Chapter Thirty-three

♦Cyril's POV♦

I can't feel a thing, that's fine by me.

Feeling only brings guilt, it only brings pain and suffering.

I deserve to suffer, I know this but I'm only human and the human in me would escape pain and suffering if he could help it.

I have just one thing to do, I've always messed everything up but this time I was going to do it and do it right even if it killed me.

And…

It just might.

"B-Big brother, Rapha." Selena whispers to me, fresh torrents of tears are pouring down her face. "Please don't do this."

My facade cracks a little at this but I quickly hide behind my mask again, it would hurt less if it were this way.

"You can't let her win." She says brokenly, her voice fading away.

Her name's trails across my blank mind.

Reina…

We stare at each other for a while and then I reach forward to take her head in my hands, I want to talk to her.

I want to reassure her that it doesn't hurt.

...that I wouldn't hurt her or September, I never would.

But the words are stuck in my throat, drowning me, drowning out her voice.

The light slowly goes out of her eyes as my hands make contact with her tousled hair and my mask shatters.

The hopelessness, staring back at me from the depths of her emerald green eyes will forever haunt me.

I can't…

I can't do it.

I stumble back a bit and dematerialize out of the room, I messed it up again.

♦ September's POV♦

"Selena?" I call out to her, frowning at her position, she's crouched on the ground at one corner of the wall. "Are you okay?" I hop off the bed, rushing to her side.

"Um yeah." She replies thickly, her eyes are dry, thankfully.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have known what to do if she had been crying, I don't know how to handle an emotional Selena.

She puts out an arm and I'm shocked but I recover quickly enough and help her up.

After helping her to the bed, where she gently lowers herself to the now scattered bed, I look around the unfamiliar room, vaguely wondering how I got here.

"Um, Selena? Why am I in your room?" I ask.

"Your room burned down yesterday." She says immediately, sitting up to stare at me with wide, tired eyes that had dark eye bags underneath them - how did I not notice them?

I blink at this, frowning at the expectant expression on her face, like she's expecting me to do or say something.

"Okay?" I narrow my eyes at her. "Why did my room burn down?  It's probably Maggie leaving out candles again even though I told her not to."

"Yeah." Selena nods in agreement, her voice dry. "We aren't sure of the cause of the fire yet but it's most likely Maggie." She replies absently, looking oddly, sad.

"Are you sure you're okay." I can't help but ask again as I take in her haggard appearance.

"Yes." She vehemently nods, dragging the blankets around her like she's cold. With the amount and intensity of the sun streaming in, it's most likely noon already or almost noon.

"Was it yesterday's detention that made you so tired?"

Her head comes up to look at me so fast that I'm scared for her neck and pretty sure she got whiplash from the speed.

"Detention?" She repeats. "You remember that?"

I laugh at her strange question. "Why wouldn't I, it was fun!" I exclaim, doing a small dance.

She frowns. "Fun?"

I frown too. "Don't you remember? Axel locked us up school for so long and so we decided to play hide and seek with our extra time."

"Oh!" She exclaims shakily but I'm too caught up in reminiscing to pay mind to it.

"Zach and Cameron kept coming after me first, poor me." I say, I had barely had the time to hide before they were swooping in on me, seeking me but I still had fun."

"That's nice." Selena mumbles or at least I think that's what she says.

She definitely has to be tired, a test is coming up soon too so she has to be reading as well, not that she needed to, I wonder what's the cause of her stressed out expression..

I get up from where I sat perched on the side of the bed, Selena's room was pretty much like my own except while mine was done in warm colors, Selena's was all shades of black.

I'm still pleasantly surprised that she had offered to let me sleep in her room after my own burned down, it's like something Selena would do and also something Selena would never do.

The old Selena would have immediately moved me to her room to sleep after and incident like that but the recent one, I'm not so sure.

"I'm hungry." I announce, stretching a bit and spitting out hair from my mouth. "So I'll take a quick shower and go down for a big brunch, you should try to get some sleep." I advise her.

"I'll move to a spare room later today so I don't upset your personal life." I tag on.

"Actually, I'll come down with you too, I'm too jittery to fall back asleep, plus I'm hungry." Selena says instead.

I nod at this, "Fine then," I agree.

"Did my wardrobe burn down?" I ask, wondering how bad the damage would be.

"I doubt but it'll smell like smoke anyway, so you wouldn't be able to use it." She replies.

"Can I borrow some clothes? I'll probably have to get some new ones." I sigh mumble to myself, yesterday was so good, how did it manage to end up with my room burning down.

"Yeah." Selena says dismissively and I don't wait again, skipping towards her wardrobe first.

It's hard to find something that I can in her wardrobe that looks like a sea of black with splashes of grey, I search around for a considerable while before I come up with navy blue pants and a light grey top.

The combination seems fine to me so I slip into the toilet to clean up.

My hair is a mess, the fire incident in my room is still a little bit blurry but I figure that I must have been so worried and upset that I forgot my leather strap, I just hope it hadn't burnt up in the fire.

I clean up quickly, making sure to comb my hair more than is necessary and slip into the clothes I'd picked out.

By the time I'm done dressing, Selena is already done bathing up too.

I have to admit, she actually looks better after cleaning up her face and getting rid of her bed hair.

She throws on black pants and a black top, tying her still wet hair up in a pony tail so that the edges rested on her shoulders and got them slightly wet, she didn't seem to mind though so I guess it's fine.

We quietly walk to the dining room, we're now so awkward with each other and it's sad, we used to be inseparable, once.

Voices float in from the small dining room where we are headed.

We round the corner to see Neruda and Cyril seated at the table, apparently just beginning a huge brunch.

It seems like it wasn't just us that had that exact same idea.

"Morning Cyril! I greet cheerily. "Hi Neruda!"

"Hey September!" My brother greets back, his slighty long hair in a messy bun, it's cute.

I noticed that he had started growing out his gold blond hair which started to curl at the ends from the length.

"What's doing?" Neruda greets, his black eyes twinkling.

"I'm okay, had so much fun yesterday that I slept all through the morning."

Selena makes a noise like she's choking, making me whip my head to her side.

"Are you okay?" I ask for the umpteenth time.

She just absently nods, mumble a greeting to the guys and slips into a chair at the  far end of the table.

"Cyril was just telling me about it." Neruda speaks up after we had both settled down.

Maids standing on the fringes of the room instantly went to work as soon as we settled down, piling up food and glasses of blood.

"Did he tell you how he kept silently dematerializing so no one could catch him, it was like one second he's there and the next, gone, poof! Just like that." I smile.

"No?" Neruda throws a look at him. "He didn't tell me all that."

"I was getting to that part." Cyril complains softly.

"Oh yeah!" He perks up. "Now that you're both here, let me give you details of what Arianna has been calling you guys nonstop to tell you." Cyril continues and I look up at him from my food even distracted Selena seems interested.

"What's that?" I urge him, just realizing I actually don't know where my phone is, I hadn't taken it to detention and I have seen it since then.

"About the drama that Miss. Winston wanted us to act out."

"Ooh!" I exclaim, leaning forward. "Which one did they pick?"

"Wuthering Heights." 

"Why does it have to be a classic?" Neruda asks.

"The teacher's decision, she wants the entire class to work on it for their test so it's more of a group activity."

"But the test is so close by." I protest, besides making the entire students of her classes participate in one drama was a bit excessive.