by Nicole Thorn
He took another sip of his drink. I realized that I’d been breathing deeper like I could bring the alcohol into my body if I sucked down enough air. I stopped myself from doing that, letting my breath slide out evenly. Then I focused on Heracles’ words. “Maybe you’re right,” I said, shoving a hand through my hair. “I don’t feel like I did anything wrong.”
“That’s because you didn’t,” Heracles said. “It’s a stressful time. Everyone in your little family probably thinks one of the others will fail.”
I opened my mouth to agree with him but found myself saying something completely different. “No.”
“Really? You think that your family is so confident that none of them are thinking that someone will fail?”
“It’s not that,” I said. “I think, aside from Verin, everyone believes that they will be the one to fail. Verin probably thinks that everyone will nail their trials and that we don’t have anything to be so paranoid about.”
Heracles’ eyebrows raised. “Everyone but you thinks that? Are you sure?”
I looked down at my feet, thinking about everyone that I loved so much. Kizzy would never doubt Jasper or Zander, but herself? Yeah, she would doubt herself. Jasper only ever doubted himself. He’d been taught by our father that he couldn’t do anything right, no matter what he tried. Zander had already proven that the weight of these trials rested on his shoulders, as far as he was concerned. Just like everything rested on his shoulders, always. And Juniper…
Juniper already thought that she had let us all down by not getting better in a timely manner. Everything had to be just so with her. It had to happen within this amount of time, with this amount of effort, and everything had to go here or there, in that exact spot. In her mind, we all fit into her life, but she did not. She could never quite slide herself into the right spot, the one she thought she should have been occupying.
And I rubbed her nose in that.
I shouldn’t have done that, but I still didn’t think my family should have reacted the way they had. They acted as if I’d slapped her in the face when all I’d done was say something a little nasty.
“Well, then your family is more well-rounded than any I’ve met,” Heracles said, lifting his glass.
I actually laughed at that, but I didn’t sound amused. “Oh, we’re all fucked up.”
Heracles offered me a real smile. One that looked bitter and a little heartbroken, but genuine. “Everything the gods touch breaks. It doesn’t matter if they want to heal it or if they want to ruin it, they always managed to shatter it into a thousand pieces. Love and hate are the same things to the Olympians.”
I frowned. “Then why are you with them.”
Heracles rose from the couch, drained the last of his drink, and set the glass down. My throat had never felt dryer than it did in that second. “I picked the side that’s going to win. There are a thousand ways to sell your soul, and mine was lost long ago.”
With that, he walked out of the room.
Once again, I remembered what he had been forced to do by Hera. I couldn’t imagine having to see the person that forced me to kill my wife and children every single day. I couldn’t imagine the pain of accepting that because I wanted to live.
My eyes drifted back over to the bottle Heracles had left on the table. It looked promising like it would make me feel good again. Because it would. As a goddess, I didn’t have anything to worry about when it came to liquor. It couldn’t really touch me, right? It certainly couldn’t hurt me anymore. And if I wanted to feel good again, then what did it matter if that feeling came from a bottle? Where else would I get it?
No one in my family understood me. They’d all walked away from me the second they got the chance to, so why should I try to be something I wasn’t for them?
Shaking my head, I shot to my feet and ran out of the room. As if I could outrun the bottle if I moved fast enough. About halfway down the hall, I slowed, breathing out through my nose.
The entire building felt calmer, quieter than it had earlier. No one interrupted me as I walked down the halls and eventually got to the elevator. Left alone with my thoughts, I started to realize that if I didn’t at least pretend to be different, I’d alienate my entire family.
I still wanted to scream, because how dare they treat me like this. I hadn’t changed since becoming a goddess, except for becoming more. I meant more than I ever had before, and they couldn’t handle it.
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped out into another vision. Like before, I saw different versions of me standing in the hallway. One leaned against the wall, sobbing and curled in on herself. Another version swayed around, dancing in a loose circle. A third stood at Jasper and Kizzy’s door, knocking on it. Another at Juniper and Verin’s door. A fifth one stood with Zander, both of us red in the face, screaming.
I shook my head, and all the different versions of me vanished. I didn’t know what my powers had become, but I felt like I’d only barely tapped into that well of energy. Part of me wanted to play right then and there, to see what I could really do. But with everything going on, I thought my family would jump down my throat if I tried.
Zander had gotten into bed by the time I opened the door. He didn’t move when I stepped inside. “I’m sorry,” I said.
He let out a sigh to end all sighs. “Did you say that to your sister?”
“I’ll talk to her later,” I said, waving my hand. “She’ll understand that I’m an idiot and sometimes bad things come out of my mouth. I wanted to talk to you first.”
He pushed up on his elbows. “About what?”
“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” I told him. “But you can’t be upset with me for thinking about it. Okay, yeah, Juniper has been trying really hard to get better, but I’m allowed to think whatever comes to my mind. It’s not my fault that I worried about her.”
He fell back to the mattress, covering his face with his hands. “I’m not saying that it’s your fault. I’m saying that you aren’t giving her the chance to prove herself. She’s trying so hard, and it doesn’t matter to you.”
“It does matter,” I said, coming further into the room and sliding onto the mattress with Zander. I put my hand on his chest, swallowing. “It matters so much that Juniper gets better. That we all get better. But you have to admit that… she’s not the most stable of us. She’s the least stable.”
“Gods, I don’t want to have this conversation.”
I bit my lip. “Just tell me that you aren’t mad anymore.”
Zander sighed, pushing up so that the two of us could face each other. He looked so worn out already. It had been a hellish year, and I didn’t see it getting any better. How could it when we would be in charge of keeping a weapon of war safe from the enemy? They would come at us from all sides.
“You don’t understand,” Zander said. “You don’t know what it’s like having the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
“No, I don’t. I’m uniquely aware that I’m not at fault for everything that happens around me. And you can’t get upset with me for that.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I think that it’s great that you don’t blame yourself for everything, because it hurts. Do you get that, Jasmine? It hurts, and it drives you into the ground, and you know that nothing anyone says or does will fix it, because you’re making them worry. Not only did you fuck up something else, but you’re fucking them up as well, and you can’t stop it. You can’t stop blaming yourself when something breaks, you can’t stop blaming yourself even when people tell you it wasn’t your fault, you can’t stop blaming yourself when you see someone else hurting for you, and you can’t stop even when you know everyone is annoyed with you. It hurts.”
I swallowed.
Zander looked me dead in the eyes. “I don’t want that for you. But I do want you to take responsibility for the pain that you, without a doubt, caused. You hurt Jasper when you yelled at him for what he said to fake-me. Even when the two of us had worked it out, y
ou still held it against him.”
“Well, he shouldn’t have said it.”
“That’s not the point,” Zander barked, thoroughly done with me. “You hurt Jasper and then you say that he deserved it. You’ve hurt Juniper, and what? Did she deserve it, after she managed to beat her trial? She didn’t even hesitate to climb into that mud or deal with the hydra.”
“She knew that she had to,” I said.
“Jasmine,” Zander said.
“No,” I finally admitted. “She didn’t deserve it, but I wasn’t trying to hurt her. I wasn’t trying to do anything, and I can’t help what I think. You shouldn’t—”
He grabbed my face. “Stop being defensive.”
“I’m supposed to let you rip into me without saying anything?” I asked. “I didn’t handle the entire thing with Juniper correctly, but you all blew it way out of proportion. I’ll make up with her, but not if all of you are going on and on about how I fucked up, hard. When I didn’t.”
Zander pressed his hands into his eyes. “I don’t know how to explain this to you.”
“Explain what?” I finally asked, exasperated. I understood that I’d hurt Juniper’s feelings, but I really couldn’t wrap my head around why the others acted as if I’d done something predictably annoying when I hadn’t done anything.
Zander opened his mouth, then snapped it closed.
“Talk to me,” I begged him. “Please. I don’t want to leave this room until we’ve worked it out. Not when everyone already thinks I’m a jerk for what happened back there with Juniper.”
Zander closed his eyes. “I don’t know how to explain it to you if you don’t already know.”
“Try.”
“You’re hurting everyone you love. I know that you don’t mean to, but you are. When you act as if you did nothing wrong, it hurts us. Because what you’re saying is that Juniper was so obviously the weakest link, all of us should have realized it and agreed with you. And that hurts everyone.”
“How?”
“Because we love Juniper.”
“I love her too,” I said. “And I’m not saying that she was the obvious weak link. I’m just saying that to me she… was.”
Zander shook his head. “She’s not any more or less likely to beat her trial than the rest of us.”
I almost scoffed but kept the sound to myself. “I don’t think I did anything wrong by thinking what I thought. But I’ll try and talk to Juniper. I’ll apologize to her.”
Silence stretched for a long moment before Zander eventually nodded. “All right, fine. Try not to make it worse.”
“I’m not going to make it worse.”
He didn’t look convinced. I went to give him a kiss, but Zander had already started to lay down. I sat on the bed as he turned away, and I felt even more lost than before I’d walked in. Getting out of bed, I walked over to the closet to grab a change of clothes. When I pulled the door open, I braced myself to see a bottle of alcohol in there, where I’d stashed it.
The bottle had vanished. My heart constricted as I thought of who might’ve taken it. I looked over at Zander, but he hadn’t moved.
Zander
H eat might as well have been rolling off Verin for all the anger I felt from his soul. I was a good twenty feet from him in the green room, but I caught every furious glare he sent Jasmine. She missed some of them but saw at least a couple. She would sit up straighter, nibbling indignantly on her breakfast. Maybe I should have defended her. I couldn’t gather the energy.
“It’s all gone,” Kizzy said to Juniper as they sat together on the couch. “I swear.”
Juniper still kept tugging her fingers through her hair. “I can feel the mud stuck to my scalp.”
“There’s not a single bit. Jasper, help me.”
My brother-in-law handed his plate of food over to Kizzy, then looked over Juniper. “I see no mud.”
His sister scoffed. “My hair is brown. You wouldn’t be able to tell.”
Jasmine made a quiet, maybe irritated sound beside me as she stabbed at a strawberry. I could practically read her mind. See? She’s freaking out about mud. I was right. I wanted to sit somewhere else.
“I scrubbed you raw last night,” Verin said to Juniper. “At this point, if the mud survived, then he’s a brave soldier and has earned his spot on your perfect head.”
She smiled softly at that, but still combed through her hair one more time. Verin took her hand as he sat down, and he held it between both of his. Juniper relaxed, leaning on him.
“You doing okay?” Juniper asked the internally seething Verin.
“Yeah,” he lied. “Fine.”
“Because it’s okay if you’re worried.”
He smiled crookedly. “As if I could be worried about my trial. What could the gods throw at me that I would struggle with? I’ve lived through the two worst things that could have ever happened to me, and I’m still here.”
I felt that one in my chest. He had a point, but I knew that the gods were good at their tricks and games. They knew what to use against us, and exactly what would sting the most. If these were meant to be real tests, then I didn’t think Verin would get something so easy to walk away from. I could still smell smoke when I closed my eyes.
The lights flashed, letting us know it was time to go to the stage. Ellie came to collect us, and I stood with Jasmine. I went to take her hand, then had a moment of wondering if I should. I worried that Verin would see it and get another little surge of anger added to the inferno he already had. I didn’t want him to waver right before his first trial. That, and I didn’t know if I wanted to hold Jasmine’s hand. I still couldn’t look at her and be sure she even believed in me.
Callie stood in the middle of the stage, a painted-on smile as she held the mic to her mouth. “And give a hand to our brave contestants today!”
The crowd went off, clapping along with the flashing signs that told them to do it. I started hating the sound, flinching when I heard my name and the names of my family being cheered by people who didn’t care about us. They wanted us to win, but they would be entertained if we lost as well. We weren’t even people to them.
“Verin, would you like to step up here, please?” Callie asked.
He kissed Juniper on the top of her mudless head and went to put his arm around Callie. “And how are you today, luv?”
Some of the people in the crowd whistled, making me roll my eyes.
“Great, you?” Callie asked.
“Wonderful,” he lied. “I’m quite ready for whatever is coming next.”
“Good, because I’m handing this one off to my assistant. I wish you luck.”
Callie gave Verin a hug, then moved over to stand with us. Out of nowhere, another body appeared. It took me a second to recognize my brother. Eros wore a sharp black suit with a hot pink tie and hair combed so perfectly that any human would have known him to be a god. He just looked too damn perfect to be anything else.
“Verin! Long time, no see,” Eros said, holding a pink mic in his hand. “I’m gonna need you to come with me for your trial.”
“Not a problem.” Verin turned to Juniper. “Back soon for my victory kiss.”
As the crowd ooed, Eros’ face turned grim. It was so slight that I couldn’t imagine anyone would have noticed but me. I felt an echo of discomfort in my brother, and he looked my way for half a second.
“Actually,” Eros said.
Suddenly, three of our people vanished. The massive screen changed to show a place I’d only seen once in my life. They stood in a backyard that should have been owned by someone else by now. Eros, Verin, and Juniper all stood around a dog cage.
“Verin,” my brother said. “I’m going to need you to not get angry.”
“Excuse me?” he asked between his teeth.
Eros took Juniper by the hand, tugging her closer to that dog cage. Jasmine covered her face with her hands as I pulled her to my chest. Then her fists gripped my shirt, ripples of old fear coursing through h
er. Jasper’s eyes locked onto the image of his father’s backyard, anger building in him too. I looked to see Kizzy had his hand, and I wondered if he would squeeze it until her fingers broke.
“Have a seat,” Eros told Juniper.
Her wide eyes watched that dog cage, my stomach turning when she sat on top of it. Her hands shook as they gripped the edge of her shirt. I heard her take a breath, eyes now closed.
“What is this?” Verin growled.
Eros swallowed as he turned to him. “Stay calm. Solve the problem.”
“What problem?”
“Find it. Stay calm,” he repeated. He turned to Juniper. “Open your eyes and look at me.”
I held Jasmine tighter, bracing myself for the ugliness to come. They’d said we wouldn’t be competing together, and stupid me thought that meant they wouldn’t use us in each other’s trials. A new slew of fears came to me. What if we had to let one of our own die in a trial? I wouldn’t do that, no matter how important this prize was. None of us would do that. The gods would know that, and I didn’t have a guess as to if that would make them more or less likely to try it. Did they need six of us, or would five be enough?
“Your father hurt you a lot, didn’t he?” Eros asked Juniper. “Answer me.”
She nodded.
“Did he hurt your brother and sister too?”
“Yes.”
“Gods,” Jasmine breathed. I hushed her, holding her as close as I could manage and making promises that I couldn’t keep, telling her that everything would be all right. I could already feel that it wouldn’t be.
“What did he do to you?” Eros asked.
The crowd had gone silent, and I wanted to cause some sort of distraction so they wouldn’t all be let in on something so private. This was cruel, even for the gods. Especially cruel for my brother.
“Lots of things,” Juniper said.
“Yes, I can feel that. I can see it in every move you make. The scars he left on you and your siblings. Did you ever wonder why he hurt you?”