Finally, Ares says, “Everything cool with you?”
My smile turns brittle. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
It’s not that I expected them not to find out about what happened, but that was fast for something that only happened a bit over a week ago.
“The pictures everyone’s talking about,” Kratos says, as blunt as ever. “Who the fuck does Ares need to set on fire?”
“You aren’t even offering your own services?” I say with a mild laugh. “Anyway, it’s not a big deal. I already got back at one of them.”
Ares scowls at me. He looks more like Papa than Kratos does, with the same shade of light brown hair and green eyes. Kratos is sort of a cross between Mama and Uncle Slayer, with Slayer’s very defined jawline and strong nose.
It’s kind of a weird effect, since they’re supposed to be twins. I mean, theyaretwins. Born on the same day and all, from the same pregnancy.
“You know it doesn’t work like that,” Ares says. “Revenge has to be paid back tenfold.”
I think to Zayden’s anguished screams, and how I’d dumped his body piece by piece into the incinerator.
“Yeah, I’m working on that. But trust me, nobody’s getting off lightly here. Anyway, what do you mean,everyone’stalking about them? You didn’t show Papa, did you?” My eyes narrow. “Because if you did, I’m not forgiving you either.”
“Of course we didn’t show him,” Kratos scoffs. “If we did, there’d be a crater where Dyschord used to be. Give us a little credit.”
“It isn’t everybody,” Ares quickly adds. “Just Kratos’s biker friends.”
Which reminds me of the whole other problem my brothers created.
“It’s your fault, anyway,” I say to Kratos. “Because of when you and your friends went to beat up the Kappa Douchebag frat. River wasn’t amused, by the way.”
“I don’t give a fuck whether that loser wasamused,” Kratos retorts. “You dropped him for a reason.”
He doesn’t know what that reason is, of course.
“Well, don’t bother him again,” I say. “Or the rest of the Kappa Douchebags. I’m handling it.”
Neither of them look convinced. Overprotective losers.
I say that with affection, of course.
“Besides, don’t you two have your own shit to deal with? How’s the school year going?” I shift my chair over to the snake enclosure and open it up so I can take Echo out. She hisses at me, then calms down and coils around my wrist.
“Oh, look who’s trying to change the subject,” Kratos says, but he concedes. “It’s boring without you here. Well. Except dealing with some shithead who was trying to fuck with Mel, but we took care of that.”
That piques my interest. “A shithead who was bothering Mel? What did he do?”
Ares scratches the back of his neck. “Eh, not important. Mel wouldn’t want you to know about it.”
Which means it must have been really bad.
It probably made her cry.
Mel cries a lot easier than I do.
My younger sister is the weird one in our family. She’s sensitive, and quiet, and she never wanted to learn how to fight or cut up a body. If she had, she wouldn’t be in these situations where people constantly try to trample all over her.
“Tell me you at least burned this person’s stuff,” I say.
Ares grins. “Better. I burned all of his hair off. He was crying and screaming while Kratos held him down, and damn, the fire was beautiful. It took so much control to have it only burn his hair and none of his skin.”
“It was pretty fucking cool,” Kratos says. “I bet him he couldn’t just burn his hair, but I lost.” He doesn’t sound bothered by that fact.
