We Will Bleed 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

  (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:

  Better

  Jasper

  KEZIA THREW HER paint brush on the table and put her head down. She got clay dust in her hair in doing so, but I doubted she cared much. “I’m done,” she said. “I can’t stare at this stupid thing anymore, not coming out the way I want. Piece of garbage.”

  I smiled at my girlfriend, setting my supplies down. “Why don’t we go into the backyard and you can play around with some plants out there, then?”

  “But you’re not finished,” Kezia said, lifting her head up.

  “I won’t be finished for probably hours,” I told her, and watched as her eyes glazed over.

  “All right, backyard it is,” Kezia agreed, turning around in her seat. She pushed to her feet, and I started wrapping my works-in-progress in wet towels. Once I had finished that, I stood up and removed my headphones. The blasting sound of guitar died, and I tossed the device onto the table.

  Kezia and I went into the house. We had converted the garage to my art studio, which had been fine when there were only three of us, and two cars. Now . . .

  Juniper stood in the middle of the kitchen, covering her face with her hands. “I can’t watch this!” she cried, sounding devastated.

  “It’s fine!” Verin shouted over his shoulder.

  “It’s not fine! It’ll never be fine again! Oh, my insides hurt.” She curled her arms around her stomach and rocked around on her feet. I wandered over to Verin to see what the problem was, while Kezia went to Juniper. My sister turned horrified eyes to her, and whispered, “Grape juice.”

  I looked into the sink to find one of the couch cushions covered in a purple stain, unlikely to come out again. Verin, Juniper’s boyfriend, tried his hardest to scrub it out, but I didn’t think that would happen. “Was it you?” I asked, quietly.

  Verin glanced over at me. “Jasmine.”

  “You have no idea how lucky you are, then,” I said.

  “Oh, I know,” Verin muttered, and continued to scrub it, while my sister tried to breathe normally. I wandered over to her and put my hands on Juniper’s shoulders. “It’ll be okay. I will buy you a new cushion, if I have to. Kezia and I will leave right this second.”

  My girlfriend nodded emphatically. “Of course, we will. I know just where to get a cushion like that. Um . . . I almost hate to ask, but is the couch okay?”

  Juniper’s mismatched eyes widened, and she rushed out of the kitchen.

  Verin sighed loudly and obnoxiously. “Thanks, Aunt Kizzy.”

  “Stop calling me that,” Kezia huffed. From the living room, I heard my sister’s mournful cry. I wandered out to see that the couch looked perfectly fine, but we had grape juice on the carpet. My other sister, Jasmine, had been trying to scrub it up to no avail. Zander stood beside her, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “I can fix this!” Jasmine shouted, flailing her arms at Juniper. “You saw nothing, and I can fix this!”

  Juniper whimpered.

  “Little help in here, Verin?” I called. He came rushing out of the room, going straight to my sister. His shaggy black hair hung in his face, and his black clothing stood in contrast to Juniper’s. She had stopped wearing her white and tan combo clothing a while ago, but I still worried for a slipup. Today, she had on a light purple t-shirt and green shorts. Her brown hair had been pulled back in a ponytail, which meant her brown and gray eyes looked wider and more horrified.

  “It’ll be fine!” Verin said, hauling her up.

  “It’s so much!” she shouted, about the four dots of purple on her carpet. Verin hauled my sister over his shoulder and gestured at me. The gesture meant nothing, but I still understood it. I needed to fix this. While the demigod took my sister upstairs, I looked back to the middle triplet.

  Jasmine stared at me with huge eyes. She, like Juniper and myself, had brown hair, but hers sprung up from her head in crazy directions. It made her look surprised much of the time. When I looked into her blue and gray eyes, she pointed to Zander. “It’s his fault. He was trying to get me to do stuff to him.”

  “Lies!” Zander shouted. “You dropped the glass while trying to make me do stuff to you!”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Jasmine said.

  Kezia snickered, and I sighed. I didn’t care that my sisters had boyfriends. I cared a lot that Jasmine seemed incapable of keeping the finer details of her relationship to herself. I didn’t need to know. No one needed to know. I should have just locked her in her room when I had the chance.

  “Kezia?” I asked. “Is there anything you can do to help us?”

  She frowned, looking down at the carpet. “I’m not sure. If this was some kind of injury, then I could do anything. I’ll try, though.” She went into the kitchen and came back with and empty pot. Closing her eyes, Kezia let out a breath, and her magic started to flow. Plants grew from the dirt, springing over the side. Kezia would then pluck the plants and put them into a bowl to work with. Meanwhile, Jasmine and Zander still tried to scrub away the grape juice.

  I turned back to my girlfriend. She had tied her pinkish red hair into pigtails, and her hazel eyes seemed focused on her work. I sat down next to her. “Is there anything that I can do?”

  “Keep our siblings from making a bigger mess,” Kezia said.

  I glanced over at Zander and Jasmine. “Is there anything plausible that I can do?”

  Kezia laughed. “Maybe get us something to eat?”

  She didn’t fool me with that. I knew that she really wanted me to eat, but I still rose up, and went to get some food. Not too long ago, I would’ve been reluctant to eat anything, even for Kezia. Self-destruction came in many forms, and my sisters and I had practiced several of them. I used to go days without eating, and I’d actually hadn’t felt hungry while doing that. I’d also go days without sleeping. I’d stay up well past when my mental stability had started to wobble.

  Then there came a time where I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Couldn’t handle being as broken as I felt. Now, I ate daily, and at least tried to sleep most nights. There still came those moments where I should have felt hungry and didn’t. Or those nights where no amou
nt of staring at the ceiling listening to Kezia breathe next to me, could make me fall asleep.

  But I strived for better and that meant something.

  I made sandwiches and started to bring them out when Kezia came into the kitchen. She threw a bunch of plates into a pot and started boiling them. “Keep in mind that this only has a fifty-fifty chance of working,” she said. “And know that I’m sorry if I can’t get the stains out.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “A new couch cushion wouldn’t cost too much, nor would redoing the carpets downstairs, considering how much money we have, if the stain doesn’t come up. The question is, can we do it so that Juniper doesn’t realize that we’ve redone all the carpets?”

  Kezia frowned. “I have no idea.” She looked into the boiling pot, and then took the sandwich that I had made her. She chewed thoughtfully, staring at nothing. I ate my own, trying not to think about how upset my sister must’ve been right then.

  “This will have to boil for a while,” Kezia said. “I think we should make Jasmine and Zander watch it, don’t you?”

  I smiled at her, and said, “Yes, that makes a lot of sense to me.”

  We sent the two destructive people into the kitchen, and Kezia and I headed up to our room. It looked more lived in now, strangely enough. Before, I would throw things on the floor, and I had things that I made on the dresser and desk. Now, Kezia had filled every nook and cranny with pots that overflowed with colorful plants. She had them on the windowsill, catching light, in between all my sculptures, and even a couple hanging from the ceiling. As Demeter’s daughter, Kezia could control plant life. When I had given her free range to put some plants in our room, she had gone overboard, not that I minded. I actually liked the ivy that tangled along the ceiling.

  Juniper couldn’t come in here, though. She’d have a heart attack.

  Kezia and I laid on the bed together, and I brushed some of the hair out of her face. She stared at me with her bright eyes, and I liked to think that I could see affection in them. The two of us had been together for over six months now, and it felt nice to have her with me. Even with all the things we had been through.

  We had met originally because the furies had wanted to kill Kezia and Zander. Though my siblings and I were barely more than human, we had still jumped into the fight. Three seers and two demigods against the furies. It felt like a miracle that we had survived. And we only managed that because demigods healed so fast.

  That should have been the end of our troubles. Honestly, how many people got into more than one life or death battle, even ones like us, who dealt with gods and other creatures?

  Kezia shuffled over and rested her cheek against my chest. “We should just hide up here for the rest of the day.”

  “What about the brew you’re mixing?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Zander will pull it off the stove before it burns the house down. It would almost be worth it.”

  I laughed, brushing my hands down her hair again. “Almost worth it for who?”

  “Don’t ruin this,” she grumbled. “Let me have my fantasy of being able to stay up here all day.”

  “Maybe tomorrow?” I said, leaning in to press my lips against her forehead. She felt so warm and soft. Today, she had worn one of my shirts. Not because she wanted to hide, but because, she said, it felt so soft. Underneath the shirt, she wore a pair of shorts that went almost to her knees. I ran my hand down the bare bit of thigh that she had exposed, and Kezia sighed. She kissed me, and the feel of her lips, as always, had my head spinning.

  From downstairs, the smoke alarms went off.

  Kezia put her forehead against my chest and sighed. “I swore that he would be smarter than this.” She leapt off the bed and rushed out of the room while I laughed. A second later, I went to join her.

  Juniper had opened her door, her eyes wide. “Keep her in there!” I shouted.

  “Got it!” Verin called back. His arm came around my sister’s middle from behind, and she squeaked as Verin hauled her back into their bedroom. The door shut a second later, and then I started down the stairs.

  Kezia had pulled the pot off the stove, and lectured Zander while she did so. I watched her drain the liquid from the burnt leaves and herbs, and into a metal bowl. She set the pot down, and then stared at the stained cushion in the sink. “All right,” she said. “We’re going to try this stuff, and if it doesn’t work, we move on to plan B.”

  “Which is?” Jasmine asked, biting her lower lip.

  “Sending Juniper away so that we can replace everything, and lie to her about it,” Kezia answered.

  Jasmine sighed and stared at the cushion. “Please work.”

  CHAPTER TWO:

  Better

  Kezia

  I STARED AT the thing, telling myself I could wear it and be fine. Everyone waiting for me loved me. They were safe, and nothing bad would happen. Clothing shouldn’t have made me twitch like it did, but as was life.

  The girls bought me a one-piece bathing suit with a little skirt on the bottom. A normal girl could have worn it without a problem, but I wasn’t normal. Thanks to a couple foster parents who should have treated me better, I had a million problems that I fought every single day to overcome. I knew now that I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t have to punish myself because my foster mother decided to violate my body, and I accepted that the beatings my foster father gave me, hadn’t been earned. I did nothing wrong. I told myself that daily, because one day, it would come naturally.

  I slipped into the swimsuit, and looked at myself in the mirror. I wore my pink hair down, and it covered my shoulders as I sported this fairly conservative outfit. I couldn’t hide my shape in it, but maybe that was okay. People would be able to see my obvious hips, and almost no bathing suit in the world could have covered all my cleavage. But this one did a pretty good job. I smoothed out the green fabric and decided to leave.

  I bumped into Jasper outside of our bedroom, and he smiled at me. “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

  I had to stop myself from saying sorry. “Took a little while.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “How do I look?”

  He held my hand when I wouldn’t stop nervously tugging at the skirt. “You look adorable. Nemo will be impressed.”

  I blushed, and Jasper gave me a quick kiss before we headed out to the backyard.

  Everyone was already out there, most of them in the pool with our hydra, Nemo. When Jasper won him at the carnival for Jasmine, they thought he was a beta fish. We found out that he wasn’t a fucking beta when he got his head cut off. Now he rocked two, and had outgrown his fish tank, and then his kiddie pool.

  Zander, Jasmine, and Verin all floated in the pool already. Jasmine had on a bikini so colorful that I almost couldn’t look at it. Zander only had on trunks, probably at Jasmine’s request. Verin had made his way to the edge of the pool, pleading with his non-swimsuit-wearing girlfriend.

  “Come on, luv,” he said in his thick Northern accent. “Just for a little while. I’ll keep you safe.”

  “I would rather not get in a pool,” she responded. “There are all kinds of little bacteria things that can get to me, no matter what you think. And Nemo pees in there, so I would rather not hang out.”

  “There’s a filter,” Jasmine pointed out.

  Verin went on. “I said I would protect you, and I will. Get in here.”

  I thought she might have given in, but I was wrong about that. Instead, they went back and forth, and the man got no farther with her.

  I’d been keeping an eye on Verin since, well, he murdered a bunch of people. A man named Argus killed his mother, and he just . . . snapped. I understood, but it greatly concerned rest of us. Not Juniper, who moved past it quickly. But Argus was still out there, and we didn’t know where he had disappeared to. He’d stolen the army controlling the Golden Fleece, and we had to go stop him from using it for his evil bidding. We won that fight in the end, but we lost Verin’s mother.

&n
bsp; Cobalt blue eyes pleaded with Juniper. “Five minutes.”

  “Zero,” she said. “Final offer.”

  He sighed, and then went under the water.

  I looked to my boyfriend, and I rubbed my hands together. “There’s only one thing for me to do now. I think we both know what that is.”

  “We do. Go get ‘em.”

  I smiled and kissed his cheek before I took off for the pool. I dove into the deep end, sinking quickly. When I came back up, I found myself facing a cute looking Nemo, who watched me like I was crazy.

  “Hello, baby,” I cooed as I pet his heads. He’d gotten much bigger lately, needing this extra room. I hoped he wouldn’t get much bigger than this, but I didn’t know how far it would go. Right now, he looked about double the size of a big dog.

  “You’re brave,” Juniper said to me.

  “Thank you.”

  She seemed better after the catastrophe from the day before, but that could have changed any second. In fact, she started getting worried that Verin didn’t come up yet, and she yelled his name, ordering him to appear. When he didn’t, she ducked closer to the pool, calling out again.

  She yelled in surprise when Verin popped up to steal a kiss from her. Juniper swatted at his shoulder but kept on kissing him.

  I turned to see Jasmine on Zander’s back as he launched himself around the pool. He pushed off on the walls with his feet, making the two of them shoot through the water like a bullet. Jasmine cheered, and Nemo abandoned me to go play with her. I liked to think he was excited about us all spending time with him, but he had his favorites.

  Jasper sat at the edge of the pool, putting his feet in the water as I swam over to bug him. I may or may not have hung off his leg while we watched Juniper and Verin bicker.

  “You don’t wanna swim?” I asked Jasper.

  He shrugged. “I’m fine right here, enjoying the sun that actually feels warm.”

  We’d just gotten to a point where the weather let us do stuff like this, and I wanted to enjoy the rare sunny day we got in Seattle. I liked to think Mom did this one for us, getting Zeus to hold back on the storms. We were reaching her favorite part of the year, where the flowers grew naturally, and green surrounded us. It put her in a good mood.