“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
Caelan rolled his eyes at his brother’s question. He should think the answer was obvious, considering it was the third time he’d asked just today. He didn’t respond curtly, though. Even a year into it, Jamie wasn’t taking very well to being homeless. Cae hadn’t expected it to be so hard, either. He had thought it would be simple. Just take some supplies with them and steal whatever little food they might need. How hard could it be? Turned out, very hard.
The first night, they’d slept outside in a deserted alley, and Cae had woken up to find someone rifling through Jamie’s pack with grubby hands and foul breath. They had run out of the food they had brought with them quickly, and a store manager had almost grabbed him as he ran out the door with stolen food. They kept clean using library bathrooms, and he could not count the number of times they had had to lie to adults asking him why he wasn’t in school where his parents were, if they were alright. Since they hadn’t gone far the first month or so, some locals had started to notice them, and more than once they’d almost been ambushed by policemen who must have been told about them. They’d hitchhiked as far away as possible after one had gotten dangerously close to them and seemed to know who they were. Those stupid foster-people must have warned the police to be on the look out for a pair of stray twins.
Since then, they had constantly been on the move, getting around on foot or by hitchhiking, begging for money when they could, occasionally living off of the kindness of some gullible lady who thought they were lost and couldn’t find their mother and just needed a place to sleep for the night. There had been nights they’d almost frozen to death and days they went hungry. The most common place to sleep was inside locked stalls of fast food bathrooms. Jamie had tried to be cheerful about it, but it had taken its toll and Cae could see it. It had taken him three months to figure out the solution.
At eleven years of age, the son of Cupid had learned how to mug people.
It had taken him some time to perfect it. He’d learned which people were less likely to fight and easier to overpower even if they did. He’d almost gotten them caught by using someone’s credit cards for too long. He’d dropped his knife once and barely escaped a bad beating, but in the end the takeaway was that given the choice between their money and their life, most regular folk chose their life, and that meant a week’s worth of food for the two of them.
Jamie, of course, had no idea, and that was how it was going to stay. They’d gotten into a routine, Jamie scouting out places to sleep and buy food, using the local library’s computers to look up a good next location for them to move on to and a way to get there if they couldn’t hitch a ride. Meanwhile, Cae would go out and “get money.” He told Jamie he got it by begging, and only revealed a little of the cash he’d withdrawn from an ATM each time he returned home. Jamie wasn’t stupid enough to fully believe him, but they needed the money. Goodness knew they needed it, and Jamie wouldn’t have approved of what he was actually doing to get it.
So, every morning, they had this exchange. Jamie would ask, “Do you want me to go with you?” And Cae would give Jamie the best smile he had, pat the swiss army knife in his pocket, and turn his brother down. Most days, he was successful and didn’t have any problems. They’d scream and cry, but hand over their wallets without a fight. Most days.
And then there were days like today, he thought to himself, somewhat regretting his choice of target. The short woman he’d cornered in an alley didn’t look nearly as afraid of him as she should have. She was clutching her little pink, faux-leather purse tightly, eyeing him with what he was fairly certain was annoyance, as if he’d just spilled coffee on her precise little beige heels, instead of threatening her with a knife. “Give me your purse.” He snarled, his high, unbroken voice not sounding particularly threatening.
She frowned at him. “No. Now get out of my way, or I’m going to be late for a meeting.” Yep, this was one of the troublesome ones.
“Give me your purse now or I’ll kill you.” He told her again. She laughed. Oh, a lot of them laughed. He knew he was just a small, pre-pubescent boy too pretty to look like he’d hurt a fly. But then, the ones who laughed always regretted it.
“Yeah right.” She retorted. “With that little pocket knife? I don’t think so, little boy. Go home to your mom and stop playing gangster, or I’m going to call the police.”
She reached for her phone, and that was, of course, when Cae knew negotiations were over. Lurching forward, he stabbed her hard in the arm with his “little pocket knife.” She screamed and tried to pull away, thwacking him on the head with her stupid little pink purse, so he stabbed her again until she let go, grabbed the purse, and dashed away from the alley, leaving the woman screaming after him. If she could still holler like that, she was fine, but she’d gotten blood all over his clothes. He resisted the urge to go back and try to finish her off just for that.
He’d dashed around a corner and stopped for a moment to catch his breath, when a man suddenly appeared in front of him. Literally appeared. Caelan flinched and jerked upwards, holding up his knife warily and at the same time trying to make up an excuse for why there was blood on his jeans, so that he could avoid another fight. The minute he saw the man, however, he knew there was something strange about him. The man looked like something out of an old movie. He was dressed normally, but his eyes were blood red, a bow and a quiver of arrows slung around his shoulders. The harsh planes of his face were somehow both handsome and terrifying, and if Caelan had been anyone else, anyone at all, he knew he would have felt something at seeing it.
But he was himself, so all he felt was the faint echoes of something similar to fear, but a whole lot closer to annoyance. The irony of his own feelings matching that of the woman he’d stabbed just moments ago escaped him entirely. He backed up and turned to leave, but the man commanded, “Stop,” and when he didn’t seem inclined to listen, an arrow whizzed past him and hit the ground, exploding with such force that Cae was knocked backwards, landing on his butt on the disgusting pavement with a thud. No one came running to see what the commotion was.
Cae frowned up at the man. “What?” He asked, rudely.
The man’s red eyes blazed, though with anger or fire, it was hard to tell. “I am Cupid, your father, and it is time for you to join the Roman legion. I will guide you and your brother to Lupa, where you will be tested.”
“No.” Cae said back, interrupting whatever else he might have said, getting up and brushing himself off.
Cupid didn’t react like most adults would. He didn’t frown or ask what the boy had just said or demand he be listened to. His blazing red eyes never changed. “You will go, because it will better teach you to protect James. It will give you both a home to stay in together.”
Caelan narrowed his eyes at his father. “You don’t know anything.”
He should have laughed, like most grown ups did, but he didn’t. “It seems you and your mother are the same boy, always underestimating love. I know, because I am love. What do you think you can do to win against me?”
“I’ll kill you.” Caelan retorted, more matter-of-factly than angrily.
The god really should have laughed. He was an immortal god and his little, inconsequential speck of a mortal son was telling him with absolute certainty that he would kill him someday. They always regretted it when they laughed. Instead, the Roman God of Love leaned down towards his son, and in his rumbling voice quietly told him, “Omnia vincit Amor.*” The way he said it, Cae knew that it was a statement of fact, a threat, and a challenge, all rolled into one.
He knew right then that Cupid was right. If only for Jamie’s sake, they were going to go to this Lupa and join whatever lesion their father wanted them to join, if that meant they could get out of this life and still stay together, but that didn’t mean he was defeated. Even as he resolved not to tell Jamie about this meeting, Caelan knew he would keep this moment locked in his brain for long years to come, so that someday he would prove himself right. Defiantly staring right back into his father’s eyes, he responded with words he didn’t even know he could use. “Omnia et Amorem vincet filius Amoris.”
(*Famous quote used to describe Cupid meaning “Love conquers all.” Caelan’s reply is “The son of Love will conquer all and Love.” I know, it sucks. Whatever.)