We Will Change Our Stars: Seers and Demigods Book 2

by Nicole Thorn

  I’d woken up that morning to pleasantness. That lasted only about three seconds before I realized why I woke up. Jasmine left chocolate on my bed, and I had a moment of actual happiness before it faded away. Then I found her like this, and I couldn’t remember what happy felt like. Strange how much one’s peace could rely on another person. I think this is what soulmate meant. Two people so connected that a tug from one could alter the other. They could only both be at peace, or both be at unrest.

  “I’m bringing you upstairs, baby,” I told Jasmine. She didn’t protest, so I lifted her up in my arms, and I started carrying her back inside.

  I ignored the bodies I passed, including my sister and hers. I didn’t care enough at the moment to wonder why Kizzy didn’t stay Jasper’s hip. It didn’t matter right then.

  I brought Jasmine to my bedroom and placed her on her side, because she had a spot, and I couldn’t deny it. Everything mine belonged to her too, and I didn’t want it any other way.

  “Thank you for the chocolate,” I said with a forced smile, hoping it would chipper her up.

  “You liked it?” Her eyes went a little wider as she stared up at me.

  I nodded. “Of course. My brother is Eros. It’s a family thing to like romantic chocolate gifts.”

  She got a hopeful look, and I would sadden me to smother it. “Romantic?” she asked. “So, you accept my romantic gesture?”

  My arms crossed over my chest. “We talked about this.”

  She smiled, and nodded. “We did, and you also let me play with your special adult area while you went to town on me.”

  I smirked. “Jasmine, you’ve yet to have me go to town on you. That was nothing.”

  Okay, that was cruel. A tease . . . So why did her reaction please me so much? Why did I want to keep playing with her, going back and forth when I knew we shouldn’t have been doing that? I didn’t know, but I still wanted her to bat it back to me.

  We used to be so easy together, before everything felt so hard. Before I noticed that she drank just a little too much and a little too often. Before I could feel how wrong her insides were, and the insides of her siblings. Back when I just thought that me and Kizzy had been a little off. Then I started seeing that it consisted of so much more than just my family. So much more pain existed in the world that I ever stopped to realize. It weighed on me, and it felt like I couldn’t breathe sometimes. When I forgot how to, I could look at Jasmine, and remember. Odd thing was that she could make everything feel so much better, and so much worse for me.

  I ignored the pain, and I watched with glee as Jasmine’s jaw dropped open and her eyebrow rose in intrigue. “That . . . wasn’t anything?”

  I shook my head, smiling with what probably looked like a smug one. Because it was totally a smug one. God, the things I wanted to do to Jasmine would make her scream. She’d never forget it. I was good, and I knew it. I wanted her to know it too.

  “Nope,” I said. “Stay here.”

  I left Jasmine to go shower, because she needed to be somewhere she felt safe, and I still needed to get ready for the day.

  It wasn’t until I turned the shower on and went to brush my teeth while it warmed up, that I saw it. Right on my cheek, sat a perfect little kiss made of lipstick. Jasmine must have done it while I slept. Damn . . .

  This would be . . . difficult. We wanted each other, and only I knew how bad an idea that would’ve been. Two unstable people together? Not great in the odds. Jasper and Kizzy worked it out, but they had a better grip on themselves than Jasmine and I did.

  I hoped and dreaded Jasmine would lose interest in me soon. We just went at it, so of course she focused on that. In a week, she may not have cared as much.

  Not true, a voice in my head poked at me. I felt what she felt, and it wasn’t all lust. A lot more, and it wouldn’t fade all that soon. She would keep trying for it, and I would have to say no. One of us needed to be strong enough to do the right thing, even when the wrong thing seemed far more appealing.

  And how appealing it would be to wake up with her every morning. To have Jasmine go to sleep in my arms at night, and to wake up with her still there. I wanted to share my life with her. I just had to make sure we were both right in the head first.

  I left the lipstick on my face, deciding the shower could take care of it. I didn’t want to rub it off. The hot water melted it away, but I still liked to think I could feel where she kissed me.

  I walked back into my room in fresh clothes; a pair of jeans and a shirt. Nothing special about it, but Jasmine still looked me up and down while I joined her on the bed. She sat up, dainty in her movements, getting her legs folded under her.

  “Something up?” I asked.

  Jasmine twitched her shoulders. “I haven’t heard from Callie since the gorgon attacked. Do you think we should go and check on her?”

  I figured the girl was fine, or we would have heard about it, but better safe than sorry. It also seemed like a good idea to get Jasmine out of the house for a little while. It looked like a fairly decent day outside, and she could use a little sun in her life.

  “Yeah,” I tugged Jasmine’s hand, and we got off the bed.

  I got an idea, and smirked as I stopped in front of her. Without warning, I picked Jasmine up, and tossed her in the air. She giggled when I caught her, and then I moved her so that she could have a proper piggyback ride. It had been too long, and I missed it.

  With Jasmine attached to my back, I charged through the house like a crazy person. I jumped with a quarter of the stairs left, landing safely on the bottom floor. Every time Jasmine made a happy sound, I felt victorious. She grinned when I put her in the car.

  “GET ME OUT OF HERE, GARY!” a woman screamed.

  Jasmine and I both looked up, and then to each other. I stood next to her, on the sidewalk while she buckled up. Her door hung open, and my hand went to it, ready to slam it shut and go kill something if it tried to hurt her.

  That wouldn’t be a problem.

  The screaming woman ran out of the house a couple of doors down. I couldn’t make out any of her features, but I saw that she could book it like a pro. She got halfway down the other side of the street when a man came out of the house, appearing more worried for his girl than about whatever made her run. He called after her before he looked in either direction.

  I pointed. “She went thataway!”

  “Thanks!” He took off after the woman, yelling her name.

  Jasmine breathed out of her nose, smirking at the house. “I don’t think that guy selling it really wants it sold.”

  I laughed, and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I think you’re right. My brother has done better.”

  She looked at me with curiosity. “What does your brother have to do with it?”

  “GET OVER IT!” Eros shouted as he came out of the house. He faced the running couple. “LOTS OF HOUSES HAVE LEAD PAINT AND THE OCCASIONAL ROACH!”

  Eros was chuckling when he turned and spotted us. He waved and I waved back, prompting him to jog up to us. When Jasmine sat up straighter and my brother smiled in response, I moved closer to her side.

  Don’t. Look. At. My. Girl.

  “Eros.” I nodded, greeting him with a hostile tone that made him smirk.

  Jasmine gasped. “OH! Eros, nice to meet you.” She leaned forward, and stuck her hand right through the open window in the open door, and at my brother. “I’m Jasmine.”

  He took her hand, kissed it, and smiled as he bowed. “Yeah, I have heard all about you, my dear.”

  Jasmine’s eyes bugged out when she got her hand back. “You . . . you have?”

  “Yup. Mom told me about all this stuff that happened with you guys. Fucking furies.” He shook his head.

  When Jasmine wouldn’t stop staring, I decided that I needed to get her out of there. I didn’t need her drooling all over my brother. The fucking king of love where my mom was the reigning queen. I didn’t want to lose any of Jasmine’s affections to him, as crazy as it sounded.<
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  I closed her door, and she jumped when it took her attention. “Well.” I smiled. “We have to get going. Lots to do today.” I patted my brother on the back. “Enjoy terrorizing humans.”

  “I will!” he said as I went around my car, and approached the door.

  I got in, buckled up before I turned the thing on, and I saw my brother waving obnoxiously at us. I rolled my eyes, and started driving while Jasmine happily waved back at him.

  Well that is not something I’m pleased with. Jasmine reacted like a normal human would when meeting a god. She always seemed excited and in awe. Which I didn’t care about until she did it for my brother, who could be kind of a dick sometimes. I doubted he would snake Jasmine out from under me, but I didn’t like him knowing she existed. She wasn’t mine, but she was mine. Mine and no one else’s. I didn’t want eyes on her, and I didn’t want her wanting eyes on her.

  I am fucking crazy . . .

  We made the drive in utter silence, and I didn’t want things to go that way. I hoped for something lighter, since she’d had such a bad day, and I still wanted to murder her father. I thought that we would make the day a little lighter. I wished I hadn’t been so wrong.

  Jasmine didn’t seem to notice anything up when I opened her car door. I picked her up by the waist, because I still felt cuddly with her. I always would be. But I wanted to take something for myself today. So she went on my back, and I marched her to the door.

  I let her ring the bell, leaning her forward. She buzzed it to the Harry Potter theme.

  Soon, a puny woman opened the door. Her hair was bright orange and in a bob. I had to look directly down to see her, but she looked at me with a smile.

  “Can I help you kids?” she asked.

  She couldn’t have been anyone but Callie’s mother, so I figured she would know us when we told her. She proved me right. Callie mentioned all of us, not leaving out that we were demigods and seers.

  “She’s got an imagination,” the woman said. “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem,” Jasmine said as I walked her into the house. “I like that in a person. Keeps life fun.”

  I walked up to Callie’s room with Jasmine, and my girl stayed attached to me the entire time. Why walk when you had a moose to ride? Plus, she got all snuggly at my neck and I liked it. Her arms wrapped around me, and she had her nose on my shoulder. She felt extra warm, and I dreaded when I had to put her down again.

  When Callie invited us into her room, I may have actually gasped. It looked almost the same as before, only now she had thousands of post-its all over the walls. Like . . . literally thousands. They ranged from every color I’d ever seen, and they all had scribbles on them. Mostly in Greek.

  “Whoa,” Jasmine whispered.

  Callie left the door she opened, and went to her desk to sit down. She put her nose to the paper, and started scratching out something.

  “Honey,” I said, taking a couple of steps further in, and looking around. “What’s going on?”

  Callie didn’t look up. “Something’s happening,” she said. “I can hear it, and I can feel something.” Her eyes closed, and she groaned as she put her hands through her hair. Finally, Callie turned her head to us. “It’s all a mess, but it’s big. Something . . . something is really wrong. I feel like it’s on the tip of my tongue, and I just can’t figure it out.”

  Jasmine hopped off of me, and onto the floor. She walked up to the wall, and squinted at the notes in Greek. “You can feel it?”

  Callie nodded, resting her head on her hand, and her elbow on her thigh. “It feels really, really bad, Jasmine. Like . . . ” She looked up with just her eyes. “It feels like darkness. Like that feeling you get when you’re walking down the stairs at night, and you miss a step. When your foot falls through the air. The step was always there, but you still feel all messed up when you forget. I feel sick and frightened, but I don’t know why . . . ” Her voice turned desperate and she blinked. “I don’t like feeling helpless.”

  Jasmine had familiar pain in her eyes when she looked at the girl. “You’ll figure it out, Callie. I know you will.”

  She nodded. “Me too. It’s not the if that I worry about. It’s when. It’s knowing what this warning is, and having to feel that sickness in me when I do.”

  I started looking over the notes, trying to see something she might have been missing. If she had her eyes on them for too long, it could have muddled things up. That, and the fact that she always had random voices in her head, making her go crazy. I didn’t have a clue why the gods thought it had been a good idea to put this all on someone so young. It would’ve been too much for anyone.

  Nothing in the notes sounded coherent, and I couldn’t make out a thing no matter how hard I tried. Jasmine too, as she ran around the room, rearranging them like she worked on a puzzle. She seemed convinced that they fit together, if only she could find the right order.

  “It’s getting louder,” Callie said. “Someone up there is scared. They want me to hear, but something is blocking me from anything coming out clear.”

  Jasmine turned around to look at us. “Yeah, not only you, Callie.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Huh?”

  She told me that Jasper had triggered a vision, and it had been all messed up. He couldn’t see the face of the driver that hit me and almost killed Callie. It didn’t surprise me, but I felt annoyed that something could go into the seer’s and fuck with them like that. We needed every advantage that we could get, and Jasmine already had issues with her visions. She had to drink them away.

  “This isn’t good,” Callie said, standing up to begin pacing her room. She looked at her notes, and I saw the wheels turn in her head. “I don’t know what is powerful enough to make everything so blurry for us. It gives us blind spots where we shouldn’t have them. It could mean our deaths.”

  Speaking of . . . “Have you been okay?” I asked. “Has anyone tried to hurt you since the car?”

  “No,” she sighed. “I try not to leave the house unless I have to. Too many whispers. I have to be here with my notes in case something starts to come through. It feels soon,” she said. “It feels like they want me to know so badly that it’s cracking the dam. Soon, everything is going to break.”

  Jasmine had a post-it in either hand, and she studied them. Her eyes narrowed at them in scrutiny, and she looked up at Callie. “Look and you shall see,” she read. “The fractures are growing as the world prepares to split. Ashes, ashes, they’ll all fall down.” Her eyes went to the paper again. “I don’t understand this last one. It’s all weird.”

  I took it from her, and studied the Greek letters. I’d been brushing up on my own, to fill some of my free time. “Three little eyes all ripped to pieces, and then the three mountains will crumble.” I made a sound, and I clicked my tongue. “Three and three? Or are the first three also the second three?”

  Callie shook her head. “No. Six. There are six altogether. I don’t understand why they said that, because they’re wrong.”

  “How?” Jasmine asked. “How do you know?”

  She shrugged. “Well, because there are only five of you.”

  My stomach dropped, and I couldn’t speak. Five of us . . . she thought . . .

  “What?” Jasmine asked, her chest pumping. “What are you saying, Callie?”

  But she knew. And I knew.

  It sounded so simple when it came out of her mouth. “This thing, the whispers I’m hearing. They’re about you. The demigods and seers.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

  Mistakes Were Made, and If I’m Lucky, will be Again

  Jasmine

  “Why?” I asked. “Why is everything so interested in us now? We aren’t that interesting. I’m pretty sure Juniper didn’t even leave the house last week, and Jasper just goes to the grocery store. It hardly seems fair that they ignore us for most of our lives, and then all of the sudden, everyone is trying to kill us.”

  Zander opened my door for me, and I plopped
down into the passenger’s seat, still pouting. “You don’t know that someone else is trying to kill us,” he said, but not like he had any actual hope of that being true. I gave him a dry look so that he knew he had not fooled me.

  He came around the hood of the car, and climbed into the driver’s seat. I was still giving him my dry look when I buckled up. “All right, so the odds aren’t necessarily in our favor on that one, but why would someone want to kill us? It’s not you or your siblings have visions about important stuff most of the time, or like Kizzy and I do anything but sit around and eat junk food, and think about naked Nelsons.”

  “First of all,” I said. “I’m flattered. Second of all, gross. I don’t want to think about Kizzy thinking about Jasper naked. That’s my brother, you perv.”

  He laughed, and rubbed his eyebrow. “Believe me, I don’t want to think about it either. That’s my sister. Your brother is lucky that I haven’t beaten him up for how he stares at her all the time. It’s like they have no self-respect or something.” He stared out the windshield, looking horrified about something. I didn’t ask, because I worried that he might tell me.

  “Should we tell Callie to stop revealing our big secret to everyone?” I asked as he put the car into drive. My cheek still stung, and I eyed the visor. Would he notice if I tried to check out the damage? I was almost positive that he knew I lied about it being nothing. He couldn’t have seen Dad hit me, because Dad still lived, but Zander was perceptive like that.

  The bastard.

  “I don’t think it’d do any good. It’s not like anyone will believe her anyway,” he said. “If it gets to be a problem, someone will come down to talk to her anyway. Probably Mom or Eros, since they can . . . Persuade her better.” His tone turned sour on that last sentence.

  “You mean like how you Charm people?”

  “Gorgons not included,” he said.