Forbidden.

Gabe crossed the threshold of his house angry. He had been angry since seeing that damning file of Sally’s disobedience. His simmering rage was enough to burn him from the inside out. 

He had warned his wife that this would happen. She had forced his hand; forced the capitol’s hand. And she would pay the price with her precious child.  

Serves her right.  

He wanted to barrel through the house like a mythical half-man-half-bull, but he once again kept his emotions in check. It was difficult—being so psychologically disciplined. His years in the Capitol served him well.  

Gabe had taken an emergency trip to the liquor store before returning home, so he could take the edge off from the tense meeting with Mayor Straus. So, with a crumpled, brown paper bag, enough morphling to last him a month, and the giddiness of a teenager, Gabe sauntered into the house. He took slow, steady steps into the house and let his footfalls echo a little louder than necessary. Deliberate. Calculated.  

Letting the household know he had arrived.  

He made note of Perseus sitting in the living room, fiddling with something that was making annoyingly redundant noises. Instead of approaching the boy, he turned toward their open kitchen and fixed himself a drink from his new bottle of expensive liquor.  

Oh, how he wanted to relish this moment. He wanted to sit in front of his stepson and watch his eyes light up with fear as he learned that he would be competing in the annual Hunger Games. Perseus didn’t have a taste for violence, and he never fell for the “honor of the Games” bullshit that they taught at school.  

It would make this victory that much sweeter.  

Gabe took his first drink quickly, a hefty glass of bourbon shot down the hatch. He did the same with his second, and the third. Only when he felt the rough edge of his internal turmoil smooth over, did he pour a glass with the intent to sip on it.  

Through it all, Perseus was making that infernal noise.   

He heard the leather strap before he even saw the knife and cursed himself for not recognizing the sound earlier.  

Not that the boy being armed made him nervous.  

A slow, steady scrape.  

Over. And. Over. 

Steel against leather.  

The sound hit him like someone was scraping a fork against his own teeth. His fingers flexed around the glass a little too tightly as his jaw clenched and he flexed his ears.  

He set down his glass with a dull, heavy thud. Hard. On purpose. He was surprised the glass didn’t crack.  

Still, the boy didn’t look up. He didn’t even turn to face him. 

Gabe knew the smell of cigars and the reek of cheap liquor clung to his clothes, his hair, his very sweat. It was the smell that made Perseus’ nose wrinkle with distaste, so he never bothered to mask it with cologne. Not that it would do much. Liquor was nearly a part of Gabe’s bodily system. Of his blood.  

It was the kind of liquor that burned like acid rain on the way down, but left you numb and stumbling by the time it reached your stomach.   

The kind that kept memories at bay and dreams quiet.  

The kind Gabe needed.  

His approach was lazy and measured with the finery of only the most practiced manipulators. He crossed the room languidly, his boots heavy against the wood, making sure each step thudded through the floor.  

Letting the boy hear him coming. Letting him feel it. 

 The knife glinted faintly in the low light, almost illuminating Perseus’ features.  

His stepson just sat there, not at all acknowledging Gabe. He kept running that damned knife, slow and steady, along the leather strap. Like he didn’t have a care in the world. Like he wasn’t insulting Gabe directly with this disrespect. Like his stupidity wasn’t tactile.  

He knew what Perseus was doing. He was all too aware of the game the boy was playing. He could practically smell the rebellion radiating off him like sweat.  

“Where’s your mother, boy?” Contrary to what he was feeling, Gabe made his voice light. He wasn't ready to reveal the contents of his meeting with the mayor just yet.  

He kept his gait relaxed. Flat.  

Like he didn’t care.  

Because he didn’t. 

Perseus didn’t flinch. He didn’t narrow his eyes in suspicion. He didn’t even look up. Just kept making that infernal noise.  

Kept sharpening that knife.  

“Out.”  

His voice was level—detached. Like he didn’t care either.  

Out?  

Incredulously, Gabe’s hands closed into tight fists at his side. 

“She’s busy. And if you hadn’t noticed, so am I. Can I take a message for you?” Perseus exchanged blandly, never looking up.  

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not in the mood for your insolence tonight.” 

The boy snorted.  

He snorted.   

For all of Gabe’s training, for all of his years of practiced emotional schooling, for all of his enemies that he had outsmarted, this boy had the talent of enflaming such anger that he nearly forgot it all.  

He quickly closed the distance between the two of them, stopping close to Perseus sitting form. Close enough to loom. Close enough to see the tension in the boy’s knuckles where they gripped the leather strap. 

“You sharpening that for a reason?” Gabe asked, abandoning any past attempts at pleasantry. His voice was low, but casual. Testing the waters. Just to see if his stepson was stupid enough to bite. 

He was. Gabe smirked. 

"Just passing time," Percy muttered, dragging the blade along the strap again, slow and deliberate. If he was attempting to be menacing, he was failing. Gabe could disarm and have the knife in his throat in mere seconds.  

Gabe couldn’t help when his lip twitched slightly, savoring the thought. He took another step closer, leaning into it just enough to cut off the kid’s space, making sure he had to feel the heat of his breath. Just enough to remind him who filled the room. 

"That so?" 

Perseus finally looked up, meeting Gabe’s unrelenting gaze.  

He could feel the heat behind his stare.  

He didn’t shrink. He didn’t look away.  

Just those sharp green eyes, cool and unblinking with intransigence.  

Eyes that were too steady, too calm. Eyes that lit with the unnatural swirl of freshness and the darkness of pine. Eyes that were so adjacent to his mother’s, it made Gabe’s head spin.  

Perseus’ eyes looked nothing like Sally’s. They looked like his eyes. His wretched fathers.  

Gabe’s throat tightened along with his knuckles.  

He still didn’t blink. Perseus continued to look up at him blankly.  

“Someone gettin’ bold over here?” he whispered, the dangerous lilt soft but evident. He tasted the sweet edge of the underlying threat like it was honey.  

His stepson didn’t flinch—he didn’t blink. He didn’t even shrink an inch.  

“Just tired of looking down,” Perseus muttered, soft yet steady.  

Gabe felt the heat spike behind his eyes. 

That was it—that was all it took. Some useless, careless words rolling out of the kid’s mouth like he thought they meant something.  

“Oh, you’re just such a martyr,” Gabe jeered sarcastically. He wondered if his eyes could actually roll into the back of his head. “You think you’re lookin’ me in the eye right now, boy? You’re not.” His voice shrank to a meticulous whisper again.  

“You’re still looking up.” 

The knife slid along the leather again, steady and slow, as if in mockery. Perseus never wavered. He was testing him. He had to be.  

Gabe’s eyes flickered as he dropped his gaze toward the weapon. He didn’t think.  

Gabe’s hand snapped out, quicker than lightning, and cracked hard against Perseus’ wrist. The offending knife went clattering to the floor.  

He was on the boy withing seconds, no time to react as Gabe leaned over him, one arm braced against the arm of the couch. Close enough that he knew Perseus could smell the alcohol rotting in his breath.  

“That’s it?” Gabe sneered in his stepson’s face. Perseus showed nothing but stubborn contempt as his eyes held steady, still daring.  

It made Gabe angrier.  

“You some big, tough guy now, huh?” Gabe’s voice lowered, dripping with the same mockery Perseus had subjected him to. “Walkin’ around here like you’re somethin’. Guess what? You wouldn’t last two seconds in my games. You don’t know shit.” 

He let his mouth curl into a venomous smirk, slowly and deliberately showing his canines.  

And then—he grabbed the boy’s face.  

His fingers were rough and unyielding as he clamped around his jaw just hard enough to bruise. The sharp edge of Perseus’ bone pressed against his palm, so much so that he could feel his stepson’s teeth grind slightly in resistance. He remembered months before, when he had Sally in a similar grip. He remembered how her eyes widened with fear. How her heart raced.  

Her son looked completely different.  

His eyes watered slightly from the pressure—if only slightly, but he didn’t give Gabe the satisfaction of blinking. And that made Gabe’s grip tighten most unforgivingly.  

“Let me enlighten you, Perseus,” he hissed, low, dangerous, and menacing. He pressed his thumb even harder under the hinge of the boy’s jaw, just under the bone.  

Felt how it ached against his iron grip. 

“You can run that stupid mouth of yours. You can even play with your little knife. But it don’t make you stronger than me. It just makes you stupid.” 

The kid’s breathing sped up, ever slightly. But he remained poised.  

He didn’t break. 

He didn’t blink.  

“You think I’m scared of you,” Perseus replied, voice hoarse and quiet, but full of malice.  

Gabe let his emotions take the reigns as he poured every inch of dangerous lethality into his gaze. Like a spark from a match before it caught. He hoped Perseus could see how he snapped the other tributes necks in his pupils. He hoped he could see how he ran his district mate through with his own spear.  

Let him see the violence the Capitol had brewed in him. It’s almost his turn, anyways.  

He shoved the boy’s face away. Like he didn’t care, like he was nothing.  

Two can play at that game.  

Perseus sat still even after, never breaking. It made Gabe’s gut twist something painful. Instead of showing it, he got up and rolled his shoulders without care. Let him think of the insignificance he had on Gabe’s emotional state. Let him feel small.  

Like the whole thing was some minor inconvenience instead of the resort of Capitol infringement on his life.  

The boy’s eyes flickered down to the knife, and Gabe’s heart did a little flip-flop.  

Do it.  

Pick it up.  

I dare you.  

But Perseus only wavered for a moment before returning his eyes to meet Gabe’s.  

The stare he leveled at Gabe was so lethal he narrowed his eyes. Not out of fear, but because Gabe saw something flicker behind the boy’s eyes—something sharp and dangerous. 

Hatred.  

Real, raw hatred. 

Not the sulking of a rebelious, disobedient child. Not the hollow defiance of a boy who just didn’t know better.  

This was different. 

It was only with pure, unfiltered, unwavering hatred did Perseus Jackson look at Gabe Ugliano.  

It was deeper, hotter.  

And it did not look away. 

Only for a moment, Gabe thought he felt something cold move along the back of his neck. For just a second, he couldn't move. It was as though he was transfixed on the boy’s eyes.  

Then, Gabe pulled back slowly, as if nothing had happened. He stood at full height, rolling his shoulders once more with a dull grunt as he attempted to shake off the chilling feeling.  

Like it meant nothing.  

Like he hadn’t felt the heat behind Perseus’ stare.” 

“You’re nothing, yet ,” he grunted, a dismissal. Like the kid wasn’t even worth the effort.  

He turned on his heel and walked away, sauntering with each step and feigning the occasional stumble. He stepped on the knife as he left.  

He didn’t pick it up.  

He wanted Perseus to. He wanted him to take the knife and see how well he could do against Gabe. At least, then he would have an excuse to kill him.  

I dare you.  

He slammed the door behind him. 

Even though he ddinn’t look back, he knew. Perseus remained sitting impassively, staring at the door.  

Steady.  

Waiting.  

And he knew the boy had picked up the knife.