by Nicole Thorn
We started for the door. As we passed the register that should have been opened, I noticed green things sprouting from the cracks on the floor. I didn’t linger to see what happened, because again… Ice cream. Zander finally put Jasmine down when we got to the car. He opened the passenger door and helped her into the seat. All this work because of a spider…
Meanwhile, Kezia was helping me put things in the back. I wasn’t sure why when she clearly didn’t like me, but I appreciated the help anyway. When the last bag was in, I looked at her. “Thanks.”
She just nodded and walked away with Zander at a fast clip. Yup, didn’t like me. I wondered what I had done to earn it. Maybe she just didn’t like anyone and I’d have to be okay with that. Juniper was similar. I shut the trunk, returned the cart and got behind the wheel. Jasmine had turned the car on and was once more singing.
I endured it all the way back to the house. When I looked in my rearview, Zander and Kezia were right behind me. It looked like Zander was talking—or singing as well—and Kezia had a martyred expression on her face. Her elbow propped up on the door and her eyes starting to glaze over.
At the house, Jasmine was willing to put her feet back on the ground. Between her, Zander and Kezia, it only took two trips to get everything inside. Juniper came downstairs as we were bringing in the second load and she froze when she saw our company. There was mild panic in her eyes. I stepped over and said quietly, “Don’t worry. They won’t touch anything.”
She nodded stiffly and seemed to break out of whatever thought process she was having. She even offered them a wan smile. “Hi. What are you doing here?”
Zander launched into an explanation about their mothers giving them the scroll and them hoping I might be able to get a read off it. Juniper nodded and began to unbag the groceries. She took all the plastic bags, folded them into squares and stuffed them into our bag… bag.
She grabbed the first of the groceries. “I’ve got this. Why don’t you guys go into the living room and I will make some tea.”
Jasmine and I shuffled our guests out of the kitchen so that Juniper could restore order, the way she liked to. If either of them had thoughts on it, they didn’t say anything. However, I noticed Zander checking out Juniper’s outfit—and I just knew it was her outfit and not her. It was a white sweater, with tan pants.
Jasmine immediately started feeding Nemo. “Hello, dear fish friend,” she said. “If you hear any screaming in the next hour, do not fret. It’s probably not us dying and if so, I’m sure someone will come by to feed you.”
“Lovely,” I said.
She stuck her tongue out at me.
Juniper came into the room half an hour later, with a tray that had five white mugs of tea on it. She set it down and then sat on the couch, looking mildly anxious. “Do you have the scroll?” she asked.
“In the car,” Kezia said. “I’ll go get it.” Zander followed her.
When they were out of the room, Juniper looked at me. Her lip worried between her teeth. “Are you sure about this? You can’t even walk into a museum. There’s no telling how old this scroll is. Not to mention the whole they’re gonna die a brutal death thing. Do you want to get involved in that?”
I shrugged. “I’d rather not sit around here while two nice, innocent people get slaughtered for an unknown reason.”
Juniper frowned. “All right. If you and Jasmine are both convinced they’re nice, then I’ll try to be nice too… If I can figure out how.” I put an arm around her, because it was the only thing I could do.
Then the demigods came back and it felt like the world tilted on its side. Everything that’d been handled by someone contained a memory. Most are so small, or quiet, that I don’t even hear them. The older something is, the louder it whispers. The scroll they were carrying was like an air raid siren right next to my ear.
Everything in me focused on that rolled up piece of paper. I lost track of my sisters and the conversation. I couldn’t see the demigods. My living room was just background to that scroll. It felt like my lungs stopped working and my heart was hammering. This was why my sisters were so worried. There was no way around that scroll. I had to see what it wished to tell me.
Dimly, I was aware of Juniper getting up. She took the scroll from Zander. They must have said something, but no part of me was aware of it. My sister walked over to me and picked up my hand. It suddenly felt weightless and uncontrolled. She hesitated, or was speaking to everyone else. I still wasn’t sure.
The next thing I was aware of was the paper touching my skin. It felt like old paper. Fragile and stiff at the same time. The sensation was brief. Energy, like pure electricity, shot up my arm and everything went away…
Screaming. Pounding in my head. Fought through the sound, opened eyes and looked.
Blood splashed against the walls. People running. Trickles of red pushing into the cracks in cobblestone streets. The smell of blood filled my nose, the taste filled my mouth. There were clouds of it, like someone had been shot, but there was no gun. People were running. Screaming. Terrified.
I couldn’t tell how long ago this was, only that enough time had passed that no one would remember this.
Bodies were lining the streets. Holes in their torso. Their throats ripped out. Eyes missing, lips shredded. Bloody carnage. People of all ages. There was an older woman, bent over a basket. There was a young man who looked like he had fallen down while running. One arm was stretched forward, while one knee was bent at such a severe angle that it had to be broken. There was a man holding a child. He had fallen upon the child, a girl and she was screaming, trying to work her way out from the heavy weight of her father’s body.
Those were the only ones not dead. Children. None of them looked older than ten. They were hiding in the corners, screaming next to bodies, or watching the sky. Yelling prayers or demands.
Thousands of images brushed against my mind. All of them just like this. Blood. People dead or dying. Children screaming at the sky. They kept rushing through my head until all I could taste was blood; all I could smell was blood. All I could hear were the children praying and begging for their parents to wake up in a language that I shouldn’t understand, but did anyway.
The vision panned upward. The effect was surreal, but I had had enough time to get used to it. Vertigo threatened, but I allowed my awareness to tilt upward and then I saw them.
Three figures zipping through the air. Nothing but shadow. Large wings stretched to either side. Tangled hair dangling from their heads. Beads of blood dripped from them, landing on the ground. One darted down and came up with a man. He shouted, thrashing, begging to know why they were doing this. Saying he was innocent. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
There was a sick crunching. Then the man was plummeting down to earth. His body landed with a hollow thump. Another figure darted down, seemingly coming straight at me, even though I wasn’t there in any real sense. I had a moment, one moment, where I looked into her eyes. Madness. Pure madness looking back at me. The moment passed and a woman directly to my left was snatched off the ground and went into the air, where she met the same fate as the man before her.
The scene shifted suddenly. I was in a room. There were several men around a table. Children were huddled in corners, holding each other, whispering condolences. Some frightened still, some grieving and some so traumatized that they just stared straight ahead, looking at nothing, but seeing something that no one else could.
The men were talking, but I ignored what they were saying. They were hunched over a piece of paper. One of them was writing across the paper. One of his hands was covered in blood and it marred the surface of the scroll that I dimly knew was still in my hand. His fingers moved fast, but shook as he scribbled.
The final word hit the paper and he rolled it up. There was a noise, one that I couldn’t define for the life of me. Then there were more men in the room. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. One of them took the scroll from the writer. He screamed at
them. Saying something he probably shouldn’t. One of the new men—gods, probably minor—swung his fists at him. The writer went sprawling across the room, barely managing not to hit the children.
One of the gods unrolled the paper and laid it flat against the surface. He seemed to be reading it. He picked up the writing utensil and added an elegant looking line to the bottom of the script. Then he rolled it back up, handed it to his companion and they both disappeared. Leaving the room empty.
Everything went dark.
Everything went gray.
Light returned. My living room swam back into focus. My brain sluggishly remembered the people standing around me. Those two were my sisters. Those two were demigods. I felt drugged, in an odd way. My entire body was numb, yet it was like I could feel everything around me.
I was still on the couch, but someone had moved me so that I was lying down. Maybe I passed out after handling the scroll. Every limb felt leaden. Moving just didn’t sound like a good idea, but I needed to tell them what I saw. I gave myself another few minutes of just being there.
My sisters were talking to Kezia and Zander. It didn’t sound like anything important. I think they were reassuring them that I was fine, or that I would be. They wouldn’t really know, since I’d never checked out this severely before.
“I think he’s awake,” Jasmine said. There was movement and then both my sisters were looking down at me. The demigods had moved closer as well. Jasmine pulled the scroll from my fingers while Juniper poked and prodded me to make sure everything was still working.
“What’d you see?” Jasmine asked when Juniper was finally done.
My mouth tasted like dust and I had to swallow twice before I managed to push the word out. “Furies.”
6: Hang Us High
Kezia
I wasn’t breathing and I didn’t know how long I hadn’t been until I started hearing Zander scream at me. It was muffled in my ears, like cotton was shoved in. It didn’t make me breathe again.
Furies. I knew what they were. They were the justice seekers. Vengeance incarnate. They want to kill us, so we could be punished in Tartarus. All my fault. Zander was going to be punished along with me. I would get my brother killed.
“Kizzy,” he said desperately. “Please!” He grabbed me and held me tightly to his chest. If I were human, my ribs would have cracked.
I looked up at him. “I’m so sorry!” I cried.
He shook his head. “Don’t you dare say that, Kiz. I’m not sorry.”
Juniper looked almost terrified. She knew, they all knew what the Furies did. “Why?” was all she asked. Fear colored her tone.
Zander looked at her, trying to keep hostility at bay. “Kizzy didn’t do a damn thing wrong. Do you understand me?”
Juniper took a step back. Her brother looked rough and Jasmine was trying to help him. She wasn’t afraid. And she shouldn’t have been. She wasn’t in danger from us. None of them were.
I just focused on Zander. “We can’t run. They won’t stop until remorse is shown.”
With more anger than I’d seen on him since that day, he said, “I will never show remorse. I can be tortured in Tartarus for a billion years and I won’t regret a line of it. I’d do it again and the only thing I’d change is how fast I did it.”
Jasper pulled himself together as best as he could. “What exactly did you do to get the Furies sent after you?”
I stood with crossed arms. “Zander…” I looked at him mournfully.
He rubbed his jaw. “I don’t even know why they want Kizzy. She didn’t do anything.”
“I made you!”
“No you didn’t,” he growled at me.
“How can you say that?! You wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t tell you what happened.”
“And it’s a damn good thing you did. You should have told me a lot sooner.”
“How was I supposed to do that? I was terrified to tell you in the first place,” my voice wouldn’t stop shaking. I was ashamed then and I was ashamed now. “It was my fault they did it. It had to be.”
Zander’s eyes were glassy with tears. “Please don’t say that, Kezia.”
He went quiet.
It was then that I remembered we were fighting in front of strangers. Strangers that were probably scared out of their minds. I couldn’t tell them why they wanted us dead. Zander was practically my brother and it was so hard telling even him.
Zander looked at the three of them. “I killed two people. I was thirteen when I did it. And Kizzy in no way told me to do it. I just did it. I don’t regret it and I have never regretted it for a second. I never will. I don’t care what punishment I get in return. But Kizzy didn’t do anything wrong in this whole fucking equation. She’s the only one with clean hands.”
How could he think that?
Juniper tensed, but Jasmine didn’t. “I believe you. How can we help?”
Juniper stared at her. “He killed people! Why should we help them? He was a child when he did it. Gods know what he is now.”
I narrowed my eyes at her when Jasmine did. She stuck up for Zander before I got the chance to. “He wouldn’t have done it if there wasn’t a good reason.”
“You don’t know him!” her sister said. “You don’t know why he did it other than it was for Kizzy.”
“It was for Kizzy,” Zander said. “But she didn’t ask me to. She told me what those people were doing to her and I took care of it.”
The air left me when Jasmine asked the question. “What were they doing to you?” Her eyes were on me.
I was getting flashes of the end. That very last day. The last time I was on the business end of The Bat and the last time—No. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the dark room. Or the bath. Or the pain. Or the tears. Not allowed to think about it. It was so bad after. When we ran. I slept beside Zander so that the shaking would stop. It was the only way then and it was the only way now.
“Kizzy,” Jasmine said my name.
“They were her foster parents,” Zander said, making my heart arrest. He wouldn’t say it. Not the worst of it. “A man and a woman without any other kids at the time. They’d take in the older ones. We found out that part after it was all over.”
“Zander,” my voice broke again.
“Trust me, sweetheart.” He looked back to Jasmine. “Despicable isn’t a strong enough word for them. There just isn’t one. They hurt her for a long time. She finally told me, after she almost died. So I found them and I killed them. It was a bloody mess and I felt nothing but relief that they were gone. So if you want to be scared of me, go ahead. But don’t for a moment think that Kizzy is anything but a gentle, kind girl. She didn’t ask for any of this. But maybe I did. I still don’t care. She needs to live through this.”
I couldn’t read anything but fear and concern from Juniper. I had no clue what Jasper was thinking, but Jasmine hugged me. “I’m sorry they hurt you.”
I couldn’t hug her back. All I could do was remind myself that she was Jasmine and just Jasmine. That was the person holding me and no one else. “Thank you,” I said robotically.
Zander left out so much and I was glad he did. He didn’t say the very worst of it. Or even how he killed them. What he lost that day. The darkest part of the days I was with those people. One thing I knew for sure was that the story would never be told again.
Juniper spoke to Zander. “They hurt your sister?”
He nodded.
She took a deep breath. “Okay then. What the hell do we do?”
Zander grabbed the paper that almost knocked out that poor boy. “This damn thing isn’t much good ‘til we know what it says. But at least we know what we’re up against. So thanks,” he said to Jasper.
“You’re welcome.”
Juniper tapped her foot. “I guess I can try my hand at some research. I’ll get my computer.” She started walking and Jasmine went after her.
Zander followed too. “Computers know nothing of importance,” he warned.
“I’ll help.”
And then I was alone with Jasper. I had such poor people skills. Most of the people I grew up around knew there was something wrong with Zander and I. They couldn’t ever tell what, but we were too inhuman. We only ever spent time with each other, so that only made it worse.
“Are you really okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “I’m fine.”
He was lying, but I didn’t know if he knew he was lying. I thought he didn’t see any of this.
“Come on,” I said. “I’m making you something to eat.”
Jasper looked at me curiously. “I’m not hungry.”
“Irrelevant.”
He smiled just a little. “Is that so?”
“You have done me a service and now I will do you a service. Those are people rules, as I understand it. And it hardly matters if you want it or not. I’m the guest here and another rule says that you’re supposed to be extra nice to me. We can ignore the fact that I’m actually invading your home and forcing something on you that you don’t want and that I’m being a little rude about it. Because I don’t know how to be nice to people other than Zander. So you’re going to let me make you something to eat because you’re hungry and you just don’t know it.” I raised my eyebrows in challenge.
He stood up and that put him very, very close to me. He was smiling and it didn’t even seem threatening. Zander was the only man that I could see smile and not be at least a little scared. But Jasper wasn’t scary at all.
“I guess you’re making me something to eat,” he said, more alive than before.
I tugged on his hand so he would follow me, then I dropped it. It only took the skin to skin contact to remember that it terrified me. But for a whole second, I didn’t remember. And I felt one step closer to normalcy that I didn’t deserve.
It took me a couple tries to find the kitchen and Jasper tried telling me where it was.
