by Nicole Thorn
So why did my stomach twist in knots while I waited for my sister to say something? Because I’m a pathetic human being? Yeah, that sounds about right.
Jasmine squealed and ran at me. I flinched, almost dropping my cup of tea before she got to me. Her arms came around me hard, squeezing until I could barely breathe. I patted her arms. “Jazzy,” I said. “Let go of me before I have to explain to Verin that the bruises are from you and not some random jerk that he needs to kill.”
“It would make him feel useful,” Zander shrugged. “Getting to kill people for you.”
I glared at him as my sister let me go. “You look pretty in that dress,” she said. “Did you show Verin?”
My face heated up before I could stop it, thinking about being in his bedroom with him. It had been nice, but I didn’t where it had left us, either. He probably thought that would be it, and we were together forever. But he would eventually get bored with me, and I didn’t want him feeling stuck.
“Ooh, what happened?” Jasmine asked, yanking me over to the table and forcing me to sit down. “Spill all, before I start torturing you. I’m pretty sure I’d be good at it, but Zander won’t let me try.”
“Who would you be torturing?” Zander said. “Why should I let you try, when you won’t answer that question?”
Jasmine waved her hand. “I’d find someone worthy of a little torture. If we could pin Argus down, that would be perfect. I could get information out of him better than you could, Zan.”
Zander snorted. “You wish. All I’d have to do is smile, and he’d be begging to spill his guts out to me.”
They went back and forth for nearly ten minutes while I drank my tea. I figured if they forgot they had asked me a question, then I could slip upstairs and change out of the dress before they remembered that I wore it. No such luck, though. Jasmine said something filthy to Zander that his eyes going distant, and then she turned back to me, “Anyway, what did Verin think?”
“He liked it,” I said.
“Just liked it?” Jasmine asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “He didn’t fall all over himself to make sure that you knew that you were gorgeous and people everywhere would be checking you out?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I hardly think that’s true.”
“Of course, it is! You look just like me!” Jasmine said, with a huge smile.
I fought not to roll my eyes at her as Kizzy and Jasper came in. I didn’t know if they had been in his studio, or if they had been out all day. They didn’t usually go out and do things. Jasper zeroed in on me immediately. Unlike our sister, he didn’t bum rush me and forcibly give me hugs I hadn’t asked for. His eyebrows popped up, and he smiled so slightly that I almost didn’t notice it. I ducked my head so that he couldn’t see the blush that rose again.
Jasmine snapped in front of my face. “If you don’t tell me what Verin said, then I will be forced to go over there and make him regret not being nicer to you.”
“He’s really nice to me,” I said. “Without your interference. Like, sometimes I worry that there’s something wrong in his head that makes him so nice to me.”
Zander winced, but Jasmine rolled her eyes. “I’ll give you till the count of ten before I start my one-woman march over there. One.”
“Jasmine,” I said.
“Two,” she said.
I put my head down on the table until she got to six. To keep her from going over there and bothering Verin, thus confirming that I so wasn’t worth his time, I decided to tell her what happened. Which meant telling everyone what happened. “He told off Celeste,” I said when she got to eight.
Jasmine paused, her head cocked. “Good. That sea serpent deserves to get skinned alive, but what does that have to do with all of this.” She gestured down my body, and back up. I crossed my arms over my chest, uncomfortable. I still told them what happened, including all the things that Celeste said, and that Verin had told her off.
The silence after I finished talking had me squirming in my seat. They agreed with her. They had to. I didn’t have a chest or hips, or really anything, and they needed to find a polite way to tell me that.
“I’m gonna kill that bitch,” Kizzy said thoughtfully. “It’ll be a fun day, the next time I see her.”
Jasper smiled down at his girlfriend. I squirmed some more as she and Jasmine started making plans. Very detailed plans. I never thought of my sister as devious before, but I started to see it. Especially in the way her eyes lit up in utter delight. Fun as this hadn’t, I had to break the party up.
Jasmine jumped onto Zander’s back, and he hauled her up the stairs. Kizzy and Jasper disappeared with them, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I stood up, and moved to rinse my teacup out and get it in the dishwasher. It already had dishes in it, dirty ones that Verin had washed for me. I put the cup in, and started the dishwasher. I wrapped my arms around me.
I couldn’t look in the cabinet right then. There would be an uneven number of cups, but the silverware drawer would’ve been fine. I pulled it open and stared inside. Big forks, little forks, big spoons, little spoons, butter knives. They sat in perfect order, and I fixed the butter knives before closing the drawer.
The tightness in my stomach didn’t abate. I paced around the kitchen, trying to burn off the nervous energy. It didn’t work. Why did I feel like my entire body had been lit up with electricity?
I went upstairs, and opened my closet to stare at the white and tan clothes. I looked around my white room. Suddenly, I wanted to rip it all apart, and that had my heart pounding even more. It would make a mess of my room. I left, but had nowhere to go. I ended up pacing the living room.
I hated everything about my room and my clothes, but I couldn’t change any of it. The very thought had my heart racing. This dress had been fine, but belonged to Jasmine. The next day, I would put on my own clothes, and I’d be Juniper again. Boring and plain. It would be fine.
Why hadn’t Verin texted me? The thought had me stopping in my tracks. That had been the problem hadn’t it? Verin hadn’t texted me. For days he hadn’t left me alone for longer than a couple of minutes, and he’d been quiet for more than a few hours. My heart pounded harder as thoughts poured through my head, each worse than that last. They moved so fast that I didn’t have time to dismiss any of those worries before the next horrible scenario passed through my skull.
I pulled my shoes on and darted out of the house, closing the door behind me. No one would notice my absence. It had started raining, and I hadn’t grabbed my umbrella. I didn’t want to waste time getting it, so I just dashed out into the rain. My hair and dress got soaked immediately, and the cold punched into my skin.
I ignored it.
My teeth chattered by the time I got to Verin’s door. I rang the bell, and shivered, waiting for someone to answer. His mother wouldn’t let me stand out there for long if she hadn’t left. She’d probably throw a blanket over me, heedless of the rainwater, and drag me into the house, not caring that I’d get her floors wet.
No one answered the door.
I rang the bell again, whispering to my racing heart that everything would be fine, and that it needed to stop trying to beat out of my chest. They would be fine in there. Verin’s mom had probably gone to bed, and he had probably hopped into the shower. He had showered this morning, and we hadn’t done anything to warrant another one, but people still showered twice, right?
The third time I rang the doorbell, I had lost feeling in my fingers. Not from the cold, but because my heart raced so fast that I couldn’t focus on anything else. The rest of me had gone numb.
When still no one answered, I tried the doorknob. It twisted easily. Verin had always been sure that he could protect everyone he loved from any threat. The house sounded quiet. Warmth brushed over me, but I barely noticed it. I stood on the porch, until I knew that no one would let me in the house.
I locked the door behind me, never as confident as Verin. Wrapping my arms around my chest, I called out, “Verin?
Gwen?”
Nothing.
“Verin?!” I shouted louder this time. I hesitated to walk on the carpet, but my worry beat out my insanity, and I went to the kitchen. A cake sat on the table. The oven had been turned off, so I assumed it had been cooked a while ago. The living room looked empty, and I couldn’t hear anyone moving around.
I’d check their rooms, I decided. If they weren’t at home, they probably went out to dinner or something. I didn’t have . . . anything to be worried about. Just paranoia. A very messed up girl making messed up scenarios.
My intention had been to go into Verin’s room first, but I saw his mother’s door had been cracked open, and the light left on. Relief filled my chest as I skipped over. They had been home, probably just talking, or something.
I pushed the door open the rest of the way and—
Froze.
Gwen laid on the bed, facing away from me. It only took one look. Dead bodies were easy to tell from living ones. And her neck cocked at such a wrong angle. She looked too still, laying too awkward, and just too wrong.
It felt like the air had turned to cotton wool, surrounding me. My heart raced so hard that I couldn’t hear anything else, and I couldn’t peel my eyes away from Gwen’s body. Too still. Lifeless. She had died, and why? She didn’t have anything to do with any of this. Oh, but she kind of did. She knew me and my siblings after all. We brought trouble wherever we went, and she made such an easy target. She was dead because of us, and I couldn’t breathe.
Oh, and I found Verin. He sat against the wall, staring at his mother’s body. His mouth moved, but no words came out. Or maybe he had just been talking for so long that his voice no longer worked. His hands balled into fists so tight that his knuckles turned white, and blood dripped from his palms. It had been dripping for a while. Small little puddles dotted his lap.
Sucking in a breath, I stumbled out of the room. My heart beat so hard, and I couldn’t breathe. This happened because of us. If they hadn’t moved to Seattle, then none of this would have happened. They would’ve been somewhere safe, and Hades probably wouldn’t have bugged them about Cerberus to begin with. How would Verin have found the dog without the good little seers all around him?
STOP IT.
The words shouted in my head. Just stop it. You can’t do this right now. You can’t freak out. It’s not your turn to freak out, and if you did, there’d be no one to help Verin. He needs help, and Jasper’s not here to fix everything. So just stop it.
The cotton wool feeling wouldn’t leave, but I sucked in a deep breath and wiped the tears from my eyes. I couldn’t panic. Oh, I wanted to. The panic rose in me like a tide, but I couldn’t let it wash me away. A cup hadn’t been broken, and coffee grounds hadn’t been pressed into my carpet, and no bitch called me names. What happened now felt more real and awful than that. This happened to Verin.
I stepped back into the room. Gwen’s death struck me anew. Like somehow, I had forgotten what she looked like in the last few seconds. Yanking my eyes away, I focused on Verin.
He still did that silent talking. I knew that he had lost his voice now. I could hear this bare whisper coming from his mouth. He’d heal if I could get him to stop for a second. He hadn’t even noticed me, though.
“Verin?” I said, voice reedy and thin.
He didn’t look away. It looked like the carpet fascinated him, but I suspected that his stare went far beyond that. Not seeing anything, but seeing everything in his head.
“Verin?” I called again, stepping further into the room. I wanted him to look at me before I touched him. If I surprised him, he could severely hurt me, and what would that do to him? But could take a couple of steps closer, just barely out of touching range. I even got down on my knees in front of him, bringing us to eye level. “Verin?”
He blinked, and turned those deep blue eyes to me. They looked so full of thoughts and emotions that they almost seemed empty. His mouth still moved, and his eyes latched onto me. It felt like I hadn’t even entered the room. I looked at the body. He needed to get out of there, ASAP.
Scraping the bottom of my courage barrel, I scooted forward on my knees, burning them on the carpet. I took one of his fists, wrapping the entirety of both my hands around it, and pulling the fingers away from his palm. “Verin?” I whispered as warm blood coated my skin.
He really looked at me then. He stopped talking for a second. Just long enough for some of the damage in his throat to heal. When he spoke again, his voice cracked painfully, but I could hear him. “Juniper? What are you doing here?”
“I missed you,” I said.
He blinked. “You shouldn’t be here.”
My heart beat painfully. He sounded lost, and I would never have thought Verin could be lost. I took his other hand, peeling his fingers back from his palm just like I had with his left. Blood coated my palms now, making a mess that I ignored to the best of my abilities.
“Why don’t we go back to my place?” I whispered. “If I shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t be here.”
He stared at me.
“Don’t you still think I belong where you are?” I asked, keeping my voice even. I felt no insecurity with the question, because I just wanted to get him out of this room. Out of this house. Away from his mother’s corpse.
“I don’t want to leave,” Verin said.
“Please?” I asked.
He started to stand up, and I pulled him the rest of the way to his feet. He noticed the blood coating my hands. “Juniper!” he said.
“It’s not mine,” I hurried to say.
His eyes looked too wide when he stared at me. Cloudy, too. He seemed strangely contained, but I didn’t believe that lie. There had to be storms underneath the surface, and I feared what would happen if he unleashed them.
He let me lead him out of the room, and then out the house. The rain had picked up some. It didn’t pound the house, but made it hard to see too far in front of us. It washed the blood away before we even got to my house. I pulled him inside just as Jasper came down the stairs. He stopped in his tracks, staring at us.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
I hauled Verin into the living room, and pushed him into one of the chairs, heedless of the water that would soak into the fabric. “Stay there while I get a blanket,” I told him. He continued to stare at me, even as I dashed over to my brother.
“Bring Kizzy downstairs.” I said.
Minutes later, she joined us. I rushed to tell her what happened, and then said, “I have to go back there, and do something with the body. Can you stay here with Verin?” Oh, those words tasted like ash in my mouth.
“I don’t want you going alone,” Kizzy said immediately.
“I’ll take Jasper,” I said.
Her expression said how little she thought of that, but I already moved toward the door with my brother. We started jogging down the street and got about halfway to Verin’s house before Zander caught up with us meek little humans. He insisted on going upstairs first, while we stayed downstairs. I turned to my brother. “I don’t want to ask this of you, but is there anything in this house that’s whispering?”
Jasper frowned at me for a second before he realized what I wanted. “Yes,” he said.
“What?”
He went into the kitchen, and returned with a mixing bowl. It still had some chocolate sticking to the sides. My stomach hollowed out as guilt poked at me. I didn’t want to ask this of my brother. He and Jasmine already saw horrible things. Asking him to look at this seemed especially cruel.
He didn’t make me ask. His eyes went distant and his face blank. I spoke through my visions most of the time, so I didn’t get sucked in too deep, but my siblings didn’t. They sank into their visions wholly, without a chance to fight it. It didn’t last long. When the light returned to Jasper’s eyes again, his expression went grim. He put the bowl down on the coffee table, like it had somehow tainted him by touching his skin.
The guilt got worse. I had asked
him to do that, even if it hadn’t been verbally spoken. “What did you see?”
He shook his head, and sucked in a deep breath. “Argus,” he said. “He came in through the back door. She was in the kitchen, looking at something in the fridge. She didn’t even know he was there until it was too late. He carried her up the stairs, and put her in her room. I can’t imagine a reason to do that over than to taunt Verin.” Jasper rubbed his eyes, and did something he almost never did. He cursed. “Fucking hell. This is partially our fault.”
I looked down at my shoes, silently agreeing with him. “We should have kept her at our house, or at least not left her alone. Verin and I were probably eating dinner when she was being killed.” The second the words left my mouth, I wished I could take them back. But they had been let out, and that carefully constructed cage about my panic started to break apart.
We had most definitely been eating dinner while his mother got murdered. She had to have been dead when he came back home. He wouldn’t have let Argus kill her without getting himself killed in the process. So, because I wanted to try something new and put on a different outfit, and then had a panic attack, forcing Verin to make me feel better, his mother died.
I didn’t know if my legs gave out, or if I sat down, but the next thing I knew, I hit the floor. I breathed through my mouth, trying to calm the spinning in my head. Zander came rushing down the stairs about that time, and right up to us. His hands ended up on my shoulders, and he talked at me, but I didn’t hear anything.
Jasper pulled him away. “Juniper,” he said, sounding grim, “You can’t do this now.”
He’s right, dammit. I couldn’t do this, not when Verin waited back at the house, probably starting to wonder where I had gone. If he wondered anything. I sucked in a breath, and it cleared my head somewhat. I couldn’t break down. I had to be strong, had to remember how it felt to be strong.
Jasper asked Zander something. Their voices went over my head while I breathed. I stretched my neck out, and stood up all on my own. I could fucking do this for him. I would fucking do this for him.
