from the paintbrush, withdrawing both of my hands and shoving them deep into the pockets of my jacket, for good measure. Something small and hard brushed against my knuckle and I pulled out Silas’s phone, letting it fall to the paper floor between my knees.
I had searched it over and over and hadn’t found a single thing that might have been meant for me, or anything even partway useful. All of the pictures had been deleted, the text messages were cryptic and unexciting, and any documents that might have been stored in the phone had been wiped.
I couldn’t decide if I were angry at Quillan for shutting me in there or not. My fingers itched to paint, but my brain shrank back in fear. My valcrick had abandoned me… what if the forecasting was gone, too ?
Or what if it hadn’t gone anywhere, and it showed me something horrible?
What if it showed me him ?
I stood, abandoning the phone and walking to the door. I couldn’t do this . I tried the handle, but it was locked.
“Miro!” I pounded on it, but he didn’t answer. “ Quillan! ”
After several minutes of shouting and no reply, I stalked back to the middle of the room and sat down beside the phone. My hand flashed out instinctively for a paintbrush, which I proceeded to rap against my knee. I dug into my jeans pocket for my phone but came up empty, which meant that my phone was still inside my bag, which was back in the lecture hall. With a growl, I snatched up Silas’s phone and thumbed through the contents for the umpteenth time, moving from app to app and examining the contents of each. I hit the music button, and paused at the single song displayed there, the small hairs raising along my arms.
Why did he only have one song ? I hovered my thumb over it, my eyes taking in the artist and title: LoFang – ‘You’re the One That I Want’.
I wanted so badly to think that it meant something, but I couldn’t allow myself any hope. I didn’t deserve it.
Still, I pressed the button to play the song. It was so unlike anything I thought Silas would listen to, and that gave me enough pause to actually hear the lyrics. This didn’t seem like a message in the literal sense. ‘You’re the one that I want’ wasn’t a statement that was likely to come from Silas in this lifetime. Perhaps, ‘You’re the one that I want to strangle,’ or ‘You’re the one that ruined my life,’ but certainly not the words the little phone was currently echoing into the paper room. It was more than just the words, too. I was pretty sure that the song was a cover of an up-beat, eighties, pop song. The lyrics were enough to spark something familiar, though the haunting male vocalist soon drove away any memory of the original song. It was all too bizarre. There was no way that Silas liked that song enough for it to be the only song on his phone.
I replayed it several times before one of the lines finally grabbed my attention.
If you’re feeling some affection that’s too hard to convey,
Meditate in my direction, Baby feel your weight…
I was always feeling hard-to-convey-affection: the bond had started to rule my life the minute Cabe jumped in front of Noah’s car to save me from being hit, and it was only getting worse. I didn’t understand what meditate in my direction was supposed to mean, especially since Silas was currently locked up in an unknown location, under the mercy of Weston, and I didn’t really feel that I had much weight…
“Dammit,” I grumbled, starting the song again from the beginning. “More riddles. Always riddles.”
Something in me seemed to snap, then, and I kicked the phone halfway across the room, the haunting melody sending a chill down my spine as I stood and surveyed one of the walls. There was a way to get closer to Silas, even if it showed me a Silas that I didn’t want to see, even if it opened me up to a world of consequences that I might not be able to handle. I kicked the tin of turquoise paint closer to the wall, absently
I had searched it over and over and hadn’t found a single thing that might have been meant for me, or anything even partway useful. All of the pictures had been deleted, the text messages were cryptic and unexciting, and any documents that might have been stored in the phone had been wiped.
I couldn’t decide if I were angry at Quillan for shutting me in there or not. My fingers itched to paint, but my brain shrank back in fear. My valcrick had abandoned me… what if the forecasting was gone, too ?
Or what if it hadn’t gone anywhere, and it showed me something horrible?
What if it showed me him ?
I stood, abandoning the phone and walking to the door. I couldn’t do this . I tried the handle, but it was locked.
“Miro!” I pounded on it, but he didn’t answer. “ Quillan! ”
After several minutes of shouting and no reply, I stalked back to the middle of the room and sat down beside the phone. My hand flashed out instinctively for a paintbrush, which I proceeded to rap against my knee. I dug into my jeans pocket for my phone but came up empty, which meant that my phone was still inside my bag, which was back in the lecture hall. With a growl, I snatched up Silas’s phone and thumbed through the contents for the umpteenth time, moving from app to app and examining the contents of each. I hit the music button, and paused at the single song displayed there, the small hairs raising along my arms.
Why did he only have one song ? I hovered my thumb over it, my eyes taking in the artist and title: LoFang – ‘You’re the One That I Want’.
I wanted so badly to think that it meant something, but I couldn’t allow myself any hope. I didn’t deserve it.
Still, I pressed the button to play the song. It was so unlike anything I thought Silas would listen to, and that gave me enough pause to actually hear the lyrics. This didn’t seem like a message in the literal sense. ‘You’re the one that I want’ wasn’t a statement that was likely to come from Silas in this lifetime. Perhaps, ‘You’re the one that I want to strangle,’ or ‘You’re the one that ruined my life,’ but certainly not the words the little phone was currently echoing into the paper room. It was more than just the words, too. I was pretty sure that the song was a cover of an up-beat, eighties, pop song. The lyrics were enough to spark something familiar, though the haunting male vocalist soon drove away any memory of the original song. It was all too bizarre. There was no way that Silas liked that song enough for it to be the only song on his phone.
I replayed it several times before one of the lines finally grabbed my attention.
If you’re feeling some affection that’s too hard to convey,
Meditate in my direction, Baby feel your weight…
I was always feeling hard-to-convey-affection: the bond had started to rule my life the minute Cabe jumped in front of Noah’s car to save me from being hit, and it was only getting worse. I didn’t understand what meditate in my direction was supposed to mean, especially since Silas was currently locked up in an unknown location, under the mercy of Weston, and I didn’t really feel that I had much weight…
“Dammit,” I grumbled, starting the song again from the beginning. “More riddles. Always riddles.”
Something in me seemed to snap, then, and I kicked the phone halfway across the room, the haunting melody sending a chill down my spine as I stood and surveyed one of the walls. There was a way to get closer to Silas, even if it showed me a Silas that I didn’t want to see, even if it opened me up to a world of consequences that I might not be able to handle. I kicked the tin of turquoise paint closer to the wall, absently
Similar Books
