What is something you could give me?

She remembered the words in her head and the voice that spoke them soft and eager and the turn in her stomach when she came up with an answer. She didn't believe it, any of it. The bargain, the demon, the situation. And she certainly didn't believe it, even when she was taken up on her offer.

That's how Aenea ended up losing her womb.

When she spoke to Mammon. When she went to that other world, forced into talks, she gave the only thing she knew she didn't need (or felt she didn't need): her womb.

Yes. That's what she gave away - not an easy thing to do either. Wombs, are of course, fleshy and very closely dug deep into the body. But that's what was taken from her, believe it or not. When she woke up with blood on her stomach and Apollo looking down with terrified eyes.

The blood had come out of her flesh like sweat. It came as droplets and stuck to her bed sheets for days after.

That was about the time she told the two Vicars to go off on their merry adventure, without her. Because whether she understood it or not, she needed personal space.

It was the day after Apollo and Dion had discovered the arena and had confronted Dolores about it (Aenea didn't even know who Dolores was, she hardly even knew Turnus).

Who cares. Who any of them were didn't even matter.

The morning sun woke her up. The curtains turned, the light hit her face, a blade in that dark motel.

"Wake up," Thaddeus said. Why was he here again?

"What are we doing?"

"Moving you to the safe house, like Apollo told me to do."

"Why? Here is fine." She rose from her bed, rubbing her stomach. "I'm used to this place." The furniture was marked with scratchings, the walls were scraped where he body had come flying out.

"Yeah, Apollo isn't though." He said. "And I don't really want to disagree with him. He's pretty scary. "

"Not as scary as me."

"No offense," Thaddeus said. "But skinny white girls don't really scare me."

She threw a phone sitting by a knocked over the drawer to her side. He ducked, it struck the wall behind him. Hearing his yelp was satisfying enough.

Standing, waking up, was all hard. She yawned and stretched and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

She rose and put on her pants, loose-fitting jeans, and a large hoodie. Her body looked sagged, hidden beneath rags.

"So where are we going?" She asked.

"Can't tell you. We're already compromised." He said.

"You say compromised like I'm someone who would know what that means."

"What I mean is that Turnus knows where you're at. How? Who knows? But if he knows, everyone probably does."

"Right. Rich people can find a way to do anything, I would know." She said.

"It doesn't help that you're literally floating around the room like it's the god damn exorcist."

"I can't control that."

"Yeah," Thaddeus said. "Sure didn't help though."

She glared at him. "I'm not happy about any of this. I hate not being in control of things, and if I knew how things were from the start then -"

"Things would be different. That's what you were going to say, right?" Thaddeus stood up. He opened the door and allowed more light in. "This is different from your board meetings, you know that, don't you? If there's anything you should have learned from any of what's happening, it's that plans fall to pieces real fast. So fast they're hardly even useful. They'll just disappoint. Witches, Vicars, Demons. Trust me, it's all chaos from here on out."

"Everything needs a roadmap and an endpoint. Small goals facilitate proper growth, planned expansion-"

"Synergy. Profit margins. Blah. Blah. I can throw out business jargon too." He said.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"How's this then, keep getting sassy and I'll fire your ass and get you decapitated by your little cult of psychopaths at the Vatican. How's that?" Her tone was severe - she made sure of it. Her eyes narrowed. "I don't need to be lectured by you."

Aenea walked over to him and punched straight through the wall, her fist went in smoothly and eagerly. Retracting her hand, rubble and wood sprinkled onto the floor.

Wow.

She'd never really punched anything. So she certainly never punched holes through walls. So why is it that she felt so strong?

And light, so inextricably light.

Punching, kicking, jumping up and down all felt...easy. Her body felt loose. She was stronger (as if the hole in the wall wasn't evidence).

"J-J-Jesus Christ on the cross!" Thaddeus shouted out.

"Wow." She had to say it again. She clenched her fist.

Thaddeus put his head down.

"A-a-alright. I'm an ass. S-s-sorry."

She didn't even notice he was shivering or that the no-bullshit-or-I'll-cave-your-skull-in looking face of hers was intimidating. She didn't mean to look that way. She also didn't mind all too much.

"Can you explain this?"

"A-a-awakening. That's my guess. Your ar-ar-arcane channels are expanding from your nervous system, your muscle fibers are shotgun loud and fast. Strong! Dense. It's..." He gawked. "It's like going through puberty, for a witch. I guess?"

Puberty, huh.

They made it to the car.

"I don't want to lose sight of my goal." She said. "The plan is to get rid of them. Preferably with as little death as possible."

"That's something I can get behind." Thaddeus struggled the keys into the ignition, turning them on and off over and over. The engine rattled, woke up, then descended back to sleep with a murmur.

"God damn, this piece of shit engine." Thaddeus smacked the dashboard. "I replace it every time, and it comes up with the same problem every time."

And he slammed down his foot, and he pressed every lever and button in the hopes that any other kind of noise was better than the guttural sound of the engine coughing and puffing and wheezing.

They made it to the car.

"The plan is to get rid of them. Preferably with as little death as possible."

"That's something I can get behind." Thaddeus struggled the keys into the ignition, turning only to hear the slight murmur. Then stopping, and turning again. A chug this time. A rattle, then back to deep sleep. Fumes ran up from the cracks of the hood.

"God damn, this piece of shit new engine." Thaddeus smacked the dashboard. "It never works, I tell you."

And he slammed down his foot, and he pressed every lever and button in the hopes that any other kind of noise was better than the guttural sound of the engine coughing and puffing and wheezing.

Aenea felt her arms tingle, the strange numbing sensation running from her shoulder and originating from her arm, slowly moving its course through her body. The best way she could feel it - describe it, understand it, was that as if she were some kind of empty mold being filled with slow-pouring cement. The lightness earlier, the strength and agility turned to rigidity. Her muscles went stiff, and the growing numbness and filling feeling kept moved throughout her body.

She needed to let something out. She couldn't quite understand it, only that it felt instinctual. Her face squinted, the veins in her neck protruded.

She opened her palm and brought it down onto the dashboard. It felt like release, a bodily function like vomiting or eating or sleeping - something necessary. A jolt ran from her fingertips onto the plastic corrugated surface of the dashboard. It struck the vehicle, sparks flew from the radio. It looked like a trail of lightning or energy, as it shot through and into the engine, propping the cover-up. The hood flew past them and out behind them. Thaddeus, his foot still on the pedal, went forward. He hit a parking meter before backing up.

It looked like a T-bone.

"What'd you do?" He wafted smoke from the radio off his face. Coughing, looking with more fear and surprise than when she punched a hole through the wall.

"I think I fixed it?" She looked at her hand.

"Yeah, I can tell. But how'd you do that?"

"I don't know. I felt - I think - I guess?" She squinted her eyes and shook her head. What had she thought of? She tapped her chin, her arm burned like a long rash ran across her forearm. "I guess I felt like I was dialing back a clock? That's the image in my head. Like I undid the lid of some watch and moved the gears inside. I don't know."

"What?" Thaddeus went out, the engine still running. He took a look at his hoodless car and looked at her with wide eyes. Then he ran behind the car, to find the cover. He hooked it back on.

"This is weird." He screamed past the engine roar. "This is really freaky."

"What?" She still stared at her arm, green light ran out from her tribal tattoo (it had grown as far as her? Jesus), a dying light that looked almost as if a substance was being depleted from her.

"You didn't fix my engine." He said. "You changed it. It's the first engine I ever found this van with. You...replaced it with the old. I guess? Like a factory renewal, sort of?"

"I don't understand."

He jumped into the driver's seat and put on his seat belt.

"My guess is that you reverted it back to its original state, or at least, a past state. I don't think you can control it either, maybe. Can you?" He said.

She looked at her hand and put it forward, moving it closer to Thaddeus's face. "H-h-hey, don't get any ideas."

"Can I control it?" She clasped his arm.

"W-wait!" He screamed. She felt the energy again in her arm, shoot out. And...it did nothing.

"Holy f-f-fuck!" He pushed her off. "Are you insane?"

"It didn't work?" She looked at herself.

"Y-you asshole! You didn't know if it'd work or not?" His breathing accelerated. "A-are you insane? You could have turned me into a kid! A baby! An embryo, who knows how your thing works!"

"It doesn't work on organics..." She said, stretching and clenching her palms.

His breathing eased, he reversed the car. "You're an asshole, you know that?"

"I wasn't going to hurt you." She let her head out the window, the wind blew it past her face. "I just wanted to test things."

"You don't test on living specimens. At least not on me!" He screamed, wagging a finger. She kept her head out, the hot currents felt like a nice caress until small bugs struck her teeth.

"You're fine, stop crying." She spat out.

"D-Don't tell me what to do! And I'm not crying." He screamed. On and on. Complaints, wagging one finger and gesturing and shaking his head. She kept rolling her eyes, half-listening, half-tired.

That's how it went, with her so distracted - both of them so distracted - that they didn't even realize the car following them.