Part xi:

When Charity watches Oliver run at his track meet, she wishes she could be the wind that slides through his long fingers and rumples the fabric of his jersey. Cass stands beside her and closes his eyes against the bright sun and the burning traces of displaced air that stream behind Oliver's lithe form. But even as they cheer for him- Charity yelling at the top of her lungs, Cass chiming in with his stifled whisper- their good intentions die on contact with air, muted under the apathetic blue of the October sky.

Then, suddenly, Ian is there, as silent as he always stays, steeling into the wake of Charity's shadow so that she shivers and crosses her arms even in that golden weather.

She turns on him, and her perfect brow furrows in an antithetical display of morbid curiosity and half-founded accusation.

'Why?'she asks him, wonderingly hesitant about what she will find scattered amongst his broken-star words.

But Ian still stands on the brink of his battlements of silence; poised as the dancer on the verge of brilliance, he revels in his tangled web of insinuation.

'Him.'he finally says with his cutting voice. 'I have him.'

'No!'cries Charity, wanting to disbelieve what she fears to be true and failing. She grasps Cass's hand for support, all of her curiosity banished as suddenly as it began. 'You can't have him! We will always be there alongside him, no matter where he goes!'

Cass squints against the glare of the sun, focusing all the intensity of his colorless eyes into the bottomless pits of Ian's.

'You can't take him without us.' says Cass quietly, and it comes out as a prophecy.

Ian knows that what Cass is says is truth- the words of prophets speaking through a faded boy who holds death inside his skin and chaos inside his head like the closest of companions. He spits on the ground, and when he stalks away the dust won't settle in his wake.

((author blurt)): I broke my own resolution to post these far apart simply because I'm anxious to get finished. Oh well. Hope no one is too annoyed…