“Exactly.” Seth crosses his arms, mirroring me. “That’s why I want to take her away from this place and the horrors that live here - before they get into her head and ruin her.”
“I agree,” I say, nodding. “That’s why we need to be right there at her side, in case she needs us to fight the higher gods.” It’s not an idea I relish, but it’s crossed my mind before. Could we even stand a chance against them?
I want nothing more than to get Karma away from this fucked up world. We were officially fired the moment we got back from the prison; we more or less signed away our jobs the moment we started working to help Karma. It’s all so transparent, it’s almost sickening: justice is apparently not needed anymore, and maybe it never was. Maybe it was all just a guise for the higher gods to exert their iron will on the people of the supernatural world. The whole system is corrupt, and we were working for it all this time. They’re not even bothering to disguise it as the moral thing anymore: according to my contacts, they’ve started sending hired assassins out to kill anyone who has ever done anything wrong. The prison was at least a chance at a life, if not a pleasant one.
I don’t know where all this puts me and Seth, but I’m sure the higher gods will not wait until we are older to kill us. We are powerful and immortal; they won’t want us around to mess up their plans. They won’t want Karma around either, not unless they can control her. I’ve learnt one thing in all this, though: no one can control Karma; it’s one of the things I love about her.
“I will not fight them if it hurts Karma,” Seth says, and he’s right. It’s the whole reason we can’t just storm their chambers right now and try to take them all out at once - with Karma’s fate connected to Xur’s, our hands are tied.
“The prison was impossible for Storm to escape. What if we throw Xur in there and tie him up so he can’t hurt himself?” I suggest.
“It’s a wise suggestion,” Seth replies.
“Of course it is, I came up with it, brother,” I say, and Seth smiles at me for a brief second, breaking up the heaviness that has been hanging in the air ever since the last game. That is - until someone kicks our door down. The door slams against the wood floor, the wood cracking as Storm fills up the doorway.
“I liked that door. Have you not heard of knocking?” I ask, crossing my arms. Storm ignores me altogether as he eyes Seth. Before I can grab Seth, he is walking up to Storm, and I wish I could say I’m surprised when Storm punches him hard in the middle of his face. I hear his nose crack, and I’m pretty sure it’s broken as blood splatters everywhere.
“Fuck,” Seth groans. I shake my head as Storm grabs his jacket and lifts him up, his purple eyes glowing. Outside, it gets very dark, and there’s a sudden clap of thunder. Rain seems to have started to pour down out of nowhere, no doubt a result of Storm’s magic. I guess I should have been expecting this, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying.
“Both of you are fucking idiots!” I shout at them, and Storm turns his eyes towards me. Seth pushes Storm’s hands off him before taking a few steps back as blood pours out of his nose.
“Karma is mine. I want you both to stay away from her,” Storm shouts, his hands in fists at his sides.
“Are you a fucking child?” Seth exclaims. “It was part of the game! I had to kiss her to win! If we had lost, she would’ve been forced to play another one.”
“That’s an excuse, and you know it,” Storm snaps. “You’re in love with her - it’s obvious.
“Damn right he is, whether he can admit it or not,” I say, taking a step forward and bristling. “And so am I.” Storm rounds on me, his eyes flashing, and he looks like he wants to break me in two like a twig. “I’m never leaving Karma’s side, and you need to accept that fact.”
“I’m not leaving either,” Seth adds in, though that is all he is saying.
“The point is, if you can’t accept this way of life, all of us with Karma, loving her, then you are just breaking her heart. She doesn’t deserve that. Karma has enough going on; she doesn’t need us arguing like idiots,” I point out. We are immortal, we can spend forever arguing over this if we really wanted to, but right now, Karma is young and needs our support to deal with everything. She is flying in a shit storm at the moment, and we are the only people holding her down.
“So the question is, can you handle it?” Seth asks Storm.
“I don’t know. That’s the problem. Every time I see you touch her or even fucking look at her, I want to kill you both,” Storm admits, and it’s the first time we have had a real conversation from him about the elephant in the room. I can share her with my brother, but I’m not that close to Storm. The only difference is I’m not willing to lose Karma, so I will love her no matter who else she loves at the same time.
“I feel the same, but I know I couldn’t live without her in my life. So here we are,” I tell him. I won’t lie and tell him that it doesn’t irritate me to see Karma in his arms, because it does.
“Yeah,” Storm mutters, and he turns away, walking to the door. “I don’t think I can deal with this all.”
“Then you don’t deserve her, Storm,” I coldly tell him because he will break her heart at this rate. I know she loves him, and loving him is clearly going to be a problem.
“Maybe I don’t.” I hear him say it, but I don’t reply as he walks out. For the first time since we met, I’m disappointed in Storm Cyncus.
Chapter 49
I suck in deep breaths, my head spinning and my heart pounding in my ears. I can’t seem to catch my breath, and I feel waves of grief and anxiety course through me without any end in sight. My legs threaten to give out beneath me, and it’s all I can do to sag against the door and try to focus on the feeling of the rough wood on my skin. I clamp my eyes shut, hot tears overflowing and beginning to stream down my cheeks, which suddenly feel as cold as ice in the silent hall. It feels like the world has come crashing down on top of me, more so than when I was first captured by the justice twins - hell, maybe even more so than when I found out that Neritous was my father. It all pales in comparison to the devastation I’m feeling now, as absurd as that probably sounds. But it’s the truth. A terrible mistake has been made, I can feel it, and there’s no going back.
Storm can’t accept this. Not just can’t - won’t.
If Mum knew I was eavesdropping, she would no doubt have given me one of her famous “talks” about privacy and personal space… and right now, I’m really regretting not having taken her warnings to heart earlier. I wasn’t even planning on listening in on their conversation - not at first, anyway; after Storm vanished from the last game, I spent the evening searching the castle for him, trying to get ahead of whatever was coming before it all blew up in my face. So much for that - I should have gone to find Killian and Seth instead of going to his apartments, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe part of me knew it wasn’t going to go well - considering his reaction to me kissing Seth, a blowup was more or less inevitable - but I was hoping to at least be able to mediate, to appeal to the one thing they all have in common: their feelings for me. But I was too late, and now I’m standing here listening to them shout at one another, fighting over me like I’m a piece of meat. Killian’s trying to keep a handle on the situation, but it’s too little, too late: Storm hurt Seth - how badly, I can’t say - and it’s becoming clear that no amount of calm discussion is going to get them past this.
Storm can’t accept this. He doesn’t want to share me - or even be with me as long as Killian and Seth are in the picture, by the sound of it. For all his claims to love me, he can’t move past his territorial protectiveness, and it tears me apart to see it. This has been a long time coming, though, that’s for certain - possibly even as far back as when we first arrived in the prison. What kind of idiot was I to think - to even hope - that I would be able to have all three of these men in my life? What kind of selfish, short-sighted, naive…
The sound of their raised voices approaches me, startling me out of my thoughts and sending my heart leaping to my throat. I don’t want to see them now - I can’t see them now. Especially Storm.
The broken door lies demolished on the floor, its hinges bent and buckled with the weight of the blow that knocked it down. A few splinters came loose and fell to the floor when he kicked it in, not caring in the slightest whether the higher gods would be upset about the property damage. As I duck away from the battered doorframe, I nearly slip on one of the pieces, my arms flying out to steady myself. The amount of rage it must have taken to be able to nearly break it down with his bare hands isn’t lost on me, and it scares me a little - it’s a reminder that I’m playing with fire, with beings who have been around for centuries, whose power is nearly unmatched… and they’re all grappling for my affection, struggling to make sense of the confusing dynamic that’s emerged between us.
Footsteps echo in the apartment, and I hurry around a corner just in time to see Storm stalking out of the twins’ rooms, his shoulders hunched and his hands bunched into fists at his sides. He rakes a hand through his long hair, his purple eyes flashing, and stops on the threshold. His eyes close for a moment, and I see pain on his face, as well as longing and regret. It’s like he wants desperately to be okay with this, to make me happy, but there’s something he can’t get over, and it’s tearing him apart.
I can feel sobs threatening to wrack my body, and swallow a lump in my throat as I peer around the corner at Storm. Just when it feels like the tension and anguish in the air has become too much to bear, he squares his shoulders and storms away down the hall, disappearing around a corner with his footsteps echoing angrily against the high walls. Behind him, a ways away, I can hear Killian and Seth murmuring to each other in concerned, hushed voices, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. It doesn’t matter, anyway; there’s no way it can be good.
Having seen enough, I turn away, mopping the tears off my face with my sleeve even as they threaten to keep coming, and I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe. I need to get away from them all, to put as much distance between myself and the crisis that’s unfolding as I possibly can. Finding my footing, I begin to run in the opposite direction, the ornate furniture and paintings on the walls turning into a blur on either side of me as I sprint away down the hall. I don’t even know where I’m going; I just need to be as far away from the guys as I can possibly be. The guards stare me down through their golden helmets as I go, and even though I can’t see their eyes, I can feel their solemn gazes on me, judgemental and cold. I’m glad there’s no one out and about in the hallways; the last thing I need right now is to run into one of the higher gods and listen to their taunts. This is what they wanted when they brought me here, I’m realising: they never wanted me to change my mind - they just want to beat me down until I can no longer refuse to join them.
And the worst part? It might just be working.
I don’t stop running until I get to my family’s apartment, like an oasis in the desert. The front door is open, which I don’t give more than a passing thought as I rush across the threshold and slam it shut behind me. My world is coming apart at the seams, and there is only one person I need to talk to about this - the only person I can talk to right now. She might not be immortal or superhuman, but she’s the only one I can trust with emotions like the ones I’m feeling right now.
“Mads!” I shout for her, looking around the apartment. It’s silent as the grave in here, and I take a few steps forward into the common area. Realising I’m still crying, I wipe my tears away quickly as I head up to check the bedroom before returning back down into the living room. She isn’t here - she could be out with Peyton, out on a run… anywhere on this godforsaken island.
Fuck.
Still trembling with fear and confusion, I wobble into the bathroom and stare into the mirror for a long moment; my face is red and blotchy, my eyes puffy and my cheeks still glistening with tears. I hurry to splash some cold water on my face, focusing on my breathing and trying to force myself to calm down - or at least appear calm. I need to make sure I don’t look like I’ve been crying, because Mum would pick up on that in an instant. It’s like a sixth sense.
After several minutes of talking myself down, making sure I’m calm enough, I leave the bathroom and head over to Mum’s apartment. I don’t expect her to understand the exact nature of my problem - it’s not everyday that you’re caught between three immortal beings who can’t seem to agree on who you belong to - but I could use family right about now. Smoothing out my top and tucking my hair behind my ears, I take one last steadying breath before knocking briskly on the apartment door.
