The Spider's Web

I ran away from the abandoned china shop with an ever sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t have anywhere to go, nowhere to run to.

What I encountered was my dream. . . but my worst nightmare. 

I could remember it vividly. The Queen of Spiders.

The broken china on the floor crunched beneath my heels, resembling the sound of cracking bones, making me cringe every single step I took. The thing she couldn’t fake was the blood that pooled on the floor. There had to at least be a standing inch of it. Bodies hung from the walls, nailed up on display. I may also be a“villain ” myself (with some pride in the name), but I would never kill someone.

The Spider Queen herself was more terrifying than the room itself. It’s like she absorbed the room in her power. Pitch black eyes and the darkest shadows filled every crevice of space, almost like she could weave it into the night itself. Her hair was pulled back, revealing her sharp cheekbones and jaw and even sharper tongue. She spoke in a cold manner, like she was a corpse relaying a message. Maybe she was.

And I had worked for her for over three years. I had never seen her before that moment, but worked for her, worked under her. Perhaps that was my greatest mistake. But when she asked me to kill someone. . . to take the life kneeling before me. . .

I ran. 

I went to the place I knew best, before all of this happened, before I became the Ten of Swords. Even now, dashing through the near abandoned streets during the early morning, with my hair flying past me in blond fury (I had few dark brown streaks in the mix too), I tried to capture the name in its full light. Or dark. I am a villain after all, just not the worst one in my opinion. Nobody was out this late unless you were drunk or a teenager. Perhaps both. 

But that’s besides the point of this.

When I thought it was safe enough, I slowed down to a walk, gulping down air like I was in the middle of the Sahara desert and I found an oasis of water. It was sort of like that even now, standing in front of his house.

James’ house.

He was the only one I could think of, to run to. 

The only one who even might protect me from the Queen of Spiders, the one who I could take sides with.

I’m done running. I’m done being the villain, done trying to be someone I’m not, even if I enjoyed it. If I used to enjoy it. 

With shaky knees and a less than eager smile, I walked up the steps to his house. There was murmuring from inside, and at first I thought I went to the wrong address. But James never moved from what I know. 

Ever since his parents separated, he stayed in this house. We rented it when we first came here, before the city so called “corrupted me” (his words not mine). Before he went on to become the great and mighty Wolf, a chess piece to the Mayor’s games. A pawn and yet a leader all the same. He stood up for those who couldn’t. He used to stand up for me before I turned my back on him. Before I became the complete opposite of what he stood for, because I was angry. Because I was scared.

Even now, I’m scared. I’m so scared of what he’ll think of me. 

We grew up together, went to school together, played together. We were brothers. Were. Until I left him for a perhaps worse life than what we were given.

I knocked on the door.

The talking inside stopped, and my heart pounded with every second left standing in the air. 

Footsteps sounded from inside, and then a woman opened the door. She had tightly curled hair and soft brown skin. She had golden ringed eyes, and it took me a moment to realize she had said something to me.

“Wh-what did you say?” I asked.

“Is that you? Aida. Aida-Mae?” she said. Her canines flashed in the moonlight. She used to be friends with James and I. Separately, of course. We just went to college together. I dropped out soon after the first year.

“Leto,” I said, exhaling a long breath. She took me in her arms, hugging me. I didn’t hesitate to hug back. “Holy shit. I didn’t know you lived here.”

“I don’t,” she admitted. “James does. Uh-” She turned away, looking inside the house. “James! Come here, it's an old friend of mine!” She looked back at him. “How did you find me?”

“I-I don’t know. Lucky guess?”

“Damn you and your luck,” she said, smiling like the full moon itself. 

And then James appeared in the doorway. My breath hitched in the back of my throat. He knew me, but the question was, would he still want me. And what was Leto doing here?

He looked exactly the same as ever. Chestnut brown hair scraped the tops of his cheeks, and his narrow nose and chin were blooming with the same rosy color. His eyes narrowed at me. “Who is this?” he said, turning to Leto.

My heart dropped.

“This is an old classmate of mine, Aida! He and I used to take self-defense classes together.”

I smiled awkwardly. 

“What are you doing here?” Leto asked again. “We were in the middle of ah—planning something.”

“I barked up the wrong tree,” I admitted. I glanced at James, looking into his dark blue eyes, searching for an answer good enough for both of them. “I made a few mistakes. Very, very bad mistakes.”

Leto’s smile began to slip from her face. “Why don’t you come inside so we can discuss this.”

I tried to smile, my eyes catching the rough pavement on the ground. It was better than looking at their faces of disappointment. It was better than telling them I was working with the very people they were trying to destroy.

I trailed after Leto. James came around the back, shutting the door for us. He gently nudged me to move forward, and by the look in his eyes, the way his shoulders tensed up, I knew he remembered. All those times we shared. 

We were childhood bestfriends. But we were also more than that.

I sat on the couch, taking a cup of coffee from Leto. She sat in the chair across from me, her legs curled up into herself. She worked for a small pack of werewolves like herself, cast out from society. Leto was trying to help raise them up, keep them in control and stop lashing out at others in the city. With James in the lead, his strong voice and even more powerful fighting skills, he could be the one to bring back the balance this city needed. He didn’t even need to be a werewolf to do it. 

And I. . . It’s not that I didn’t want that for them. It’s more like. . . I didn’t want to be nobody. James was always the better of us. 

I just didn’t want to be forgotten like everything else. I was always the afterthought.

James and I were on the opposite sides of this war, and he knew it too. He knew who I was. He knew who I was on the dark streets and lurking in the alleyways.

Maybe I was finally going to snap out of it and get out of the Spider’s Nest. I could stop being the Ten of Swords. For me to do that though, I had some explaining to do. And so I did. I spilled everything to them. 

I told them who I was and what I’ve done. Everything I’ve done and regretted eventually.

I just wished I could have told James one thing.

I just wished I could have told James I loved him before it was too late.