by Simon Archer
As if tonight hadn’t been wild enough, my rescuer had been the drama teacher herself, Sasha. When I recognized her voice, I stopped thrashing and, instead, let myself be carried away from the battle zone.
Before I knew it, the music and the fighting quieted. The change was so sudden I thought I had been dunked underwater. I could still hear remnants of the party, which meant it was still nearby, but I was no longer in the middle of it all.
Then Sasha removed the blanket from my head, and I saw we were in the kitchen. She sat me down on the floor by one of the stainless-steel fridges and collapsed in a nearby chair. Her face was red, sweat dripping down her pert nose. Sasha pulled out a handkerchief from inside her elaborate robes and dabbed at her lips.
“Well, you certainly know how to liven up a party,” Sasha commented with a chuckle. “Want to tell me what all that was about?”
23
“I have literally no idea,” I replied, barely able to keep my words steady. “They were all on me the minute I walked into the quad.” I gestured out towards the wall, indicating the dance still going on outside. “First, it was Daniella, which wasn’t strange because I’m together with her, but then it was KC, which is super strange, and just no.”
Sasha stood and moved to the door of the kitchen. She stuck her head out of it. A tidal wave of noise rushed through the small crack and blew the drama teacher back, and a combination of blaring music and shouting cut in through everything. Sasha yanked the door closed and doused the room in a muted quiet again.
“Are they still going at it out there?” I said, a quiver I didn’t anticipate coming through in my voice.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear the answer. There was no clear answer as to what was going on, but all I knew was that it was my fault. Maybe not intentionally, but something I did caused this upset. This dance was supposed to be something fun and hyped up and different for the campus. Now it had just devolved into a fighting spree.
People were getting hurt because of me. All of this planning and all of this scheduling and all of this worry was just about to go down the drain. There was no way Aphrodite was going to come now. This was turning into a party for Ares, the god of war, rather than the god of desire.
Sasha rushed away from the door and over to my side.
“Oh, don’t worry about this, my dear,” Sasha cooed. “Everything is going to be okay.”
I hadn’t expected sympathy from her. I thought she would have ranted and raved about this being a complete disaster. How I’d ruined everything. How the world was ending because I’d wrecked the dance. Instead, surprisingly, she was being kind.
“Now, I need you to tell me what they were saying to you,” Sasha said as she lowered her eyes and looked at me expectantly. “I need to know what you were doing when all of this started.”
“That’s the thing!” I exclaimed, sitting up straighter. “They were all using the same words. Just like the Tainted Love infected people do. Except this time instead of ‘We have this connection’ and lovey-dovey stuff, it was ‘ravishing’ and ‘I saw him first.’”
“Well, you certainly unleashed a whole lot of chaos on the place,” Sasha said as she dabbed at her lips again.
“Great,” I said, slumping back against the fridge, defeated. “The Elemental Officials are just going to think the whole Tainted Love thing is my fault all over again.”
“They blamed you originally?” Sasha clarified, with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh yeah.” I nodded vigorously. “Because I’m immune to being infected with Tainted Love.”
“Immune?” Sasha leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, interlacing her fingers.
“Apparently, I’m the only one on campus who has absolutely no traces of the disease,” I informed the drama teacher. “Lucky me.”
“Do you know why you’re immune?” Sasha asked.
I shook my head. “No. All I know is that they found traces of the disease in everyone else, some in smaller doses than others, but I was the only person on campus that they hadn’t found a single trace in.”
Sasha stroked a strand of loose hair. “That is the most interesting part about this whole thing so far.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Don’t you think so?” Sasha said with a cocked head in my direction, her big brown eyes never leaving me. “What makes this son of Hephaestus so special?”
There was an undoubtedly awkward silence, and I simply sat there while Sasha examined me. My expression flattened in surprise, while my eyebrows remained high on my head.
“Other than the fact that I’m a son of Hephaestus and a male demigod, I’m not that special,” I said quietly.
“Surely, that’s not true,” Sasha said as she shook her head. “I bet whoever planted this plague on campus didn’t plan on having an immune party. This was set to infect everyone, disrupt everything. Create mass chaos!” Sasha swept her arms out wide to the side and raised her voice. “But here you are, at the eye of the storm, a mountain against the wind. It’s quite poetic, actually.”
“If you say so,” I said, drawing out each word uneasily.
“But then!” Sasha stood suddenly, with more spring in her step than I expected. “There you are! Suddenly at the center of it all. Causing all of this disruption. We should work on figuring out what makes you so… different,” Sasha said as her nostrils flared.
I closed my eyes for a second longer than I needed to, to recenter myself. “I didn’t do this, you know.”
“I know you didn’t,” Sasha said. She reached down and sat down next to me against the fridge. She took my hand in hers reassuringly. It was surprisingly dry and warm, a comforting gesture. The teacher tapped the top of my hand with her free one. “It was nothing you did on purpose. But something about you did set them off.”
“Okay, look.” I sat up and scooted a little way from Sasha so I could stare at her straight in the face. “I’m not this person. I’m not one to lead people on and just give my affection away all willy nilly. I love my girls but that doesn’t mean I love every girl who shows interest in me. There has to be something seriously wrong. It’s also the same symptoms as being infected with Tainted Love.”
“Or Dumb Love,” Sasha said with an eye roll. “Only an attractive man could make so many women go all stupid like that.” Sasha snapped her fingers, an idea striking her. “An attractive man in an attractive suit.”
The drama teacher flicked a finger at my red undershirt, right around my neck where it showed underneath the black tux.
“A suit?” I said, full of disbelief. “My suit? You can’t be serious. It’s just a suit.”
“Where did you get the suit?” Sasha said sternly.
“You can’t be serious,” I downplayed my annoyance and my doubt. “There’s no way that a suit did this.”
“Well, you said it wasn’t you,” Sasha reasoned, “but it was something about you. What’s changed? What you’re wearing. It only makes sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said, completely baffled. “You’re telling me that a magic suit drove all of these students crazy for me. Like it enhanced their symptoms or something.”
“Where did you get the suit, Cameron?” Sasha redirected the conversation back to her first question. “Did you make it? Did a friend loan it to you?”
Seeing that I wasn’t going to be able to change the subject successfully, I sighed and relented. “I bought it.”
“From where?” Sasha pressed.
“Some boutique in town,” I said with a shrug. “Karen and Jade were with me. There was nothing weird about the suit then.”
“Maybe it’s not the suit then,” Sasha said as she twirled her lock of hair.
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter,” I grumbled. “You heard them out there. They were still fighting. There’s no desire, no love. It’s the last place Aphrodite would want to be right now. The whole thing is ruined, anyway.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” Sasha wa
ved her hand at me, as though she wasn’t worried about the mess I’d created. “Hate is only a coin’s toss away from love. We can still salvage this.”
“How?” I hoisted myself up, using the handle of the fridge to help because the tightness of the suit made it difficult to use my appendages normally. I walked over to the door and stuck my arm out at it. “This whole Tainted Love thing has gotten way out of control.”
“Well, you know what they say,” Sasha smiled. She stood up in one smooth fluid motion.
“What do they say?” I asked, having no idea where Sasha was going with this.
“Oh, yes.” Sasha blinked slightly as if she was regaining her thoughts. Then Sasha spread out her arms and wiggled her fingers, mimicking jazz hands. “The show must go on!”
I listened to her words. I heard her words, but I didn’t understand right away. They made their way through my ears and up to my brain, but I couldn’t get them in the right order. My mouth opened, and I blabbered some incoherent noises. Sasha put her hands together, the sound of the clap jolting me back to reality.
“You’re not saying what I think you’re saying?” I hesitated. “Are you?”
“If you think I’m saying that we need to move forward with the show, right now, then yes, I am,” Sasha said as she rubbed her palms together. Her eyes brightened with excitement. She blazed past me to the door and moved to open it, but I blocked her off.
“Wait, no, we can’t do this,” I said, a new kind of panic kidnapping my stomach. “Not while all this is going on. Plus, we weren’t supposed to start for another hour. I don’t have any of the props or costumes, and it's not like they’re going to pay any attention to us.”
Sasha reached out and grabbed my shoulders, like a swimmer holding on to a life raft. “We will make them pay attention to you. Between you and Hailey, you will light the room on fire.”
The drama teacher moved to the door, but her eyebrows knitted together. “Just not literally. Please don’t literally light anything on fire.”
Before I could utter another word or another rebuttal, Sasha held up a finger to my lips, silencing me. “I’ll get Hailey. You stay here. Don’t leave and get out of that suit before you break any more hearts.”
Then the daughter of Dionysus left me in the empty kitchen. Alone.
I wrapped my hand around the door handle, intent on following her out there and stopping her. But the minute I thought about leaving the safety of the kitchen and going out into the fray, I froze. The feeling of all those hands reaching for me, grabbing for me, made goosebumps rise uncomfortably on the back of my neck. I cracked my neck from side to side for some relief and stepped away from the door.
My hands folded together, palm to palm, and I pressed them against my lips. I focused on my breathing but could only stay with it for a couple of seconds before my mind flew into a fit of nerves.
I hadn’t wanted to do this performance in the first place. Secretly, I had still hoped the dance would go so well, be so charged with sexual energy, that Aphrodite would show up before Hailey and I had to go through with it. But now, it looked like that performance might be the only thing to save this hair-brained scheme.
Not for the first time, I wondered why I was saddled with this responsibility. Somehow, I had found myself at the center of another weird encounter at the Academy. First, it was my relationship with the Eternal Flame and taking down a chimera. Then they dubbed me the creator of the Ultimate Weapon. Kari decided to go rogue and make me take the fall for her betrayal. And now I was somehow the only demigod on campus unaffected by a disease that turned people into whores or jealous freaks.
None of it made any sense. Had I done something in a past life to warrant this kind of responsibility? I was a simple blacksmith. I wasn’t supposed to be fighting monsters or organizing dances. I was supposed to be making weapons for the fighters and trinkets for the dancers. I wondered what had happened to change my role from being on the sidelines to front and center under the spotlight.
Now I was about to be in the literal spotlight, the last place I ever wanted to be.
I released a groan that rattled against the pots hanging from above the island in the center of the kitchen. The stainless steel room seemed cold and lifeless. The immaculate counters shined in the soft glow of the blue safety light near the door.
I rubbed my own arms, seeking any sort of warmth. My hands migrated down to my thighs. When I felt the smooth, black fabric beneath the fingertips, a sudden repulsion welled up in my gut. Quickly, I jerked my hands away and curled them into fists.
There was no real reason for Sasha to be right about the suit. We didn’t know the cause of Tainted Love. While Daniella and her healer colleagues had been searching for a cure, none of us had really thought about the source. How had this disease infected the campus in the first place?
Spurred by a sudden curiosity, I slipped my arms out of my suit. I shimmied out of the slick fabric of my pants and let it fall around my feet. With an unbalanced hop, I stepped out of the center. Now I stood in my black boxers, circling a heap of a red and black suit like it was a snake ready to strike.
My dress shoes clacked against the tile floors. My labored breathing echoed in my own ears. Then a spark of sanity hit me.
Why was I so concerned about a damn suit? It was just a suit. A well-cut piece of fabric that, yes, made my muscles look amazing, but other than that, had no other magical properties.
That you know of, an inner hint of doubt said.
I bit the tip of my thumbnail and narrowed my gaze. I thought back to my time at the dress shop with Karen and Jade. It had been odd that we couldn’t find anything for me. There were suits in my size, but nothing as perfect as the one currently crumpled on the floor. The one that the shopkeeper had picked out for me.
I tapped one heel on the floor, keeping a familiar beat in my head. The shopkeeper had pulled the dress out of nowhere. At the time, I’d just thought she pulled it out of the back or something, but could she have done something to it?
I remembered the long pale face of the woman behind the counter, with her straight black hair and knobby knuckles. I couldn’t remember specific details, like how old she might have been or what she was wearing. But I remembered her eyes, dark and swirling. She had winked at me when I had the suit on. I thought she had been encouraging me, but could I have been mistaken?
As my thoughts rambled on, I noticed that I was tapping out the rhythm of my mom’s silly song. It seemed like an odd time to be thinking of that song. Normally we reserved it for happy moments, cementing the good times in our memories.
Except for when we were at the farmer’s market this summer. That’s when Mom had pulled out that really weird rhyme about the old trick, and the friend, and the infection…
“Holy shit!” I cried. My hands flew to my mouth as if to stuff the curse back into my mouth. My eyes grew wide as the realization hit me.
But there was no way, was there? Could my mom have been singing about this infection? The Love Struck?
I put a hand over my eyes so I could dig back into the recesses of my memories. The tune came to my throat, and I hummed it out, hoping the words would come back to me. Suddenly, as though they were on a teleprompter, the lyrics appeared in my mind’s eye, bright red against the darkness behind my eyelids.
“Oh la de dah de dah de dah, la de dah de dah
Many adventures to come
For you, my son dear.
Like a gross infection
On campus will appear.
A distraction it will be.
Do not fret at all,
Though solve it you must
Or a friend will fall.
Oh la de dah de dah de dah, la de dah de dah
Focus will be taken
By a flash of silk and red.
Follow the steps learned
To stop the violent spread.
Love will stay true
Through the thick and thin.
An old trick gone
rusty
Will be needed to win.
Oh la de dah de dah de dah, la de dah de dah”
I danced about the room as I sang out the lyrics. I repeated them once, twice as I tried to piece out their meaning.
Some voice in the back of my mind kept saying that this was absurd. There was no way my mom could have possibly known about the infection. But there it was in her song, clear as day. She mentioned campus specifically, and how I would need to stop it or else a friend would fall.
While that part bothered me the most out of all the lyrics, the third stanza was the most important at that moment. I had distracted the students with my red silk suit.
“You,” I growled at the fabric, which still hadn’t moved. I pointed a threatening finger at it. “You did this.”
It was the next two lines that I was the most upset with: Follow the steps learned / To stop the violent spread. I knew what it meant, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself.
“Damn it,” I said to myself. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”
Out of nowhere, the door to the kitchen opened. I whirled around, expecting Sasha to be back with the customers. But to my utter surprise, Hailey stood in the doorway, looking as though someone had just slapped her senseless.
I was about to ask her what was wrong when I realized the reason for her dumbfounded expression. I was standing in the middle of the kitchens. In black shiny dress shoes. Nearly naked.
24
We stood there, staring at one another. Hailey’s eyes glued to mine. She was clearly fighting the urge to let her eyes roam, let them take in every naked part of me.
“Well,” she started. The soldier cleared her throat and started again. “When Sasha told me to head to the kitchens right away, this is certainly not what I was expecting.”
“This isn’t what it looks like,” I supplied, even though I knew my words wouldn’t help.
