8

  Eden

  I walk through the busy London streets, smiling politely at the drunken people happily staggering around. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I take it out checking the screen, a paranoid habit since Otto’s disappearance. I’m always waiting, hoping that this is the call. That he’s been found.

  No such luck. It’s a text message from Ash, as well as two missed calls. I’ve been avoiding him for over a week, ever since he took me to Jase. I went to him because I had no choice, but truthfully, that’s a can of worms I’m in no mind to handle right now. Nothing matters. He doesn’t matter. Only Otto. Everything else is just pointless.

  By the time I get to work, the bar is packed, and I’m actually relieved to have something to distract me. It’s almost therapeutic, the normality of it all. My eyes roam absentmindedly across the packed club, but pause when I spot a guy leaning against the wall beside the dance floor. He’s looking right at me, and I recognise him, but I don’t know where from. Our eyes lock for a beat too long before he casually looks away as though his attention was nothing more than a casual encounter. The library. I saw him in the library yesterday. Several times I looked up from my text book to find him watching me. I thought he was just a little strange, but here he is again. Am I being watched? A tight knot forms in my chest, and I hear the loud crack of smashing glass just as cold liquid splashes against my legs. There’s a momentary pause in conversation at the bar when all that can be heard is the pounding beat of the music. Then everyone cheers in a chorus of shouts that have my already jittery nerves close to snapping. I look for the man by the wall once more, but he’s gone.

  In a fluster, I drop to my knees and start picking up glass. I feel the sharp slice of something cutting into my leg but ignore it, picking up the shards with shaky hands.

  “Hey!” My gaze snaps up to Summer who is leaning down next to me. Her dark eyes meet mine, a frown masking her features. “You okay?” she asks, placing her hand over mine.

  “I…”

  Looking around the bar, she waves at someone, and then grabs my elbow, dragging me to my feet and leading me away. Once inside the bathroom, she pulls me into a large stall with a sink in the corner and makes me sit on the closed toilet seat. The music from the club beyond vibrates the flimsy dividing walls, causing the lock rattle against the latch. Summer flicks her long, dark hair over her shoulder and frowns down at my leg. Blood trails down my shin and wraps around my calf until it drips onto the floor. Wetting a paper towel, she comes over and drops to her knees in front of me.

  “I wouldn’t get on that floor if I were you,” I mumble.

  She releases a small laugh. “Says the girl who got on the bar floor, in a pile of glass.”

  “Yeah, I uh…I wasn’t thinking,” I stumble over my words.

  “What’s going on with you, Eden?” She watches me intently, and I know she’s just concerned about me. Summer is the bar manager, but she’s also my friend, or as close to a friend as I have. “You’re quiet, you look like you haven’t slept for a week, and you’re making mistakes left, right and centre.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll be more on the ball.”

  “I don’t care about that. I’m just worried. You’ve been like this for weeks.”

  Tears prickle the backs of my eyes and that ever-present lump swells in my throat. I have no one to talk to. No one to lean on.

  “Otto is missing,” I blurt.

  Her eyes go wide. “What? Since when? Have you been to the police?”

  “I’m handling it. It’s fine.” It’s not fine.

  She says nothing for a moment, chewing her bottom lip as she presses the damp towel to my leg. “I’m going to take your word for it, but if you need me… Anything, you just ask.”

  “Thanks.”

  She removes the towel, her brows pulling tightly together. I focus on her face because the sight of any kind of wound will have me swallowing back bile.

  “That’s going to need stitches.”

  “I’ll be fine. Do you have a plaster?”

  “Yeah, wait here.” Pushing to her feet, she slips from the stall. I lock it behind her before leaning back against the toilet cistern. I can feel the throbbing beat of my pulse driving the stinging pain in my knee.

  A few moments later, there’s a knock on the door, and I let Summer in. She places a huge plaster over my knee, but almost instantly, I can see a spot of blood pushing through it. “Thanks.” I stand up.

  “Go home, Eden.”

  “I’m fine—”

  “You are not fine. Get that looked at, go home, and sleep. You look like shit. Call me tomorrow.”

  I don’t go home. I can’t.

  My hands squeeze the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turn white and my fingers ache in protest. I don’t know why I’m here. Beyond the windscreen, I stare at the enormous church sitting there in the darkness, like a sleeping giant, disguising the anarchy within. The moonlight silhouettes the structure against the night sky for a moment before it disappears, eclipsed by dark clouds. I hear the first ping, ping, ping of fat raindrops hitting the roof of my car. Water bleeds down the windscreen in the sudden downpour, and the image of the church is washed away.

  I hate churches. They make me think of graveyards and funerals. I wonder if I’ll soon find myself in another cemetery, staring at another coffin — this one for my brother — the last of my family. The one I was supposed to protect. My heart cracks at the thought, and I swallow around the jagged lump in my throat.

  I remember my mother, her once beautiful face sunken and ashen; her skin a waxy grey as life was slowly leaving her. She looked in my eyes, hers flat and broken at the knowledge that death was coming for her and there was nothing she could do. She told me she wasn’t scared of dying, only of leaving Otto and me alone. I get it now. I understand how helpless she felt, how scared for us she was.

  "Look after him. I know it’s not fair to ask you," she said, tears streaking down her fading face, "but you are all each other will have.”

  I’ve failed.

  The weight of everything pushes in on me until I can almost feel myself crumbling under it, my body buckling. My lungs won’t expand properly, and my strangled heart can’t beat. I picture my brother’s smiling face, his green eyes, and his unruly golden blonde hair. I can’t stop the tears from falling as helplessness turns to desolation and hope turns to blind fear. Loud sobs tear from my throat, and I can’t bear to hear them, so I throw the car door open and step outside.

  The rain pours all around me, pounding against my exposed skin and soaking through my clothes. I don’t know if I’m trying to hide my tears, or perhaps I just want the world to weep with me, for mother nature to swallow my grief with her own.

  I’m so caught up in my impending breakdown that I don’t notice the shadowy figure approach. A small squeak slips from my throat, and he lets out a low chuckle. He’s holding a large umbrella over his head as he stands patiently by my driver’s door. Slowly, he moves closer, until the canopy of the umbrella creeps over me, blocking out the rain. I glance up, and in the darkness, I can barely make out the distinct features of Jace’s face.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “I’m…” What am I doing?

  He sighs, his eyes flicking down my body. “Go home, princess. Before he finds out you’re here.”

  “I…” A fresh wave of tears starts, and I’d usually be ashamed, or try to hide it, especially from him. But I can’t — because I’m broken. He’s caught me at my weakest. “I can’t.”

  Sighing, he swipes a hand down his face. “Eden.” I snap my gaze to his. He’s never said my name before. I didn’t know he knew it. Those deep blue eyes search my face, and a frown pinches his brows. “I know you want to find your brother, but don’t make yourself a problem for Saint. His patience is severely lacking. I don’t want to have to take care of you.” He lifts a brow, adding a connotation to his words.

  “Take…” I trail off as the words penetrate my blind grief. Fear sinks its claws deep into my chest, but then the realisation hits me: I don’t care. Because if I can’t get Otto back then what’s the point of any of this?

  “What if I don’t care anymore?”

  His face softens for a fraction of a second, and I see a flash of sympathy, but then it’s gone. Reaching up, he strokes a strand of soaking wet hair away from my cheek. His gaze shifts over my head as though he’s scanning the darkness. Warm breath touches the chilled skin of my cheek, and I shiver involuntarily. “It took balls coming to me. And it took balls to stand up to him the way you did. Don’t break now, princess.” On those parting words, he steps away from me, and the pouring rain lashes down on me once more. Our eyes lock across the short distance, and his lips twitch in the hint of a smirk. “Leave Eden, or I’ll have to tell him you’re here.” Turning away, he walks back towards the church and disappears into the darkness that surrounds the Goliath-sized building.

  I’ll have to tell him you’re here. I picture Saint’s glacial eyes, fixed on me, stripping away everything I am until there’s nothing left but this little black blip, an insignificant smear on his radar. I should go, but I can’t, because I can’t find Otto myself, and being here; it’s as close as I can get to being pro-active. I can’t go home because it’s become a place of torment and desperation.

  I get back in my car, taking shelter from the downpour that seemed so empowering only moments ago. The cold seeps into me, chilling me to the bone, but I embrace it because it numbs my mind until I finally, finally, stop thinking.

  9

  Saint

  I linger in the shadows, watching people dance and drink, emptying their pockets, and for what? So they can drown out the problems of their insignificant and pitiful lives. I profit from their weakness, and there’s a certain beauty in that — a rightness.

  I watch them wallow in sin, revelling in their filthy debauchery.

  I spot Jase slip through the front door, shaking out an umbrella before he tosses it to the side. He slips through the crowd easily.

  “Where have you been?” I ask as soon as he reaches me.

  “Out,” he replies, flashing a smile at a girl a few feet away.

  I glance at him, studying him through narrowed eyes. “Where?”

  On a deep breath, he turns to face me. “Eden Harris was here,” he says, more an admission than a statement.

  My heart lurches so hard my lungs seize. “Where?”

  “In the car park. I told her to leave.”

  I inhale a lungful of the stuffy air. “No.” She came to me. She came back.

  Moving away from him, I cut through the club, rushing towards the front door.

  As soon as I step outside, I spot the yellow scrap heap of a car lingering beneath the line of tall Elm trees. The thing is more rust than paint, and I’m sure it’s not road legal. I can only deduce that she must be holy indeed to place such little value on material possessions.

  Crossing the gravelled car park, I pull open the door. The entire car rocks on its axis as I slip into the passenger seat.

  Eden stills, her fingers remaining firmly locked around the steering wheel of the unmoving vehicle. Long strands of wet hair stick to the side of her face, and her body trembles slightly, her skin taking on an intoxicating blue tinge. The sleepless nights are evidenced by circles beneath her eyes, so dark that they look like bruises.

  Her gaze never strays from the windscreen, but her breaths pick up, chest rising and falling as her body instinctively tenses. Leaning away, she presses herself into the driver’s door, forcing as much space between us as is possible in the tiny car. I smile at her cornered, fleeing state. She fears me.

  Gone are the confidence, the courage, and that veneer of strength she once wore so well. Whatever armour I first witnessed is cracked and damaged, but beneath it, I can sense her goodness, her purity. It spills through those cracks like brilliant white light, warming the very darkest parts of me.

  “I can’t go home,” she breathes an unwilling confession. “I have to do… something.” Her hand lifts to brush away a stray tear. In a flash, my fingers wrap around her wrist, halting it. Her eyes meet mine, glassy and wide with shock. The world seems to stop spinning for a moment, pausing to witness the perfection that is a weeping angel. That single drop of moisture trickles over the smooth, pale skin of her cheek like a precious gem. She holds her breath as I reach out and brush the tip of my thumb over the softness of her skin. I frown at the tear now clinging to my fingertip. So fragile. So rare. I want her tears.

  “You came back,” I say quietly.

  “Where else am I going to go?” Away. As any sane person would. She drops her gaze to her lap, where her fingers knot together. “You had me followed,” she says. Ah, Eden, you have no idea the lengths I have gone to in order to watch you. “Why?”

  I straighten the cuff of my jacket. “You are an anomaly. A factor I did not predict. A risk.” In so many ways.

  I don’t like risks. I don’t like not knowing every single element of a situation, and I loathe losing control. That’s why I originally had her watched, but now…now, everything is different. Now I know what she is, why she’s here — to judge me. The notion leaves me caught between wanting to kill her, and cage her, like a pretty, exotic pet. Of course, I could never actually kill her, but a weeping angel behind bars… Yes, she’d be quite the possession.

  “So you stalk me?”

  “I am always watching, angel. Remember that.” Like the eyes of God himself.

  Her arms wrap tightly around her body as a shiver wracks her entire frame. “I’m not a threat to you, Saint. I just want my brother,” she mumbles. Guilt. She wears it like the open bleeding marks of a flayed man.

  “You feel responsible for him.”

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  Those hypnotic, green eyes crash into mine. “Because he’s seventeen!”

  “Old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.”

  “Life isn’t that simple. He’s a good kid.”

  “He’s a criminal.”

  “He’s not like you,” she spits, eyes flashing wildly.

  I tilt my head, studying her. She’s angry about the truth. She wishes to see the best in her brother despite the facts right in front of her. God forgives all. Of course an angel would keep the faith.

  “He made a choice.”

  “Life isn’t that black and white, Saint.” I shouldn’t like the way my name sounds on her tongue, but it’s… heavenly.

  “Oh, but it is. Cause and consequence. Sin and absolution.”

  “You’re preaching religious terms to me?”

  I turn my gaze away. Water bleeds down the windscreen, blurring the image of the church like an abstract painting, warping it.

  “Religion is the very basis of human morals — morals, control, restraint; these are the qualities that separate us from animals.” I look at her. “The worthy from the unworthy. The blessed from the damned.”

  Her hypnotic gaze holds mine for long moments, six heavy beats of my heart to be exact. “And which are you?”

  “Apart.”

  A tiny line sinks between her brows as she shakes her head. “You’re insane.”

  “I’m a visionary.”

  “Look, I don’t care. I just need you to find my brother. That’s all.” Her voice hitches and those cracks start to shift and widen once more. But this time, her light is dimmed, as though it’s slowly being extinguished. The notion displeases me greatly. What is the punishment for a man who would make an angel fall?

  “You should go home,” I say, though I don’t know why. It seems no matter how hard I try to avoid her, the Lord has ordained that our paths should be intertwined. It feels inevitable…like a train hurtling along the tracks with no brakes.

  “You’ll have to kill me,” she whispers, as I instinctively knew she would. Her blank stare fixes on the water pouring down the windscreen. It’s as though God himself weeps for her. And how could he not for one of his own?

  To me, she presents a clash between my rational, business mind, and my god-fearing soul.

  I have always walked the tentative line between the morally reprehensible criminal world, and my religion. My very nature seeks the destruction of others — to watch a man’s soul leave his eyes. And so I constantly fight my character in a bid to save my tainted soul. You could call it selfish need, driven by the fear of what will happen should I give in to the darkness. My mother always said that the second I did, the devil would own me, and I’d burn in hell for eternity.

  And here is this girl, this wholesome, innocent girl. I know she was sent to me. I can feel it. You just need to take my hand.

  “You will work for me.” The words slip from my lips before I’ve truly given my tongue permission to speak them.

  “What?” Her head whips in my direction, eyes going wide.

  “You are unstable.” I know the feeling well.

  “I’m fine.”

  She’s far from fine. Dragging my eyes over her, my gaze stops on a tattered-looking plaster clinging to her knee. Watered-down-blood trails down her calf, winding around her ankle like a morbid ribbon.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Unstable,” I repeat.