by Nicole Thorn
There would be no more stupid choices, and no more risks to the ones that couldn’t protect themselves like the rest of us could. I nodded. “Everything I do moving forward is going to be to ensure everyone in this house is safe and taken care of. You lot are all I have left in the world, and my top priority.”
Zander tapped his fork on the plate for a few moments, and let out a sigh. “I’m very sorry for your mother, Verin. I feel what you’re feeling, and I know that helpless misery and guilt is a lot to take in. But there’s something you need to understand.” He looked to Jasmine, saying a thousand things in one affectionate stare before he looked to me again. “We’re all a family. We make choices together. Not just because they affect us all, but because we’re a team. You love Juniper, and that makes you part of this family now. That means that you’re not allowed to go off on your own. It would have hurt all of us if you had died, and it hurts me now that you have to live with what you chose to do. It’s not easy carrying that kind of thing with you. You thought you were alone, and decided to act from that. Don’t make that mistake twice.”
I didn’t plan to.
We sat at the table, though we didn’t plan on eating anything. We did it just for the company. And I did feel like part of the family, getting glared at by Jasper every time he remembered that Juniper wore my sweater, and that she didn’t come home last night. It didn’t mean that we had sex . . . he just jumped to conclusions. The right ones, but that’s not the point.
“So . . . ” Jasmine started, smirking and leaning forward on the table. “I like your sweater, Juni.”
Her sister glowered hard at her. “Borrowing it. It got cold.”
“Not enough clothes on?” Jasmine waggled her eyebrows.
Jasper dropped his fork and groaned until Kizzy had to rub his shoulder, telling him to lighten up. “I will not lighten up,” he said. “He probably violated my sister.”
Maybe I hadn’t been as good at hiding my smirk as I thought, because Jasper’s expression changed to more hostile one. “Are. You. Kidding. Me?” he asked. “Why, Juniper, why?”
His sister looked sheepishly at him. “I mean . . . he loves me. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”
Judging by the look Jasper gave me, I guessed it meant little to him. “He better, or he dies.”
I admired his stupidity.
“So, you’re a thing now?” Jasmine asked with hope. “Like an official thing?”
I sure did hope so, or Juniper would never hear the end of it, and I would have to get her to sleep with me until she decided that she had been wrong. Thankfully, she nodded. I felt victorious.
The girls talked, and I receded into myself again, feeling the things I’d tried blocking out as they wormed their way back in. The darkness crept in all around me, reminding me of what I’d done. I couldn’t run away from it, though it had been all I wanted to do. And more than the lives I’d taken, I thought about what Juniper said to me when she tried to make me hear her. That I left her when I promised I wouldn’t. She had been right of course, because I abandoned her there, not knowing if I would come back. I walked out the door, making the choice to risk my life. It had been selfish, and I wouldn’t ask for forgiveness.
Zander noticed my fake smiles and cheer, because I couldn’t lie to him about a thing. He would always see the truth, and I felt grateful for that. At least someone could see me, and I didn’t want that someone to be Juniper. I wanted her to have a reprieve from what her life had been. She shouldn’t have lost any happiness. Not this quickly.
Zander let it go, and we got back to the matter at hand. “What are we doing about Argus?” he asked. “With his . . . slaves depleted, we don’t know what his next move is.”
I wanted him dead. That had been my goal. Dead and rotting in the Underworld for the rest of eternity. I wasn’t simple enough to think that would be the end of it forever. He could probably find a way back if he tried hard enough. We needed to destroy him as well as kill him, and I just didn’t know how.
“He’ll know by now what happened,” Jasper said. “He’s probably making a plan up as we speak. I wish we knew if he was talking with anyone else on the decision making. If he’s deciding all on his own, we may have less time.”
“He could be coming after us soon then,” Kizzy added. “Gathering up more people and sending them. They’ll be poorly trained, but we can’t just kill innocent people.”
When eyes flickered to me, I didn’t change my expression. “While a lot of those people are probably innocent, some of them aren’t. Like that son of Ares that was sent after us. He had killed so many people that his soul was nothing more than a black pit. Argus didn’t happen across that man on accident.”
“True,” Zander agreed. “But we don’t really have a way of knowing who’s being forced and who isn’t. Not when he has that fleece on him. He has all the power.”
I didn’t get the chance to look for the fleece when I had been at that camp., I hadn’t even thought of it. I had been there to kill the army and find Argus. I did most of one, and not the other, but there had only been twenty or so people when I showed up. Several of them ran, and I could’ve assumed that they had been forced to be there. That meant Argus hadn’t been at the camp, and the fleece hadn’t been either. He still had a hold on them, but not so strong that some of them couldn’t break it.
“We need that fleece then,” I said, and the doorbell rang. We all turned our heads as if we could actually see who had arrived.
Zander and I rose up out of our seats, and gave everyone a warning look not to follow. We thought the same thing, that it could be Argus coming for us. He had been polite enough to wait patiently once before, so why not now? He didn’t have the kind of rage I did when killing his people. He didn’t care about them as much as he cared about losing numbers.
Zander and I walked to the door, and he let me be the one to open it. When I pulled open the door, I saw that the rain had picked up quite a bit, leaving the street and houses soaked. Rain poured in buckets down gutters and through the road, but I saw no one standing there.
I leaned my head outside, making sure that no one hid around the house. I saw no extra cars, but I couldn’t listen in for heartbeats that may have belonged to those waiting for us.
“Ooo, a present,” Zander said, nudging me. He patted my side until I looked, and he pointed to the porch.
There sat a little green box with a tag tucked into the corner. It had my name on it.
I picked up the box, and closed the door behind me. We all gathered ‘round in the kitchen to look at the box. My first instinct was that it had to be some kind of trick, so I moved everyone back for the opening.
“Oh . . . ” I said, looking inside. Not a trick. Just a . . . “Someone sent me a garrote . . . ” I took it from the box, examining it.
The weapon had been rolled up neatly, and I undid it to look it over. The handles on either side had been made of a black material I couldn’t name, and my fingers fit perfectly around the separated little spikes on both sides. I smiled, thinking about the destruction that could and would be caused by this. I tugged at the wire, and it felt strong.
“Your father made me give this to you,” Juniper said, reading the note that had been inside. “Unbreakable, and the wire is sharp, so be careful, moron. Try not to kill the wrong people with this.” Juniper’s expression sagged. “If you look hard enough, you’ll just know. I promise. Artimis.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
Complete
Juniper
Verin held a garrote. I trusted him as much as one person could trust another, and still thought this would end badly. He had just gone on a serious murder spree, and Hades thought that giving him a fucking murder weapon from Artimis would be a good idea? Yeah, no.
I kept that opinion to myself, because I didn’t want to discourage him. He’d had a rough few days. Even if the way he stared at the garrote worried me. I tried to tell myself that it would be fine because he would have to ge
t up close and personal with someone to use it, and probably wouldn’t get much of a chance to do so. That line of logic did not work. Matter of fact, I’d go as far to say it just made me more worried.
Zander looked at Verin. I didn’t like that look any more than I had liked the others that he had been shooting Verin. I slid between the two men, and said, “That doesn’t seem like a practical weapon . . . Not something that can easily be taken into a fight. Maybe we should leave it here.”
Verin shook his head. “And risk offending Artimis?” A good argument, but I could tell that he really just wanted to try it out on someone. It would be terrifying to watch, and so, so . . . messy. The second the thought entered my mind, I felt like laughing. Maybe even laughing hysterically. The last thing I should’ve been concerned about was someone getting messy.
“So are we staying here like cowards then?” Verin asked. “Waiting for him to come get us.”
Zander sighed. “Now that you have that little treasure, I’m not sure going into a fight would be smart. Not unless you can promise that you won’t kill anyone who is innocent.”
“I won’t,” Verin said, and his voice sounded heavy. Laced with things that he wished he hadn’t done. I could picture the look on his face when I showed up. The blood streaked across his cheeks, the dirt on his hands and body. I could still picture the look of absolute mercilessness. It probably should have scared me more than it did.
That look had gone, now. This lost expression had taken its place. Almost as if he looked into his future, and wondered what the point had been.
Quite suddenly, I became furious with Zander. Burning hot, angry. I whipped around to glare at him. “Would you shut up with that?” I snarled. “You aren’t helping anyone by bringing it up every five seconds. None of you are. And considering you weren’t willing to lift a single fucking finger to help him, you don’t have room to talk. Some of the blame goes on you too!”
That sparked Jasmine to life. “Juni!” she shouted. “That isn’t fair, and you know it! He was just trying to keep us all safe.”
“Exactly,” I said. “He was trying to keep us safe, and if people had to die for that, then fine. So maybe instead of blaming Verin, and acting like he’s a bomb that’s about to go off, you look at yourself for a second.” The words burst from me, one after the other. It just seemed so unfair, and I wanted to protect Verin from all of it. I loved Zander, but I loved Verin so much more.
Zander held up a hand when Jasmine opened her mouth to argue. “No, she’s right. I was willing to let a bunch of people die if that meant keeping you safe. I’m not the one that killed them though.”
An arm came around my waist, and lifted me off the ground. Only then did I realized I had been going for Zander. While I dangled there, I glared at the demigod. Verin’s voice sounded soothing when he spoke in my ear, like he tried to calm down a stray cat that wanted to go for his eyes. “It’s okay, Juniper,” he said. “You don’t have to get yourself hurt trying to defend me.”
I scoffed. “Put me down. Zander won’t touch me, and anything I do to him will grow back.”
“I love you too,” Verin said.
I grumbled, still dangling in the air. I didn’t think he would put me down any time soon, so I settled for glaring at Zander. He had the grace to look a little sheepish. That’s right. Look ashamed of yourself.
Jasper cleared his throat. “Before my sisters kill each other, can we actually figure out what the plan is. I agree with Verin that we have to get the fleece back, and that we can’t sit around here, hoping that Argus comes around with it again. Juni, can you see where he is?”
Zander and Kizzy both looked uncomfortable. Neither of them particularly liked us having visions, but Verin just eased back into his seat, bringing me with him. I took a couple of deep breaths to calm my irritation, and then closed my eyes. I searched for Argus and what I remembered of him. I felt the vision starting to come over me in a fog. Images would start to appear in a second, and I prepared to speak, so that we could follow them the way I had led them to Arachne’s camp.
Only nothing happened. I felt the fog dragging at my mind, pulling at me slowly, but then I just floated there. My body felt kind of heavy the longer I stayed, so I pulled away, shaking my head to clear the remnants from my mind. “I couldn’t get anything,” I said. “I think it’s blocked, but I don’t think the gods are doing it.”
“Why?” Verin asked.
“When the gods block us from seeing something, we just can’t see it. I felt the images there, but couldn’t touch them,” I explained. “Could Argus be able to block our visions? He’s just a giant, right?”
“Right,” Zander said. “I don’t think he has that kind of ability. He must have some more allies that we don’t know about. Maybe you three should stay here, just to be safe.”
All us humans looked at him. Jasmine and I glared, but Jasper just gave him a bland look that acted as a refusal. “We should go to that camp,” I suggested, looking back at Verin. “Maybe we can find something there that’ll tell us where Argus is. Or maybe he’ll be there, trying to put it back together.”
“I agree with Juniper,” Verin said.
While the others discussed that, I peeled myself away from Verin, and jogged up the stairs. I had dressed for a run through the woods, but I wanted my crossbow. One of us had remembered to get it into the car, and then into the house, but everything about the day before felt like a blur.
Verin had followed behind me, and watched me prime my crossbow up. “You’re good with that thing,” he said. “Nailed me right in the leg.” He sounded pretty calm, but I still looked at him.
“I practiced in the backyard with a giant bullseye that Jasper painted. Don’t laugh at that.”
He smiled. “Sorry. You really don’t have to yell at them for being wary around me. I did something unforgivable.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “Here I am. Forgiving you. See me, not angry at all, and wanting you to feel comfortable here. Forgiven.” Zander probably thought me an idiot for that, but I didn’t care. Stupid as it sounded, I wanted to keep Verin, and make sure that he never felt alone again.
“Why?” he asked me. “You shouldn’t have forgiven me.”
“Would you have forgiven me?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t have killed a bunch of people because you were having a bad day,” Verin said.
“Not what I asked.”
“Yes. There is nothing you could do that I wouldn’t forgive.”
“There you go,” I said. “It’s the same for me, which means that I have to yell at Zander on occasion because he has this weird mistaken belief that he’s in charge, and needs someone to knock him down a few pegs, and if not me, then who?”
Verin smiled then, and it looked wonderful. Not because of smile itself, but because I needed to see it most right then. I leaned forward, and pressed my lips against his. I had to pull away before too much time had passed—not that Verin made it easy—because I could hear the others downstairs, getting ready to leave.
We got to the bottom of the stairs, and saw that they had all armed up as well. Zander had his sword, Jasmine stared at Zander with his sword like she had forgotten that she had a dagger in her hand, Jasper’s cudgel leaned against his leg, and Kizzy got her bow and quiver all ready to go.
“Glad to see that all of you have come to the right conclusion. We’ll take Zander’s SUV, and Verin will drive,” I said. “Since you don’t know where we’re going.”
We piled into the car silently, me in the passenger’s seat next to Verin. When we got to the road where we had parked last night, my cheeks heated. Remembering what happened . . . in my sister’s car. In the heat of the moment, that hadn’t occurred to me, but now I couldn’t get that little tidbit out of my mind.
Verin pulled the SUV up behind his, which we had left abandoned the day before. I hadn’t even noticed it until that moment. The quiet seemed oddly loud when we got out of the car. It wasn’t eerily quie
t, because wind rustled the trees and the lightest rain fell, but no other sounds existed. Last night it had been noisy. Maybe because of the blood rushing through my head, or the sound of my heart racing, but I could have sworn it had been noisier than this.
We moved quickly through the woods, following the same path I had taken the night before, making it to the camp before the rain could pick up. In the light of day, the damage that Verin had done seemed harder to look at. The burned-out husks of buildings that smelled of soot and fire seemed garish against the bright green background. The few bodies that littered the ground appeared dirtier, had been at picked by scavengers, and the blood had dried to this dark maroon, tacky substance.
“Look for a live one,” Zander said gruffly. I glared at the back of his head as he walked away. Verin didn’t seem to mind. I still wanted to hit Zander with something heavy.
It didn’t take much effort to pick out the living from the dead. They had been lying out for a few hours, in the wilderness. Around the third body that Verin and I looked over and patted down, he started to get that lost shadow in his eyes. I patted his shoulder, as the only comfort that I could give him.
I opened my mouth to say something, but movement caught my eye. I tightened my hand on his shoulder, resisting the urge to whip around and give myself away. I breathed out, and said, “Did you see that?” so softly that I could barely hear myself.
Verin shook his head. “I didn’t see anything,” he whispered back. “Where was it?”
“To my right. Behind the trees. It was a flash of brown, like maybe someone’s hair.” My voice had been as soft as I could make it, but I still felt like I shouted in the otherwise quiet camp.
“All right, luv,” Verin said, louder, rising to his feet. “You go find the others. I think it’s about time that we leave.”
I nodded, popping up. I didn’t say anything, not trusting my acting skills. We started making our way back to the others when the flash of brown registered in the corner of my eye again. I didn’t turn around. That required more willpower than I ever thought possible, but I kept going.