Page 4 of Caged Heart
Mars likes to pretend that he enjoys it now. That him seeing a shrink who told him that he had such a hard life makes him better. It fucking doesn’t. It doesn’t erase the torture, the pain, the crawling sensation that makes you want to grate your skin off with something dull, so you feel it even more. It doesn’t take away the anger that boils deep inside. The pain wraps its tentacles around you and penetrates every single part of you to where you cannot see in front of you anymore. Everything is dark and almost inhumane.
All I want to do is hurt. Hurt. Hurt.
Ares and Mars. Mars is the god that helps you in war. The friendlier of the counterpart. The one who makes sure you’re okay. The one who took less of the punishment. The one who claims he’s healed. The one who betrayed me by shutting the door in my face and leaving me in that fucking room by myself.
I am Ares. The god who is brutal and punishing. Who starts wars and ends them? Who sets cities on fire, not caring about the damage he leaves behind. Destructive and destabilizing. A fucking force to be reckoned with. Ares, the god of rage, terror, and violence. Something I’ve embraced because I am brutal, impulsive, and unrestrained in everything that involves my desire.
Chapter3
Ares
“What?” I barked into my car speaker as I picked up Mars’s call.
“You fucking forgot to give Carmi the fucking passcode to your place. I don’t have it.” Mars growled.
“You don’t have the passcode to your brother’s place?”Carmi asked. “That's weird, right?”
“Right.” Mars quipped.
“Tell her to text me when she’s nearby, and I’ll unlock it. I already know she’s not coming back now.”
“So you’re going home?”
“Yes. Unlike you and Damon, I don’t have time to sit around and play stupid. I got shit to study for.”
“The second semester starts tomorrow.”
“Eat a dick.”
I hang up without a care in the world. Mars has always been a talker for no reason, and I don’t wish to talk with him about shit.
Seventeen Going Under by Sam Fender blasted in my car, which spoke to me in multiple ways. He’s right about one thing, being younger, I was too afraid to trade blows with my old man. I tried, too, but he laid my ass out so good that I didn’t wake up until Mars threw a bucket of water on my face.
“Get the fuck up, and let’s go.” It was all the acknowledgment he gave me.
I pushed his hand away, practically telling him to fuck off, and he rolled his eyes as he shifted his backpack to his other shoulder.
My brother, the perfect fucking twin pretending to be bad. I slowly stood as the pain shot through my body. One of these days, that abusive motherfucker would get stabbed by me. Without another word issued to Mars, I limped up the front porch steps.
“It’s not that serious if you ask for help.”
I refused to respond to the bastard, so I kept walking until I reached the door.
“You’re a prideful motherfucker, and that’s why he laid you out. You shouldn’t have tested him.”
Forgetting my pain, I spun on my heel and faced my brother, who stood at the bottom of the steps.
“You’re just like them. You watched me get fucked up because you’re a pussy. Don’t fucking tell me it’s not serious or that I shouldn’t have tested him. I had him, you hear me!” My eyes must’ve been wild and must have had a certain point to them because there was a look in my brother’s eyes that said he was a little terrified of me—terrified of what I was going to do. “You did nothing but continue to eat your food like the good fucking son. Good for you, bitch!”
My navigator swerved, and it brought me back to the moment. To now. Back to the anger and the pain. Back to a reality that choked me and never once let go. His words live with me every single day. Words that took him 18 years of our lives to say, and now it’s been two years where he tries to be my brother, and sometimes I let him. Because of those words, I’m haunted. Every. Day.
“I tried to make up for it. I want to be your brother, Ares. Please, just let me.”
* * *
Shutting my eyes, the sickening feeling I’ve always had, something that I’m convinced I was born with, takes over as I listen to her whispers in the wind.
“Jump and be free…baby brother.”
