Page 25 of The Mortal Trials

He affirms with a troubled smile. “It seems that way.”

I wonder if it’ll be like this every night. A private island that functions as a prison cell. What pretty cages they built for us.

When he stands close, I realize how tall he is. My head barely reaches his chest. I try to reconcile this man with the teenage boy I saw singing when I was young. Or maybe it’s the different versions of me I’m trying to align.

So little time has passed since I left home again, yet I spent the majority with August last night in a quiet, unexpected comradery. How can I thank him for being so kind? Or explain why I couldn’t go in, and why I still can’t bring myself to cross the threshold?

“I’d invite you in, but I don’t know if I can go in there myself.”

August’s brows meet as he studies me.

Just then, Niall emerges from his oikos, whistling as he pretends to fasten back the shutters on his closest window when he never closed them to the moonlight in the first place. “Good morning!” he greets, looking between me and my guest. “You okay, Cal?”

August watches me, waiting for my answer.

“I’m fine.”

August’s lashes flutter the tiniest bit. Now that I’ve trusted him with the truth, he can tell it from a lie.

“Do you care if I go in?” August asks.

He wants to know what would make me spend the night outside despite the dangers lurking in the nearby waves, rather than sleep inside this oikos.

I nod my assent.

He moves past me and twists the doorknob like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Steps into the main living space.

I bite my nail as he turns a circle. His blue eyes catch on each piece of furniture, fine and undisturbed, raking over the craftsmanship and detailed designs. And then he notices the fresco on the wall. He gets close, leans left, then right, lips parting as he takes in its duplicity. Twin lionesses morphing into two mortal sisters, bonded for life and separated by death.

A muscle ticks in his jaw, and I swear he would raze the building if he had the power of a god.

August Aymes scrubs a hand over his mouth as he fumes over the image.

Why did Ares have this painted? What message does he wish to send? That our fates, and our deaths, will be the same? Or is this just another punishment? Another stab amid a thousand cuts.

Does he know I can’t stand to look at her face or mine? Did he know I would have removed or shattered any mirror he’d used in the space, so he made something that can’t be broken or tossed outside?

Not that I may not try… Difficult isn’t the same thing as impossible. And the wall is plaster. Some well-placed blows would make it crumble. I’m just not sure if I could stop once I started. I might bring the walls and roof down on my head and strip Ares of the pleasure of killing me.

“I’m sorry,” August says, coming back outside to stand with me. “For what he did to you, and her. I’m sorry he took her from you. I can’t imagine. I have brothers, and I can’t…”

My throat swells and tears sting my eyes. To keep them at bay, I stare at my damaged hands. I’ve bitten the nails down to the quick, and the cuticles are sore and bleeding. “I couldn’t look at it.”

My chin quivers for a moment. But with palms over my stomach, I tuck the sliver of pain into my middle and hold it there while it melds with all the rest.

After Carina died, Abuela likened my anger to the well of lava in the belly of a great volcano, churning until it builds so much pressure it has no other choice but to release. She says someday, I’ll explode and obliterate everything closest to me.

When she told me that, she was worried about her relationship with me, and mine with Cillian. I’d withdrawn. Grown cold. Pushed them away so they couldn’t get close enough to get burned.

She recognized all that could be ruined if we let it, though. My persistent family loved me through my grief, because it didn’t just belong to me, it was also theirs.

Now that I’ve been dragged to Olympus to take part in Ares’s games, and now that the Greek god of war is near, I hope Abuela was right. I welcome her predicted explosion, and hope that it’ll be as unexpected and catastrophic as it is glorious.

When I detonate, let it be next to the Greek god of war.

From the yard outside my borrowed, tormenting home, August watches me. It’s unsettling how much he sees, yet I’m so tired of hiding my feelings from everyone, for everyone, it’s refreshing not to have to.

That’s why I stayed outside last night. And why he did, too.