Remember

Chapter 36: It's Always Something

"Asteria?"

The quick rap of knuckles on the door had me shooting to sit up, trying to hide my disheveled state from Janus.

One look at him told me that he didn't buy the mask of meditation I had hurriedly tried to implement.

"Sorry I wasn't at the meeting." He told me nervously, "I got held up."

I stared at him, trying to understand what was wrong. His nervous tick of running his fingers through his hair was missing, he was holding his arms stiff and board straight at his sides.

A brief flash of anger flipped through me as I understood.

"Let's see them." I asked, not giving Janus any room to protest.

"See what?" He tried to deflect.

"Sit, now." I commanded, pointing to the chair at the table beside me.

Once he sat down I down I didn't give him a chance to try and hide it.

"Arms." I demanded. He opened his mouth to protest but I silenced him with a look.

He brought them up slowly before carefully lying them on the table. He dipped his head, not willing to meet my gaze.

I gently rolled up his sleeves, taking care not to hit the angry, red lashes that decorated his forearms.

As my skin brushed against his I felt the self-loathing, the disappointment in himself, and more than anything else, the fear.

Empathy rushed through me. I knew all too well the situation that he was in.

"Well let's get this cleaned up." I told him gently, carefully concealing my anger towards his father.

"Janus." I asked softly, resting one of my hands onto his.

His eyes slowly raised to meet mine, shame evident in them.

"It's not your fault. There is no easy choice to get out of this." I told him, hoping to convey to him something, anything, to stop his pain.

"What do I do Asteria?" He begged, begged me to tell him the secret, the way out.

I gave him a soft smile. "First of all I am going to clean these up, then you are eating something, and after that, we talk. Alright?"

He nodded, the questions he wanted to ask were visible right under the surface but he waited.

I moved to the side of the room for the first aid kit. With a practiced ease I began to clean and wrap up the lash marks covering his forearms.

"You have done that a few times." Janus commented as I finished putting the stuff away.

I heard the unasked question, who did I normally patch up?

"It's a little different doing it to someone else." I carefully replied, not meeting his inquisitive gaze.

The familiar smell of cyprus drifted in from the hallway, Lewis, I thought.

I reached out to him with my mind.

Not now.

The smell disappeared as soon as it had appeared, signaling that Lewis had left.

Janus had remained quiet through all of this, carefully studying me. He didn't push for more about my answer. Instead he moved back to my directions.

"So what's on the menu?" He asked casually.

A smirk graced my lips. "Cook's Choice." I replied before turning on my heel and heading.

Janus raced to catch up to me. "So wait, you can actually cook?"