Chapter 42

This was unreal. I had friends, but I usually lost them when Athena showed up to break my glasses and they found out I was that Medusa. If I didn’t turn them to stone, they were mad I’d hurt someone they cared about. If a Smith had fixed it after I ran, no one ever called me and forgave me.

I had three friends and one mate who never cared. But now it seemed like I had more than that. Jezebel had known this entire time. She wasn’t running. Jezebel told Kat she wanted to come here with me. She could have just come to help stop the Coalition, but she swore we were having that drink and I believed her.

And my new mates! They could have rejected me for what I did to Benji and Cas, but they didn’t. They were perfect.

Pax’s bathroom was amazing. It was painted and tiled in blues and grays. There was a large shower in the corner, but I was soaking in a huge tub underneath a picture window with a beautiful view of their garden. And Pax had good taste in bath shit.

I finally got a good look at myself in the mirror. The Coalition had done a number on me. My snakes were barely active, and I’d lost a ton of weight. I’d been pretty curvy before the Coalition grabbed me when Athena broke my glasses yet again. Di loved my curves. Could he love me like this?

My cheeks were hollowed out and there were dark circles under my eyes. I could practically count every rib. Fuck, I loved my curves, too. This wouldn’t do, but I had a chance to get my body back.

I used to bathe in hot springs, but I’d done it in rivers before. I was much older than indoor plumbing and hot water heaters. We used to heat the water over a fire in winter when we needed to bathe. Some of the places I lived after I left Greece had some pretty shitty ideas about hygiene. I couldn’t believe there were actual humans who treated bathing like the Dark Ages, but then the Coalition took me.

Pax said he and Benji had similar experiences the first time they got taken and they loved luxurious baths now. I could see myself doing the same, especially if all the bathrooms in this place were like this.

This was the kind of bathroom Di would have. He had more money than the richest human in the world but he kept it quiet. He wasn’t ostentatious in public, but he liked his little luxuries in private. Di was Greek. He had a Thermae at all his houses. It was basically the bathhouses we had back in the day. Di would appreciate this bathroom, too.

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

“Medusa? I got you some of our clothes and I made you a green smoothie. Cas keeps this meal replacement power in the pantry just in case we find someone in bad shape. I blended it with some greens and fruit from the garden. It should hold you over while the soup is defrosting. I can leave them outside until you’re ready to come out.”

“Or, you could come in and talk to me,” I said.

Because I had a lot of questions. Many of them, only Di could answer. I met Di and the rest of my friends when I was barely older than Calamity. They were all super powerful, but strategy wasn’t their strong point.

Di was a full on hedonist. My adoptive father didn’t like most people and preferred his workshop, but when he did care for someone, he loved hard. He was just better with his tools than he was with most people. He’d rein Di in, but planning a jailbreak wasn’t in his wheelhouse either. My other two friends knew how to keep people in but probably not much about breaking someone out of a Coalition facility.

And where did they find all three of my mates?

Something told me everything that happened after they ended up here was all them. Everything from us getting better food and everyone coming down with diarrhea. I just didn’t know how, so when Pax handed me the smoothie and sat on the toilet, I asked.

Cassandra got the shit end of it just like I did. Not all gods were shitty, but when they were, they were extra shitty. If someone was human, they’d usually just have them horrifically killed. If you were supernatural like Cassandra and me, they’d leave some kind of curse behind so they could taunt us for eternity or someone killed us for good.

I tried to befriend her once I had my glasses, but neither Athena, nor Apollo wanted that and showed up to drive us apart. Looking back, I had no idea what she meant when she told me to never go to Roanoke. I didn’t know what the word meant at the time and wasn’t even thinking about it when I moved there for a job.

Athena hadn’t bothered me in a while, but she showed up in Roanoke and broke my glasses in a crowded festival where I had a booth set up. That was where the Coalition got me. But Cassandra wasn’t immune to my curse, and I wasn’t immune to hers either. Even if I remembered she told me to avoid Roanoke thousands of years ago, I wouldn’t have believed her until after the fact..

But my friends were immune to her and me and if they told someone what Cassandra said, the curse didn’t apply to them. That answered all that. Pax filled in the rest.

It was utterly ridiculous and I shouldn’t find it so funny after everything that just happened to me. A human priest got Pax in as a fake priest and Hannibal was so fucking greedy, he let Benji gaslight the shit out of him.

“I’m sorry,” I wheezed. “All the fake nuns and priests in the basement were complaining about feeding us better and shitting their guts out. You’d think he might have listened to his friends, but I’m glad he didn’t.”

“That man doesn’t have friends. Trust me. All his relationships are transactional. Benji’s story is his own to tell, but we escaped the Coalition differently. I was an adult when they got me, but Benji was just a kid. I can see outlines and auras, but for the most part, they completely blinded me. What they did to Benji was worse because he was so young.

“He was feral and lashing out by biting and scratching, but he eventually learned how to use his best weapon and it’s not the shadow wolf. It’s his creativity and those big, brown eyes. He will ‘puppy dog eye’ you to death if he wants something and he will get it. You’ll know he’s lying to your face that it wasn’t him that pranked the Sherrif again and it’s always him messing with the Sherrif, but you want to believe him, anyway. Hannibal didn’t stand a chance against him.”

“So, we’re all just hot messes of trauma? We can’t even baby step into some of mine because they’ve been in several movies, television shows, books, or video games,” I snorted. “I didn’t tell you who I was because I was scared you’d either think I was a monster or tainted because of what Poseidon did to me. Plenty of people have sided with Athena. Some of them even said I was willing.”

“None of us are like that. Cas is the oldest and grew up during a time when if a woman got raped, it was her fault. He didn’t need to evolve. He didn’t believe that even back then. I don’t know if it happened when I wasn’t around this time, but the first time I was in a Coalition facility it happened a lot. Benji saw it, too. We wouldn’t have blamed you and would have asked if you still needed to talk about it.

“And you aren’t exactly a monster. Have you looked in the mirror? You’re fucking gorgeous. The glasses make your snakes look like braids, but even when we could see them, it was pretty cool. I’ve always had an affinity with snakes. They tend to show up when I need help. A python shouldn’t end up here, but my familiar is one and showed up on our front porch shortly after I arrived. The guys are cool with snakes because of me. Benji just doesn’t like watching my familiar eat.”

“Where is here? Benji traveled us here in shadows and I’ve only seen the cabin. You have a lovely view from your bathtub.”

“Oh, my goddess,” Pax said, falling out laughing.

“Do share because I need to laugh.”

“Cas’s dad immediately left to explore when he came to this country. He went out on his own and made friends with the various Native American tribes. He learned their languages and ways. They taught him things about this land that he would need to survive and he showed them a few things from his country.

“Cas’s dad eventually discovered a valley in a mountain range in what is now Washington State. No one was using it, so he claimed ownership and started building a village so supernaturals could be themselves. He owned the small town at the bottom of the mountain where the humans live, too, but the only humans that have ever been welcome in the valley were the Native Americans because they get us. Would you believe me if I told you that someone eventually named the mountain range where the valley sits Mount Olympus?”

“Fuck my life,” I giggled. “As long as Poseidon, Zeus, and Athena aren’t here, I’m good.”

“I mean, I get why you wouldn’t want Zeus here, but if he hurt you, too, we might have to figure out how to kill three gods instead of two.”

“Not me. He raped my friend. You met her tonight. She ran straight into the arms of the man with her to get away from her family. He’s kind of the black sheep of the family and they hated it. They would rather her stay in a place she no longer felt at home where her rapist would always be present than somewhere she’d be cherished and she said she was happy.

“This whole stupid arrangement was made thousands of years ago and she still hates it. Her family is still trying to break them up even now and can’t see how happy she is. When she’s supposed to be spending time with them, she mostly hangs out with me.”

“The goth dude was kind of intense, but he talked about her at our first meeting. I can tell he desperately loves her. We finally met his wife and something tells me she’s scarier than he is.”

“She is.”

Pax made a really good green smoothie. The meal replacement that was in it gave me the calorie boost and some vitamins I needed. It was the fresh greens and fruits from that garden that was making me feel like a person again. It was what I needed as a green witch.

“If Cas’s soup is anywhere near as good as this smoothie, I’ll get my curves back in no time. I’d better get out before I pickle myself.”

“Cas makes a very sexy broccoli cheese soup, but I make a mean salad from the garden with a dressing one of the green witches in the village taught me. There’s a few here and they love it when a new one shows up.”

There weren’t many supernatural villages left anymore. Eventually, humans would find it and want to live there. You couldn’t always control if they were decent humans either. People would have to hide in fear of angry mobs and the Coalition.

Di always tried to build his houses in more supernatural friendly areas, but there just weren’t places like this anymore.

Maybe Athena would actually leave me the fuck alone this time and let me live here in peace.