We Will Heal These Wounds

by Nicole Thorn

  “Is everything okay?” she asked. “Did Argus come back?”

  I took her hand, leading her into the kitchen. “No, of course not. I just made you breakfast.”

  I escorted an angry Juniper to the table and sat her down. Now, I had to be careful in what I fed her, because she chose to be so picky. I made her up some egg whites, unbuttered toast, and an assortment of fruit to choose from.

  She ate, even though I could see how much it annoyed her, and we talked about not much of anything. I really had just wanted to start my morning with her, so I didn’t mind the silence. A day would come where she would want to.

  When breakfast ended, I decided I hadn’t finished spending time with her.

  “See you later, Mum,” I said when we got to the door. “I’m taking Juniper home.”

  She peeked out from the top of the stairs with a big smile on her face. “Bye, darlings. Tell Nemo and the others that I said hello, and I’m bringing cookies by later.”

  Juniper nodded and said she would.

  It had started raining out when I opened the door, and I caught Juniper by the arm. “Wait, can’t have you getting wet.”

  “Where’s your umbrella?”

  Oh, she is a funny one.

  I figured it would get me killed, but she also might be amused, so I did it anyway. I lifted my sweater up without taking it off, and caught her under it. Obviously, she looked confused and shocked enough that she did little but flail against my chest, asking what the hell I was doing.

  “Keeping you dry,” I replied. I picked her up and wrapped her legs around my body. With her sitting on my arm, I pulled the sweater around her as best I could, trying to make sure her legs would stay dry.

  She looked up at me from under my stretching collar, glaring. “You’re crazy.”

  I shrugged. “But you’re warm and dry this way, so go with it.” Plus, she had her body against my bare chest under there, so I would win no matter what. Her hands rested against it, slowly feeling around. Ah, soft.

  “So, would an umbrella,” she pointed out. “And you are ruining your sweater.”

  “I have more.”

  We walked outside, and the cold wind must have gotten through the sweater, because Juniper shivered and tightened her legs around me. I smiled to myself when her cheek touched my chest, and I could have died a happy man right then. I walked us through the light showers, feeling so satisfied.

  “You’re a dork,” she told me, lifting her head up through the now destroyed collar. It had been wide to start with, but now two heads poked out of the top.

  “Well that makes you Mrs. Dork, so own it, I say.”

  She giggled, unable to hide her amusement. Good, that meant I made headway. She stayed with her head out of the sweater until we got to her house and found that we had company.

  Persephone hugged Kizzy while Medusa pet Nemo in his little pool. The girls greeted each other, and the goddess looked our way with a smile. “Hello, kids. I see . . . you’re having fun.”

  I let go of Juniper, letting her fall out of the sweater. She landed on her bottom, unharmed because I obviously wouldn’t let her get hurt. Her dark hair had become a mess from rubbing against my sweater, and the light rain she’d gotten from freeing her head.

  “Jerk,” she muttered to me as she got up.

  I greeted my stepmother with a hug. “How are you?”

  “Great!” Persephone declared happily. “Your father tells me you’re getting married soon. I’m so happy for you.”

  “Not getting married!” Juniper shouted as Kizzy laughed behind her sister.

  Medusa skipped over and slipped her arm over Persephone’s shoulder. “Kids these days probably think getting married is an old people thing to do.”

  “Nah,” I said. “I’m pushing twenty-five. It’s about time I settled down.”

  Juniper tried combing her hair with her fingers as she stormed up. “I don’t want to marry Verin, because he’s annoying and arrogant.”

  “But . . . ” Persephone’s eyebrows pushed together. “That’s the best thing about his father . . . it’s the only reason I haven’t tried killing him in his sleep. The arrogance is adorable.”

  “Not on Verin.”

  Lies.

  Jasper walked in from the kitchen, holding a tray with drinks on it. Medusa and Persephone took one, thanking him. Persephone kissed his cheek and grabbed his jaw, moving it around. “You’re a doll, honey. Kizzy did real good.”

  “Thank you,” he said, taking it well.

  His girlfriend smiled and put her arms around him. “I did do real good. He’s pretty and sweet.”

  “Like me,” I said. “Clearly the girls in this house have fine taste.”

  Jasper glared at me, and I smiled back at him.

  Zander and Jasmine came down, and a quick greeting/introduction took place before I started wondering why the two had come by at all. I figured it would have something to do with Cerberus.

  “Everything okay?” I asked Persephone. “Did you get to see Cerberus?”

  “I did. Your father brought him to me after he stopped in to check on your mother. He was so happy to see me, that sweet little puppy. Thank you for finding him. All of you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jasmine said. “I’m very happy he was safe, because it would have probably turned out bad if I had to try and murder the god that took him.”

  “Oh, I would have done that,” the woman said cheerfully. She tapped Jasmine under the chin, leaning down to her. “Wouldn’t want your pretty little face harmed by a mean old god.” She placed her lips against Jasmine’s for a split second, and pulled away.

  Jasmine smiled dopily, leaning her back against Zander, who didn’t seem to know what to do with that. Persephone could be friendly, so I didn’t think the act all that strange.

  “Anyway,” Kizzy said. “Did you guys want to stay for lunch? Zander and I were going to cook.”

  “We can’t,” her sister said, losing a little bit of her cheeriness. “Hades asked me to come by and tell you guys something important. We didn’t want you getting hurt or anything.”

  I did not like the sound of that. “Please tell me that something else didn’t go wrong?”

  “Sorry . . . ” Medusa said. “But some people have been going missing. And some of the creatures that live around here. We noticed that a handful of us less-than-humans have vanished into thin air. No bodies have been found, from either the missing, or possible victims. We don’t know where they went, and there’s no signs of a struggle.”

  I sighed. “Do you want us to go searching?”

  Persephone shook her head. “No. We want you to stay inside, and be careful. Demigods are missing too. You need to make sure to all keep an eye on each other, because we don’t know what’s coming.”

  I nodded. “I’ll keep them all safe. I promise.”

  The women left us to it, and then we had a whole new problem to worry about. I thought about rushing home, but my mother was a human. She didn’t belong in this fight, so she wouldn’t be harmed.

  “What now then?” Jasmine asked. “Someone decided to go around kidnapping people? Why the hell is all this happening right now? Why is Seattle a clusterfuck?”

  Good question. “Kidnapped is just an assumption. If there are no bodies and no traces of a fight, then who’s to say they didn’t just leave of their own accord?” We did have a fleece missing that could make someone do something they normally wouldn’t. The question was, did we have immunity from the same fate?

  I didn’t get the chance to ask, because my chest tightened, and the air left me. Too much . . . too much blackness.

  I gasped, and stumbled back, Juniper being the closest to me, tried to steady me. “Verin! What’s happening?”

  I swallowed, looking around for the source. “Black. His chest is black. It’s everywhere. No light. Leaked all away, just leaving a pit.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Marked,” I said. “Move.”
I pushed her toward Kizzy for safe keeping, and I made my way to where I felt the abyss pulling at me. It wanted me to jump in, expanding my own abyss. I had a better idea.

  I found someone in our backyard, hopping over the fence. I knew it would just be a man, but I could only see that mark on his soul. It had become less of a soul, and more of a scar on the demigod before me. I couldn’t tell who begot him, but it didn’t matter right then. I needed him dead. Far from Juniper.

  The man with light hair and light eyes felt like a walking lie. No one this dark on the inside should look that light on the outside. He saw me, and he smirked as he gripped the baseball bat in his hands. Oh, he thought he wouldn’t need anything else. Funny.

  “Are your friends here?” he asked. “I’d hate to waste my day looking for them.”

  I smiled back at him, stepping forward. “Don’t worry. You won’t.”

  They appeared behind me, Zander pushing Jasmine and Juniper back into the kitchen while he and his sister took front lines. Kizzy’s eyes turned razor sharp in their focus, and I felt life shaking the ground beneath me.

  Zander appeared at my side, jaw clenched tight as he stared at the man. “Son of Ares,” he said to himself. “I feel . . . ” He blinked, and didn’t finish. I didn’t need him to, because I felt it as well.

  “Nothing personal,” the man said, swinging the bat. “I just have to go where I’m sent.”

  Oh, a talker. I didn’t like talkers.

  On the ground, a small branch broke through the grass, reaching for something, it seemed. I didn’t have time to wonder what Kizzy grew, because the demigod appeared in front of us in a flash, and he sent the bottom of his bat into my gut. I hadn’t been prepared for the hit, and the wind got knocked out of me. Another blink, and the demigod appeared at Zander’s side, smashing the bat into his ribs. Jasmine screamed for him, and Jasper held her back.

  This man moved too quickly. Faster than any demigod I’d seen before, and he got ‘round my back to hit me in the spine with his bat. I went down on my knees before I could even take in what happened.

  Zander grabbed the man by his arm, and I watched him try and break it. Before he could get the chance, the man pulled it away. Just . . . pulled away as if Zander were just a child trying to break steel.

  I caught my breath on the ground, looking at the branch as it became thicker, growing out of the grass and getting a sharper end. I still couldn’t do anything with it. I had no weapons on me, and the man had proven to be physically stronger than Zander and I. So, I had to fight dirty.

  Focus, I needed focus to do this. My hands found the grass, and I shut my eyes. I needed them from a place that would make them mad. I needed them rabid, or it wouldn’t work. In Greek, I called upon the souls rotting away in the Fields of Punishment. Those who sinned against the gods, and who would and had been spending eternity paying for those sins. I would only have a minute or so before I couldn’t hold on anymore, so I had to make it count.

  From beneath us, they came. Gray figures with no resemblance of humanity. They lost that long ago, but that would only help me. For those who didn’t know what they were, they would look terrifying. To me, I only saw grief.

  Maybe twenty of them rose up to my call, and they came up screaming. The son of Ares had his bat in his hands, and he’d just taken another swing at Zander, getting him in the arm. It hung limp, and the man would have taken another swing if a soul hadn’t flown through him. One got him gasping, and another got the bat to fall from his hands.

  The man stepped back, unable to make a sound as he watched the souls spot him, screaming madly. More shot through him, making him try and call out.

  Zander bent down, picking up the bat from the ground. I couldn’t move, or I would lose my hold on the souls. Even now, my chest felt as if it would cave in. I had a few more seconds at best.

  With one swing of his good arm, Zander hit the demigod in the jaw with the bat. He stumbled, losing balance at the direct hit. Zander lifted his foot, and sent it against the man’s chest. When he fell back, he landed on the branch Kizzy had grown.

  The wood stuck out from the center of his chest, and he stilled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

  Trying and Failing

  Juniper

  I made an incoherent sound at the body in my yard. Because . . . body. In my yard. Bleeding all over my grass, and leaving bits of body here and there. I sat down at the kitchen table and put my face in my hands. Okay. I needed to breathe, and remember that the body wouldn’t stay in my yard. Nope. Someone would take care of it, and then I wouldn’t have to worry.

  Jasper pulled open the back door and called out, “Everything all right out there?” he sounded mildly curious. Better than I could have managed. I’d probably would’ve been hyperventilating on the ground if I opened up that door and saw that mess. And Verin thought I kept it together . . .

  “Sure thing!” Verin called out. “Do me a favor and keep Juniper in there for a little while. Until Auntie Kizzy composts this motherfucker!”

  “I can’t compost a body,” Kizzy protested, sounded shocked, and annoyed. “And stop calling me that. I’m not your aunt.”

  “Have you ever tried to compost a body before?” Verin asked, curiously.

  “Well . . . no,” Kizzy said. “Nor will I try.” They went on like that for about five minutes, until Verin wore her down with his sheer stubbornness. Jasper called out an encouragement, and then closed the door. He wandered over to me. “They’re going to take care of it quickly, Juniper,” he said.

  “Okay,” I muttered, looking at the surface of the table. I just wouldn’t think about it. The body, the man that my family had killed, or the fact that someone had been sent to kill us. Again. We were tiny humans who just happened to get visions. I couldn’t figure out why everyone thought they had to fear us.

  Jasmine bounced over to the window cheerfully. “I need to see what she’s doing,” my sister said. “I bet it’s really cool. I also need to hurt Zander for shoving us back into the house, but that can wait until I’m done seeing this really cool thing, don’t you think?” She glanced over at us.

  I sighed, and put my head down on the table.

  “They got it taken care of,” Jasper pointed out. “I’m not sure we can actually get angry with them for taking care of something like that for us.”

  “You get angry at Verin every time he says something mushy to Juniper,” Jasmine pointed out. “I’m allowed to get angry over stupid things too.”

  “I don’t get angry,” Jasper said.

  “You glare,” Jasmine said. “At Zander too. All the time.”

  “That’s not the same as getting angry. That’s glaring that they didn’t have the decency to wait until I wasn’t in the room to start sexualizing my sisters. It’s common courtesy, Jasmine. You don’t see me putting my hand up Kezia’s skirt in front of you, do you?”

  Jasmine looked a little green all of the sudden. “Please don’t do that.”

  “Then please tell Zander to check the room before he says or does anything,” Jasper countered. “And tell Verin to do the same.”

  “I’m not with Verin,” I pointed out. “Why should I have to tell him anything when he’s just going to move on to the next pretty girl he sees?” He would too. I bet she would be blond, and make excellent arm candy. Then I would have to kill his sorry ass, and it would ruin my outfit, I’d never find another one exactly like it, and everything would be awful, again. I’d have to raise him from the dead and kill him twice.

  Jasper gave me a flat look. “That’s not going to happen, Juniper, and you know it. He’s not that kind of person, even if he sounds like it sometimes. If you said that in front of him, it would hurt his feelings.”

  I frowned. “That’s why I didn’t say it in front of him, Jasper.”

  My brother rubbed his eyes. “Can we take a break from being incredibly messed up for a few minutes? I think we could all use it.” No one said anything for nearly ten minutes, which wa
s as close to a break as any of us ever got.

  I stood up, and went over to the sink. The two things in there bugged me, so I filled the sink with soap and water.

  The doorbell rang after I had gotten elbows deep in dish soap. I looked over, and frowned. “Jasmine, could you?”

  “Sure thing,” she said, hopping off the counter and dashing from the room. “Hello?” she said.

  A man’s voice floated through the house. “Hello, may I speak with Juniper Nelson please?”

  “Sure thing,” Jason said, and led two men in police uniforms into the kitchen. One of them, a man with brown hair and thin mustache, had a look of sympathy on his face. The other, wiry and tan, just seemed blank. My heart twisted upon seeing them, as I felt like I knew what this would be about.

  “My name is Detective Anthony Arthur from the Seattle PD, and this is my partner, Detective Orange,” the mustached man said. We all froze. “I’m sorry to be visiting for this reason, but there was a body found at your father’s place, and we believe that it was Brock Nelson.”

  Silence stretched even further. I kept staring at the plate in my hand, trying to force my face into a shocked expression. When I thought I had it down, I looked at the men. Jasmine stared blankly at the opposite wall. “Um . . . what?” Jasmine asked. Her shoulders slumped, curling inward.

  “I’m so sorry,” Arthur, trying to sound gentle and sympathetic, but not quite managing it. I wondered how many times he had to do this. “But is there any way that you could come down to the morgue and identify his body?”

  “How?” Jasmine said, instead of answering him. “How did he die?”

  “It appears to have been an accident,” Detective Arthur answered. “There was a bookshelf tipped over. We’re investigating it as we speak, and will let you know what we find.”

  Jasmine stared down at her knees.

  “Miss Nelson?” the cop said to me. “Could I get you to come down to the morgue to identify the body?”

  When she still didn’t say anything, Jasper took a step forward. “Yes sir, someone will be down as soon as possible. What’s the address?”