Malus by Jason Hes

Author:Jason Hes [Hes, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Beau

Minerva parks the van on the side of an empty street somewhere in Malibu, next to a large mansion overlooking the beach and Pacific Ocean beyond. From where I’m sitting, I can see all the lights are on. When I crane my neck at a painful angle, I see a little boy chase after a puppy behind one of the second-floor windows. This can’t be right.

“The Pantheon’s mansion is further down the street,” Minerva explains as she pulls the keys from the ignition and clambers out of the vehicle. “Can’t have a car parked outside a condemned site without raising a few eyebrows.”

“How are we going to get there then?” Nox asks, nudging me to follow suit. I don’t put up a fight, although I want to smack him over the head and knock some sense into my brother. This is the last place I want to be, and the crazy bitch is the last human I want to be with – especially now that it’s clear her and the Pantheon are really just a bunch of squatters.

Minerva slams the door shut as we step onto the road. “We’re going to head to the beach using one of the entrances open to the public. We’ll be able to access our mansion when we get down there. It’s quite a walk, but I’m sure you won’t have a problem keeping up.”

“Won’t parking your van outside this house also ‘raise a few eyebrows’?” I say, nodding in the mansion’s direction.

“My, but you’re a curious god,” Minerva whispers with a grin. “Your halves never stop asking questions.”

It twists my gut that she seems to think Nox and I are one person, and not two.

After about twenty minutes of awkward fumbling through bushes and over rocks in the dark, our shoes sink into bone-white sand and our view gives way to the endless Pacific. The beach is narrow and peaceful. There’s not a soul in sight. The only indication of other human life comes from the lit-up windows of condos and mansions built along the narrow shore.

Minerva points to a dark patch between two massive houses – a shadowy blot where all light seems to be sapped dry. Not even the full moon seems to penetrate that slice of darkness. “There it is,” she says, then clears her throat. “Not too far away, right?”

I’m tired. No, drained. My brother and I have been up since the early hours of the morning and it feels like we’ve been on the run ever since. My side of our body is all stiff muscle and vicious cramps. The bottom of my foot stings and there’s a dull thrum in my brain. The Pantheon’s home may not seem far for Minerva, but to me, it could be an eternity away.

If there was ever a time I wanted to throttle my brother …

“Are you okay, Beau?” he asks in the puppy-dog way he’s perfected over the years and suddenly my resentment towards him crumbles to dust. If only he knew the kind of hold he has over me.

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