Orion's Kiss

by Claire Luana

  My story seems to satisfy Deputy Romano. He stands and hands me a card. “Thanks, Meriah. If you think of anything else, any other details, please give me a call.”

  My mom and I stand too. Before he leaves, I stop him. “Deputy Romano?”

  He turns.

  “How is she? The girl in the car?”

  I already know the answer before he says it. I expect the shake of his head.

  “She didn’t make it.”

  The rest of the day is weird. I promise Mom I’m okay and that I know she’s there to talk to if I need it. I have time for a little research at lunch and discover that there are a variety of everyday household products that can kill a person—including hydrogen peroxide, laundry detergent, and ammonia. I’m not sure that gets me any closer to a solution to my little Orion problem. They all sound like awful ways to go, and I still don’t know how I would dispose of his body.

  Zoe has a student body council meeting after school, so I grab my bike from her car and head towards the cabin. I’m skipping track, but I feel bad that we left Ryan for so long. He probably has to pee like a racehorse.

  The afternoon is warm and the sun is bright in the sky. It feels incongruous.

  I hold conversation after conversation with Ryan in my head on the bike ride. Maybe I should just tell him the truth. That he killed that girl last night, along with countless girls before. And he will kill again. I wonder whether he was always like this, or whether time has changed him. Whether Zeus’s curse twisted him into something different. I know this endless parade of lives and deaths have changed me from who I was when it all began.

  It all started so innocently. With a vision. It always starts with a vision.

  There had been great war, generations before, an epic battle for dominion over the Earth between the Titans, led by Chronos, and the Olympians, led by Zeus. Chronos was the master of time and wielded a great scythe that cut down the Olympians in powerful strokes. A scythe that held the power of time itself. Zeus, as you probably know, was the god of lightning. He lit shit up.

  It mattered little to the mortals who won. It sucked, being a mortal back then. I guess it still does.

  Zeus won the war, and he and his Olympian friends came up with all sorts of creative punishments for the Titans who had opposed him. My father, Atlas, was sentenced to holding up the sky for eternity.

  Years later, my sisters and I served the goddess Artemis, one of the Olympians. Even though we were half-Titans, Artemis didn’t really hold that against us. We were happy, my sisters and I, though we felt a little bad about what had happened to Dad.

  Then the vision came. I had a flash of a future where we freed our father from his horrible burden. Or so I thought. I saw the scythe of Chronos in my sister Maia’s hand.

  It was simple enough. Steal the scythe from where it hung in the Grand Hall at Mount Olympus, use it to free my father, help him make a quick getaway to some nice island where he could live out the rest of his eternal days in peace. Easy-peasy.

  We barely even managed to get the scythe. I don’t know how Zeus knew, but he did. Maybe he had a seer of his own. No sooner had my sister gotten it off the hooks than Orion, Zeus’s bodyguard/hitman/fixer, showed up, blocking the doorway with his stupid bow and arrow pointed at Maia’s heart.

  We all froze. Zeus appeared behind us with half a dozen Olympian guards. We were trapped.

  “Give me the scythe,” Zeus demanded.

  I could tell Maia was going to do no such thing. She wasn’t going down without a fight. We were half-Titans, after all.

  But Zeus was playing for keeps. “Throw down the scythe,” he repeated, “or Orion will kill every one of your sisters, starting with the youngest.” Yeah, he was talking about me—I was the youngest.

  Maia’s eyes blazed with fury but she dropped the scythe with a clatter. Zeus seized it, then nodded to Orion.

  Pain exploded through my shoulder. I looked down, trying to make sense of it. I was surprised to find the dark shaft of an arrow protruding from my white linen dress.

  Have I mentioned? Orion’s a dick.

  Then all hell broke loose. Electra lunged at Orion, trying to knock him out of the way (told you she was the feisty one).

  I collapsed to the floor, my vision blurring. As my head thunked to the cool marble, I saw sandaled feet—shuffling, struggling, fighting.

  And then blackness took me.

  I get off my bike, leaning it against the front porch of the cabin. That’s part of the problem with all of this. I don’t even know how we got cursed. When I woke up, my sisters and Orion were enthroned in the sky. And I was alone.

  Ryan is glaring at me when I enter the cabin.

  “Hi,” I manage, grabbing the Taser off the cabinet by the TV. “Need to go to the bathroom?”

  “Yup,” he says forcefully, and I cringe a bit. I guess I deserve that.

  “Don’t try anything,” I say, leaning down to untie his feet.

  “Just untie the damn ropes.”

  I get him untied and he practically bolts into the bathroom.

  I drum the fingertips of one hand against my jeans, the Taser heavy in the other.

  The toilet flushes, then the sink runs. I raise the Taser as the door opens.

  But I’m not prepared.

  Ryan explodes out from behind it like a freight train—and tackles me straight in the gut.

  Chapter 10

  I hit the floor hard and the breath whooshes from my lungs. Ryan is half on top of me, his hip bone jutting into my stomach.

  I throw my hand with the Taser up above my head and he scrambles for it while seizing my other wrist in one hand.

  His face is intent—focused. This is his one chance at freedom and he isn’t going to waste it.

  I squirm and struggle, trying to pull myself from beneath him. I need to get the Taser to his side without him disarming me.

  “I don’t—want to hurt you,” he grunts.

  He lunges towards my free hand and his fingers find purchase around my other wrist, his fingers tangling in the links of my bracelet and ripping it off.

  He hisses out a breath and I still, trapped beneath the bulk of his weight, my arms captured in his strong grip.

  It’s the closest I’ve ever been to a boy. I’m furious with him for putting us in this position. I’m furious with myself for noticing.

  I buck my hips again, trying to throw him off. But he’s much bigger than me.

  “Stop,” he says with exasperation. “Louise, just stop.”

  A desperate laugh escapes me. He’s still using my stupid alias.

  “I just want to get out of here,” he says. “If you promise you’ll let me go, I’ll get up right now, and we can both go.”

  My resolve is weakening. What the hell do I think I’m doing here? Do I really think I can kill this guy? I have no way of accessing the supplies I need to kill him kindly, and I’m not a coldblooded murderer. Not to mention if we dump his body in the lake, he’ll probably surface at some point, it’ll be traced back to me and Zoe, and we’ll go to jail for the rest of our lives. I can’t drag Zoe into this.

  This close, I notice he has a few freckles clustered together below one eye. A constellation. They kind of look like the Pleiades.

  He continues. “I don’t want to hurt you. This isn’t me. I don’t attack girls.”

  My laugh turns dark. If only he knew what his soul had done. But he gives me an idea. “Okay,” I say, heaving a dramatic sigh. “This is getting out of control.”

  He cocks his head. “You’ll let me go? Promise?”

  I nod wearily.

  He releases my hands and backs up off me onto his hands and knees.

  That’s when I nail him with the Taser.

  The voltage courses through his body and he freezes with a wheezing moan before collapsing onto his side.

  I cringe as I pull the device back from his shoulder where it made contact. It looks painful.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’
t want to hurt you, either. But I can’t let you go.”

  Ryan’s on the floor on his side, his eyes wide. His body goes rigid.

  I look at him with alarm. Is this normal?

  His eyelids flutter shut, and then his eyes roll back in his head.

  He starts to convulse. His arms jerk around his torso, and his body starts to shake. The violence of it takes my breath away.

  “Oh my god.” I look at him with horror for a moment, my hands fluttering uselessly.

  Ryan’s having a seizure. I look at the Taser in horror. Oh my god, I did this.

  His head whacks back against the hardwood floor with a loud crack and I scramble to my feet, lunging for the wool blanket on the couch. I slide it under his head and grab his shoulders, trying to press down, trying to stop the worst of the thrashing. What do they say about seizures? Are you supposed to put a spoon or something in their mouth, to keep them from swallowing their tongue? Or is that just the old wives’ tale, and you’re not supposed to do that? I can’t remember. My thoughts are a tangle.

  Ryan’s feet are bucking, his entire body moving in a jerking, undulating wave. Tears prick the corner of my eyes.

  “Stop it,” I cry at him, horrorstricken at what I’ve done.

  He needs to die, but not like this. Never like this.

  It feels like an eternity, but I think less than a minute passes before Ryan’s seizure starts to slow. I lift my hands from his shoulders gingerly, examining his face for signs of…I don’t know. That he’s still alive. In the back of my mind, I chide myself for the relief I feel when I see him pull in a breath. If he had died, it would have solved all my problems. But somehow I’m still glad he’s not.

  His mouth moves. “Mer—” he says, a wheezing breath.

  I freeze. He always called me “Louise.” He doesn’t know my name. How could he?

  I lean forwards. Maybe I imagined it?

  His full lips part again. “Merope…”

  I scramble back across the living room, as far from him as I can get. My back thunks hard against the wall and I look at his prone form, my eyes wild. My breath is coming in and out in little gasps.

  Merope. He said Merope.

  “What…the actual fuck?” I whisper. Ryan—Orion—whoever the hell this guy is…he knows me. That means he knows who he is. Right? He has to.

  My mind swoops and dips like a wild bird at the magnitude of this. Never in all the centuries have I seen any indication that my sisters or Orion knew of their past. Only I was cursed with the knowledge of who and what we are, the knowledge of our interminable Sisyphean existence.

  But if Orion knows who he is…what does that mean? Does it mean he’s been doing this on purpose all these millennia? Isn’t he…sick of it by now? Does he really still want to be Zeus’s lapdog?

  Ryan groans, and my eyes snap back to him.

  He’s waking up.

  I launch to my feet and run back to him. I tie his feet quickly. I have a feeling he’s as weak as a kitten, but I don’t want to take any chances.

  I help him into a sitting position and angle him against the couch.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  He’s shaking his head and blinking. His eyes are unfocused. “Did I have a seizure?”

  I grab the water bottle and offer it to him, suddenly suspicious. He drinks greedily.

  I pull the bottle back from his lips and seize the Taser again off the ground where I left it. Just in case he tries anything.

  “You don’t sound surprised,” I say.

  He closes his eyes and sighs. “I’m epileptic.”

  Oh. “So it wasn’t my fault,” I say, relieved.

  “No, it was definitely your fault.” He glares at me. “Hitting an epileptic with a Taser can trigger a seizure, as you no doubt learned.”

  I purse my lips. “But you were driving and stuff. Are you allowed to do that?”

  He heaves another sigh. “No one knows. Or no one is supposed to know. I’m the only one who can drive my grandma around. And I need to drive for work. If people found out…I’d be screwed.”

  “But don’t you need medicine?” I ask. “And you could hurt someone if you had a seizure while driving…” I trail off.

  “It’s not like they happen all the time,” he says, defending himself. “I’d never had one while driving.”

  “You’d never had one…before,” I say. “Before last night.”

  He buries his face in his hands. “I didn’t mean to hurt that girl. I was just driving home.” His shoulders start to shake, and I think he might be crying.

  One of my hands reaches out of its volition and I snatch it back. I’m not here to comfort my sister’s killer. This could be an act, for all I know.

  But it doesn’t seem like one.

  “But the beer can,” I say lamely, clinging to some explanation where I can be angry at him, rather than feel like he’s a victim of fate, the same as the rest of us.

  “Some guys from work borrowed my truck.” Ryan raises his head, hastily wiping his cheek with the heel of his palm. “I’d never drink and drive. My parents were killed by drunk drivers. Plus, I think beer tastes like shit.”

  I can’t argue with him there.

  I sit back on my heels, the Taser drooping in my hand. I’m overcome with the feeling that maybe I got everything all wrong.

  Chapter 11

  “I come bearing pizza!” Zoe’s cheerful voice sounds from the porch and I spring to my feet, forever grateful that she’s here. I open the door for her and she waltzes in like a beauty queen, pizza box balanced on one hand, six pack of Diet Coke in the other.

  “Thank god,” Ryan says, his eyes greedy at the sight of the food. “What kind?”

  I realize guiltily that we haven’t fed him since this morning’s stale pop tart. He must be starving.

  “Half-veggie, half-meat-lovers,” Zoe says. This is our typical split. I’m an unapologetic carnivore while Zoe feels guilty about the environmental degradation caused by factory farms, so she avoids meat that isn’t free-range and grass-fed and all the other things.

  “Cool,” Ryan says. “I’m a pescatarian.”

  I look at him suspiciously. He’s a teenage male. I was not expecting enlightened eating habits. I shake it off. He could subsist on a diet of spring water and bean sprouts, I don’t care. “Talk to you in the kitchen, Zo?” I ask, nodding meaningfully.

  “Sure,” she says.

  As soon as we’re in the other room and she sets her burdens on the counter, I spring at her, strangling her in a hug.

  “I love you too, Mer.” She pats my back.

  “Don’t ever leave me again,” I say dramatically, though I’m serious.

  “What happened?” she asks, looking towards the living room with narrowed eyes.

  “He got free and I Tased him and he had a seizure and I thought he was going to die and…” I lower my voice. “He said Merope!” I hiss.

  “Whoa.” Her eyes are big as saucers. “Did you ask him about it? If he…remembers anything?”

  I shake my head, chewing on my lip. “If he knows who he is, and he realizes we know who he is, he’ll know we’re going to kill him,” I whisper. “He might get violent. I can’t risk that.”

  “Okay.” Zoe shakes her head.

  “Pizza, o’ pizza!” Ryan calls from the other room. “Where art thou, pizza?”

  “Coming,” Zoe hollers back. She lowers her voice as she pulls some paper plates and napkins from the cupboard. “What are you going to do?”

  “Maybe I can like…do some reconnaissance,” I say, an idea coming to me. “At his house. Maybe he has like a journal or something.”

  “Dear Diary,” Zoe says. “Today’s a special day. It’s the thousandth anniversary of my first murder.”

  I shrug. “Worth a try?”

  She shakes her head. “I hate to put an ultimatum on this, but the longer this goes on, the bigger chance something’s gonna go sideways. Can we agree to do what needs to be done by to
morrow? Either let him go or…you know…” She makes a little throat-slashing pantomime and I giggle, despite the seriousness.

  “Deal.”

  My phone buzzes in my pocket and I jump. It’s my mom.

  “Why is she calling instead of texting?” Zoe asks.

  “I better take it. She’s probably pissed.” I pass through the living room into the night, not wanting a stray holler from Ryan to clue her in to anything.

  I pick up. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hey yourself, young lady,” she replies. Uh-oh. Young lady is never a good starting point. “Do you want to tell me why you missed track practice today? Imagine my surprise when Coach Donaldson stopped by my office to make sure you were okay.”

  “Sorry, Mom,” I say. “I was feeling sick to my stomach. I went home. But then I was feeling better, so I went over to Zoe’s.”

  “Well, Dad and I want you home this instant.”

  “’Kay,” I respond. Crap, crap, crap! The cabin is way farther than Zoe’s house. Hopefully they don’t time me.

  I run back inside. Zoe is holding a slice of pizza out for Ryan to bite.

  “We gotta go now,” I say. “My mom’s pissed.”

  Zoe stands.

  “But pizza!” Ryan looks stricken.

  “I’ll come back and feed you,” Zoe says. “I just have to drop her off.”

  “You’re going to leave me here with these delicious smells?”

  “Sorry,” I say, motioning to the door.

  “Wait!” Ryan says. “Louise. Can I ask you a favor?”

  “Make it quick,” I snap.

  “I picked my grandma’s medicine up for her before…the accident. It’s in the glove box of my truck. Will you take it to her? Like tonight or tomorrow? She needs it.”

  I soften. Damn him and his stupid sweet grandma. Though…it does give me the perfect opportunity to do some snooping. “Fine. What’s your address?”

  Zoe looks at me as we race home. “You’re going to take that medicine to his grandma’s and do a little detective work?”

  I play with the edge of the brown paper bag. “I guess. If I can get out of the house.”