River Island

Ten

Jasper

"Mason Riley. Twenty three years old. He is currently doing his final year at Harvard Law. He graduated valedictorian in high school. And right now he's very single. Unless unforeseen circumstances, one of them being you, interfere his death day is fifty years from Monday. So please don't murder the kid in a blind rage."

"Why would I kill him in a blind rage?"

"The same reason you're asking for information on him." Thanatos smirked.

"What exactly are you trying to imply here?" I asked crossing my arms.

"Oh nothing." He chuckled.

Ignoring him I left his office and went back to the penthouse. I found Thalia curled up on the couch looking all sad and depressed. Females and their stupid emotions. Groaning I marched towards her.

"Okay that's it!" I announced picking her up and tossing her on my shoulder, making her squeal.

"Put me down Jasper." She said trying to get down.

"No! Ever since we got back you've been sulking. I didn't go against your father just so could sit and sulk. We are going to do something fun." I said.

Before she could respond I teleported us out of the building and into another apartment. I dropped on the floor with a thud stepping over her.

"Do you by any chance find pleasure in my pain?" She asked me getting up and rubbing her butt.

"I find pleasure in a lot of things," I smirked "I could show you some of them."

"Where are we? You know this counts as kidnapping. You don't just drag people to God knows where."

"We're in Miami. And I didn't kidnap you."

"What are we doing in Miami?"

"Having fun." I said making her scoff. I knew full well she didn't trust my definition of fun.

"What are gonna do? Try and kill someone? Rob a bank? Jump out a plane?" She asked with fake excitement.

"I like that last suggestion." I said seriously.

"Of course you do

"How about? We go to the beach?"

"You just wanna see girls in bikinis."

"Well duh! You won't entertain me so someone has to." I said walking towards the door. "But not just that. The beach has people, which means we can work on some of your abilities there."

"What abilities?"

"Well mostly the Aphrodite centered ones. We don't want you killing anyone if we tap into your fathers abilities. Each of your siblings has their own special power. We know you don't have wings like most of them, although that would have been really cool. So we'll test out some stuff at the beach."

I dragged her out of the building and into the car that was waiting for us. The sooner I knew what she could do, the sooner her real training would start. I had three months to transform her into a full fledge goddess. She needed to be ready to face my mother. Killing her wouldn't be a difficult task. It would be facing my dear old father once he found out his precious flower was gone. I never understood why he stayed loyal to her. Even when the whole Adonis thing happened.

Thalia had to have something of her mothers. Over the years of watching her, I knew she could make just about anyone do her bidding willingly. I don't think she even realized she had the power. The ability to have people obey your will isn't one to be taken lightly. If she could read peoples desires then she'd be a deadly weapon. Both men and gods were brought to ruin by desire. We had to tap into her inner power.

"So what are your abilities?" Thalia asked from next to me.

"I see dead people."

"Ha ha very funny."

"No seriously. From outside my bedroom window if you look way past the castle grounds, you can see the thousands of souls lining up for judgment."

"I bet you enjoy that." She scoffed.

"It makes for good television when I'm bored." I shrugged. "But I have all of my dad's abilities and just one of my moms. That's why he named me heir instead of one of my older siblings. I'm more like him than the others."

"Just a lot more sinister, eerie, dark, menacing, disquieting, threatening than him?" She asked.

"You know all those are synonym's of sinister? You're basically saying the same word."

"I don't care." She huffed. I chuckled lightly shaking my head. This was going to be a very long day

............

We were sitting in a small dinner near the beach silently observing everyone that was coming in. I needed to find the perfect target for this to work. We had stopped at a*****e on the way here and gotten a change of clothes. She was wearing pair of shorts and a floral shirt over her bikini clad body. Less clothing than I would have liked her to wear.

"So what am I supposed to do? Flirt with some guy and compel him to do something for me?" She asked wiping her hands on a napkin.

"Why would I make you do something so demeaning? That would be making you use your body as a means to get what you want when you have a more capable mind." I scowled. "Yes you're the daughter of the goddess of love and desire, but those things aren't entirely physical based emotions. Some people find intelligence far more desirable than beauty."

"Wow." She said staring at me.

"What?"

"I just thought..."

"That I was a sexist pig that objectified women? Sure I'm a manipulative, insensitive asshole that's been more than willing to tie them up and flog them but it's not like they didn't want me to." I shrugged.

"You had me in the first sentence then you completely lost me." She said. I smiled at her before scanning the room again and deciding on what we were going to do.

"Okay princess. Change of plans. We'll go around acting like I'm blind and I'll be asking people to describe you. I'll need you to focus on the person we'll be asking. Try and hone in on their idea of beauty, your body will do the rest." I said getting up.

"That sounds hard. And I thought we weren't going to do any beauty based exercise."

"We weren't and then you offended me so now we are. I might bruise your ego along the way if I'm lucky."

"Would it help if I said sorry for thinking you were a Neanderthal male?"

"Nope." I smirked.

"How do I figure out what someone's idea of beauty is?" She asked following me out of the diner.

"Concentrate, stay calm and make direct eye contact. It'll come to you without trying. And remember I'm blind and want to know what you look like." I spotted our first victim and put on my sunglasses. Linking my arm with hers we approached a short geeky looking girl with frizzy hair.

"Hello." She said quietly looking at us.

"I'm sorry to bother you. But could you please describe the way my girlfriend looks today. Whenever I ask her she doesn't do herself justice. I can barely see since the accident and I want to know if she's as beautiful as I remember." I sighed.

"Please just humor him." Thalia whispered sadly.

"Oh. Well her hair is... wait... I thought." She stared at Thalia confused before shaking her head. "She's very pretty. Her eyes are green. A very deep, comforting shade of green. Her hair is a fiery red. And she has freckles; you probably already know all this. She kind of looks like my friend Astrid actually. Come to think of it you could be her twin."

"Thank you." I smiled. "She sounds exactly as I remember."

Dragging a wide eyed Thalia from the girl we went around the beach asking other people to describe her. Each of them giving different answers. Most of them telling her she looked like an ex girlfriend, or a best friend, or a celebrity. Not one describing her to look the way she did.

One surfer said she had chocolate colored skin and out of control hair with big brown eye. A couple fought over what color her eyes were and one girl broke down half way through her description. Something about her looking like her late sister. By the end of it all, Thalia hadn't said a word. I led her back to the car and we sat in silence until she finally asked the question I was expecting her to.

"Does this thing work on god's too?" She asked quietly.

"Yes"

"Oh. What do I look like to you?"

"Do you want to know to see if you're my idea of beauty or because you're just curious?" I asked.

"Just curious."

No you aren't.

"What do you want to do today?" I asked refusing to answer the question. I refused to have her knowing I saw her as her. It didn't mean anything that I did anyway. With her spirits low and her ego bruised seeing as no one described her as her, we drove to one of my favourite places in Miami.