by Elena Monroe
Humanity.
Hormones.
The parts of me Zeus envied, while I hated them.
Feelings that didn’t serve me.
I never believed in love before Arianna, before being told how much of an honor it would be to be chosen to marry Zeus’s daughter.
It wasn’t shocking; my father, Ares, fell for a human, cursing me to being only half god.
Demigod.
Zeus never gave her permission to enter Olympus where I was raised, forcing my dad to sneak off any chance he could see my mom. I never experienced an easy kind of love, and it was no surprise that my fate was the same kind of hardship.
Arranged.
Hateful.
Real.
It was the hate for each other that bred something else.
It was dormant until she appeared at Arcadia Prep with all the same traits I hated on my beloved, making me hate her just as much. She grew on me the same way, and I knew my heart wouldn’t ever betray me. The punishment would be turning it off forever.
No, my heart knew Arianna had to be the girl that always ran away, and I chased after her every time.
My thumb cleared the moisture from her exposed cheek as she whispered into the material she was still holding on to with a death grip. “This is stupid. He’s not even my real dad.”
“He’s all you remember right now. Zeus is gone too. There’s enough to be upset about without it being stupid.” As soon as I said it, I regretted reminding her that her real father was dead.
“How can gods die? Caellum said he was looking for the ‘God Killer’.”
She was swallowing stray tears and shaking against me less, but her mouth was still upside down—a more consolable version of herself. Smoothing down her hair, I told her, “That’s only a myth…”
She looked at me displeased and too tired to beg for information. “Henry Jon started the collective that hunts us down, forges weapons from crumbs we leave behind, hates us for taking his daughter’s life. Supposedly he passed down the anger and knowledge. I haven’t heard or seen of them, but Caellum is convinced they’re still out there waiting for us to mess up again.”
“But you’ve killed people hoping they were the Sagittarius…”
“My point exactly. Those lives didn’t matter? Legends always die young and live on in rumors.”
Her voice was so small and quiet it sounded more like a whimper, “I have the husk. I found it…”
Sitting up quickly, I looked down at her in shock. Her hand pushed off my chest enough to make eye contact. “I found it in the woods in a box. Henry Jon hid it far away from the book to keep it safe.”
Sometimes legends are true. The hard part is never knowing unless you test legends against reality and see which one wins.
“Where is it?”
“In my bag.” Her casual tone made it easy for me to land on the conclusion she really didn’t know what kind of dynamite she was holding.
The one way to kill gods was stashed at the bottom of her dirty backpack.
“Don’t tell anyone you have this,” I said, trying to be as grave as possible. Every other tone was a motivation to defy someone’s wishes.
The next morning, I felt like I was on a stopwatch, waiting for the dance tonight. Every hour, minute, second… all were accounted for. Each one pushed the anxiety over my tight muscles to contemplate worst case scenarios.
Ari was still asleep, holding my pillow tightly against her as soon as I snuck out of bed this morning. I had some pent up humanity poisoning my ability to listen to common sense, so I went for a run in the forest. It was the only place other than campus that we could freely roam.
Having this curse lifted was either going to set my soul on fire or free of all the bullshit.
Nothing was absolute.
With my headphones pushed into my ears, I got into a rhythm of my sneakers pounding into small rocks, dead leaves, and sticks cracking. I almost hit the edge of the woods when I swore I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye moving swiftly between trees. I slowed down my pace trying to be less obvious that I noticed anything at all.
Sweeping the woods, around the barren tall trees, I saw the same shadow. Following me? Stalking me like prey? Assassinating the king? Divine intervention?
I slowed down my pace to a halt once I entered the clearing close to where the ritual would take place tonight when I shouted, “What do you want?”
Jasper came around a tree trunk with a sly grin on his face, “Scoping it out for tonight. Is the King of Arcadia Prep scared?”
He always hated me, even in Olympus. Why would high school be any different? This was the perfect place to let his hate run thick and wide for me, and then chalk it up to hormones.
Fingering my earbuds out of my ears, I pretended to not hear his insult. “That’s not weird at all. Stay out of trouble. I’m not saving anyone today.”
His mom was Persephone, not royal, more like royally fucked.
Hades, Nyx’s dad, kidnapped her and drug her to the underworld to be his wife. Somehow that makes them step-brothers, but not ones that gave a shit. They stayed clear of each other most of the time.
Here he was equal and ultimately more powerful than back home. He had felt the surge of more power once Arianna got here, and you could see it on his permanent grin. He wasn’t going to relinquish that high any time soon.
Pushing the music back into my ears, I prepared to quicken my pace, glaring at him and wondering why he was really in the woods this early. There wasn’t one truthful bone in Jasper’s body.
As soon as my sneakers hit the pavement of the sidewalk bordering the edge of the woods like a cage, I still didn’t feel like I had left Jasper’s dubious behavior behind. His sly smile and dangerous grin were haunting me.
I fished the phone out of my pocket to text Nyx and Caellum in a group message. I couldn’t be bothered to text them separately about the same thing.
Jasper was in the woods sneaking around. Need any more proof?
We all had different opinions when it came to making someone the villain. Jasper checked all the boxes: motive, opportunity, enough hate to fuel any bad intentions.
My smaller circle of trust was harder to convince to see it that way. Caellum was watching the twins closely, and Nyx had his sight set on Alba. All of us watching someone different just meant nothing should slip past us.
The feeling coating my stomach knew something bad was coming. I could feel the tension in the air, Ari’s memories coming back, the Harvest at our feet, and the ritual that was supposed to take us home already feeling like a failure before we even tried.
I slipped my phone back in my gym shorts and jogged back to my room where I left Arianna sleeping.
She was in the exact position she was in when I left. Not wanting to wake her, I set an alarm for 10 minutes and headed for the showers. We didn’t have bathrooms in the rooms in this dorm. We had community-style bathrooms with no shower curtains or privacy. We didn’t much care; we were all proud.
As soon as I stepped into the hallway, I pulled the door slowly behind me, hoping it would close without that annoying creek my door possessed.
When I looked up, I saw Luna clutching her white tennis shoes to her chest, doing the same thing I was: carefully closing the door and trying not to be seen.
“Luna?” I whisper-shouted in her direction.
I startled her, and her whole body twisted my direction suddenly. The grip on her shoes tightened, and her cheeks flushed to a bright red, like I had caught her stealing.
Technically, she was. Nyx wasn’t aware he truly had a heart, and she was hijacking it without him realizing it.
“You didn’t see me. I’ve gotta get ready for class.” Her small, carefully quiet footsteps turned to tip toeing, like she knew the floor in front of my door was home to the creeks.
Had seen done this before? She was gracefully professional at sneaking—something you’d never expect from her.
Shaking my head, my eye
brows raised, and smirking, I let her slip by me without interrogation, heading down the hallway to the bathrooms.
The bathroom was dark. A few light bulbs were out here and there, but none of us were complaining after Caellum’s drunk ass ripped down the curtains when he still went here. They never did get replaced.
Standing under the shower spray, the steam engulfed me, and I let it burn my lungs, pushing a cough up my throat. The temperature of the shower wasn’t going to wash away anything like modern poetry claimed. I was going to emerge the same man who stripped down and rinsed off the sweat.
Nyx strutted in casually, unknowing that I just saw Luna sneak out of his room at 7:30 a.m. I was drawing conclusions and not caring how accurate they were, especially when the chances of them studying or talking was slim.
“What was Jasper doing out there?” I watched him take the shower stall next to me, shouting over the pounding rain of shower head.
“Being a fucking creep. I think he was following me.” I pumped the soap into the palm of my hand before lathering up.
“I saw him in the library last week in the off limit stacks. You think he’s looking for the God Killer too?”
Too? Had he been talking to Caellum?
He was the only one I knew who was actively looking for weapons. It was still up for debate why he needed a weapon to kill gods. My boycotting of the ritual was so no one died, no one got hurt, and there were no repercussions for our actions if we didn’t act at all.
“What would he need that for? All the gods are dead; it’s just us now.”
His head peeked over the wall dividing the shower stalls. “Exactly. He hates Olympus and, better yet, hates you.”
Letting all the soap run down my abs, I spoke candidly, completely trusting him with every word. “If he sabotages the ritual, has any plan to hurt Ari, I won’t hesitate to kill him.”
“I can be okay with that.”
His loyalty didn’t go unnoticed. I grabbed the towel swung over the same divider and wrapped it around my waist when I saw Ari leaning against the sink. “Bolton?”
Startling me, I made sure the towel covered what I needed it to, not that she hadn’t seen everything already, but no one wanted to be naked and afraid at the same time. “What are you doing in here? It’s a guys’ bathroom...”
Looking towards Nyx, naked and not the least bit caring, I barked, “Hallway now.”
“I remembered something. Well, not their face, but the conversation I overheard.”
Waving my hand for her to continue, I waited for more to go on in my towel in the hallway.
“The twins, I overheard them plotting to leave Olympus before I ran away. Do you think they don’t wanna leave Arcadia Prep?”
Folding my arms against my bare chest, I contemplated her memory. Cheyanne would never betray me. She always had a small crush on me, and I knew it motivated her loyalty. I couldn’t get Jasper’s behavior lately out of my head. He was acting out, being weird, and pissing me off enough to make me think he was the problem, and not the twins.
“What else do you remember?”
“Just hearing them talk about how awful it was up there. How much they hated everyone in charge, how little they mattered, how much better life would be on Earth for them. It’s like a memory, but I don’t have the beginning or ending, just the middle, that doesn’t make sense without bookends.”
“Nothing changes. No suspect behavior. We don’t have any evidence, and I don’t want to spook anyone.”
She looked down at her phone, smiling, “Easy. Kate and Luna are kidnapping me to go into town for dresses.”
Harvest had started. It was here enough to lift the barrier on campus. We were no longer trapped, at least for now. Harvest only lasts 28 hours, while the moons shifted and the stars prepared for winter.
“Keep your phone on, Ari. I mean it.”
Biting her lip, she tilted her chin up, hoping I’d conquer the distance and plant a kiss on her lips. I wanted to keep it interesting by not ever giving her what she wanted.
Her fingertips settled on my towel, leaning further into me. “You were looking amazing in there…”
“Compared to when else exactly? It sounds like you’re comparing.” My hand was on her shoulder, as she stood on her tiptoes and finally reached my lips. Mint lip gloss to match her frosty sarcasm.
Slapping her hand to my bare chest, I forced my shoulders straight, not caving in to the lashing. “You know I don’t have a lot of memories yet!”
Pushing my lips down to hers again, I let my tongue explore her mouth. Warm and wet—the exact equation to summon my dick to action.
I pulled away only to kiss her exposed neck. “You better run away if you don’t plan on opening those legs.”
Arianna
I changed so quickly I was convinced my underwear were on backwards. The tag wasn’t itching against my skin like it normally did, which aggravated me more than them actually being backwards.
Change was the enemy. No matter how annoying that tag was, I was used to it.
I was used to a lot of things that felt a lot like lies now instead of the truth I once knew.
The girls were waiting in front, giggling and talking to themselves, when I sauntered over to them. “So now we can talk about it right?”
Kate purposely bumped into me casually. “The powers?” She laughed like it was the most out of this world idea to ever exist. Normally I would agree, but my gold veins and tingling in my hands proved me wrong.
Luna took pity on me, with her eyes full of empathy and wisdom all at the same time. “It’s not always like what you can do. We just think about something, wish it true enough, and it happens.” She touched my hands, staring into me, like I was a blackhole of depth and wonderment.
I couldn’t describe the warmth her hands held or how comforting it felt to stare into her eyes. Something inside me knew everything would be okay. Every unshed tear left behind my eyes, building up strength to threaten my strength again, felt like they had dried up. She slowly let go of my hands, I paused, staring in the same wonderment she did a second ago.
“What just happened?”
Her bright smile took over her face. “Comfort. It’s no lightning, but I can take pain away.”
“It’s not always so extreme like Miss-Fix-It over here,” Kate cut in with a chip on her shoulder.
I could easily sense how much she hated all of this: the power, being unique, being a god above men. As much as this school fell at her feet and moved out of her way when she came down the hallway, in this moment, she seemed to hate every part of the royalty coursing through her veins.
“She can be Miss-Fix-It, so what’s yours?”
“Today is about normal, mundane things, Arianna. We are on a mission to find the perfect dresses.” Her eyes lit up, like someone just offered her the one thing she always wanted: normalcy.
I roped my arms through their arms, clutching on and walking us all forward together. “Normal day it is. We’ll have plenty of time to talk magic.”
Luna’s mouth turned down, like she had sucked all the sadness from Kate and saw it as it really was—ugly discomfort she wore underneath it all. I hugged their limp arms tighter, when we got to the end of the long driveway and a black town car pulled up. I wondered if we had incredible timing or if we had believed enough that today would be normal that we summoned a car to fulfill our wishes.
I had been here for months, this purgatory, and I hadn’t even ventured off campus. The thrill seeking side of me was disappointed in myself.
Bolton could not be all the adventure I’d ever need. He was a handful, but he wasn’t going to trap my wanderous heart.
Kate sat up front, comfortably. Squishing in wasn’t her strong suit, and being suffocated wasn't mine. She turned back and asked, “You aren’t thinking black, right?”
Her eyes were wide and mouth tight, like it was the worst idea she had ever heard of, even though I hadn’t mentioned any illusions to this shopping day
.
“No…? Wait… What’s wrong with black?” I tried to placate her before I realized I was corning myself into some hideous color I really wouldn’t want to wear.
I wasn’t a fan of shopping. The multiple stores, the idea that everything is going to look exactly how its advertised, the bags, the trying on each thing, while you painfully stumble through finding the perfect piece of fabric.
Not for me.
I was happy with a coffee cup, my old Doc Martens, and the school-required uniform. Before Arcadia, I pretty much threw my beat up jean jacket over everything and prayed no one noticed I was re-wearing clothes just to avoid the mall.
Aunt D was always hellbent on converting me, begging me to go with her, until I broke. I stayed in the main aisles, never getting lost in the racks.
The streets were covered in dead leaves, and the grass peeked through as we drove past houses that looked almost too perfect. I didn’t see anyone outside—no signs of life. It was eerie.
Where was everyone? What kind of town did Arcadia sit at the helm of?
Looking out the window and ignoring the discussion of Nyx and Luna, I searched every street we passed for life—any kind of life. Even a fucking squirrel would make me feel better.
“You okay?” Luna’s soft voice wasn’t bringing any life to my face, as my chest tightened.
I knew she was going to assume how I felt was directly linked to Nyx. Nothing I could do or say could convince someone that history can be dead instead of repeating itself.
That’s what everyone was afraid of: history repeating itself. Down to me running away probably.
Nyx made it clear that his ties to Luna weren’t my business, and I was okay with being on the outside of them.
Swallowing something other than moisture, my mouth was bone dry; this must have been the panic I did well in avoiding until Arcadia. “Where are all the people?”
She shrugged, like she had never noticed before and couldn’t be bothered to care. The one who could take feelings away wasn’t doing that in this moment. I was a ball of panic, and its grip on my muscles weren't loosening.
“No, seriously… it’s not normal.”
