A Discordant Melody

Nineteen

Nineteen

I was running, even when Daddy and the others were heading for Persephone and Menoetius.  My eyes were only on one person, a person who I could feel slipping away, even as he stood there and watched me near him.  But just when I was a little ways away, he dropped, almost as if in slow motion. 

And my scream could be heard over the sound of the fight behind me.

It was everywhere, the blood.  The red-stained dagger was lying on the pavement beside him, the one he’d just pulled from where it had been lodged in his chest. 

When I got to him, my knees hit the road beside him and his eyes were already on my face when I looked at him. 

“Don’t close your eyes, okay?” I cried, my tears falling on his face.  “Don’t close your eyes no matter what you do.”

I didn’t know what to do, but I needed to get the bleeding to stop.  I took off my jacket, wadded it up, and pressed it against his chest.  Almost immediately, it was completely stained red.

Lee’s hand grabbed onto mine and I looked up at him through my tears.  “Zoe…”

“No, don’t say anything,” I said, shaking my head.  “I don’t want…”

“I can…feel it.  I’m…I’m sorry.”

“No…no!  Lee, please don’t do this!”

I turned on my knees, looking back at anyone who would come and help.  But Apollo was with Zeus, Ares, and Athena, trying to subdue Menoetius.  He wasn’t in any position to help. Daddy and everyone else were handling Persephone, whose furious face was so close to Daddy’s, yelling something at him. 

But my eyes didn’t stay on the scene for long.  There were three other figures on the side of the road, huddled together and brandishing a shiny something in between them. 

The Fates. 

I knew they weren’t there for just any reason…especially not when they pulled the string between them taunt and scissors gleamed.

“Zoe, Lee!”

The sound of her voice made me spin back around, but the image of the Fates was still burned into my head. 

“Momma!  Lee…Persephone…she threw her dagger and she…she…”

Momma was there then, leaning over Lee with a horrified look on her face.  She moved my hand, which was still holding the blood-soaked jacket to his chest, to see the wound. 

“Oh, gods, Lee,” she breathed, tears welling up in her eyes.  “We’ll get…get some help, okay?  Just stay…”

Lee smiled slightly, closing his eyes slowly before opening them back up to look at both of us leaning down and looking at him.  “I can feel it,” he whispered.  “They…they’re here.”

“Who’s here?” Momma asked, her tears falling. 

I was the one to answer, swallowing hard before I could.  “The Fates.”

“No,” she moaned, crying as she leaned her head against his shoulder before looking back up.  “Lee, I…”

“I’ll be okay.  I…”

And there it was.  The unmistakable sound of those dreaded scissors opening and closing.  I was expecting to hear the sound of snip of the thread, but…

There wasn’t.

Instead, as I looked at his eyes closing slowly, his chest lifting once with a breath and then stopping its rise and fall, his entire body…

It started to glow.

“What’s…?” I started.  My eyes were getting wider and wider as the glow off of his brightened. 

Momma was just as dumbfounded as I was.  “It can’t be…”

I looked back to where the Fates were standing.  And I didn’t see the scissors anymore.  No, I saw gold thread.  Two gold threads actually, one shiny and bright with new immortal life and the other shinning beside it, soaking in the light that the other was giving off.  One of the Fates turned toward me and pointed in my direction and then back at the other thread.  I knew what she was saying. 

The thread was mine. 

And as I watched, the expertly bound both of the threads together and both started to glow with newfound strength. 

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