Page 11 of Evermore
Her anger was my anger. Archer’s anger. It was all of our distrust and all of our paranoia feeding her. Her rage pulsed and throbbed, slamming into me in relentless waves, setting my nerves on edge. I tried to push back, but it didn’t work. It mingled with Archer’s grief and bitterness, Thea and Elowen’s despair and desperation, swirling into a maelstrom of dark emotions that threatened to drag me under. My own anger flared hotter in response. A lifetime of betrayals and lies rising up to choke me the second I was close enough to Quill while she threw a tantrum.
Lost in anger, I wasn’t standing in the Syndicate house anymore, but instead swept away on the spiral of emotions controlled by a nine year old girl. Consumed by darkness, I stared into Thorne’s hazel eyes as he drew back a blade and shoved it into my gut over and over. I lay in his arms in a snowbank while he twisted the blade with that fucking dimpled smile on his face. I stood in the relentless heat of the sun while he held me still and Ezra pulled back an arrow and shot it into my sternum. I was a victim. Over and over and over again.
I hated that I wanted to love him. Hated that I couldn’t look at that face and see the beautiful man for the monster he was. I no longer wanted to try with him. I wanted to destroy him. Iwanted to pull that blade from my stomach and shove it into his. But how do you stop a god? Kill a god?
I was being hunted by the most powerful two. I was in my home and they knew where to find me. Being here was a problem. I’d draw them in, and this house would become my final resting place. All because gods had to meddle and control and shove their will into everyone and everything around them until every damn choice was no longer ours. They took and took and took, and they answered to fucking no one.
The urge to lash out, to scream, to destroy something was overwhelming. I clenched my fists at my sides, nails digging into my palms as I struggled to maintain control. Struggled to come back to reality. But something lingered there in that anger, the eyes of someone, several someones watching me. Still, I left them, anchoring myself by cutting slits into my palms with my nails until my real body was the only place I could exist. Not in the fury. But rage was the only thing I could feel now. Quill’s, but also mine.
I pushed beyond it all to turn to the child. “For gods’ sake Quill, look around you. Look at Althea’s face. Look into Elowen’s tired eyes, and tell me you can’t see your part in their misery. Still, they choose to be here every day. They choose to sit here and take these abusive emotions from you because they love you, and still you push. This isnothow you were raised. And you may not like it, young lady, but it doesn’t serve you to try to control the world. This power is dangerous.
“The world is so much bigger than you are. People are out there dying. People are being forced to do terrible things against their will. They are suffering, and you’re standing here throwing a tantrum about having to spend a single day at home. It’s safe here. It’s warm. There’s food. There are children a single carriage ride away from this front door that have absolutely nothing. There’s joy if you would just allow yourself to see it.This world is broken, but you are blessed. You need to find a way to be grateful for what you have. Because this shit cannot continue.”
“You don’t have to be mean,” she said, eyes falling to the floor.
I threw my hands on my hips as Thea stepped away, her fear of Quill’s backlash warranted. “Neither do you. That’s a choice you get to make every single day and you are failing. It stops today.”
“I quite agree,” Aeris said, looking down at Quill with a hard face. “We’ve talked about this. It saddens me to hear you’ve been unkind.”
I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t appreciate the woman’s support, but I hadn’t asked for it, and I didn’t need it. I’d never spoken to Quill like that. I don’t think anyone ever had. But there were some lessons I refused to let her learn the hard way.
Quill’s lower lip trembled as she looked up at me with teary eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be mean. It’s just… it’s so hard to control sometimes. The magic, the feelings… they overwhelm me, and I can’t make them stop.”
My heart clenched at the vulnerability and desperation in her young voice. I knelt and took her hands in mine, gazing into those troubled blue depths. This was my little girl. Destiny be damned, she was mine. And she was hurting and struggling and far too powerful for her own good. There was a reason they said she would destroy the worlds if she wasn’t stopped. Because she held too much. That kernel of the little girl that I’d raised was in there, fighting for her life against all that power. Poor thing.
“I know it’s hard and scary not being able to control yourself. But you can’t keep lashing out at people with it, even unintentionally. Your magic is a part of you, but it doesn’t define you. You define it with your choices, your actions, and your heart. And I know you have the biggest, most loving heart.”
A tear slid down her flushed cheek. “What if I can’t, though? What if the magic is too strong and I can’t? I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
I wanted to promise her it would get easier, but I knew better. “Magic, like grief, doesn’t soften just because we wish it would.”
Aeris knelt beside us, sliding a hand down Quill’s arm. “There’s good in this world and bad in this world, and as long as you choose good, that’s what your power will become. Change is never easy, little bird, but it’s usually necessary. Even if we feel overwhelmed by it.”
Aeris left a while later,accepting that I wasn’t going to send Quill off with her, no matter the words she said. They could’ve been perfect, and I still wouldn’t have done it. She had an angle, all gods did, and I would never bend to the whims of a god again. I needed one more broken soul to deliver to Alastor and then they could all fuck off.
Alone in my room, I expected to find Thorne in every moment. One second I’d be staring at a book, and the next he’d be standing there. But he hadn’t come. Neither of the brothers had. Which should have felt like a battle won, but really, it felt more like the gasp before it all truly began.
Tossing the book I couldn’t read onto my unmade bed, I walked to the window and stared down at the meadow where Archer paced, hands in his pockets, not quickly, but efficiently wearing a path into the long grass.
“What’s he doing down there?” Thea asked, stepping into my room.
“He’s doing what we’re all doing. Struggling. I’m half expecting him to fall to his knees and start cursing every god until they show up.”
“Not ideal.” Thea pulled the sheer curtain away to watch him more fully.
“I thought maybe his soul would be broken after losing his sister, but it’s not. He’s sad, sure, but he’s also so pissed off and I don’t know how to help him.”
She nudged me with a shoulder, and I turned to see that bright smile I’d left behind. The woman who’d been an optimistic toe bouncer when she got excited. The woman who’d promised to take care of Quill and did, even though she’d suffered from it. “You don’t have to fix everyone. Some people have to learn to fix themselves. Let him be sad and angry and whatever he needs to be for a while. He’ll come back to himself, I’m sure of it. Quill doesn’t seem to be any worse than she was before you came.”
“When did she start acting like that? I’ve never seen her use her magic against someone maliciously.”
Thea stared down at the pacing man, lifting a shoulder. “I can’t remember. I really think it came all at once. One day, she was dancing in the meadow and the next, Elowen was sobbing while Quill simply looked at her with no care in the world. She was tired of feeling Elowen’s sadness, she’d said. So she showed her what it felt like.”
“That didn’t happen to be the same time Aeris started floating around, did it?”
Thea rolled her eyes. “Don’t start. Aeris usually curbs Quill’s emotions. She makes her happy.”
“Sounds an awful lot like control when you say it like that, doesn’t it?”