Page 180 of Gates of Tartarus

I expect Jonah to answer, but, surprisingly, it’s Walker who moves over and sits on his heels in front of Maddox. “Madds,” he says softly, “you’re my brother, man, and I love you. I do.” Maddox looks stunned, like he’s wondering what the hell is going on with the man he’s known for years. “But, and it’s because I love you I can say this, shut the fuck up. This is why you weren’t on the family calendar, man. We’ve found something that works for us, well, that we’re working on making work, if that makes sense. Does it bother me? Yes. But not as much as I thought it would, not in the way I thought it would.”

“Doesn’t bother me at all…” Jonah mumbles, and he and Walker exchange a wicked, amused glance, Walker flashing his teeth.

“I know, you reprobate!” he replies, laughing. Deo glances at me with questioning eyes, but I’m too busy blushing to say anything. Walker turns back to Maddox and sighs. “It’s a brotherhood. It’s… it’sfamily... and... shit, man. Look at my girlfriend!” The tone in his voice – pride warring with naked lust, the hint of a growl at the back of his throat – it’s enough to turn me flame red. Jonah flat out laughs, and Deo grins slightly, dropping a deadpan wink that makes my heart flutter, but Maddox looks pained.

“Iamlooking at your girlfriend,” he mutters. “It seems like I can’t fuckingstoplooking at her.”

Walker rocks back on his heels in surprise, then frowns, glancing back over his shoulder. Jonah and I are wearing matching befuddled expressions, but Deo has a sort of knowing look on his face, which Walker catches, before exhaling sharply, then jerks his head slightly at Jonah, who suddenly bursts into life.

“Okay, you two,” he says with forced cheerfulness. “Get out of here! Dinner’s coming soon, so get going!” His voice deepens and darkens unintentionally. “Walker, Madds, and I have some shit to talk about anyways.”

Pulling me out of the room, Hideo wraps an arm around me, and we leave the uncomfortable silence to step into the sharp, cold air.

???

We walk the short way to the cemetery in silence, though it’s not uncomfortable. Deo has my hand warm in his, and occasionally he’ll shoot a small, smiling glance my way, which I return hesitantly. It feels like I’m jumping off a cliff without knowing how deep the water is, but I’ve stood on the precipice long enough and know I either need to learn to fly, to fall, or to walk away. As we approach the large brick pillars and old iron gate marking the entrance, Deo laughs a little, almost to himself.

“What?” I ask curiously, and he grins at me. This Hideo is surprising – I’m not used to the slouching-hoodie, Chuck-Taylor-wearing version of him. There’s no more distance, and he seems so much younger than he did before, the Agency Man fading into a completely different person. Or maybe not completely different, maybe just more authentic.

“I was just thinking of that time we did the tour of the graves in New Orleans…”

Groaning, I pull my hand from his and hide my face. “Oh my gods, D. I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”

Full out laughing now, he reminisces: “You ruined that child for life. ‘So the tombs are functionally ovens? Have the graves ever risen in the flooding? How do you keep the dead in their place?’ That poor kid.”

“In my defense, he waswaytoo young to be on an evening tour of the graveyards.AndI didn’t see him until I’d already asked the first question.”

“Ah, yes. The infamous, ‘do you ever find bloated corpses’ question.”

“Deo!”

We’re both laughing at this point at the memories from a trip to New Orleans for a conference on Child Welfare and Trafficking Prevention. Deo had surprised me with a late-night tour of the cemeteries there, knowing I have a strange fascination with the silent landscapes. We’d wandered the strange city until morning, lost in the music and mayhem of the city, and it had felt like a fever dream. The noise and smoke, the jazz and the people spilling into the streets with drinks and desire… the entire place had a weird, throbbing feel that echoed in my blood and bones.

The morning after the tour we’d stumbled, sleep-drunk, into the heavy, powdered air of the Café Du Monde and sat at a small table by the street. The city had fallen asleep all at once, leaving Hideo and me alone in the empty world. A tired waiter, still sobering up from the night before, ambled to our table with a cheerful, exhausted smile and dropped burning cups of chicory coffee and steaming beignets in front of us, sugar fogging the air. It was a little slice of magic, a brief, otherworldly moment where we could steal a tiny piece of something that wasn’t ours. I sat at that table through two cups of coffee and countless beignets, smiling at everything Deo said, dreaming the entire time of kissing him.

The past overlays the present in a strange, disjointed way as we walk through the heavy gates, past the small chapel, the Celtic crosses and heavy stones, until we reach a beautiful, sorrowful gravestone that catches my eye. There is a young girl hanging desperately off a cross, or holding onto a cross, her knees bent, tiny stone toes emerging from carved folds of cold cloth. I pause in front of her, reaching out my fingers to lightly brush her back. There’s so much emotion in the carving I can’t help but search for her, trying to see what she’s feeling, but there is, of course, nothing.

Deo stops with me, staring up at the stone. “Her hands are so small,” he says quietly. “They still look chubby, like a toddler’s.” Stretching his arm up, he places his hand lightly on the girl’s and says, somewhere between helplessness and anger, “I want to help her down. She shouldn’t have to hang there for centuries.”

Turning to Deo, I watch his face as he stares at the carving in front of him. It’s soft, the sharp lines blurry in the dark of the night, and his eyes are sad. I know this Hideo. This Hideo is the man I worked with for two years helping save children, before everything went sideways and the world fell apart. This is the man who made up silly stories for scared children while their parents were being put in the back of police cars, the man who patiently made sureeveryfavorite toy, or book, or blanket, was packed safely before we left a home, the man who would ride in the back of the cruiser to help a kid be less afraid. He drew pictures of made-up creatures for our little friends, kicked in doors to get to them, wherever they were being held, did anything he could to assure their safety. He once let a little boy tattoo his entire arm in marker to help keep the kiddo calm before a court date, and rolled his sleeves proudly to show off the artwork while testifying. As much as I thought that nothing existed anymore from what we were in the Great Before, I’m realizing as I look at him that maybe there is no Before and After, maybe there is just now. And now is whatever we want to make it, in whatever way works for us.

Still staring at him, eyes wide and unblinking, I whisper his name. “Hideo?”

He freezes, even the breath in him still, mirroring the statue of the girl, unmoving stone. But I know he hears me, and, after a moment, I step closer to his side, laying a hand on his back. I can feel his shallow breathing, feel his thundering pulse, and somehow know that he’s scared. He’s scared of what that whisper meant, if things are about to change, and he doesn’t want to turn and find out. But I am Pygmalion, and he is Galatea, and when I step closer again and lean my head against his back, he comes to life, turning to me with wide, blown-out eyes.

“Kai?” he asks, so many questions in the one word that the word becomes a book. A book of secrets and silence, written in a language that only we know, and when our eyes meet, the universe expands and contracts in our simple breath.

There is no space between us; it has been washed away in the churning violence of white water, and even if what is left is raw and painful, at least it’s real. At least it’s honest. And, as Deo leans down, movements like quicksand, flickers of camera frames, I realize it’s also beautiful, because we have been through the storm together. He whispers my name again before his lips meet mine, whispers it against my skin, the breath dancing across me. “Kai,” he says, and now it’s an answer, not a question.

And when he kisses me, beneath the statue in the dark silence of the cemetery, I realize thatwehave become the storm, electric lightning and bone-jarring thunder, the sounds of the chaos of the heavens screaming through our blood, tumbling tumultuously down to earth in unceasing cascades. Together, we are the storm and the silence, the lull and the waken, the ebb and the flow.

“This is forever,” he says to me, the stone of the cemetery now carved in his voice. “I want you to know. This is forever, for me.”

I pull back slightly, the mist of the graveyard heavy around us, obfuscating the ground and the surroundings. Night is heavy, and it feels like a lost moment, as though we have stepped through time into a nowhere, but he takes my face in his hands and locks eyes with me.

“In whatever way you’ll have me, Kailani, you are forever for me.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, just leans forward and kisses me again, and again, and again, and, in that moment, it stretches into forever for me as well.

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