Forge of the Gods 2

by Simon Archer

  “Since when do you just ‘talk to Aphrodite?’” Beth asked through a mouthful of tart, no longer waiting.

  “You miss a lot when you don’t sit with us at mealtimes,” I said, only half-joking.

  “Sorry,” Beth said with a shrug. She took another bite and moaned. “Gods, Jade, this is so good.”

  “Thanks,” our friend beamed. She put her chin in her hand. “So, what was it like? Being infected with Tainted Love?”

  Beth licked some crumbs off her lips. “You know, it wasn’t all bad, I’ll be honest. But most of the time, I felt like I was just watching myself. Like, I knew what I was doing, and I had these feelings for Bella, but it was also exhausting because it was like the only thing I could think about. I couldn’t even remember what we had done in the kitchen because anytime my mind thought of anyone else, I would get a headache until I was focused on Bella again.” Beth flattened her hands down on the table, having scooped up the tart in three and a half bites. “Even when I wanted to focus on schoolwork or go work out or anything, the world wasn’t clear around me unless she was with me too. Everything I did, I had to do with her. There just wasn’t any alternative. It’s like we were…”

  “Connected?” I asked, supplying the word I’d come to loathe throughout the course of the last several weeks.

  “Yes!” Beth said, snapping her fingers. “Exactly.”

  “Well, that sounds utterly miserable,” I said as I clapped a hand on Beth’s back. “We’re glad to have you back.”

  “It’s good to be back,” Beth said. Then she put a fist to her chest and heaved out a burp right in Jade’s face. She reeled backward, completely disgusted, while both Daniella and I laughed at her reactions and the red spreading up Beth’s face.

  “Gods, sorry, Jade,” Beth said in a gruff voice as she recovered from the bubble in her throat. “I totally didn’t mean that.”

  “Gross!” Jade groaned. “Maybe we're not that happy to have you back.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you know you missed me.” Beth grinned at all three of us in turn. We matched her with equal-sized grins.

  Suddenly, Beth put her chin in her hand and stared at Jade with wide, glassy eyes. “But I bet you missed me most, didn’t you, Jade? Oh, most fair, most beautiful Jade.”

  The awkwardness of her words hung in the air as Daniella and I exchanged glances. The sudden shift wasn’t lost on us as well as the unusual verbiage. Suspicion grew at the base of my stomach, like a weed popping up in a garden that just had been sprayed with weed killer.

  Jade’s face went pale and then flushed a shocking pink. “Bethany, you don’t mean that.”

  “Oh, but I do,” Beth cooed at her, her voice growing husky and soft. “You really are the fairest of them all, isn’t that what they say in the storybooks?”

  “Beth,” I said as I reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. However, she snapped up her forearm to swat me away, her eyes never leaving Jade.

  “I’m talking to my goddess,” Beth said sharply at me.

  If I wasn’t sure something was off, there was definitely something wrong now. Beth would never say something like that to Jade, and she would never snap at me like that, especially since we had just discussed the possibilities of her being with all of us.

  “Beth,” Daniella said, leaning closer to our friend but not daring to touch her, “are you sure you went to the med bay earlier?”

  “Yeah, met Aphrodite, did the whole girdle thing,” Beth said casually, her eyes still possessively on Jade, who shrunk back, clearly uncomfortable. “Bada bing, bada boom.”

  Daniella looked at me, and I was about to voice my concerns aloud, which I was sure were the same as her concerns when a shadow descended over my head. Karen’s lean frame suddenly leaned over me, like I wasn’t even there. She shoved me out of the way, closer to Beth. But after she swatted me away like a fly, I wasn’t sure how close I wanted to get to her. So I tried to make myself as small as I could between the aggressive pair.

  “Hi, Daniella,” Karen said as she swept her hair over her shoulder. It slapped me in the face, and I fluttered my lips to get it out of my mouth. “How is the fairest and most beautiful demigod doing today?”

  “Uh…” Daniella swallowed audibly as she watched Karen’s eyelashes flutter. Unconsciously, her eyes flashed down to her chest before reason forced them to bounce back up to her face.

  Now I was officially worried. Karen had used the same words as Beth. And again I was fighting off the urge to push between Karen and Daniella because Daniella was in a relationship with me. Again. I took a chance to pull my attention away from the two awkward situations at hand and spared a glance around the cafeteria.

  Sure enough, there were lots of groupings looking rather confused while some students aggressively pursued one another. I watched as one Enka member tried to lean over and hit on an Oura soldier while she still sat in the arms of her Eda lover. The threatened girlfriend soon stood and shoved the Enka member.

  I whirled around to face my friends, but something else caught my eye just over Daniella’s shoulder. Rachel had spotted Karen, standing seductively at our table, and she was headed in our direction.

  31

  “Daniella, duck!” I cried out, seeing Rachel’s fist as she pulled it back to wallop Daniella in the face.

  Luckily, Daniella followed my instruction without hesitation. She slipped down in her seat right as Rachel swung at where her head had once been. Like a snake, Daniella slithered down under the table just as another crack of a fist on bone rattled the air.

  The cafeteria erupted into chaos.

  Fights broke out and spread like wildfires as the soldiers and students alike fought over their supposed loved ones flirting with other students. The aggression seemed to be amplified, though everyone just seemed to be using their fists. No supernatural abilities had come out yet, but it was only a matter of time.

  I felt a painful tug at my pants leg from beneath the table. I looked down to see Daniella and Jade crouched under the table for cover, while still beckoning me to join them. I shimmied my body down so I could crouch with them as the ruckus continued above us.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jade cried out. The table shook over us, and she jumped as someone's body slammed another person into the top of it.

  “I think it’s safe to say that we haven’t cured every one of Tainted Love,” I answered with a tight throat.

  I was in disbelief over everything right then. How could this be happening? Aphrodite said she could fix all of this. A sudden thought struck me, and my throat filled with bile. Could Aphrodite have been lying to me this whole time? What if she was the one who caused this, and instead of healing the students, she made it worse?

  That level of betrayal felt like a kick in the stomach. It took all of my concentration not to dash out from under this table and confront that god in the med bay.

  “Why does love have to be so violent?” Daniella grumbled. She threw up a pair of exasperated hands in the air.

  “Well, Aphrodite has a complicated relationship with Ares,” I pointed out unhelpfully. “Love and war, two sides of the same coin and all of that.”

  “We get it, Cameron,” Daniella cut me off. “What we don’t know is why. It’s getting crazy. First, the dance, now this.”

  “Says the girl who was in the middle of the fray during the dance,” Jade recalled with a pointed tone.

  “Yeah, but why not now?” I wondered, my eyes flicking from the chaos outside to my calm friend in front of me. “What’s different?”

  “Do you have any violent urges right now?” Jade asked Daniella, only half teasing.

  Daniella shrugged and shook her head. “I feel fine. At the dance, though, that was something completely different.”

  Suddenly, one student knocked another one to the ground, the smack echoing over the fighting. Jade let out a scream as it happened right behind her. She curled into a ball, and hugged her knees to her chest as if she could make herself smaller,
get herself farther out of the way.

  “We need to get out of here,” she chirped, her voice high out of pure nervousness.

  “We need to figure out what’s going on,” I added, though I agreed with Jade that the first priority would be getting out of the middle of the cafeteria fight.

  “I think we have to just make a run for the front doors,” Daniella suggested. Her eyes trained on the entrance, analyzing the situation as though she could plot an escape route through all of this chaos.

  “I think you’re right,” I agreed. “We just have to steer clear of the ongoing fights. I don't think anyone will come after us.”

  “Except Rachel,” Jade reminded us wearily.

  “I’ll lead the way out,” I suggested, pointing out our positions in midair. “Jade, you take up the rear, and then we can flank Daniella with her in the middle.”

  Both of my friends nodded sharply, used to taking orders. Their fear disappeared from their faces now that they had a plan to enact. Jade shifted up on her feet, still crouched, while Daniella assumed a kneeling position. I shifted one of the benches out of our way, giving us a clear view of the fight.

  Food flew over our heads, threatening to stain our uniforms or smack us in the face. An Oura student created a whirlwind of plates and cutlery, which she sent out like darts. Meanwhile, a Eda soldier manipulated a chair with her mind, making it bend like puddy so she could wrap it around the legs of a Enka student crawling away from her.

  The whole thing was ridiculous. As I watched my fellow soldiers fight one another, I took a deep breath to remind myself that they weren’t in their right minds. All of them were possessed by something deep and primal. Though the fear still stuck with me, knowing that we were powerfully training weapons and this is an example of what could happen when those weapons were let loose.

  I held up my hand, with three fingers raised in the air, a signal to my friends. I ticked them down from three to two to one and then a closed fist, and we dashed out from our hiding place.

  I never played football or any sport, really. But I felt like a linebacker on the field, darting for the end zone. It was tricky while students surrounded me, tackling one another, while toppled furniture blocked my path. My heart pumped wildly while my legs stretched to hurl me across the room. I never looked back at Daniella and Jade, trusting them to make their own way out, but I kept my ears strained for their cries should Rachel come out of nowhere or someone should burst through the fray and tackle them.

  However, a breath of cold air filled my lungs when the November air hit my face. I raced down the cafeteria steps into the quiet quad and nearly ran straight into The Stratego. I managed to stop my feet just in time before I collided with his solid chest.

  “Get in there and stop that nonsense!” He ordered some of the Elemental Officials behind him.

  Officer Ashley and Brea obeyed and rushed into the cafeteria. However, Genesis and Makayla stayed behind, standing on either side of the Stratego in a triangular formation. At that moment, Daniella and Jade emerged from the cafeteria and fell into place beside me, so that we matched the Elemental Officials one for one. I froze in place as my eyes met the Stratego’s stormy grey ones, my heart pounding even faster than before.

  “Cameron,” the Stratego growled.

  “Stratego,” I replied only with an ounce more respect than his scowl showed me.

  “What’s all the commotion?” Genesis asked, gesturing to the dulled noise coming from the cafeteria.

  “A fight broke out,” Daniella announced.

  The daughters of Hermes and Aphrodite shared looks behind the Stratego’s back as if they already suspected the reason for the fight. But neither of them chose to say anything, so I stepped in and voiced the mutual opinion.

  “It’s Tainted Love,” I said urgently. “Aphrodite’s cure isn’t working.”

  The Stratego’s bushy eyebrows rose ever so slightly, too slow for him to hide his surprise. “How do you know this?”

  “Their language,” I explained.

  “Are they acting the same as before?” Genesis checked, taking a step forward but not enough to be on the same level at the Stratego. “Talking about connection and all that.”

  “Not this time,” Daniella answered. “This time, they spoke of beauty or something like that.”

  “Most fair and most beautiful,” I corrected, “and these weren’t the same pairings as before. It was much more sudden.”

  “And random,” Jade added as she rubbed her shoulders against the chill of the outdoors, or of Beth’s unwanted advances, I wasn’t sure.

  The Stratego crossed his arms. “Tell me this, why are you three out here and not in there, infected like the rest of them?”

  The emphasis that he put on the word “infected” clearly told me that he didn’t believe a word of what we were saying. I clenched my hands at my sides, trying not to explode on my commanding officer. I held my own temper and frustration at bay as I thought of a reason.

  But the honest answer was, we didn’t know. There was no logical reason why the three of us weren’t raging like loons like the rest of them. I knew that I was immune, but as we’d seen from Daniella at the dance, she wasn’t. Jade had traces of being infected with Tainted Love like Hailey did, but nothing that ever came into full obsession mode. So why hadn’t this strain impacted them?

  It also seemed weird that it was only in the cafeteria. As I gazed out on the quad, none of the students were rowdy or fighting out here. Granted, it was cold, so there weren’t that many students out and about in the first place. However, everything seemed normal out here. If anything, it was quiet and peaceful. Quite the contrast to the war raging in the building behind us.

  “We don’t know, sir,” Daniella replied, answering the Stratego’s million-dollar question.

  “That’s convenient, isn’t it?” the Stratego snapped, suspicion rolling over his words.

  I didn’t hold back my exasperation. I rolled my eyes. “We didn’t have anything to do with it, okay?”

  The Stratego’s head turned in my direction so quickly that I heard his neck crack. “From my understanding, you’re completely immune to the effects of this so-called Tainted Love. If I’m not mistaken, it was also your presence at the dance that caused the fight that evening as well. Now, here you are, right as rain, with more wreckage in your wake.”

  Unfortunately, the Stratego had a point. It was all rather damning as the various incidents put me at the center of them, painting a large target on my back. I bit the inside of my lip, trying to keep my voice tempered.

  “I know it looks bad,” I began, but the son of Zeus cut me off.

  “Bad is an understatement.”

  “But,” I said sharply, determined to defend myself properly, “I helped Aphrodite build the new girdle. If I was responsible for this Tainted Love epidemic, then why would I help her make the cure?”

  “It’s obviously not a cure if it’s still infecting people,” the Stratego pointed out.

  “Actually,” Daniella said as she held up a finger, indicating that she wanted to speak. When the Stratego glanced her way, Daniella’s voice shoved back in her throat, and she nearly lost her nerve. But I watched as my friend swallowed her nerves and gathered her resolve to speak against the commanding officer. “The girdle is still an acceptable cure. However, if students continue to get infected, the cure won’t matter. We need to discover the source of Tainted Love and get rid of that.”

  “Daniella makes an excellent point,” Genesis said, surprising everyone by jumping to her defense. “We should call Aphrodite from the med bay so she can calm everyone down at the cafeteria, then we need to reconvene and find what is causing all of this.”

  “We have been so focused on finding a cure,” Makayla added, “which was a priority. But now, the cure can give us the time we need to find the source.”

  There was a tense silence, like a noose wrapped around my neck, as the Stratego considered this point. While he wasn’t known f
or listening to Daniella, despite her brilliance, because my friend was the son of a lesser god, the Stratego would weigh the words of his colleagues. My heart threatened to escape from my chest as I waited for the Stratego to issue his next command.

  “Genesis, we will go and speak to Aphrodite at the med bay, she is likely to listen to her demigod daughter,” the Stratego said though his eyes were locked on me the whole time, even though he wasn’t speaking to me. His tone was like a warning. However, I had no idea what he was warning me about. “Makayla, you will stay and watch these three. I want them here to tell Aphrodite what they saw and heard.”

  “Yes sir,” the two women officials said simultaneously.

  “Know this,” the Stratego growled as he leaned forward and spoke to my friends and me. “The second we find out who did this, they will be removed from the Military faster than Hermes can send a message. Mark my words, we will not tolerate this kind of invasion of our campus any longer.”

  While he issued the warning to all of us, it was obvious that he spoke only to me. Despite what I had said about helping Aphrodite with the girdle, the Stratego still very clearly suspected me. I knew he was biased, given our tense history, but I still didn’t appreciate the accusation when I had clearly done nothing wrong. In fact, I had gone above and beyond to try to find a way to help the Academy.

  A sinking suspicion curled at the base of my stomach. While I wanted to belong to this Academy, be a part of this Military, nothing I would do would ever be enough. The Stratego would never be pleased with me or my actions, no matter how spectacular they would be.

  For the first time, I truly understood the plight of the demigods born to non-godly parents. That level of disappointment discouraged me so heavily that I almost fell to my knees right there. Instead, I watched the Stratego and Genesis walk away while Makayla led the three of us over to a park bench near the cafeteria.