Hooked [Complete]

34. Ostara Part Seven: A Roman's Philosophy

Author's Note: Well, somehow in the chapter, my boy Finn becomes a main character. What can I say? I kind of have a thing for assholes. Wink! I love what he has to say in this chapter. I also love his commentary on drunk Hearne and Carrie, who are both hilarious and tender in the latter half of this chapter.

Song for this Chapter: Deep Inside Of You by Third Eye Blind. This song is perfect for the vibe in this chapter. It represents both how Finn feels about Lana when he describes how they got together, and also how Hearne gets lost in Carrie later on in the chapter.

Finn' s POV:

I should have told my father to shove his money, and gone to Duke on scholarship.

Sabit is going to be the death of me.

Sabit is a family tradition, my father had said, You have to learn the Golden Rule, boy. Know thy competition. I know Sabit is a backwoods shithole, but it's what we do. We go to Sabit to slum. We learn how the little pagan mountain folk live, how they think. And we use that knowledge to stay a step ahead of an uprising. You don't need a fancy first-class education. The family business isn't going anywhere. You'll go to Sabit. It will be entertaining.

And I almost coasted through. I'm a senior—one more year and I would have my piece of paper with the Sabit Seal on it, and my father's goodwill and the full release of my trust fund, and, except for the occasional moral difficulty of having to do some completely awful thing in service to the damn Family, I would be set for life. I could ease my troubled conscious with the finest bourbon while I float down the River Styx on a luxury barge, guaranteed a decent afterlife, just for being born to the right family.

But no, Lana MacBane blew me completely out of the water. She snagged that fifth of bourbon from my back pocket at the Welcome Back Festival. I chased her down and fought a little and flirted a lot to try to get it back. She drank the whole damn thing anyway, and while she was doing it, she stole something else from me—my heart.

Damn hillbilly witch. I knew she was a witch from our first kiss. One of the perks of the family business is that we get a little magical instruction about pagan witchcraft. I mean, Romans are pagan too, but the Family says that witches are more often than not, pagans from the wrong side of the aquaducts, and we need to know how to defend ourselves from their manipulation. So they teach us to recognize them and to combat their magic. Kind of like, a self-defense course. But it was too late for me take precautions with Lana. I was hooked on her the day of the Welcome Back Festival-- weeks before she ever let me kiss her.

Ever since I met her, I don't even know myself anymore. I'm always doing crazy shit I would never have done before. Half the time I'm acting like a complete asshole, just because I'm freaked out by the way everything I always thought I wanted...I hardly care about anymore.

I had plans, man. I was going to bypass the Southern Branch, and head to straight to the New York office. I was going to get a place in Tribeca and get drunk with my celebrity neighbors and becomes a Somebody in New York Society. Acquire a twitter following. I even had an image I was cultivating...I was going to be the cultured Southern Gentleman...a stand-out. Unapologetic for my roots...after all, money talks, no matter what accent you use.

Now, as I stand here, handing out backstage passes to my divine forebearer Mercury, who plans to hurt people at this concert, I'm quite apologetic for my roots.

Lana was right all along. I'm scum.

I'm scum that's bound by the wings on my shoulder to the Cult of Mercury, and if he finds out I'm backstabbing him, my life as I planned it is over.

Do I even care anymore?

Well, yeah. Kind of. It's very fucking scary to think all my resources could just be ripped out from under me. Shit, I never even thought about what I might do, if I didn't have a trust fund and an easy gig with the family business. I mean...I majored in philosophy, for fuck's sake.