Page 57 of Love, Nemesis
In the past, Lethe had once been a victim of its amusements, and he looked back at that feebler man, tossed back and forth by every painful twist of fate, or motivating hope.
Now, the circus was his.
Reserved and patient, he watched the games and rides around him play out. He loved to get lost in that, pretending he was vulnerable, unsure, and wandering.
But then he’d step back, breathe in the truth, and remind himself of what he was, but only for a moment, before diving into the games of humanity again.
“You won’t kill us,” he whispered Manaj’s words emptily. “You won’t hurt a petal on the most fragile flower. You won’t kill us,” he repeated, rolling the cigarette back and forth between his fingers. “Life is precious. All life is precious.” He exhaled into the air, a smile on his lips as he breathed the last of the mantra, “No exceptions.”
Chapter 15: Click
ANA LAY DOWN on her back, hands folded over her stomach, eyes open as she listened to the sounds of the woods. Jasper had left a few moments ago to relieve Cal of his watch. There in the dark, she could hear Lethe sleeping soundly on the other side of the coals. She hadn’t changed out of her gear.
Evira had yet to return from her scouting mission. It was getting late into the night, and every passing minute intensified a sensation in Ana that something about their mission had gone awry.
Well, something else.
If Ares was in fact hiding in the Dragon’s Spine, then Evira could already be dead.
She tried not to entertain the worst of her paranoia.
Every time she closed her eyes, a memory surfaced, pressed to the forefront of her mind with so much force that she couldn’t help but question the meaning behind it.
The first time she had met Ares, they’d crossed paths on accident. In Crackenger, holed up in the bell tower on the far border of the State and the Mystics. She’d run for cover during the start of an ambush, but unlike the other soldiers who knew where Ares had gone, she’d ended up taking cover with him.
She’d heard the gunfire right as she’d entered the top of the tower, and though he couldn’t have been expecting her, he didn’t acknowledge her until the fighting calmed down. When it had,he offered a formal salutation, and in the drawn-out silence, they started talking from opposite ends of the tower. They exchanged simple facts and comments for hours, but communicating with Ares had an abruptness to it. There was no natural rhythm, no affirmation of any real bond.
She wasn’t sure what was waiting for her in those mountains tomorrow, but if her survival was based on him somehow showing her mercy, she didn’t imagine her chances were good. With Evira and Lethe involved now, she also found it hard to imagine sneaking off on her own and leaving Jasper like she’d planned. For better or for worse, they were all in this now.
She closed her eyes again, trying to catch some inkling of sleep, but she couldn’t shake the sensation that she was in that bell tower again, listening to Ares.
He’d just finished cleaning his gun, more out of boredom than necessity. The enemy, he said, wouldn’t strike again that night. Ana had observed the mutation stretched along the barrel of the rifle, the cryptic text a rare sight in the State.
“Do you know the best way to peel an orange?” he asked, orange in hand, and then gestured to the edge of his thumb. “You don’t just try and peel the whole orange at once. You find the soft spot on the top. You take your thumb, like this, and you press into the middle. That will—”
She exhaled steadily, trying to push the scene from her head. It was so loud she couldn’t relax. She didn’t pace or stand to release the building nervousness in her. Staying completely still, she battled her uneasiness in her mind. It was often how she battled things, without expression.
Like a tombstone.Lethe’s remarks ricocheted through her body, filling her muscles with tension and making her bones ache.
She lay there as if she were in a coffin, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw that memory again with Ares’s intense interest in his own explanation. “You don’t peel the whole orange. You find the so—”
He sounded so loud in her head.
She opened her eyes and sat up, staring back up at the sky with her knees drawn to her chest, ankles crossed in front of her. She glanced back over at Lethe, replaying the evening’s events over in her mind.
Upon returning to camp, she’d returned Lethe’s knife to his things. The truth was, she knew Lethe had spotted it on their ride a few days ago and he’d left it alone. It hadn’t bothered her at first, but now it did. She didn’t know how to explain why.
When she’d put it back near his saddle, Jasper had asked about it, and when she didn’t offer a clear response, he asked about her and Lethe’s discussion up on the hill. Jasper seemed skeptical of her explanations. Granted, she wasn’t the most eloquent speaker and couldn’t quite find the words she needed. Her body spoke for her more than anything else. Through fighting and dance and training, she expressed herself in succinct, measured ways, but this was different.
She needed words.
She didn’t have them.
It had led to a brief argument between her and Jasper, who’d insulted Lethe by saying that she should be more careful and that all En Sanctans had done unspeakable things. Before she could even register the comment, Jasper had recoiled at it, and in that second, she saw an apology in his eyes that told her what she was, not because of her blood, but because of her past.
In her earlier years, maybe she would have recoiled too, but she was tired and how angry could she be about the truth? Maybe people weren’t supposed to live with shame, maybe she should fight it, but she was almost dead—almost done with it all.
She tilted her head back, searching the stars. They were vast and beautiful and she could only ever imagine the lightness and freedom of being one of them. A conscience was heavy, but the damage of a life without that burden was a deeply destructive thing. She’d done her damage and she’d seen it done.
