Page 36 of Spiders in the Grove

He smiles. “You are a different man, Victor, that’s for damn sure.”

Then he turns and heads for the basement stairs; he stops with one bare foot on the bottom step, and looks back at me.

“I know you can’t say it,” he begins, “because it’ll make you feel guiltier than you already do, but you don’t have to say it—I see it all over you.”

“Say what, Apollo?” I swallow hard. “See what?”

He grins. “That you’re still in love with my sister.”

I say nothing. I look at the wall instead.

“I know you, Victor—Artemis knows you—and if you really wanted her dead, you would’ve already found her by now. You know she’s here, in Arizona, and you’ve known all along. And you’re letting me go because, as you’ve already said so yourself, you know she’ll listen to me. And because you want me, without having to ask, to tell her that you still love her.”

I sit heavily onto the chair again, dropping my hands between my legs; my head falls near my slumped shoulders.

After a moment, I raise my head and look at him.

“Just tell your sister to leave Izabel alone,” I reiterate. “I have put her through enough. And…I am tired of doing it.”

My gaze veers off toward the wall again.

Apollo drops his foot from the bottom step; his face is cast in shadow.

“I was wrong before, about it making you feel worse,” he says. “If you say it, it’ll probably make you feel better.”

“Leave, Apollo, before I change my mind.”

“You won’t change your mind.”

I look at him with curiosity.

“Just say it. Admit it to yourself. Out loud. It’s always realer when it’s out loud. Realer? Is that a word?”

“Apollo…if you do not leave…”

“If you want me to tell my sister the truth; if you want me to stop her, then I want you to tell me the truth. I just want to hear you say it. Say it, Victor, and I can guarantee on my life that Artemis will never bother Izabel again. Just say it.”

“No.”

“Say it. Come on, man, just say it!”

I shoot into a stand, one fist clenched at my side.

Apollo smiles; his stark-white teeth visible amid the shadow.

He steps forward, pushes his face into view.

And he waits.

Slowly, I raise my eyes to his again. And I tell him what he wants to hear: “I love Izabel…but not as much as I love Artemis.” My hands are shaking; I go even further though he does not ask, because I know I need to—I have to.

“What I did to Artemis is my number one regret, and it always has been. I think I have…been using Izabel, without knowing it, to make up for what I did to Artemis. She was my chance to make peace with myself, to start over, to do things right. But over time, I began to see that Izabel could never replace Artemis; she could never bring her back to life; she could never reverse the worst mistake I ever made. And now I have gone too far, and though I do not want to further my life with Izabel, I do not want to be the reason she is denied the chance to further her life with someone else.”

Apollo blinks, stunned. “Wow,” he says, shaking his head. “I didn’t expect that, but I respect your need to get it off your chest. We all got heavy loads to carry, man. Some more than others. Obviously.”

He sighs. “You know what, Victor? You were wrong about one thing—Izabel, in a way, did bring Artemis back to life.”

My eyes find his in the darkness.

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