average human’s Reviews > The 13th Zodiac > Status Update

Aiden had been with someone again, I’d felt every touch, every kiss, every moment when he tried and failed to perform. The emotional aftermath had been worse than if he’d succeeded.
‘You smell sick,’ Noodle said, his tongue flicking near my ear.
“I’m fine,” I lied, pushing myself up from the floor where I’d collapsed sometime after midnight.
My arms throbbed with fresh crescent marks where I’d dug my nails into my skin, desperate for any pain that might distract from what was pouring through the bond. I pulled my sleeves down to cover them, wincing as the fabric brushed against the raw wounds.
It had been three weeks since my life imploded. Three weeks since they’d found those emails I never wrote, messages detailing plans I never made, manipulations I would never have conceived. Three weeks of hell.
I stumbled to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, avoiding my reflection. I already knew what I’d see. Hollow eyes, dark circles, and skin that had gone from pale to nearly translucent. I’d lost weight I couldn’t afford to lose, and my hands trembled constantly now.
The bond was killing me.
That was the cruel irony. Whoever had planted those emails had known exactly what they were doing. The bond itself remained intact, and I could block them from accessing me, but they never bothered blocking themselves.
I could feel everything. Their anger. Their pain. Their disgust. And worse, their attempts to erase me with other women.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Lydia.
L: You coming to class today?
I stared at the message. I’d missed six training sessions already this week. The write-ups were piling up on my desk, each one threatening more serious consequences if I didn’t “fulfill my academic obligations.” As if I cared about any of that anymore.
J: No.
L: Tye’s coming to get you in 20. No arguments.
I didn’t bother responding. Arguing with Lydia was pointless when she got like this.
I pulled on a black turtleneck and leggings, the most coverage I could manage. The less skin I showed, the fewer whispers followed me.
My laptop sat open on the desk, the screen filled with scans of ancient texts on bond-breaking that I’d been translating all night. So far, every potential solution was worse than the problem. Rituals that would leave me catatonic, spells that required blood sacrifices, potions with ingredients I couldn’t even pronounce.
But I had to find something. I couldn’t keep living like this, feeling them with other women, feeling their hatred directed at me like poison in my veins. Yeah, their cocks were soft and Aiden threw up when they touched him, but I’d felt it when a woman put her mouth on Percy’s useless cock, when Eris ran his fingers over bare skin.
‘Food?’ Noodle asked, coiling around my wrist.
“Not hungry,” I mumbled, but I grabbed an apple anyway. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten a full meal.
A knock at the door made me flinch. I knew immediately it wasn’t Tye.
“Jupiter?” Professor Hartwell’s voice. My magic theory professor. “I need to speak with you.”
I considered pretending I wasn’t there, but she’d just come back later. With a sigh, I opened the door.
“You missed another session,” she said without preamble, her eyes taking in my disheveled appearance with professional concern. “That’s seven this week.”
“I’m aware.”
She held out another slip of paper. “This isn’t a write-up. It’s a summons from Director Waverly. Tomorrow, nine a.m.”
I took it without looking at it. “Fine.”
Professor Hartwell didn’t leave. Instead, she shifted uncomfortably. “Jupiter, I don’t know what happened between you and the Nightfall Shield, but⁠—“
“With all due respect,” I cut her off, “you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe not,” she conceded. “But I know what a broken bond looks like. I’ve seen zodiacs waste away from it.”
I laughed harshly. “Is that what this is? A wellness check?”
“It’s concern from someone who doesn’t believe you’re capable of what they’re saying.”
That caught me off guard. “What?”
“The emails,” she said simply. “I’ve known Director Orion for twenty years. Sensitive information like that would never be allowed via email.”
Something cold lodged in my chest. “You… don’t think I wrote them?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t. And I’ve told Director Waverly as much.”
Before I could process this, heavy footsteps announced Tye’s arrival. He rounded the corner, his broad frame filling the hallway, eyes narrowing when he spotted Professor Hartwell.
“Everything okay here?” he asked, positioning himself slightly between us.
Professor Hartwell stepped back. “Just delivering a message. Think about what I said, Jupiter.”
After she left, Tye turned to me. “What was that about?”
“Nothing,” I said, the first flicker of something other than despair sparking in my chest. “Just another write-up.”
“Well, grab your stuff. Lydia’s waiting for us at the training hall.”
“Tye, I can’t⁠—“
“Yes, you can. Jupe, you can’t keep hiding. That’s exactly what they want.”
“Who?”
“Whoever set you up.” His eyes darkened. “I’m going to find them, by the way. And when I do, they’re going to wish they’d never been born.”
I didn’t argue as he practically dragged me to the training gym. My legs felt like lead, and every step closer to where I might see them filled me with dread. But Tye was right. Hiding was getting me nowhere.
The hall fell silent when I entered, dozens of eyes turning to stare. I kept my gaze fixed on the floor, letting Tye guide me to where Lydia waited.
“You look like shit,” she said by way of greeting, but her eyes were soft with concern.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“I got us a corner spot,” she said. “Away from everyone else.”
I nodded gratefully, and we began basic warm-ups. My body protested every movement, weak from lack of food and sleep. But gradually, the familiar routine began to calm my frayed nerves.
Until they walked in.
All four of them. They didn’t even glance in my direction, but I felt their awareness of me. Through the bond, I sensed their emotions shift—anger, disgust, and underneath it all, a confusing thread of longing they immediately suppressed.
The pain hit me so suddenly that I doubled over, gasping.
“Jupe?” Lydia was at my side instantly. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I managed, straightening with effort. “Just a cramp.”
Tye wasn’t fooled. His eyes followed my gaze to the Nightfall Shield, understanding dawning on his face.
“They’re still affecting you,” he said quietly. “Through the bond.”
I nodded, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.
“That’s it.” He stood, rolling his shoulders. “I’m going to beat the shit out of them.”
“Tye, no,” I grabbed his arm. “It won’t help.”
“Maybe not, but it’ll make me feel better.”
“Please,” I whispered. “Just... help me get through this session. I need to prove I can do this.”
He reluctantly backed down, but positioned himself between me and them for the rest of the training session, glaring daggers at anyone who looked my way. I went through the motions mechanically, focusing on my breathing, on the movement of my body, anything but the constant barrage of emotions leaking through the bond.
I was almost through it when Melissa sauntered up to Percy, placing a possessive hand on his chest. The casual touch sent a wave of nausea through me, and I stumbled, dropping my practice staff.
Lydia caught me before I hit the floor. “That’s it,” she hissed. “We’re leaving.”
“No,” I protested weakly. “I can finish.”
But my body betrayed me. As Percy’s hand settled on Melissa’s waist, a fresh wave of agony tore through me. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, desperately fighting back a scream.
Tye and Lydia practically carried me out, my legs giving way the moment we cleared the doors. In the empty corridor, I finally let the tears fall, silent sobs shaking my body as Tye held me upright.
“This has to stop,” Lydia said. “They’re killing you, Jupe.”
“It’s not their fault,” I whispered. “They think I betrayed them. They think I manipulated them.”
“But you didn’t!”
“They don’t know that.” I wiped my tears with shaking hands. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to make them believe I did.”
“Who would do that?” Tye asked, his arm still supporting me. “And why?”
“Someone who doesn’t want me bonded to them,” I said, the pieces finally starting to align in my mind. “The same person who left that threatening ward in my room the first week. Someone with enough access to fake very real looking Assembly correspondence, and who knew details about me that nobody outside of my shield could possibly know.”
Lydia’s eyes widened. “You think it’s someone at Dominion? Someone with power?”
“It has to be,” I said, feeling stronger as anger began to replace despair. “And I’m going to find out who.”
“We’re going to find out,” Tye corrected. “But first, we’re getting you something to eat. You look like you’re about to collapse.”
As they led me toward the dining hall, I felt a familiar presence brush against my consciousness—Draco, his emotions all over the place. For the briefest moment, it felt like he was reaching for me through the bond, searching.
Then it was gone, shut down so completely it left an aching void in its place.
I pulled my sleeves down further, covering the marks on my arms. Tomorrow, I would meet with Director Waverly. I would start investigating who might have wanted to destroy my bond with the Nightfall Shield. I would find a way to prove my innocence.
But tonight, I would curl up on my floor again, biting my pillow to muffle my screams as Percy would probably finally took Melissa to his bed, as Draco buried himself in ancient texts instead of sleep, as Eris drank himself into oblivion, as Aiden’s restless energy prowled the campus looking for distractions that never worked.
Tonight, I would endure. Because that’s all I could do now.

Draco
I followed Jupiter, keeping enough distance that she wouldn’t notice. My stomach twisted watching her stumble slightly, her normally sure, confident movements now halting and unsteady. She looked like she was barely holding herself together.
I shouldn’t care. I should hate her for what she did to us. But watching her shuffle down the corridor, shoulders hunched as if carrying an impossible weight, something broke inside me.
Aiden had left with that Capricorn girl—Vanessa or Vivian, I couldn’t remember her name. She’d whispered promises in his ear about what her mouth could do, and he’d gone along with it, his eyes dead and expression hollow. We all knew it wouldn’t work. It never did. Every fucking time any of us tried to be with someone else, our bodies betrayed us. And there was that shameful, secret relief afterward, the relief that we couldn’t replace her.
Jupiter reached her door, fumbling with the key before practically falling inside. I hesitated, then slid down the wall opposite her room, sitting on the cold floor. I shouldn’t be here. I should be anywhere but here. Yet I couldn’t make myself leave.
Through our bond, I could feel her blocking us—a thick wall she’d maintained since that day. But during training, when Melissa had touched Percy, I’d felt something slip through Jupiter’s defenses. A flash of such intense pain it had stolen my breath for a moment.
I closed my eyes, hating myself for what I was about to do. It felt wrong and invasive, but I needed to know. I needed to understand.
I pressed against the barrier in my mind, forcing my way through. It was like pushing through thick ice, and I felt dirty doing it, knowing she’d put these walls up for privacy. But something wasn’t adding up, and I needed answers.
When the barrier finally broke, I wasn’t prepared for what hit me.
Pain. Overwhelming, staggering pain that knocked the air from my lungs. It wasn’t just emotional, it was physical agony radiating from her body. I gasped, doubling over as the full force of it crashed into me.
Then came images, not from Jupiter’s perspective, but from Noodle’s. The little snake was watching from the corner of the room as Jupiter collapsed onto the floor. She was curled into a tight ball, her entire body shaking with violent sobs. In her hands was a crumpled t-shirt—Percy’s, I recognized it instantly—and she was screaming into it, the fabric muffling sounds that would have alerted the entire floor to her distress.
Through Noodle’s eyes, I watched tears stream down her face, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed. Her arms were exposed, sleeves pushed up, and I could see fresh scratch marks—dozens of them—where she’d clawed at her own skin.
“Please make it stop,” she sobbed into Percy’s shirt. “I can’t take it anymore. I can’t...”
The pure anguish in her voice gutted me. This wasn’t the calculated performance of a manipulator. This was someone being torn from within.
Before I could think better of it, I grabbed the images and pain I was experiencing and shoved them down the bond to the others. To Percy, who was stubbornly reviewing combat reports in the library. To Eris, who was halfway through a bottle of whiskey in our common room. And to Aiden, who I knew was in some empty classroom with that Capricorn girl on her knees in front of him.
I felt the exact moment Aiden received the vision. His shock rippled back through the bond, followed by confusion, then a wave of such intense guilt it nearly made me retch. Through our shield connection, I caught flashes of his situation—the girl looking up at him with confusion as he remained completely soft despite her best efforts.
Percy’s response came next. Disbelief, then anger, then doubt cracking through his certainty for the first time in weeks. Eris’s emotions hit like a battering ram, raw fury quickly giving way to devastating guilt.
Inside the room, Jupiter had curled tighter around Percy’s shirt, her body shaking with each sob. “I didn’t do it,” she whispered, though there was no one to hear but Noodle. “I swear I didn’t do it.” Her voice was raspy and she hiccuped so many times I barely understood her. This was no lie. This was no performance.
‘Someone lie,’ Noodle hissed. Through his connection with Jupiter, I could feel his anger. Noodle was seconds away from hunting through Dominion for whoever hurt his Jupiter.
I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to process what I was seeing, what I was feeling. Her pain was too real, too visceral to be manufactured. And something about those emails had always bothered me, the clinical tone so at odds with Jupiter’s blunt honesty, the calculated manipulation so contrary to her straightforward nature.
What if we’d been wrong? What if someone else had created those emails?