My wife sits on the floor, her knees drawn to her chest and her head down, her wet hair creating dark rivers down her bare back. A bruise has blossomed on her hip, turning her pale skin a rainbow of purple and black, fading to green and yellow on the edges.
She looks…small.
I don’t remember moving away from the door. It’s like I blink and I’m back in the kitchen, my head swimming and my chest too tight. I don’t even pause to think. I drag out my phone and call Pandora.
She answers almost immediately. “What?”
“Help.”
Instantly, all joking is gone from her voice. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“Aphrodite.” I’m whispering and that’s fucking ridiculous, but I can’t seem to stop. “I brought her dinner. Someone tried to shoot her this morning, and now she’s in her shower and she looks so fucking small, and I think she might be crying.”
“What?”
“She—”
“No, I heard you. I’m just processing.” She curses softly. “Damn it, Theseus, are you really hiding in her apartment instead of comforting her right now?”
“I don’t know how to comfort someone.”
Her tone goes soft. “Look, I’d come, but I think that just might complicate the situation tonight.” She hesitates. “You should call Adonis.”
It’s a token of how fucked my head is right now that I don’t even question if that’s a good idea or not. “You’re right. I’ll call him.” Now it’s my turn to pause. “You really like her, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.” She gives a choked laugh. “And don’t you dare hide and wait for him to show up. Call him and then go, like, hug her or something.”
She might punch me in the face if I try, but at least then she won’t be crying. The thought of her crying is like someone shoved a piece of glass into my chest, and it grinds against my heart with each beat. I don’t fucking get it, not when a week ago I was ready to kill her myself.
I don’t want her to cry.
“Come by tomorrow. She’ll probably be happy to see you, especially if we fuck this up.” I hang up without waiting for Pandora’s response. She might agree, or she might argue just to argue because I’m the one who made the suggestion.
I call Adonis next, barely waiting for him to answer to cut in, “Someone tried to kill Aphrodite today and she’s kind of fucked up and I think she’s freaking out.” I’m speaking too fast, but it was one thing to patch her up in the immediate aftermath of the attack. It’s totally another to deal with the emotional fallout now. I’m shit at comfort. I punch shit and kill things. I don’t hug and cuddle and know the right words to say when someone just survived an attempted murder for the first time. “She needs you. We need you.”
A pause. When he speaks, he’s totally in control. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” His voice goes low and cold. “Because after we take care of Eris, you’re going to explain to me why you knew this happened and didn’t say a single fucking word until now.” He hangs up, which is just as well. I don’t have an answer for that. After last night, reminding him that we’re not actually on the same side feels like a lie.
If anything, I’m more conflicted than ever. It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. I have my path. I’ve never strayed. I have no reason to, not when Minos has given me everything I need.
Except…
No. No use thinking about that now. Adonis will take less than twenty minutes to get here, and if Aphrodite’s still crying in the shower and I’m standing out here, wringing my hands, it will be a fight I’m not sure I can win.
A fight I don’t deserve to win.
Even knowing that, it takes me a solid two minutes to dredge up the momentum to carry me back into the bathroom. Aphrodite hasn’t shifted. Steam hangs heavy in the air, making my shirt stick to my chest after only a few seconds. I stop in the opening to the shower. “Eris?”
She moves slowly, as if she’s an old woman instead of in the prime of her life, turning just her head to look at me. “I’m not up for dinner.” She sounds remarkably normal, which is somehow worse. “Maybe another time.”
The urge to flee rises again, but this time I muscle past it. I don’t know what to say or what will get that awful lost look off her face, but I can’t leave her like this.
I don’t know what this pull to make her feel better means. I’ve never felt anything like it, even with Pandora. It’s different and it’s uncomfortable, and I want to carve it out of me before I’m past the point of no return. I don’t even try.
It’s too damn late for that, anyway.
Without thinking too hard about it, I start stripping. She closes her eyes and rests her head back on her knees. I shuck off my pants and step into the shower. There are no fewer than four showerheads going. I step beneath them and have to grit my teeth to keep a muttered curse from erupting. The water is scalding.
After a brief internal debate, I awkwardly slide down to the floor and lean against the wall next to her, stretching my legs out. Pandora would have the right words to tell Aphrodite it will all be okay. Adonis would know exactly what she needs to hear.
I’m not good with words. I’m sure as fuck not good with comfort.
But death is something I’ve become intimately familiar with.
I lean my head back against the tile. “The first time is the worst.”
Aphrodite slowly looks at me. Her skin has gone pink from the heat of the water, but she still looks too pale. “What?”
“The first time someone tries to kill you.” I inhale deeply, letting the steam warm me from the inside out. “It’s never fun. You don’t get used to it. But the shock lasts less each time.”
She blinks those big dark eyes at me. “When was your first?”
I don’t want to talk about this. I’m not sure why the fuck I thought it was a good idea to bring it up. But she’s focusing on me instead of the memory of earlier today, so I answer her honestly. “I was fourteen. One of the, ah, priests at our orphanage was showing too much interest in Pandora, so I told him to fuck off. He waited until everyone was asleep that day and then came to my room with a knife.”
She lifts her head a little. “He gave you one of those scars?”
“Yeah.” I touch the long, ragged one running diagonally across my stomach. “He almost gutted me.”
I brace for sympathy or pity or some kind of self-righteous bullshit about how no child should have to defend themselves from adults. It’s not how the world works, though, and I don’t have time for anyone who isn’t already aware of that.
“You killed him.”
I blink, half-sure I heard her wrong. “What?”
“You killed him.” Her smile isn’t anywhere near as sharp as usual. “Right?”
I had. I snapped his neck and then passed out from blood loss. I woke up on my fifteenth birthday in the hospital with Minos standing there, bathed in sunlight and looking larger than life. I still don’t know how the fuck he found out about it, but no authorities ever came around asking after the priest’s death, and by the time I was well enough to leave the hospital, Minos and I had come to an agreement.
When I checked out, I didn’t go back to the orphanage.
I went to Minos’s home, and Pandora came with me.
At the time, it seemed like a gift from the gods. Minos was a hard taskmaster, but he was fair, and I never had to worry about his gaze lingering too long on me or Pandora. That alone was worth the cost he demanded. “Yes. I killed him.”
“Good.” She closes her eyes. “It’s not the heroes who slay monsters. They’re too honorable. Always giving second chances and…” Her breathing goes jagged. “I have a brother. Another one. Younger. He’s a hero, and he almost got himself killed playing white knight. I’m glad he’s not here to see what Olympus has become. He wouldn’t survive it.”
I know about the younger brother. Hercules. A handsome fucker with bright eyes and the kind of shine that makes me want to dent it on principle. He’s nothing like his siblings, nothing like Aphrodite in particular. “Probably not.”