Page 18 of Faithless
“Nah, he’s too devoted to you all.”
Shadow was the scariest motherfucker I’d ever seen in my life. He made Jandro look like a puppy. He hadn’t said much to me when I first came to live with the Steel Demons. It wasn’t until maybe two weeks later, after I started school and came home with a black eye from some bigger kids, that Shadow approached me.
“Do you want it to stop?” he’d asked me. When I’d barely nodded, trying my best to keep my tears at bay, he said, “Follow me.”
I followed him out to the backyard gym area where he pointed at a large dumbbell on the ground. “Pick that up.”
I did as he said, imagining crashing the weight into my bullies’ faces.
“Lift it over your head,” he instructed. “Arm straight.”
It took some grunting and effort, but I got it up, holding the dumbbell aloft like a trophy.
“Good. Now put it back down on the ground.”
I did so with a confused frown.
“Pick it up.”
I did as I was told, the weight feeling heavier this time.
“Lift it over your head.”
My arm trembled as I raised it this time.
“Good job. Now put it down. With control, don’t drop it.” He pinned me with that scarred, pale eye as I released the weight, panting for breath. “I know you feel weak right now, Torr, but keep doing that over and over, and youwillget stronger. Not just here.” He tapped one finger to my shoulder. “But up here.” He touched that same finger to the side of my head. “Daren works out with me three days a week if you’d like to join us.”
I’d hit the weights every single fucking day since then.
It was an outlet I didn’t know I’d needed. Every time I questioned why my birth parents didn’t want me, why they left me out in the desert to die, I added more plates to a barbell and let the pain be my answer.
To this day, even though I was in my prime and Shadow was in his fifties, I never could beat that guy’s deadlift or his bench press.
“You’re right,” Rori said, drawing me out of the memory. “Maybe Shadow would’ve done that before he met my mom though. Everyone teases him about how he was too shy to talk to her and that she pretty much had to pursue him herself.” Rori’s smile faded, her hands twisting on the chains of the swing on either side of her. “But no, it’s gods. They helped my parents win the war years ago, and now one of them has come for me.”
“Yeah, that’s…a lot.”
Silence fell over us again until Rori asked, “What are you thinking?” Like she couldn’t stand the quiet any longer.
“Honestly?”
She swallowed. “Yeah.”
“I’m thinking there’s no way in hell I’m letting you do this alone.”
Rori blinked, then shifted in her swing to face me directly. “Wait, hold on. You believe me, though?”
“Of course I believe you.” I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. “Why would you lie about something like this?”
“I wouldn’t, but I mean, this sounds nuts, doesn’t it?”
I shrugged and reached for another cigarette before remembering they were all gone. “The whole world has been pretty fuckin’ nuts for while, Ror. Since before we were born. It actually doesn’t surprise me to hear that something else is brewing.”
“Me neither, but come on,gods?”
“Why not?” I countered. “We fucked up pretty badly to have had a Collapse in the first place. Maybe some things are still out of the cosmic balance or whatever.”
“I swear, Torr.” She rubbed her forehead with a groan. “I could tell you unicorns flew over my house and we need to race them on a rainbow track, and you’d be like, ‘Cool, when do we start?’”
