We Will Heal These Wounds Read online

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  This edition published in 2018 by Burning Willow Press, LLC (USA)

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  ©Nicole Thorn and Sarah Hall, 2018

  ©Edd Sowder, editor, 2018

  ©Mayhem Designs, cover design, 2018

  ©Lori Michelle, The Author’s Alley, interior formatting, 2018

  OTHER NOVELS BY NICOLE THORN & SARAH HALL

  (Seers & Demigods series)

  We Will Gain Our Fury

  We Will Change Our Stars

  We Will Heal These Wounds

  We Will Bleed (Coming Soon)

  (Way Down Below series)

  Way Down Below

  Follow Me Down

  We All Fall Down

  Down We Go

  Double Down/Down & Out

  Down in Flames

  Bitter Dreams

  CHAPTER ONE:

  Prophecies Are Not Cheap

  Juniper

  I opened the cabinet, and peered at the cups. We had eighteen in all. Six white. Six gray. Six black. They had been lined up from lightest to darkest, and each of them had their handle facing the left. Everything looked to be in order. I closed the cabinets, and opened the silverware drawer. I had scoured the stores until I found an organizer that worked, and it had taken me longer than I cared to admit. Each utensil had been stacked neatly. Big forks, little forks, big spoons, little spoons, and then the butter knives, which never laid right, no matter how gently I closed the drawer. I fixed them, and then slowly slid the drawer back in, even knowing this.

  Over at the sink, everything looked normal. Not a speck of dust, or a dish within the basin. The faucet hung over the left side of the sink, directly over the drain. If it turned on, the water wouldn’t fill up the sink. The drain stopper sat next to the pull-out nozzle. I never used it, because I never needed to soak dishes, but it had its place in my kitchen.

  Everything looked fine outside. Inside gave me trouble.

  “Morning, Juniper,” Zander said from behind me. I looked over at him as he came into the kitchen. He, like my sister, was chaos on two legs. His hair looked unkempt, his clothes had gotten wrinkled and hung cockeyed on his body, and he just generally looked like he had rolled out of bed and came downstairs.

  “Morning,” I said, friendly enough.

  Zander went over to the fridge, and started pulling things out for breakfast. I watched him do it, putting them all on the counter. He knew I watched him too, because his back tightened up. He turned to glance at me.

  “Why don’t you go see how Nemo is doing?” he asked, friendly enough. “I’ve got this.” Then he smiled. It looked like a charming smile. It better, since he was the son of Aphrodite. Charm should’ve oozed from his pores. He already looked more attractive than most people had the right to. His hair was blond and silky looking, even with how it hung all over the place. His eyes were blue. He stood five inches over six feet. Just massive, walking chaos.

  I smiled at him. “Sure.”

  Leaving the kitchen proved hard. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to put everything back where it belonged the second he finished with it, but that was precisely why he had booted me out. Because I had been hovering.

  I stood in the middle of the living room, looking around the space. Nemo, our pet hydra—yes, a pet fucking hydra—swam in lazy circles around his kiddy pool. His fins splashed happily. We had filled the pool shallowly enough that he wouldn’t get any water on the carpet, unless he poked a hole in the side. Something I had been dreading since we moved him into the thing, and his tank out to the garage.

  He made a strange purring/growl sound at me. A noise he usually made when he felt happy. He also chirped, and those sounds ranged from concerning to cute, depending on who you asked.

  “Something wrong?” My brother, Jasper, asked from behind me.

  I jumped about a mile since I hadn’t noticed him coming in. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, fully dressed. He didn’t look neat, either, but less disheveled than Zander ever looked. He stood two inches shorter than the other man, but being tall was the only thing they shared. My brother had the same deep brown hair that Jasmine and I had. Since he started taking care of himself, he looked better too. The bags under his eyes had almost disappeared, and his skin tone looked less sickly now that he got enough sleep. He had also bulked up. Before, he had been underweight, but now that he was the size he was supposed to be? He had become huge. He wore a gray shirt and jeans, but I knew later he’d be covered in clay dust.

  “Nothing,” I said, with a smile. I didn’t even lie. Nothing had gone wrong. Nothing new, anyway. About three weeks ago, we had witnessed the Oracle giving a prophecy. We didn’t entirely know what it had been about, since she had been talking gibberish, but we could guess. I didn’t like our guess, because it meant we could die.

  Sure, we could die any day that we woke up, but it felt different when the mouthpiece of the gods decided to tell you. I had been operating on a low level of panic ever since, but the panic started getting old. Every day that nothing weird happened got easier.

  Jasper patted my back on his way into the kitchen. He wouldn’t help Zander with breakfast, because the demigod liked to do it on his own. He would go in and keep the other man company.

  I had barely been standing there twenty seconds before another set of feet came down the stairs. I smiled at Kizzy, Jasper’s girlfriend and Zander’s sister. She smiled back at me, warmth in her hazel eyes. Her hair looked extra pink today because she wore a blue dress that went down to her knees and hugged her killer curves tightly. She was taller than me by two inches.

  We greeted each other, and then went into the kitchen. Wherever Jasper went, Kizzy wouldn’t be far behind.

  She and Zander had moved in about four or five months ago, when their apartment building burned to the ground. The furies had been responsible. They had gone insane, and needed killing. They had decided that Kizzy and Zander deserved to die because Zander killed some people that abused Kizzy. Jasmine saw it happen, and in pure Jasmine fashion, decided to intervene.

  I didn’t mind, because I loved the demigods . . . now. I hadn’t been so keen on them at first.

  Speaking of Jasmine . . .

  “Zander!” she shouted from the top of the stairs. My sister came thundering down, a murderous expression on her face. “Stop moving Lorenzo!”

  “He creeps me out!” Zander shouted back from the kitchen. “Besides, what does it matter if I keep moving him into your room, since you’re not living in mine?”

  “I’m not!” Jasmine shouted back. “You’re an idiot for thinking you can win this! I’ll romance you into an early grave, mister!”

  He just laughed.

  Jasmine huffed, pulling the stone cat closer to her chest. My sister and I looked almost exactly alike. We had the same deep brown hair that Jasper did, but mine went to my waist, and Jasmine cut hers to her chin. All three of us were tall—Jasmine and m
e standing at five-foot-eight—and we used to all be lanky too. Jasper had bulked up enough that he couldn’t quite pull it off anymore, but Jasmine and I still did. The biggest difference between my sister and me were our eyes. Hers were gunmetal gray, and deep blue. Mine were gunmetal gray, and brown. I kind of got screwed on the eyes. Jasper’s were gunmetal gray and green.

  Jasmine had dressed even more brightly than normal. She wore a rainbow-colored shirt, with the brightest blue skirt I had ever seen, plus yellow tights with black polka dots. I dressed in tan shorts and a white shirt. The way I liked to dress.

  Jasmine shook her head, and held onto the stone cat tighter. She looked at me. “I need to keep him until I figure out a way to reverse what has been done. I will not let Zander win this one.” With that, she turned around, and marched back up the stairs.

  I smirked. Lorenzo had been a neighborhood stray that got caught by a gorgon’s stare. Jasmine refused to believe he had died. The Gorgon had been going for her at the time, at the behest of Arachne, who had been after Athena. We thought, anyway. When we confronted Arachne, she had been in the middle of a training camp, and no one would tell us what it had been built for.

  Naturally, I assumed for something terrible.

  “Breakfast!” Zander shouted.

  I wandered back into the kitchen and sat down. He set a bowl of fruit and a plate of egg whites in front of me. It would feed me, but it felt like too much food. I didn’t say that, though. I just popped a melon into my mouth. I liked to eat healthy, unlike everyone else in my family. I didn’t mind. They respected my wishes, and nothing else mattered.

  Besides, it was Sunday, and that meant I got my reward for being good all week. As soon as dinner ended, I would get to go into the panty, and pull out my pop tarts. Strawberry. I’d get one package, and I looked forward to it greatly.

  Jasmine trooped into the kitchen, and took her seat next to Zander. The two of them kissed. They had been together about a month, and I hadn’t seen either of them so happy. Jasper and Kezia had been together five months, and the same applied to them. They’d pass each other looks throughout breakfast that they thought no one else noticed. Cute, if not nauseating.

  More importantly, they all felt better than they ever had before. Jasper had almost gotten healthy. I still caught him staying up all night on occasion, but he tried. That meant more than most people would give him credit for. And Kezia dressed the way she wanted to without flinching. Or worrying if everyone looked at her. She could even give us hugs, and those shadows in her eyes had lessened.

  Jasmine had stopped drinking. It had only been a month, but she had stopped for that entire time. She had some bad moments, moments where I thought tackling her would be a smart move, but they always passed. Her breakdowns stopped almost entirely. She still got visions that brought her so low that she couldn’t get back up, but Zander always helped her with those.

  And he had gotten better too. Arguably, he had been the least fucked up of us all, and he still got better. I couldn’t put my finger on the difference in him, but he carried himself higher. Like he thought the world had stopped screwing him over, finally.

  Then there’s me.

  I poked at my fruit. Nudged a little blueberry onto my spoon, and popped it into my mouth.

  I hadn’t changed. It shouldn’t have bothered me. It shouldn’t have mattered if I got better or worse or stayed the same, as long as I didn’t mind myself. I thought I liked who I had been, but didn’t know anymore. There’d be days where I wouldn’t want to see anyone I lived with because they all had gotten so much better. They all seemed so happy . . .

  And I would drag them down.

  Already, Zander would give me sideways glances. I knew why. He felt bad because I had become the fifth wheel. I never felt like one, until he started giving me those looks. I’d leave the room when he did, and let him feel sorry for me without having to see it.

  Zander was the son of Aphrodite. It came naturally for him to think I needed someone in my life, but I didn’t. I didn’t want triplets, if for no other reason. Only one set of seers existed at a time. My brother saw the past and my sister saw the future, so they didn’t have to worry about giving birth to the next set of seers. That honor went to whoever saw the present.

  Meaning me.

  No words could explain how that so, totally wouldn’t happen. I didn’t need children. I didn’t need some guy in my life to make me happy. I didn’t need anything but what I had. I would remain perfectly content sitting here, eating my healthy breakfast, and looking forward to my unhealthy pop tart later.

  Anything else would be trouble, and I had had enough trouble lately.

  CHAPTER TWO:

  America

  Verin

  “OI!” I shouted at the moron about to bump into my mum as he brought a box into the house. “Watch where you’re goin’!”

  The short man turned to me, squinting. “What was that?”

  I rolled my eyes. “WATCH! WHERE! YOU’RE! GOING!” I shouted again, mocking his flat American accent so that he would understand me. They all seemed to just understand their own kind.

  Mum ducked under his arm and scuttled over to me. “Calm, luv,” she said to me, grinning warmly. The woman had never been capable of less than glowing kindness. She patted my arm. “No harm done.”

  “See?” the man said, pointing to her. “She’s fine.”

  He walked inside, and I flipped him off.

  Mum giggled and shook her head.

  They all seemed to understand her better than they did me. Her accent sounded posh and clean, having lived in London for most of her life. She only moved when she had me. Dad gave her some money and she took us to Yorkshire, and there came my accent.

  Mum squeaked when she heard some kind of horrid death call coming from down the street. Like wind chimes. Soon, a massive pink truck started coming for us. The music got louder, and Mum stared at it in awe.

  “VERIN!” she called. “They’re selling treats! ON A TRUCK!”

  When she started running for it, I had to stop her by taking hold of her arm. “Wait, careful, Mum. Don’t wanna get crushed by it.”

  She nodded.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out some of the money we’d gotten when we came here. I had no understanding of American money yet. No colors. Other than an awful green. But since I didn’t know how much she would need, I handed her ten . . . dollars . . . and she ran off.

  When the moving men came ‘round to bring my drum set in, I made damn sure that those plonkers didn’t scratch a thing. Those had been a gift from my father for my sixteenth birthday. Every year, he got me new sticks from a group I enjoyed. His connections had been impressive to say the least, but I expected nothing less.

  They set it up in the corner of my new bedroom, and I stared them down until they made sure it had been set safely on the floor.

  I smirked when they hurried off, looking worried.

  I liked to think I didn’t seem too intimidating, but I suppose I had to be a bit. Something in my eyes. Though mine were a cobalt blue, I still got them from my father. You could just feel darkness in me. Add that to being 1.91 meters tall. Six-foot-three, as I had been told by the rude woman at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Not my problem if you didn’t understand how the rest of the world worked. Anyway, tall, hateful eyes, and black hair in a mess down to my ears. Yes, I looked like a right hooligan.

  I rushed down the stairs to find Mum walking back into the house, grinning proudly at the box in her arms. Something called a ‘Choco Taco’, or about ten of them.

  “Mum,” I smiled. “Why’d ya get ten?”

  She blinked up at me innocently. “So that we would have ten, darling.” She patted my cheek. “Keep up.”

  I watched her walk into the kitchen, making sure she had no trouble getting over the boxes safely. The woman sometimes left her head somewhere else.

  She was so very human, and that frightened me every day. I could see her aging. Once d
ark brown hair started greying, and wrinkles threatened her skin. But her eyes stayed bright as ever, matching mine in color. I told myself that the only reason she had those lines on her face was from all the smiling. Not age. She could still be considered young. Barely in the middle of her forties. She had me at nineteen, and it had been a long twenty-four years for the two of us.

  Thunder cracked outside of the window, and Mum squeaked with a literal jump.

  “Oh! And so, it begins.” She patted my chest and headed to the backyard, telling me she needed to feel the rain.

  I shook my head, smiling. It rained plenty where we came from.

  With the boxes in danger of getting wet, I went outside to help bring things in. I got Mum’s special boxes, not trusting the moving men with her trinkets. They wouldn’t care if they damaged her memories.

  I left them in her bedroom and guided the men through most of the rest of the house. We didn’t own much, and this house was a little bigger than we needed. But we didn’t pick it. That had been Dad and some real-estate woman. He told us that Seattle would be a good place to live, and we had been in no position to argue. Not only did we know nothing of this country, but Dad paid for it all. He always made sure Mum had more than enough to get by. She hadn’t been fit to work in a long time.

  The rain turned to light showers, and I could stand on the sidewalk without getting soaked in a moment. I studied the street, deciding if it would be good enough for my mother. If she could be happy. Mum could be happy in a lot of places, but that didn’t mean much. She deserved the best that existed.

  “Verin!” Mum shouted as she ran up from behind me. She had some purple flower in her hand. “Look at this.”

  “I am.” I smiled. “Very pretty.”

  She scoffed. “No, you egg. LOOK!” She shoved it in my face. “Can you not feel it?”

  I took the thing in my hand and stared at it. Purple, and with petals that didn’t quite look like anything I’d seen. It looked . . . wrong. They curled in and then flailed out at the same time. Purple faded into blue, and the edges turned black.