Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 220
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Phoenix puts his phone away. “Ben is the nice one?”
“The nicest,” I say into a nod. “The one we protect at all costs.”
He gazes over at Ben’s side, the privacy curtain drawn open now. We let the cockatoo out so he could stretch his wings. Phoenix’s idea, actually. Mister Feathers is perched at the window, more interested in the golden orange sunset than us.
“You protect him because he’s the youngest?” Phoenix wonders. “Or is there something else?”
I think he senses I’ve been most concerned about Ben. That I’m overly in my head about my little brother, but I can’t exactly explain how Ben disappeared to Alaska last year without feeling like I’m ripping off Ben’s outerwear without permission.
But I don’t want to lie to Phoenix, so I land on saying, “It’s a little of both.”
“He’s different than your other brothers?”
I laugh. “Understatement of the century. He’s unlike everyone in my family. He’s…” I sigh out, and like I’m drawn to the most Ben thing in the room, my gaze lifts to an oil painting hung above his dresser.
The lush green almost makes my eyes well. Skies are painted a soft, heavenly shade behind a jutted mountain peak and a stone building. Morning light is cast over girls dancing barefoot in the grass, a figure playing a pipe, and so many sky-scraping trees.
Phoenix studies the landscape from my bed. “I’ve been meaning to ask about that painting. You have a similar one on your side of the room.”
“They’re Thomas Cole paintings from his The Course of Empire series,” I explain. “There are five total, and they depict the rise and fall of a civilization. My parents gave each of us a replica.” I motion to my brother’s. “Ben’s is called The Arcadian. And mine…” I twist my head to see my oil painting beside my mounted guitars.
No green. No natural land. The city is developed with columned buildings and marbled statues, and it’s all on fire. The skies are swarmed with soot, and people are drowning in the rough water. Blood spilt. Walls crumbling. Pillars breaking. Ruin in every corner.
“Mine is called Destruction,” I say quietly. “Eliot has an identical one. We loved it when we were kids. I think the conflict and turmoil spoke to me in ways that the other paintings never did. Especially the one Ben has.”
Phoenix skims his again. “Ben’s is more peaceful.”
“It depicts the Earth he loves. The one not yet corrupted by man.”
“Idyllic.”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Sometimes I feel like I am the man corrupting the landscape around him.” Phoenix looks over at me while I add, “I create conflict. I like conflict. But Ben—Ben hurts for animals and the planet and people who I don’t think twice about. Like he cried when our sister Jane’s cat snatched a cardinal midair and killed it. And I laughed. Looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have…maybe it hurt Ben more that I did.”
Maybe I couldn’t care about the cardinal like he did—because nature is what nature does; animals will kill animals—but I could care about my little brother’s feelings.
“Anyway.” I stand up and switch out my guitars. “Like I said: protect Ben at all costs.”
Phoenix sweeps me, then the pastoral painting for a long moment. “Let’s write about it.”
“About what?” I sit back beside him. “The painting?”
“About Ben. About little brothers that need to be protected.”
That’s how we write our seventh song. The Arcadian.
Phoenix meets Ben before he needs to leave for his dinner reservation. At first, my brother looks beat shuffling in wearing socks with Adidas slides. He grunts as he drops a heavy gym bag. The fatigue dissipates the second he sees my drummer.
“Phoenix, right?” His smile bursts.
Ben chats up Phoenix for a good twenty minutes, talking about everything from rock music to concert festivals to the latest blockbuster extinction movie. They even bond over the misleading rating system on Chalk Stock, a popular site for college students that ranks professors from every university in the country.
When Phoenix has to leave for his dinner thing, I can tell he wants to bail on his parents. Ben makes staying here easy and comfortable.
In the end, Phoenix relents, probably at the multiple texts from his mom. I walk him to the elevator. As we wait in the hall, he’s shaking his head to himself.
“What?” I frown.
“You weren’t wrong. He’s nothing like your other brothers.”
“Because he’s the nicest,” I say.
“Because he makes you feel important.”
30
PHOENIX ST. PIERRE
What the fuck? What the fuck?
On the other side of the booth, Tom waves a hand in front of my face. “Dude, you okay? You look like you saw a ghost.” He glances over his shoulder, following my gaze to the front entrance. But no one is entering Duke’s on 10th. At 11 p.m., the diner is nearly empty except for the neighboring booth where his bodyguard pretends to eat a smash burger.