Maybe it’s all fake. Maybe I made it all up, she thinks, but that thought is quickly followed by, does that mean it has no value then?
No, that’s not what it means at all and she knows it.
To drive that point home, when her phone buzzes with a text from Shyanna, two simple emojis of a smiley face followed by a red heart, she feels...eager. Anticipatory. The dread of separation is still there, but also there is a glimmer of hope that one day, not too far away, they can be free.
Together.
She answers the text in kind before staggering into the kitchen, the countertop the only thing keeping her from succumbing to jelly knees. She’s painfully thirsty. The drug always dehydrates her, like she’s lined her insides with cotton. She turns on the faucet to get herself a drink. It whooshes to life, her own personal Niagara, and she fills her glass, taking no time at all to guzzle it down. It’s not enough because it’s never enough, and so she has a second, and a third, the thirst inside of her finally sated at the cost of her poor bladder.
Another blast of cold air. Another shiver. Kimber deposits her glass next to the sink.
Right beside a piece of recently discarded cellophane.
* * *
A POUND OF FLESH
by
Kosoko Jackson
I
When my love is near, the air always smells like sharpened steel.
You know the smell, like metal recently folded and burned. The edges glowing bright red. That sharp, almost sweet smell, that tickles your nose and makes your eyes water.
Yeah, that smell.
I’ve smelled it twenty-f—no, twenty-seven times. And still, each time, I want to vomit in disgust. At first. I know that’ll change. It always does.
Today is no different. Today will be no different.
I feel him and his suffocating presence behind me. Like when you’re light-headed from panic and filled with an all-consuming amount of dark fear? All at once and multiplied tenfold? Yeah.
His steps are quiet, but each one pulses in a way that sends my soul off-kilter. Each step closer makes me dizzy. The corners of my eyes turn black. The tips of my fingers and toes turn cold.
And then he’s next to me, sitting on the edge of the rooftop. We don’t make contact. He’s looking down. I’m looking into the distance, studying the horizon, as if my will could command the golden curvature to bend.
“You always had a penchant for rooftops. Just don’t fall off this one, please.”
Giving him a side-eye, I take in a quick look at his features. Quick enough to paint me a picture. Not enough to give him any satisfaction.
“Scottish this time?”
“Irish,” he replies, not looking at me either. “Can’t you tell by the accent?”
“I have more pressing things on my mind right now.”
“Don’t you always? What makes this time any different?”
I shrug in response, settling back into the silence. At least, that’s my intention.
He has other thoughts.
“Do you like it? Me, I mean.” A beat passes. “I can change, if you want.”
“Can you leave me alone?”
“You know I can’t do that. Even if I wanted to. We’re bound, or did you forget the gift Aphrodite left you?”
“Then answer something for me. What do you think happens if I jump? Not fall. Jump.”
He shrugs, his skintight leather jacket squealing in protest. He then leans back, resting the palms of his hands against the roof, crossing his booted feet at the ankles. The wind whistles, his brown hair fluttering in the soft breeze.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’ll catch you,” he then adds. “I’ll always catch you. Th—”
“Carson. My name is Carson.”
“Carson, right, my bad.” The right corner of his mouth turns up in a smirk. It’s a subtle one. The type of smile that says he doesn’t truly believe me, and he knows I know it.
But I’ve lived with the name Carson for seventeen years. The name Theo feels foreign. Like all my other names in my past lives. Each one is just a sour reminder of this stupid curse. And that stupid pact I made with that stupid goddess years ago.
We sit in silence, watching the darkness snuff out the light in the distance. It’s a painful death, the chill of night creeping in and tapping Morse code against my skin as it wraps me in a slow embrace. Boston is calm tonight. Calmer than usual. The streets, on a Wednesday, aren’t a hustle or a bustle, more a low, constant hum. You can tell the city is breathing; inhaling and exhaling—steeling itself.
The calm before the storm.
Without a warning, my unwelcomed guest takes off his leather jacket and drapes it over my shoulders. I want to shrug it off. I should shrug it off. But the leather radiates a familiar warmth and reminds me of memories with heavy scents of oak and summer. My shoulders slouch, and I notice for the first time how tense I am. My mouth turns slack, and a soft exhale escapes. One by one, defense by defense, I can feel the fortress crumbling around me.
All from a simple leather jacket.
Reluctantly, I wrap it around my body, making the leather purr this time.
We sit there, in silence, for I don’t know how long, but it’s not as calm as he thinks it is. The tension in the air is like something I can see, but can’t make out. I know it’s there. He knows it’s there. And it’s just a matter of time before one of us speaks first, showing weakness. Usually it’s me. I expected it to be me.
But I’m surprised.
“Carson, you know you can’t stop this, right? You’ve tried before. We’ve tried before and it always ends the same way.”
The words are right on the tip of my tongue, fully formed and ready to burst from my mouth. But instead, my voice vanishes and the situation: sitting on the roof, with him, doesn’t feel so foreign. In fact, there is comfort—terrifying comfort—in the repetitive familiarity.
“You don’t know that,” I reply. Not what I wanted to say. Not as strong, as firm, or nearly as convincing as I want—need—it to be. But it’ll do. “If I can stop what’s about to happen down there...”
“What, you think if you keep humans from fighting, that’ll change things?” He shakes his head, moving his leg so the left ankle is now over the right. “Humans are bloodthirsty creates. It’s why I exist. The conflict in the city isn’t yours to stop. Only me and my sister can do that. It’ll end when one of us delivers a killing blow and the victor is decided. You know this.”
Ares sighs, and frustratedly runs his fingers through his hair. “You shouldn’t even be here. Last time I saw you...”
“I was in Seattle. I know. I knew you’d be here.”
“So, you just came running? Throwing yourself into harm’s way? Making thoughtless choices? Disregarding consequences? You haven’t changed or learned anything in your past twenty-eight lives.”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-eight.”
“I think I’d remember how many times I’ve been reborn, Ares.”
“And I think I’d remember how many times I’ve failed to save you, Theo.”
I whip my head toward the God of War, glaring at him. The name—my name, from my first life years and years ago, is a comfort akin to seeing an old friend from years ago. A name I’ve told him not to use.
Staring now, I get a good look at him, unlike before, and his features make me softly gasp. He’s not much older than me. This time. Nineteen, maybe twenty. The black, loose Henley he wears now has the sleeves rolled up, showing his leather bracers on both arms. His hair is perfectly styled, not a single brown blade out of place.
He still stares into the city’s distance, but my reaction is all he needs to stroke his massive ego.
A police cruiser’s sirens warble through the air in the distance. One echo turns to three, three
turn into six. On the other side of town, smoke rises. An apartment building, I think.
I lean forward, resting my arms on my knees. The wind up here is temperamental: a soft gust here, a stronger one there, but I keep balance as I focus on the apartment fire. As if moving a few inches closer will give me a vantage I don’t have.
“You said it best yourself,” I say. “You could stop this.”
Ares shakes his head. “What’s been set in motion...”
“I know, I know. Can’t be stopped, only seen through. You sound like your sister.”
“I sound nothing like Athena,” he snaps.
“You do now. She’d abide by the rules. You’d bend them to be your own.”
“You want me to sound like my sister? Fine, Carson. This, your curse? Living your lives over and over again? Being forced to be reborn after each death, never finding solace? That’s your fault. No one but yours.”
I purse my lips together in a thin line, looking back out at the city, focusing on the billows of smoke. I pretend they’re different shapes—Spartans engaged in combat, Trojan horses, golden apples—anything to distract me from Ares.
“If you hadn’t made that deal with Aphrodite, you wouldn’t be here. If you hadn’t let love get in the way, you could have lived and died a happy human life and that would be that. But look.” He gestures wildly and angrily. “Here you are, in the middle of a mortal conflict, like always. You think that’s a coincidence, Carson? No. The fact we can’t keep ourselves apart is just another example of gods doing what gods do best—toying with humans for our pleasure.”
“I’m a human,” I remind him.
He scoffs. “Barely.”
I grit my teeth, but push past that comment. This isn’t the first time we’ve done this dance. It won’t be the last.
“I made the deal for you, Ares,” I seethe. “For us.”
“But that’s the thing! I never asked you to do that!” he roars, loud enough that the air vibrated and burned. “I would have been happy with having just one life with you! One good life! This never-ending cycle of us finding each other and losing each other life after life? No one, not a god or human, should have to put up with this!”
Turning away, I grip the edge of the rooftop hard. I don’t look at him, I can’t, and instead watch the roadways below shift in response to the apartment fire. I see squad cars and fire engines slicing through the streets like a knife, hurrying toward their destination. Hurrying to be a hero.
I wanted to be a hero and look where it left me.
After a minute or two of silence, I speak.
“I’m going to change it.”
“For the love of Zeus. You can’t stop this, Carson. Like you said, you made a choice, and a bond with a god is unbreakable. Unfixable. No matter how unfair the bond proves to be years later.”
“Not going to stop it. Fix it. I’m going to reclaim my life, Ares.”
He shakes his head and extends his right hand. With a twirl of his wrist, the air around it ripples and a dagger, with a blade six inches in length and a golden hilt, appears. He casually tosses it up and down; each time it flips twice before settling, hilt first, in his hand.
I’ve seen that action enough times to know what it means: Ares, for once in this life, is thinking carefully about what to say.
And still, his words miss the mark.
“You’re going to fail and you’re going to die and then you’re going to end up right back where you are, Carson. Forgetting me. Forcing me to find you. Like all the times before.”
The words hurt. But that’s the spark in my pilot light I need.
I’m not sure if it’s anger, or the desire to simply get away from Ares as quickly as possible, but I stand, carelessly, and stumble. He moves to grab me, but I’ve righted myself, and step back, pulling his jacket off. I extend it to him, keeping an arms-length distance between the two of us.
“This time will be different,” I say, almost confident enough to convince myself. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure it is.”
Ares doesn’t move from his half-kneeling position. Not at first, at least. But slowly, he rises, now-golden eyes focused on my own. At his full height, he’s still taller than me; this time by about three inches. When he grabs his jacket, our hands touch.
The world around me melts away. Memories from all my past lives threaten to send me down a spiral, but I keep them at bay. It feels like a deluge of cold rapids mixing with the scald of a geyser, and it’s enough to make a physical reaction; a scrunch of my brow. A tenseness in my body. The softest of whimpers.
I push Ares back in response, just a soft nudge, but he gets the message.
“You’re a human with the memories of twenty-seven humans, Carson,” he whispers softly. “And like humans, you think you can do anything, no matter how foolish it is. Perhaps you can best this curse, maybe you’re the one human in history who can truly beat a god’s plans, but there is always a price to pay, especially when dealing with the gods, Carson. Is tempting some of the most vindictive creatures in the universe worth it?
“Maybe,” Ares says, throwing his jacket on in one smooth motion, “maybe this life, these lives, no matter how twisted and cursed they are, are something to hold close, to make your own. To do with what you want, to learn from your mistakes, to repeat your successes. You have a gift, and a curse, that no one else has: the gift of awareness. I don’t even have that. This—” he gestures “—is me. This conflict that’s in motion? I feed off of it, it’s a hunger—an addiction, your human counterparts might call it. And I love it, I fuckin’ love it, Carson. But I can’t choose who I am. I can’t change my purpose. You can mold your existence into anything you want. Is that so bad? Is knowing us, the gods, such a bad thing?”
He takes a step forward, and another, and another. Before I know it, my back is against the leg of the water tower. Ares is encompassing, but not touching me. Close enough that his breath, sweet smelling, skips against my lips. He leans down, brushing his lips against my right ear, and whispers.
“Aphrodite may have given you a curse, but it’s up to you to decide what you do with it. That’s what a hero does, Carson. They make a choice, they understand the consequences of all their actions, and they go forward, trying to do the best they can. You want to be a hero? Then be a hero.”
His right hand strokes my cheek, just a light touch, barely tactile enough to get a response. There’s a soft spark between us, and I shiver, not from cold or pain, but from something deeper.
“But know there is always a price to pay, and it’s never what you think it will be.”
And just like that, the God of War, he who has killed thousands—if not millions—of men, in the name of fighting for my love over dozens of lives, is gone. As quickly as he appeared but not without a parting gift:
An explosion in the distance.
II
Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, waits for me in the local indie coffee shop, with a pumpkin spice latte in one hand, and a white chocolate mocha in the other.
It’s our tradition, in times like these. If Ares is here, then his sister will be here, too.
Her dirty-blond ponytail is high, her dark-rimmed, square-with-rounded-edges glasses are perfectly clean, and the business-casual power suit she wears makes her look like a Type-A, already-written-in-stone CEO of a Fortune 500 Company.
Which, in the grander scheme of things, isn’t entirely inaccurate.
When I sit—no, collapse—in the booth in the back corner, she doesn’t react. Her eyes are methodically scanning the book in front of her. She carries herself like she doesn’t notice the world around her. She’s purposely ignoring all the sensations in the shop: the sharp smells of artisanal coffee, the news report on the fuzzy TV discussing the growing riots that are spreading through Boston like cancerous tendrils spreading through the body. It seems th
e only thing that matters to her, is the book in her hand.
Until I sit down across.
I take the pumpkin spice—my drink—and give it a small sip, looking upside down at the book.
“What is that?” I ask, leaning forward for a better look. “Latin?”
“Greek.”
“You know you can listen to an audiobook of Moby Dick, right? That’s still reading.”
“This keeps my brain sharp.”
“You’re a god. Your brain doesn’t dull.”
“You’re too smart, and not pretty enough, to be that stupid, Carson.”
The cut is precise, but expected from Athena. Our relationship has never been great. Antagonizing at worst, standoffish and cautious at best. But just like with Ares, my fate and Athena’s are bound together.
“I ordered you a turkey club,” she says, licking her index finger and dragging it across the page to turn it.
“I’m a vegetarian.”
“You weren’t in your last life.”
“You weren’t blonde the last time I saw you either. Tired of the brown hair?”
She shrugs. “I needed a change. The benefit of being a god.” She snaps her fingers, and her eyes shift colors, only for a fraction of a second, before reverting back.
“Must be nice. To be able to pick and choose your traits. What you look like, your strengths and weaknesses, if they see you at all. Speaking of which, can anyone see you now, or do they think I’m talking to myself?”
She laughs, a shrill, patronizing chuckle meant to grind my gears. “Boston is folding in on itself, consumed in hatred, violence, and flames, and you’re worried about looking crazy?”
Before I can answer, she waves the waitress over, her way of answering my question, and changes the turkey club to a Caesar salad. The waitress nods and smiles at me with a grin that lingers a few seconds too long, before she disappears into the kitchen.
Athena rolls her eyes. “Always the flirt.”
“I don’t do it on purpose,” I say defensively.
“It’s in your nature, I know.” She finally closes her book and stuffs it into her black leather shoulder bag. “How is my brother doing?”
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