The Weight of the World (16 page)

She
took a deep breath. “The same goes for you,” she said. “If
someone knows who we are, they'll know you're part of this, too.”

“I'll
remember that.” Jason pulled his keys out of his pocket. He waved
as Celene got in her car and walked across the lot to his old Buick.

The
movie had finished ten minutes ago. It hadn't been very long. Now the
DVD menu played on loop. Teddy and Penny were too busy to stop it.
They had started off sitting next to each other, but now Teddy was on
top of Penny with his hands in her hair. Her arms were threaded up
under his, with her hands gripping his shoulders as they kissed.

Penny
was fifteen; she dreamed of getting to live those cliches. A romantic
evening with her boyfriend while babysitting was just another one of
those things she had read in books. She wasn't as lost in the moment
as she would have hoped, though. She was nervous and tense and her
mind was working too fast, worrying that the kids would wake up and
wondering how far she should let Teddy go.

Teddy's
hands slid through her hair. His fingertips slid across her neck.
Something like a static shock sparked at her hairline and then
spread. The sensation was a mixture of an adrenaline rush and a hot
chill. She shuddered as it coursed through her body, making her feel
hot and restless. The worry went away for a moment. Teddy's touch had
ignited an unnatural, feral desire in her.

Her
grip on his back grew tighter and their kiss became almost frantic.
Teddy took a hand out of her hair and slipped it up under her tank
top. Penny grabbed his wrist and stopped him. She broke the kiss,
trying to steady her breathing and clear the fog from her thoughts.

“Come
on,” he groaned.

That
complaint shook her out of her stupor. “I don't want to do that,”
she said quietly.

“Why
not?”

Penny
didn't feel like she needed to explain that. She pushed him off and
sat up. “Because it makes me uncomfortable, okay?”

“This
is like, our fifth date.”

“I
didn't know I had a deadline,” she snapped.

“Penny,”
he sighed and rubbed his forehead. “It's no big deal.”

“Well
it's a big deal for me, okay?” Penny got off the couch. She grabbed
the remote and ejected the DVD. The loop of menu music, which had
faded to the background, stopped abruptly and punctuated the
conversation.

Headlights
lit up the mudroom as Dr. Livingstone returned home. Penny was
relieved. The conversation was really over, now. Penny and Teddy sat
in silence for a minute before Jason unlocked the front door and came
inside. He looked between the two teenagers, noticing flushed faces
and tousled hair. He shot Teddy a look that he hoped warned, “Not
in my house.”

“They
went to bed at eight,” Penny said, trying to pretend that it was a
normal babysitting gig and that nothing unusual had happened. “Scott
knocked his plate on my lap, but once I fixed him another, he and
James both ate well.”

“That's
good to hear. No other problems?”

She
shook her head. “We watched Veggie Tales and by the time it was
over they were ready to sleep. No fights.”

“Good.”
Jason pulled out his wallet. “Is Teddy giving you a ride home?”

“Yes,
sir,” Teddy said.

Jason
handed Penny a handful of cash and then turned his eyes on Teddy. He
placed a hand on Teddy's shoulder, gripping it tightly. “Drive
careful,” he said in a tense tone.

“I
will.”

Penny
and Teddy headed out into the dark. Penny slid into the passenger
seat of Teddy's purple Jaguar. He climbed in and hesitated before
starting the car without a word. They drove back to Penny's house.
She started to get out of the car when Teddy finally spoke up.

“Are
we okay?” he asked.

Penny
shrugged.

“I'm
sorry,” he pleaded. “You just... well... it felt like you wanted
more.”

“Teddy,
there's a difference between what hormones tell you to do and what
you
should
do.”

Teddy
smirked. “Right,” he said. Teddy didn't believe in denying
himself very much. People got ulcers from too much repression.

She
sat in the car, thinking for a moment, “You kind of zapped me,
though, when we were making out.”

“Zapped
you? Like Zach?”

“No...
like... I wasn't that into it, no offense, and then I felt a little
zap on my neck and I was a little too into it.”

“Well...
you know... hormones.” Teddy shrugged. He was used to letting want
direct his actions. It didn't seem that unusual to him. Penny,
however, had never felt anything like that before.

“Never
mind,” she said. “Goodnight.”

Penny
ran up to her door and turned to wave one last time before
disappearing inside. Celene was waiting up for Penny when she came
in, but Penny only said a few words to her before heading up to bed.

“
Oh,
woman, woman! When to ill thy mind is bent, all Hell contains no
fouler fiend.”

-Homer

xi.

Pan
was chosen to judge the beauty contest.

It
was a decision of Aphrodite

or
Zeus and Lamia's fair son Akheilos.

Wild
Pan chose poorly.

Offended,
Aphrodite cursed the goat God.

She
struck him with the keenest love for Ekho,

who
spurned his pursuit and fled, leaving only

her
repeating voice.

“
I
will never reveal my dreadful secrets, or rather, yours.
”

-Sophocles

XI.

Devon
stood in front of her mirror with her shirt pulled up past her
stomach, trying to see if there was any visible change in her
physique. Her stomach felt tight, but Evan had told her, this
afternoon, that he couldn't see a difference. She couldn't ask her
mother, as her pregnancy was an unspeakable subject with her parents.
She turned to look at her profile and then dropped her shirt and
scowled. Maybe she wasn't showing yet, but by the end of the month
she would have to stop wearing her cutest jeans and buy something
with an elastic waistband. Yuck.

It
was just after sunset. A warm glow still marked the horizon, but
outside it was dark. Her parents were out at a fundraiser for her
mother's campaign. Being pregnant got her out of having to make too
many public appearances. Devon flopped down on her bed and looked out
the window at the street in front of her house. A young girl walked
her dog on the sidewalk across the road and there was a hoop-less
game of basketball being played in the street. She got up to close
her blinds when she saw Adam running up the street in a hurry. He
tripped and sprawled across his lawn. Was he bleeding?

Devon
ran to the front door. “Adam?” she called as she headed onto the
front walkway.

There
was blood dripping from Adam's forehead, down his face, and
collecting on the front of his shirt.

Devon
hauled him to his feet and guided him into the front landing of her
parents' house. She sat him down on the stairs. “What happened?”
she shrieked.

“I
was out taking a walk and someone attacked me,” he said. He was
shaking and breathing heavily. Devon grabbed a mauve towel from the
hall bathroom and returned. She crouched down to hold it to Adam's
forehead. His hair had grown out a bit in the last two weeks and
instead of being a military-style buzz cut, it was starting to curl.
Now the fringe of those chestnut brown curls was soaked in blood.

“Were
you mugged?” she asked.

“No.
I don't know. He didn't ask for money. I didn't even see him. He was
in the shadows. He said...” he winced as Devon applied more
pressure to stop the bleeding. “He sicced a dog on me. It was
moving so fast, it almost looked like it had two heads.”

Devon
took a deep breath and tried to act like the idea didn't phase her.
“That's ridiculous. Like a siamese twin dog?”

“I
mean, I was scared. I didn't see clearly. It was just really fast. I
don't know,” he groaned. “Am I going to need stitches?”

Devon
pulled back the towel and examined the wound. “It's not that deep.
Head wounds just bleed a lot. Hold this.”

Adam
took the towel and Devon went digging through the medicine chest to
find some butterfly bandages. She came back with the bandages and
some antiseptic spray and set to work cleaning and closing the wound.
She felt a little nauseous as she worked, but she couldn't be sure if
that was from the blood or the baby.

“Did
he say anything to you?” Devon asked as she worked. She didn't want
to think about the task at hand.

“He
said... I don't think it was all in English. He called me a bunch of
weird names... Ago-something? He said, 'You've finally arrived' and
then the dog came at me. And I threw it. I threw it farther than I
thought was possible and I ran.”

Devon
finished with the last bandage. Adam took her hand. “Thank you,”
he said. “I'd be all alone here if it weren't for your family.”

Her
mother had a reputation to uphold. Devon didn't explain to Adam that
it was probably more pretense than compassion that prompted Mrs.
Valentine to be neighborly to Adam. It was nice to have someone who
Devon could talk to close at hand. She didn't care what her mother's
motive was when asking her to show Adam around. But now Devon had
something else to worry about. The attack on Adam sounded a lot like
Epimetheus' attack of Valerie, and two-headed dogs weren't exactly
common in south-eastern Florida.

“I'll
be back with some ice in a minute,” she said. She didn't mean to
abandon him in her house, wounded and bloody, but she needed privacy.
“I need to make a phone call. If anyone asks, you were mugged,
okay?”

Adam
kept hold of her hand. “What aren't you telling me?”

“Nothing,”
she lied. “At least, I don't think it's anything.”

Devon
pulled her hand out of his grip and walked into her bedroom. She
closed the door and dialed Zach.

“Uh,
hey,” Zach said, sounding confused. Devon didn't call him very
often. “Everything alright?”

“You
know our new neighbor?”

“That
guy Discordia says you've been seen around town with? Yeah. What
about him?”

“I
think he's one of us.”

“I'll
call a meeting.”

The
emergency Pantheon meeting was held at 8:00 A.M the next morning.
Devon picked up Evan before heading over to Dr. Davis' house. The
atmosphere was tense. June was shooting dagger glares at Minnie, and
Valerie was giving the same treatment to Nick. Something had gone
down, but for once, the gossip in Devon was too distracted to care.

Devon
recounted the story of the previous night to The Pantheon. After she
finished, the group sat in silence.

“Well,”
Jason finally said. “That sounds a lot like Valerie's attack last
fall: cryptic use of Greek names, supernatural attacks, and aside
from a few mortals who got in the way, those guys didn't attack
normal people. Of course it could also be a bilingual mugger and a
scared victim imagining things.”