The Light Within (Shadow and Light Duology #2)

29. Cinn

twenty-nine

Cinn

C rash!

The sound of cupboards opening and shutting downstairs jolted Cinn awake. He pulled the covers over his head.

Bang!

Julien must have been messing around in Cinn’s kitchen again, despite being banned since he ruined the best frying pan by scratching the non-stick coating with a metal whisk while making scrambled eggs. Could he not have waited for Cinn to cook him breakfast like he normally did?

He channelled his annoyance into a heavy sigh, then Cinn was ready to drag himself out of bed. Pulling on some tracksuit bottoms, he padded across the room. He froze when he saw a note propped up against the mirror, Julien’s elegantly looped cursive handwriting filling the paper.

No .

Anxiety gripped him with an iron fist. Though he couldn’t make out the words from across the room, his instincts told him whatever was written on it, he wasn’t going to like it.

Let’s get this over with.

He forced himself to take one step towards the note, then another.

He snatched up the paper like it had personally offended him .

Mon amour ,

Don’t be mad. I’ve gone back to Paris for a quick chat with father dearest. It’s the only solution to keep you safe. I wish I could have said goodbye, but it’s easier this way. Elliot is downstairs. I’ll be back before you know it.

All my love,

Your Julien

P.S. I took the last two cookies for the road. Sorry.

Cinn re-read the note. Read it again. No, he wasn’t misinterpreting Julien’s outlandish calligraphy.

Julien had left him.

Julien had left him.

His heart sank like a stone in deep water, the cold realisation wrapping around him like a tightening noose. The world blurred, his mind teetering on the edge of panic as the words echoed relentlessly in his head.

A quick chat with father dearest.

Now, Cinn was no expert on conflict resolution, but after Julien had threatened to kill his father several times during his breakdown at the church, he wasn’t convinced a ‘quick chat’ was the likely result of Julien paying his father a visit.

Pressing two fingers to his temple, Cinn calculated possible outcomes. Best case—Julien killed his father. Worst case—that fucker killed Julien.

Great stuff.

Another noise downstairs. Elliot .

Cinn pounded down the stairs to find him rooting around in the fridge. In one hand, he held the bowl of leftover lasagna Cinn had cooked yesterday.

“What the hell, mate?” Cinn all but shouted at him, waving the note in the air.

Elliot’s face twisted into a pained grimace, like he’d just bitten into a lemon, his eyes darting nervously between the lasagna and the note in Cinn’s hand. “Am I still allowed to eat this?”

“This isn’t funny! Why did you let him go?”

Elliot closed the fridge and helped himself to a fork. “Oh, come on, what was I meant to do, knock him out? You know what Julien’s like!”

Cinn stared at him, speechless. What had Elliot been thinking? Cinn would happily have knocked Julien out to stop him marching off alone like some noble idiot. It didn’t sound like Elliot had even attempted to stop him. Cinn clenched then unclenched his jaw, then folded his arms across his bare chest. “Why are you even here?”

“Uhh.. protection?” Elliot looked deeply offended. “In case you’re attacked again. Look, dude, maybe this isn’t the worst idea. Maybe this is a simple way to sort everything out. Julien isn’t a delicate flower. His channelling abilities are insane . Like, seriously. You don’t need to worry about him.” Elliot was speaking very fast. Too fast. “And he reassured me he’s got a foolproof plan. You know I wouldn’t have let him go if I thought there was any chance of danger.” Crinkles appeared in the corner of his eyes. “But he’s not in any danger,” Elliot repeated. But there was a tiny unspoken, ‘Right?’ at the end of it.

“I’m not only worried he might get hurt,” Cinn said through gritted teeth. “I’m worried about what it’ll do to him if he hurts his father. ”

“That piece of shit? He deserves it, though.”

Elliot really wasn’t getting it, so Cinn clamped his mouth shut. His telephone caught his eye—the handle was off the hook.

Elliot said, “Oh yeah, Julien rang Darcy to tell her the plan. Then he hung up on her and left your phone like that so she couldn’t ring back to yell at him.”

Three knocks at the front door.

“That’ll probably be her.” Elliot put the bowl of lasagna down, one last bite remaining in it.

Cinn went to answer the door, even though Elliot was supposed to be there as his main line of defence. Indeed, it was Darcy on the doorstep: eyes blazing with fury, one hand clutching a coffee cup like it was a weapon. She pushed past him. Cinn followed her back to the kitchen, giving Elliot a smug smirk over her shoulder. It was two against one now.

The pair of them had it out for a good ten minutes, Cinn leaving them fighting to get dressed. By the time he returned downstairs, Darcy was bright red, and Elliot looked vaguely remorseful.

Darcy passed Cinn a mug of hot tea. “He’s an utter fool.”

“I know.”

“But he’ll be okay.” The promise in her words was a fragile thread of hope that Cinn wanted nothing more than to cling on to.

Movement in the corner of the living room caught his eye. The shadow cast by the worn armchair was flickering. Expanding. Darkening.

Béatrice, in all her hideous, eyeless demon-cat glory, emerged from the puddle of darkness, then hissed a greeting, her form undulating wildly. Cinn expected her to pad up to him, wrapping herself around his legs as she often did. Instead, the cat arched her back, her shadowy fur bristling in frantic spikes as she let out a series of frenzied, distorted yowls, her erratic movements a desperate attempt to convey a message.

Cinn dropped to his knees and reached for her. Béatrice sprang towards him with a sudden burst of shadowy energy, her form writhing and twisting as she nudged her head against his knee, insistently. It didn’t take a genius to pinpoint the source of her urgent distress. “She’s telling us Julien’s in danger!”

“Is she?” Elliot’s voice was laced with panic, and it took everything Cinn had left in him not to shout at him for letting him go.

“What else would it be?” Cinn bit out instead.

Letting out another yelp, Béatrice circled the three of them, ignoring Darcy’s soothing coos. Then, with a final disdainful glare, she jumped back into the armchair’s shadow and disappeared.

Silence filled the room.

“We need to go, now.” Cinn dared the other two to disagree.

Elliot tugged a single corkscrew curl away from his head, then let it spring back into place. At Darcy’s expectant look, he said, “Okay. Fuck.”

That just about summarises my thoughts.

“Let me… go back and talk to Eleanor and Malik, I guess. See what they say and go from there. It’s too risky for us to go to the gendarmerie with this. Julien is right—though I’d like to think Salvatore Gallo can’t be bought, we can’t be sure.”

Cinn seared his gaze into Elliot. “I’m going to Paris as soon as physically possible, with or without you.” He stormed towards the stairs, unable to look at either of them any longer.

“We’ll sort it, Cinn,” Darcy called after him, but he was already taking his anger out on his poor staircase. He slammed the bedroom door for good measure. Julien should be the target of his fury, yet his image only conjured gnawing guilt. Julien charged off to face his father alone, all because he believed it would remove Cinn from danger. His idiot boyfriend had refused to even allow Cinn the chance to reason with him.

He let out a low scream of frustration, kicking the wooden bed frame, which groaned in protest. He sank to the floor. His threat to go to Paris alone was all well and good, but he couldn’t drive, had no idea how to book a plane ticket, and wouldn’t have the faintest clue how to go about charging up to Julien’s father’s mansion to save him. If that even was where he was.

There’s no way Elliot and Darcy won’t help you, he reasoned with himself. They love him just as much.

Across the room, his storage chest sat quietly, its battered, weathered surface a reflection of his inner turmoil.

Cinn scooted on his hands and knees all the way over to it. Then, reaching into the very bottom of it, his hand closed around a crinkled envelope. It, and the enclosed letter, had initially lived in his bag for weeks, but were now stored here so they didn’t get further damaged.

He’d read Julien’s letter so many times he could likely recite it by now.

But still, he wanted to see the words. Needed to see them. Particularly that line written at the very bottom, just above Julien’s scrawled signature. The words that stayed with him always, etched into his heart.

Dearest Cinn,

I don’t think you know this about yourself, but you have this amazing ability to make people love you the very moment they meet you. Maybe it’s the quiet way you try and understand them. The way you see the best bits in people, even when they can’t see it in themselves.

You have every right to be angry about what I did. I’m not going to pretend for a moment it came from a place of kindness or concern for Tyler’s welfare. Instead, it came from a place of blind rage, of misguided selfishness, and of twisted possessiveness .

The truth is, I think I may have gone a little insane. When I look at you, every cell in my body shouts, mine, mine, mine . It’s this all-consuming, primal feeling that I can’t control. But I know that love is about more than just possession. It’s about respect, trust, and partnership. I know we have a long way to go before I earn the privilege of calling you mine. But I’m begging you for the chance to let me try to get there. I can’t promise you that I’ll never hurt you again, but I do promise I’ll live every day trying to be someone you’re proud of.

Because I know you deserve someone who can give you everything. All of themselves, and more. I’ve often wondered how different I would be, if I’d grown up seeing love in the eyes of my parents when they looked at each other, rather than hate, or fear. To my mother, her marriage was a prison sentence. It’s taken me a long time to understand that binding yourself to someone can be beautiful.

When she died, my heart hardened into a fortress that very few people managed to penetrate. Then you came along and slipped in like a thief in the night, bypassing all of my defences without me even realising it. You caused an avalanche of unexpected feelings to come crashing down on me, clouding my logical judgement .

After Béatrice was taken from us, I was plagued by shadows, lingering in the background of every happy moment, ready to engulf me. Then you came along. Though you’d been walking amongst shadows yourself, you so quickly dragged me out into the light again. With how you make me feel, it’s hard to imagine that our meeting wasn’t preordained by fate. I’ve spent my life doubting the existence of soulmates. I don’t know if I believe in destiny, but you are the most compelling case for it I’ve ever seen.

All my love,

Julien

Elliot knocked on the door before slowly opening it to let himself in. Cinn carefully folded the letter as Elliot slumped down next to him.

“I’m really sorry, dude. Really fucking sorry. I’ve fucked up.”

“It’s alright,” Cinn said, though it definitely wasn’t.

“Nah, it’s not. I’ve let you down, and also Julien as well.” Elliot sat back with a long soft sigh, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I made him a promise once. The first day I met him. I promised I’d stick with him, and now I’ve let him run off by himself.”

Elliot looked so mournful that Cinn’s anger evaporated, replaced by a low, heavy melancholy. He squeezed Elliot’s shoulder. “Well, it’s as you said. I know what he’s like. How persuasive he can be.”

And defiant. And infuriating. And impossible.

But despite all that, Julien was his defiant, infuriating, impossible idiot.

Elliot nudged his leg into Cinn’s.

No, Julien was theirs.

And they were going to find him, whether he liked it or not.