“It couldn’t hurt,” said Andie. “I saw an old John Travolta movie once, where he got all these special powers and it turned out it was just this weird brain tumor, activating dormant brain parts.”
“So what’d they do? Did he live?”
Andie blanched. “I’m sure that’s not what it is.”
“Aidan?” Cassandra asked. He had sunk down against the cement wall with his hands between his knees. She got out of the car and walked to him.
“It’s not a tumor,” he said quietly. “And it wasn’t a hallucination.” He took Cassandra by the hand. “The girl you saw in that jungle. I think she was my twin sister.”
* * *
Twin sister. Aidan didn’t have any sisters. Or at least he’d never mentioned one.
After the initial confusion and flurry of questions, he’d refused to say any more in the ice arena parking lot, so they drove to Andie’s house, which was empty on Wednesday nights when her mom worked the night shift at the county hospital.
“What do you mean it was your twin sister?” Cassandra asked. “You have a sister?” Aidan closed his eyes and shook his head. But it didn’t mean no. He was stalling. Whatever it was he needed to say, he couldn’t figure out how to say it.
“Maybe you should sit down.”
Cassandra looked at Andie and Henry. Who was he talking to? They were all standing: Henry by the sink, and Cassandra across from Aidan. Andie lingered near the refrigerator like she was trying to decide whether she should offer them something to drink.
“Cassandra. Maybe you should sit.”
“Don’t worry about me.” She felt fine. The vision of the jungle had shattered and been shaken off. Aidan looked like hell. Like he might be sick, and it scared her. She wished she knew what he was going to say; she tried to will the knowledge into the dark space in her mind. But it never worked like that. It never worked the way she wanted it to.
“I don’t know how to tell you this.” He looked at them from under his brows. Gold hair obscured his eyes almost completely. “It’s going to sound crazy.”
Cassandra nodded. What right did she have to not believe? Whatever he said, she would take it. She would take him at his word, like he’d always taken her. Blood pounded in her ears alongside the ticking of the wall clock. Her eyes strained in the shoddy light cast from the fixture above the sink, the only one they’d turned on when they got to the house.
“I never wanted to tell you,” he said, and stopped. “That’s not true. I always wanted to tell you. I just never wanted to have to.” He looked at her. “I’m not who— I’m not what you think I am.”
Not what?
“The girl. You said she didn’t seem human. And she isn’t. And neither am I, exactly.”
Three seconds ticked off the clock before Andie and Henry started to laugh.
“God, you really scared us,” said Andie. The laughter stopped slowly, awkwardly, when neither Cassandra nor Aidan joined them.
“You’re serious. Cassandra, he can’t be serious.”
Except he was. She’d never seen him look the way he did now, so somber and scared, and—
And regretful.
He took a deep breath and pushed away from the chair.
“I didn’t expect you to believe it at first. I figured on having to prove it.” He looked at Cassandra’s hands like he wanted to touch them, but he didn’t. “Follow me.”
He led them to the second level and up to the sparsely furnished loft space where Andie and Cassandra used to have slumber parties, hanging out on beanbag chairs, reading magazines and eating popcorn.
“What’re we doing up here?” Andie asked. Aidan didn’t answer. He walked to the window. It overlooked the walkway of paving stones and the small front yard. It took him a moment to get it open; the locks were sticky, and when he jiggled them the glass rattled in protest. Winter air rushed into the loft as he pushed the pane wide. It bit at their necks and made them blink against the cold.
Away we go, into the dark.
He didn’t look back before he stepped into the window and dove out headfirst.
“Aidan!”
Andie screamed and Henry did too; they almost knocked Cassandra over rushing to look down, expecting to see their friend’s head burst like a pumpkin on the walkway. The front door opened and closed. Footsteps came up the stairs, and there he was, unhurt.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
* * *
He was a god, he said, and always had been. Or at least, that was what they used to be called. What they were now, he didn’t know. It seemed like the wrong word when he was so limited, so much less than he’d been before. But there were still things he could do, the extent of which he wasn’t quite sure. It had been too long since he’d pushed himself, or since he’d been pushed. He’d lived as Aidan for a long time. He was Aidan. But he used to be called Apollo.