He didn’t like to talk about it with us. We knew because Loulou and I had gone in for numerous student/teacher conferences at the elementary school, and his teachers had expressed their concern, but Ares wouldn’t speak about it. Once, he returned home with a black eye, and I thought the entire brotherhood of The Fallen would roll into the elementary school parking lot and take out who’d ever hurt one of their own.
But Ares had stopped Zeus with a hand on his arm, looking up at him with those beautiful brown eyes that were more soulful than most men thrice his age. “Don’t worry, Z. They’re the ones who will regret it in the end.”
It was so unspeakably wise and sad at the same time. What life had Ares lived before we found him squatting in Zeus’s Whistler cabin last Christmas that bullying was so very trivial?
None of us forced him to speak about his life before because most of us knew what it was like to have another life. We respected it even if it made us uneasy to give that much psychological freedom to a child.
“You’re quiet,” I noted finally because he’d yet to say a word since I’d picked him up at school.
He rolled his head against the seat to shoot me a look that said “aren’t I always?”
“Especially quiet,” I corrected. “If something was bothering you, I hope you’d tell me.”
His silence continued for a few minutes as he stared at me and mulled over whatever dark things lurked in the deepest caves of his mind. I hummed along to the song on the radio while I waited, taking note of the police car that pulled onto the road behind us.
“What am I to you?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, distracted by the cop car that was quickly gaining on us.
“What am I to you?”
I glanced at him sidelong to determine where he was coming from but found only blank canvas in his expression. “Well, you’re my family. Why are you asking?”
He hesitated, gaze dropping to his hands where long, thin scars marred the olive skin. We all wondered about them, but after I tried asking once, no one did again.
“What do I call you, then? And Zeus and Loulou and H.R. and King? What are you to me?”
“Family,” I repeated firmly because I was starting to understand the problem. “If anyone asks about where you come from and who you belong to, that’s what you tell them. You’re Ares Garro. That’s what it says on all your official documents, isn’t it? And that’s what we know to be true.”
“But no one is like…my papá or mamá?”
“No…” I paused, trying to give him something concrete because I knew that was what he wanted and what others would accept. “If you want a mother and father, I guess Zeus and Lou could be considered your parents because you live with them most of the time. But King and I love you, and you live with us just as sometimes you stay with Lila and the Booth family or with Bat and his boys…I think you’re rather lucky actually, Ares. We’d all fight to be the ones you consider parents, although I hope it doesn’t have to come to that. The best thing about being a part of The Fallen is that labels no longer matter. Everything is boiled down to love and family. You get that from an entire club filled with men and women with massive hearts. I know it’s not a simple answer to your question, but I hope it’s enough.”
Ares looked away from me quickly, but not before I could see the relief and hope shine in his eyes. A moment later, his hand reached across the console to tug on a lock of my hair in quiet thanks. “It’s more than I ever had before.”
“Same,” I assured him. “It can be overwhelming at first, but you’ll get used to it.”
A loud bleep startled me before the flash of red and blue lights drew my gaze to the police car that was suddenly tailgating me.
I indicated to pull over to the shoulder, trying to keep calm even though my heart was in my throat.
“Be calm, okay?” I told Ares, whose eyes were wide with panic. “Everything’s okay. Stay in the car and be quiet unless I tell you otherwise. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
But I knew it wasn’t.
I hadn’t been speeding or doing anything else unlawful, and as the cop car pulled to a stop behind me and Office McDougal stepped out of the car, I knew things were not going to go smoothly. His partner stayed in the car. I couldn’t tell who it was at the distance, but he fidgeted nervously, as if he wasn’t sure about what his partner intended to do.
McDougal was a short, squat man, as if God had pinched him at the head and feet, so his proportions were horribly off. He wore a constant sneer around town as if everything about Entrance personally offended him. As a man from much more conservative Alberta, I was sure it did.