8:00 a.m.
Damien walked up to his cottage in the woods and stared at it. It was so pleasant. So quiet. So pretty, surrounded by spring flowers and sun. There were two fairies sitting on the front porch railing, gossiping to each other and giggling their sprite fairy laughter as Damien ascended the steps. They stopped and watched him as he passed, and as soon as he was inside, they flitted away in fear.
He entered the living room and stood there for a moment. Sadness and anguish quickened to lead inside his belly. Fire flicked across his fingertips, like heat lightning across clouds on a still summer night. The house was so pretty. The life he didn't even get the chance to imagine. But it was just another pretty lie.
He hated pretty lies.
The veins in his neck throbbed, and the air he breathed turned to acid in his lungs. He hated everyone and everything with its self-serving thirst for power. Everyone always wanted more. Even he wanted more. He hated this fake house, with its fake dreams, and the fake skin on his fake body. Lies. Just pretty lies.
The coffee table lifted from the ground and splintered into a thousand pieces against the brick fireplace, which now cracked open at the foundation, as if an earthquake was ripping it in half. The couch flipped longways into the kitchen where it crashed into the dining table. Every window pane in the house shattered one by one as Damien stood very still. Floorboards peeled up off the joists, sending nails flying across every room in the house. They scattered like shrapnel and embedded themselves into walls, pillows, furniture, even Damien's leg, but he took no notice. Pipes burst and sprayed, hissing out hot water. The doors to the fridge ripped off the hinges and went ricocheting. Cabinet doors did the same. Door frames and wall supports splintered with the force of exploding bombs as the house began to compress like a tin can under the weight of Damien's fucking rage.
He stood in the living room and closed his eyes as the house imploded around him. When he was nearly engulfed by the wood and metal and drywall, everything stopped, inches from his nose. He did not open his eyes. The debris creaked around him as the destruction halted. Dust settled around him like falling snow, and the smoke of electrical fire saturated the air.
And Damien took a breath in. He heard Josanna say, End the bombardment. Make good on your threat. What's Fated will happen. You're heavily controlled by Fate. So, it doesn't really matter what you do. Damien let out a roar of rage, and the compressed house around him now exploded. Shingles and bricks flew into the woods, and flaming boards scattered all across the meadow.
Damien stepped through where the front door had just been, where the porch should have been. He hopped off the crumbled foundation and produced a flask. He took pull after pull from it as he walked from the woods to Loki's townhome.
***
2:00 p.m.
Eros heard a knock at the door. His brows pulled together as he crept down the stairs. Loki was with Death, so it wouldn't be Death knocking. Hypnos always entered via the coat closet, so he grew more and more apprehensive as he approached the door and winked to see out the peephole. It was Damien. Eros flung open the door.
Damien was covered with a thousand cuts and dried blood.
Eros immediately pulled him in. "What happened to you?" His voice was filled with the concern of a sweet grandmother.
"I blew up my house." Damien sat on the couch.
Eros was taken aback. "You have a house?"
"Did. I blew it up... after they killed my fiancé."
Erose blinked. "You have a fiancé?"
Damien was quiet.
Eros plopped down next to him. "This is why I need to get out of the house more." He shook his head, trying to catch up with the conversation. "Wait... You had a fiancé? Oh, sweetie, who- What happened?"
Damien pulled the bullet out of his pocket. "This. I think they were going to kill me, but... She- she shielded. I was asleep, and woke up, and..."
Eros was beginning to feel the burning ache slicing Damien apart. This kind of wrenching pain was inconsolable, he knew. He, himself, had felt this agonizing loss of love and life. He tried to find the words, but there were no words to really say in those moments. Nothing can be said to make it all better, so he said. "Damien, I am so sorry. I mean it. That must have been awful."
"Anna, Josanna, she-"
"Josanna? Josanna's a vampire." Eros's brow was pulled together. "Bullets don't kill vampires." He was looking at Damien as if he might have imagined it.
"This one did," Damien said, indignant.
Eros shook his head. "That's not right."
Damien let out a laugh. Josanna was dead, and everyone he told seemed to focus on every other fact but the fact itself. "She's dead! God, do you people not care?"
"No-no-no-no."
"Does it just happen so often that no one bats an eye? Not even you? She's dead, okay? Anna is dead. She's gone and she's not coming back. Does nobody fucking care?"
"Damien, I care. I do, but that's why I'm saying something isn't right! Victor was killed by Alec last night."
Damien blinked. "Yeah, she said that but-"
"And, now, Josanna is gone. There were mobs of vampires in the streets before dawn, killing anyone who dared speak out against Alec, even if that meant killing any of Alec's siblings. Someone might have been after her, yes, but... unless that gun was magick-"
"Dad said it was probably the Fates who made the bullet."
Something clicked in Eros's memory. "You know... your dad and uncle once made guns that could kill anything. They meant to use them on each other, but Hypnos lost them in a card game."
Damien froze. "What?"
"He's a terrible gambler. But... What if Alec got a hold of them somehow? And that's how he killed Victor and then Josanna? And, Damien, was Alec actually trying to kill you? Damien?"
Damien was burning a hole into the ground with his hellfire stare. He said, "Thanatos lied. The fucking bastard lied."
Eros paused, trying to still the thoughts stampeding through his mind, "Damien, I am so sorry about Anna."
Damien nodded. He began to rock back and forth, wringing his hands.
For a moment, Eros thought Damien was crying, but then he heard he was laughing. "Damien?"
He stopped laughing, "I'm done," he said. "I'm fucking done." He stood and headed towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
Damien turned back to face him. He poured over Eros's visage for a moment. "How do you stay out of all of this? That is all I think I've ever wanted. To be left the fuck alone. How do you do it? I thought it was because you were afraid, but now I see... It's because you're smarter than the rest of us. You know?" He barked a humorous laugh. "I think you're my hero."
Eros glanced around at the home he hadn't left in months. Damien headed towards the door. "Wait." Eros stood and made his way to Damien's side. "I'm coming too. I'm not as smart as you think I am."
