Song For Chapter- Empty Gold by Halsey

Have you ever been in something so deep you thought you could never climb out? And every time you talked to someone about it, all they could give was some crappy six word cliché saying. Like, "I promise you, it'll get better." Or, "You're strong, you'll make it through."

Yeah, it probably will get better. Yeah, I am strong.

But god dang, how does that help me now. How does that make me feel better?

Who has the right to tell me that things are okay? They don't know. They don't feel what I feel, know what I know, see what I see.

I don't want another sappy apology. I don't want someone to tell me things will be alright.

Because it's easy to lie. It's easy to let things slip off your tongue. It's easy to make a promise that you'll never keep.

What's not easy? Is when you say, "everything will be okay." and then you actually help me make the situation better.

What's not easy is staying with me in my dark times, helping me climb out of a hole. Not motivating, but working with me.

And I make that hard for people to do, I know. But that's the thing. You know who your real friends are when they stick by you when you have nothing. When you're in trouble.

When you're sad and pushing everyone away.

Those who push back, are the ones that matter.

Gem matters. She tried to push through, and when she saw I needed space she let me breath.

I screamed and pounded at nothing in particular, just crying blood like a Scorpio does.

Eventually, I calmed myself down and made my way back to Gem. I intertwined my hand with hers and gave her a small smile. It was a sad smile.

If I'm being completely honest, I wanted to get in her car with her and leave— never turning back.

And I think that if I knew I would get away with it, I'd do it with Gem in a heart beat.

But c'mon. Those are dreams. Just dreams.

But before I could even tell Gem so she convince me running away was a bad idea, screams erupted from the group down the beach.

Gem, being the way she is, started running towards the screams, not even caring that there could be danger ahead.

I run behind her and we stop side by side as we watch.

Leona screamed, as her dad, our dad, pulled her and shoved her into the back seat of his car.

He walked back to us, breathing heavily with a bloody nose. "I'm taking Leona somewhere safe. You all think that this is it. That you'll all grow up happily and become elders. Only 13 of you are living. There's only thirteen elders. Two Geminis and the other 11 zodiacs. Im taking Leona, saving her life and Leo's at the same time." He rubs his nose and shakes his head. "I'm also taking Cor."

"Hell no your not." I say, stepping in front of Gem, looking him up and down.

I clench my fists, breathing deeply.

"And why wouldn't you want me to take you, protect you?" Lucas says, pointing to me.

Anger flares through me like the tears I spilled earlier. "I thought I said to keep your damn, lying, acting, words to the big screen. You couldn't keep Ginny safe, what makes me think I'd go with you?"

Gem grabs my hand, looking up to me, smiling. She places a hand on my cheek and brings me into a kiss.

I kiss her back, not wanting to fade back into reality.

But eventually, I do.

"Cor." She whispers, standing on her tippy toes, trying to whisper in my ear.

I wrap my arms around her and wonder why she sounds so distressed and sad. I understand our situation but she didn't know Ginny.

"Maybe you should go. With him." She whispers, and I hear her accidental slip of a sob. "If what he says is true—"

"No." I say, resting my chin on her head. "I won't—"

"You can come back when I'm an elder. I'm safe. You're not." She finishes.

I shake my head, shutting my eyes. "No. Not with him."

She pulls out her car keys and slowly slides them into my hands. "Then don't go with him."

Her voice cracks with remorse. "I'm not going." I state. "I say that like a Taurus. If I go, I will be caught, and it will lead back to you. I'm not taking that chance."

Lucas sets his hand on my shoulder. "Son, come on. It won't be—"

I turn around and punch him as hard as I can, and if his nose wasn't broke from when either Aris or Leona socked him, it was now.

He curses words even I don't feel comfortable repeating, and covers it with his hand.

Aris laughs behind us, quietly. "Ah, good ol' times punching dad."

I shake my head from his remark and look sternly into Lucas's pain writhed eyes. "I'm a lot stronger than Leona. Try and lock me in the car."

Lucas throws his hands up, and kicks up sand. "FINE! Whatever! Die! I don't care!" He storms off to his car and never turns back, getting inside of it and driving off, Leona in the back seat.

I pull Gem to my side, and I know she's secretly glad I didn't go. I'm surprised she even wanted me gone.

I hang my head. Half of us are going to be gone.

Nobody says a word as they make eye contact with the other gender of their sign.

Ancer stands up, Seas by his side. "I'm gay!" He announces.

Seas sighs. "No, you're Ancer," He says. "We're gay."

Ancer faces him with a tilted head. "Same difference?"

Aria stands up, widening her eyes. "I knew Cor had a sister before this." She shrugs and sits back down.

I look at Gem and she just puts a finger over my mouth. "I know I know, you should have asked despite what I said. You're right I'm wrong." She laughed.

Aris smirks. "I knew Liam wasn't his dad." He says.

I cock my head to the side and widen one eyebrow. "How did you know that?"

Aris bites his cheek and looks up. "I may or may not have found your letter from your real dad in your car?" He winces. "Remember when you brought me home that one day... when my car broke down and it was raining. You stopped to get gas..... yeah.... I went through your glove-box."

I take a deep breath and blink my eyes.

I guess I'm not as mysterious and secretive as I thought I was.

Congrats to myself. I'm officially the worse Scorpio there is.

Arius stands up and rubs his temples. "As most of you know... I knew about the elders before any of you. My job was to keep things from going to hell, and I have epically failed. I was supposed to keep couples together, arrange them all to fit so all the executed signs were single. Li, I lied, you weren't one of the Elders until... I... sacrificed myself so that Cor would become an Elder." The whole earth seems to stand still, quiet. "I'm kind of glad Cora isn't here right now." He adds.

"I know who lives and well... who disappears. But you can't know because then then the Elders will know I told you and well... my deal with my mom will be over." Arius says, wiping his tear stricken face with his sleeve.

Gem jumps out from under my arm and hugs Arius as tightly as she can.

They hug for a moment before she cries, her eyes like dripping fire. "I'm so sorry for the way I treated you." She hugs him again and when she pulls away, I walk up to him.

"Why?" I ask, looking into his aqua colored eyes.

He faces the ground. "Because I don't want to be on this earth any more anyways. Gem's not happy with me. I'll never be happy with her knowing she doesn't love me. I'll hate myself for it."

I place a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you." I whisper.

He shrugs his hand off. "I didn't do it for you." He glares at me.

Silence flows over everyone as the sun sets, mimicking Gem's eye color.

I sit in the sand and slowly all of us are in a line, laying back on the sand. Or sitting. Cuddling. Crying. Holding each other.

We're a messed up family in some sort of way.

The sun fades into the night.

And it wasn't until most of us had fallen asleep on the hot sand, when Virlon shoots up from his spot in the sand and says, "Wait, Arius, did you say your mom?"

~~~~~

AGH! I BEAT WRITER'S BLOCK! AGAIN! IM SO PROUD! IT ONLY TOOK ME A WEEK!

IM SO SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG!

Although, with me reading other books I realize I update a lot faster than most people.

AND HOLY EVERYTHING! ARIUS IS A CINNAMON ROLE! I LOVE HIM.

I LOVE ALL OF THEM!

AGH!

I CANT!

Omg! And Ancer and Seas? CUTE 😂

Okay..... this chapter isn't edited I hope there aren't any auto correct mistakes or anything because it's 1:30 in the morning and I only wrote this chap right now because I FINALLY beat writer's block and wasn't letting this idea go, soooo..... I'll edit it sometime later. 😂😊.

I hope you all have an amazing day and....

As always, stay happy, stay gold
-Dani_Kail