive until she was strong enough to do whatever it was she needed to do.”

  “Reach out,” I added. “Connect.”

  “The same way you connected to us?” Cabe questioned, his tone angry. He was pissed at the suggestion that I might be seeking a third pair, but my mind hadn’t gone there at all.

  “No.” I tried to shake my head as Silas’s grip tightened on my chin. “The same way I did with the Seer’s power and the Elementalists power.”

  “No.” Silas stood, spilling me from his lap. He seemed to have figured it out, because his eyes were spitting fire. “No way in hell are you going to use the Dead Man’s fucking power. Hasn’t all of this information taught you anything?”

  “It’s taught me that the Dead Man is the master of all death,” I fought back, springing to my feet. “I need to use that power—it’s the only way we’ll be able to defeat Danny!”

  “That power is poison,” Noah growled.

  The rest of them had joined us on our feet, closing in around me like a pack of angry predators.

  “It’ll change you,” Cabe added, his brows drawn down. “It’ll make you just like him.”

  I smiled a little, shaking my head. “I think you’re wrong. I think it’s already inside me—think about it!” I quickly shot my hands up, staving off the press of four angry bodies. “Valcrick isn’t supposed to heal wounds. It isn’t supposed to bring people back from the dead. I’ve listened to a recording of the things I did to those men in the limousine.” I turned my eyes on Noah and Cabe. “I know you guys remember. You saw it too. I tortured them beyond what a man should have been able to endure. I prolonged their death again and again until I was depleted—and then I knit myself back together as easily as if I had been finishing a puzzle. That wasn’t valcrick. We all know that valcrick is the Elementalist’s power—it doesn’t mess with death! It was the Dead Man’s power. I’ve had it all along, but it hasn’t changed me, because it’s not the only magic inside me, and it’s not the strongest magic inside me. My other powers are good and they want to be good, and they’re helping me to utilise the other power.”

  “I did not see that coming,” Cabe announced, before pulling me into his arms. He spun me around a little, and I could feel the others staring at us—still caught in the grips of shock.

  I should have been stunned myself, but I wasn’t. The revelations came as naturally to me as might facts that I had known since childhood. It all made perfect sense now—the feelings that had shot through me the first time I had touched the painting of the Original Atmás, the way my abilities had been shaping me all along. Protecting me until my bond was strong enough to support more. Until my bond was strong enough to support the one power that I needed to end the threat to my family. My people. Miro had torn down my final barrier, and the magic inside me had reacted at once.

  Death, it seemed, was as much in war against the other powers as the Dead Man had been against the Original Atmás. It was a never-ending cycle, mirroring the very nature of the world. The Materialist was the wealth of possession, of creation; the Elementalist was the dichotomy of passion and pain; the Reader was human nature itself; and the Seer was the reason for it all. It was the memory in legacy and the hope of a future. Every one of them was life, and all of them were afraid of the endgame. Of death.

  I was pulled out of Cabe’s hug by Miro, who gathered me up as though I was something precious.

  “You’re a miracle,” he whispered, and I closed my eyes, basking in the memory.

  You’re a miracle, Seph. You’re incredible. You just don’t know it yet.

  I jumped up, winding my legs around him, and he squeezed me closer, but the joy I felt was coming up against a barrier. I was elated. Excited. Relieved. And … frightened.

  “You told me not to watch the TV.” I struggled out of Miro’s arms, planting my feet on the floor again. Outside, the sky flashed with lightning, illuminating the curtains. The rain had died away, but the storm remained, rumbling across the sky. I pointed to the television. “What didn’t you want me to see?”

  “Danny,” Noah answered, switching the screen back on. “He’s figured out that you’ve slipped away, and he’s not happy about it.”

  Body found in private college were the words that scrolled beneath the newsreader’s desk, branding the bottom of the screen.

  “What?” I stumbled forward.

  “Nobody we know.” Noah was staring at the screen with me. “But …”

  He didn’t need to finish his sentence because I could hear the newsreader loud and clear.

  “Our source confirmed that the body was branded with the number thirty-four, and another two bodies have been found in various rooms on campus. Special Subject Thirty-Four, a suspected mass-murderer, was a student at the college, and hasn’t been seen or heard of since this morning, after she ran out of class. The authorities have offered a reward for anyone who has information on her whereabouts.”

  “You can turn it off.” Miro was pulling his hands through his hair again—hair which had never looked so mussed before in all the time that I had known him. “We don’t need to see any more.”

  “What are we going to do?” I demanded, as soon as the screen faded to black and the newscaster’s voice stopped echoing around inside my head. “I can’t just march outside and hunt him down—not if every damn person in the state is looking for me.”

  “Did the manager get a good look at your face?” Silas asked, moving to the window.

  “No,” I answered at the same time as Cabe. I added, “I had my face turned away most of the time.”

  “Then we hide out here and make contact with the Klovoda. Danny’s going to be all over them, trying to figure out where you are. I say we let him know where to find you and wait for him to come to us.”

  “What if he doesn’t come to us?” I waited for Silas to drop the curtain after inspecting
whatever he was inspecting. “What if he sits back in one of his secret locations, watching my arrest on national television?”

  “We send a decoy to wait. That way we’ll know.”

  “Where the hell do we find a decoy?” I cocked my head, my brow creasing up in confusion.

  “We don’t find one. We make one,” Silas corrected. “If you can connect yourself to any of the Atmá powers, you should be able to connect yourself to the Materialist power. You should be able to make a copy of yourself that looks real.”

  “That is …” I struggled.

  “Genius?” Cabe offered, sounding impressed.

  “Really creepy,” I finished. And probably impossible. The Materialist’s power had never manifested in me before, just as the Reader’s power remained unfamiliar to me. I was almost certain that I could only access three of the Atmá powers.

  “That’s my thing.” Silas smiled, barely able to contain the triumphant look in his eyes. “I’m the creepy one that watches young girls in bars.”

  I snorted on an unwilling laugh. “You were the only person in that bar who wasn’t creepy.”

  “You just ruined his dream, pretty girl.” Noah grabbed my arm and steered me toward the bed. “Now sit and eat, before the damn sun comes up. There’s nothing more we can do right now.”

  He grabbed the bag of shopping and emptied it onto the bed next to me, flicking through the items, his hand closing over one of the sandwiches before he paused, his brow furrowing, his fingers catching the charm bracelet and lifting it before my face. “You broke into the gas station? I know vending machines don’t sell bracelets.”

  “It’s her new insurance policy.” Miro flicked through the items on the bed, finding the two small charms that I had picked up. “I’m guessing this one is for you.” He handed the little troll to Noah—who didn’t even bat an eye at the caricature that had reminded me of a caveman. “And this one is for Cabe.” Miro held the second one up, dangling the little sun for everyone to see.

  Noah’s frown had melted completely away, a rare smile capturing his face, filling my chest with heat and my body with tingles. He quickly secured the bracelet around my wrist and added his charm, taking the second one off Miro and securing that one as well.

  “It’ll do for now.” He winked at me, flicking the cheap plastic charm. “But after this, we get you something a little more permanent, okay?”

  My chest decided to flip, but Silas was digging through the supplies on the bed now, distracting me.

  “Where’s mine?” he demanded, the slightest growl in his tone.

  “Here.” I reached over, peeling the temporary tattoo from the side of the water bottle, where it had stuck itself. It was a heart. Simple, girly, and the opposite of what I would have picked out for myself. But it meant something.

  It meant everything.

  He stared at the little heart for so long I thought he was having some sort of malfunction, but then he spurred himself into action, striding into the bathroom.

  Please don’t flush it down the toilet, I thought to myself, before I heard the tap running.

  He came back out with a wet cloth in his hand, and I immediately relaxed. He knelt before me on the ground, pulling my legs apart so that he could slide me closer, and then he was looking me over. He couldn’t seem to decide where to put the tattoo, so I made up his mind for him. I pulled off my shirt and tapped a spot on my left breast, right above my real heart.

  “She really needs to stop doing that,” I heard Cabe groan.

  I watched the muscle flicker to life in Silas’s suddenly tense jaw, and saw his fists tighten around the cloth, leaking water onto my leg. It dripped around to the back of my calf, tickling me. I shifted slightly, and that was all it took to force Silas into action.

  He grabbed my leg, muttering, “Stay still.” The tattoo met my skin, in the exact place that I had indicated, and then the cloth was covering my entire breast, Silas’s hand gripping me tightly. In the next instant, his mouth was on mine, and I arched into the contact, needing the firm way he kissed me like I needed my next breath … but he stopped.

  And pulled away.

  His eyes were on fire. The others were watching us. I was aching again already. I had accepted this. I wanted this … but once again … it couldn’t happen like this. I wanted them all equally, but I definitely couldn’t have sex with them all equally. Not at the same damn time.

  “Fuck,” Silas suddenly snapped. “Either you three can leave the room right now and sleep in the damn rain, or someone needs to put her shirt back on. Quickly.”

  I scrambled for my shirt, quickly pulling it over my head, but his hand was still gripping me and he didn’t seem to be willing to move it. He was taut, ready to fracture completely, and I knew that he could feel my reaction. My nipples were hard, even through the cloth. Eventually, he eased his hand from me, the cloth slipping out to land on my lap. He jumped to his feet and walked into the bathroom, the door slamming behind him. A second later, the shower started up.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Noah was forcing nonchalance, handing me the sandwich and a bottle of water. “We’re not jealous, Seph. We want you just as much as he does, but it can’t happen like this. It’ll work us all up too much and there’s only one of you.”

  “Dude,” Cabe interrupted. “That really didn’t need to be spelled out for her. Or me. Or anyone.”

  Noah picked up another bottle of water and tossed it at him. I chanced a look at Miro, who seemed to just be standing there staring at me, but he quickly shook himself out of it. His eyes gradually crinkled, and I could feel the smile that he hid from me before he moved to the packs on the table, pulling out a dry set of clothes. He went to the bathroom, opened the door and tossed them inside before slamming the door again. I unpacked my sandwich and started eating as Noah and Cabe began sorting through our supplies. Miro started pulling off his clothes and I tried not to be obvious about watching him, but he didn’t seem to mind. When he pushed his black fatigues off, I finally managed to pull my eyes away—though they didn’t go far. I ended up staring at his chest as he changed into a pair of stretchy sweatpants. He didn’t bother with a shirt, and I swallowed what was in my mouth, almost choking on it when he came to sit next to me on the bed.

  “What?” he asked me, grabbing the water bottle out of my hand. “I thought we were all cool with nudity now.”

  Silently, I nodded.

  “The hell?” Cabe asked, turning away from Noah. “Did he just get naked?”

  I smirked. “It was hard to miss.”

  Cabe groaned, rolling his eyes up. “She makes dirty jokes now. Someone save me from eternal sexual frustration.”

  When Silas finally came out of the shower everyone was relatively calm again. I wanted to practise trying to draw on the other types of Atmá magic, but Noah wouldn’t let me, instead forcing me to lie down beneath the blankets while he sat beside me, his arm heavy over my side preventing me from attempting to get out of bed again. Something I had already attempted twice. I couldn’t hear the television because it was muted again, but I could feel the time dragging by. With each innocent tick of my Star Wars watch, I couldn’t help wondering who else Danny had hurt.

  Who else he had killed.

  Who else had been branded with my number as part of a game that I didn’t want to play.

  Cabe eventually came to claim my other side, and someone turned off the television, drowning the room in darkness. The rain was still pattering outside, the occasional flash of lightning illuminating the uneven ceiling through the curtains. My heart was pounding, my body churning with adrenaline. Maybe it would be a permanent state for me until Danny was finally defeated and I had fulfilled the purpose my powers had set out for me.

  Whatever the cause, it wasn’t going to let me sleep.

  “What did he say?” I asked the silent room.

  From the sofa beside the window, I heard Miro sigh. “You know I only sent Tariq a message, Seph. I couldn’t actually call h
im. Calls can be traced.”

  “Can’t messages be traced, too?” I grabbed Noah’s arm, attempting to throw it off. He held steady and I huffed out a frustrated breath.

  “I said something only he would understand.” Miro sounded like he was trying to calm me down—that much was obvious, because we had basically already had this conversation but I couldn’t seem to leave it be.

  My body was screaming at me to jump out the window and hunt Danny down now.

  The latest vision had changed something inside me. It had flicked a switch inside my mind that I hadn’t even known existed. It was turning me into a reckless, energy-soaked being.

  “Can I read it?” I asked.

  Four identical groans sounded.

  “She’s supposed to be exhausted,” was Miro’s reply—a reply that he clearly wasn’t directing at me.

  “I’m exhausted,” Cabe returned.

  “I’m fine.” I attempted to move Noah’s arm again.

  He flipped over with a grunt, landing on the bed cover that had been pulled over me.

  “Did she hit him?” Silas asked.

  “They’re wrestling,” Cabe replied easily, as Noah’s knees sank into the mattress on either side of my thighs, his hands circling my wrists and pulling them above my head.

  His head appeared above mine, blond strands of hair falling over his eyes. He released one of my hands, pushing his hair back and recapturing my wrist.

  “Children,” Miro sighed out, sounding exasperated.

  “What’s wrong?” Noah asked me, ignoring the others, his bright eyes pinning me there even more successfully than his hands were.

  “I need to get up,” I told him plainly. “I’m on a mission from the voice in my head.”

  His smiled and shook his head, but whatever he was about to say was lost. The loud vibration of a cell phone against the table shuddered through the room. Noah eased off me and I shot out from the bed before he could grab me again, bounding across the room to the illuminated screen. I reached it before Silas, who was also up on his feet.