Broken Fate

by Jennifer Derrick

  Alex and I spend as much of the next few weeks together as we can. He hangs out in my workroom if I can sneak him in around Lacey and Mom. While I work, I keep him entertained with stories about life on Olympus. I can tell that while he believes me, much of my life seems like a fairy tale to him. Strange and fanciful, but not quite real. I can talk to Alex about anything, including my mixed-up relationship with Zeus and my hatred of my job. He never judges me or treats me like I’m a pariah for being the embodiment of death.

  If I’m not working, I’m at his house, reading to him and helping him with the schoolwork he insists on keeping up with. It’s a losing battle. I can tell his mind is slipping away. The solutions to math problems don’t come as easily as they once did, and he often forgets things we went over not five minutes ago. But he insists we keep trying, so we do.

  No matter how easy the conversation or how engrossing the work, the shadow of his illness always lurks in the background. There are many days where he doesn’t feel well enough to come over, or where I simply sit by his bedside, hold his hand, and watch him sleep. In an effort to make him more comfortable, I go to Target and buy a futon for my workroom so he can stretch out and nap instead of sitting on the floor. Even as I’m signing the credit card terminal in the store, I know it’s only a temporary fix. The day is coming when he won’t be able to come over at all.

  No matter how much I try to pretend that we’ve got all the time in the world, it’s obvious that Alex is dying. He gets thinner and paler every week, at least until the doctors put him on steroids that cause him to dramatically swell up. The number of prescription bottles on his nightstand grows, but nothing seems to slow down the disease, or even properly manage it. The number of days when he feels well enough to come to my house shrinks. Some days, his speech is slurred because the tumor is pressing on something and seizures leave him unconscious for hours. I’m losing him, and there is nothing I can do about it. Denial is no longer available to me, or to the rest of the Morgans.

  I know that Mr. Morgan and Emily see and feel the same things I do. When I join the family for meals, I sometimes catch Mr. Morgan or Emily staring at Alex with sadness and regret in their eyes. There is so much pain there that it’s hard to even look at them. Of course, I know that their eyes are a mirror of my own. When Alex looks our way, we laugh or look away to hide our pain. We try to act like everything is fine when it so obviously isn’t. We’re idiots, and it’s shameful. Why can’t we just acknowledge the awfulness of it all?

  I carry my own private shame, too. With about three weeks to go until Alex dies, I’m ashamed to find that I actually want to be away from Alex more than I want to be with him. It takes so much out of me to be with him, to bear witness to his deterioration, that I have to get away sometimes. I desperately want to be with Alex for every moment that he has left, but I can’t lie and say I’m not grateful sometimes when Emily calls to say he doesn’t feel well enough to come over and I’m too busy to go to him. I’m supposed to be strong and capable, not sniveling, weak, and cowardly. It’s practically human behavior, and it’s shameful for a goddess.

  One day, after I drop Alex off at his house so he can have a private dinner with his family, I realize I have some free time. I decide to take a walk in the nearby park and get some fresh air for a change. The walk will give me time to unload some of the misery that I’m carrying so I can make room for more. That’s what my days amount to now. Unloading one pile of misery to make room for more.

  It’s not that late and with the longer days, I still have a couple of hours of daylight left. The park isn’t crowded. It’s dinner time for most, and the evening crowds haven’t yet arrived for their nightly exercise. I take the trail that winds around the lake. I’m halfway around when someone appears next to me. I drop into a defensive stance until my brain registers who it is. Thanatos. I rise and force my heartbeat to slow down.

  “Announce yourself or something next time, why don’t you?” I say. Silence from Thanatos.

  “Come to deliver another warning?” I ask as I resume walking. “You know, you really should consider wearing clothes,” I add, taking in his appearance. “One day, someone’s going to notice that you’re wearing only a loincloth.”

  He shrugs. I figure he doesn’t really care, but it’s in both our interests for him to keep a lower profile. If someone ever sees him dressed like this, he’s going to cause a riot.

  Still, he says nothing. “Are you going to say anything? Or are you just here to annoy me?”

  “No warnings,” he finally says. “I wanted to speak with you. Since you’re rarely away from that human these days, I took advantage of your solitude.”

  I don’t like the way he emphasizes the fact that I’m alone out here, but I let it go. Thanatos is weird, but he’s not dangerous.

  “Well, what is it?” I ask, guiding him off the main trail and into a grove of trees so some poor jogger won’t see him in his current state of undress.

  “I want to ask you to marry me.”

  I think for a second that a bus must have run through the forest and nailed me. My breath whooshes out, and I can’t say anything. But, no, the trees are still standing so it wasn’t a bus. Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn’t this. I brace my hand on a nearby tree for support.

  “Excuse me?” I finally manage to wheeze out.

  Even when we were dating, Thanatos never came close to proposing. Things were never that intense—or long lasting—between us. Well, at least not romantically intense. Anger is an intense emotion, but it’s not the same as love.

  “I know I was a real asshole when we dated, but it wasn’t because I didn’t care for you.”

  “What was it then? A genetic predisposition to being a jerk? You just couldn’t help yourself?”

  “I was young and new to the job of ferrying souls. Zeus told me once that you and I were made for each other, that his plan was for us to marry and rule the world of death together, maybe even overthrow Hades. It sounded like a good deal. He made it seem like all I had to do was approach you, and everything would fall into place. I never tried very hard with you, and I should have.”

  Ah-ha. Now it all makes sense. I’ve always wondered what possessed Thanatos to try to date anyone, let alone me, given how much contempt he has for both gods and mortals. Now I know that it was more of Zeus’ meddling.

  Zeus has always had a fractured relationship with his brother, Hades, and he saw his chance to depose him as the ruler of the Underworld and replace him with Thanatos and me. Zeus saw us as more malleable than Hades, and easier to control. Thanatos saw me as his chance to gain a little power of his own, something he’d always craved. It must have put a serious dent in both their plans when I dumped Thanatos.

  The thought of all this scheming going on behind my back makes me furious. Bad enough to make me the Death Fate, but to try to force me into an arranged marriage? Wow. I don’t mention my anger to Thanatos. I’ll keep that to myself for now until I can take it out on the proper person—Zeus.

  “Look, thanks for the apology and everything, but you and I never got on well together. Remember how it ended?”

  “Of course. You nearly ran me through with that barbaric sword of yours when you caught me trying to enter your workroom. I only wanted to see it, you know, to see what the woman I loved did all day.”

  I’d never believed that he only wanted to see my workroom. That distrust was a small part of the huge gulf between us. I’d always suspected that he was more loyal to his sisters, the Keres, than to me, and that he wanted to find a way to make me feed them. Breaking into my room only proved the point, in my eyes. Maybe he did only want to see what I did, but a curious person would ask, not engage in B&E.

  Of course, now I knew the other side of the story. Not only was he working for his sisters, he was working with Zeus, too. Had he succeeded in marrying me, he could have controlled the Underworld and had significant influence over death and me. I’m sure he thought that f
amily loyalty would have swayed me to feed his sisters more often. Frankly, the thought of having the Keres as in-laws makes me ill.

  “You forget that you started it when you wrestled me to the floor and tried to choke me when I screamed at you because you’d damaged my beautiful door with your inept lock picking attempt,” I say. “These are not the actions of two people who are meant, in any way, to be married, Thanatos.”

  “Be that as it may,” he says, “I’ve never given up wanting you.”

  What he wants is my power and my ties to Zeus and Hades, but I don’t say that.

  “You and I are alike, Atropos,” he continues. “Well, we were until you started hanging out with that human boy. Now it seems that you prefer humans over gods, which is a mistake on every level. We’re superior to them. They need us, not the other way around.” He shakes his head like a teacher who’s disappointed in his star pupil.

  I snort. “This isn’t about your feelings for me. This is about power and jealousy. You want my power, but more than that, you can’t stand that I don’t want you. You don’t love me; you just don’t want anyone else to have me.”

  He opens his mouth to protest, but I hold up a finger and keep going.

  “I don’t give a crap whether Alex is human or not. I’m not on some pro-human crusade, and most of them still annoy me to no end. But whether I like humans or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you and I tried to be together, and we failed. I’m not going to try again.”

  “What if I’ve changed? What if I know that it was a mistake to go along with Zeus, and I only want you for you?”

  “Then great for you. The more immune you are to Zeus’ meddling, the better off you’ll be. That’s a lesson I’m learning the hard way. But I don’t think you’re telling me the truth. I think you want something from me, and it isn’t love. So let’s both just go back to work and forget this conversation.”

  His eyebrows lower and his mouth turns down. He’s getting pissed off. He really thought that if he just asked me to marry him, that I’d say yes. He didn’t plan for rejection. Arrogant jerk.

  “Look,” I say, trying to diffuse his anger. “I appreciate your coming here and talking to me. It’s good to clear up some things from the past. But it doesn’t change the fact that I just don’t want you. You only wooed me then because Zeus told you to. You’re only proposing now because you can’t stand that Alex is in my life. You don’t really want me.”

  “I did. I do,” he says.

  “Okay, whatever,” I say. Since reason isn’t working, I turn to leave. I know from experience that once he digs in on a position, leaving is the only course of action unless I want a fight.

  He grabs my arm and jerks me back to him.

  “Ow, damn it,” I say. “Let go.”

  “Not until you listen.”

  “I did listen. You just didn’t like what I had to say.”

  “You’ll be sorry if you don’t marry me.”

  “I’d be sorrier if I did,” I say.

  I know I’ve gone too far the second after the words leave my mouth. I’ve triggered the same instability that had him choking me on the floor all those years ago. He shoves me up against the nearest tree and holds me there, both of his hands digging into my biceps.

  Strangely, I’m not afraid of him. Here is a fight I can win. Maybe I picked it with him just so I could fight something tangible for a change.

  “I wish I could kill you,” he says. “Damn immortality.”

  “Not helping your case,” I chide. “Marriage proposals don’t usually include death threats. And can you imagine what Zeus will say if you maim his daughter?” I shake my head. “So much for ruling the Underworld.”

  He slaps me so hard that I feel the skin of my cheek split over the bone. I taste my own blood as it drips into my mouth. Before I can react to that, he pulls back and slaps me again. This time, his hand hits the side of my eye and I know I’m going to have a black eye to go with the cut on my cheek.

  “Well, that’s enough of that,” I say.

  I bring my knee up into his groin, ridiculously unprotected in the loincloth, and jab my elbow into his windpipe. When he jumps back, I tug my sword pendant from around my neck. I rub it against my bleeding cheek, and it extends to its full length.

  Thanatos backs away and I advance on him, claymore held high. I see a hint of fear in his eyes, and it makes me happy. I can’t kill him, but I can hurt him. And I really want to hurt him. It’s a little scary how much. I take a couple of experimental swings, taking pleasure in the whimper that escapes from his lips.

  “You need to leave right now,” I say.

  “And if I don’t?”

  Before he can even defend himself, I lunge forward and cut two slices across his torso. Not deep enough to seriously wound him, but enough to cause him some pain.

  “Well, there’s that,” I say, advancing on him again.

  “You’re making a mistake,” he says, hands up in surrender.

  “No. The mistake would have been to believe anything you said here today. Now, go. Or I will run you through this time. I’m much more proficient with my sword than I was the last time. I won’t miss.”

  He glares at me, trying to save some pride, and I glare right back. Finally, he vanishes as silently as he appeared. I wait in the woods for the better part of an hour to make sure he’s really gone before I return my sword to its original size and head back to the main trail.