WHAT HAPPENS ON THE ROAD

“Shouldn’t we leave this thing somewhere farther off the beaten path?”

Athena looked over her shoulder at the silver Taurus. It stared back sadly, like a dog being left at the pound, parked in the rear of the lot of the travel plaza just outside of South Bend, Indiana. She shrugged.

“Well, shouldn’t we take the plates off or something?”

“Don’t see why.” Athena shrugged again. “We’re going to be long gone before anybody finds it, and the trucker probably didn’t get the plate number anyway.”

“You’re wrong there,” Odysseus said as they walked. “He was probably on the radio as soon as we started swerving over the lines.”

“What are you worried for? We’ve already crossed a state line, and the car was probably stolen in the first place. They can’t tie it to us, and even if they could, we’ll have disappeared. We don’t have time for this. Let’s just get something to eat and catch a ride to New York.”

Odysseus sighed and shut up, and Athena looked at the travel plaza. It was made up of a Shell gas station-slash-souvenir shop, a very large set of restrooms, a McDonald’s, and a Dunkin’ Donuts. Both of the restaurants were greasy. One was greasy and sweet. She pulled open the main door and looked in both directions. The whole place smelled like hot oil and diesel fuel.

“You go to one and I’ll go to the other. Grab some food and try to find us a ride. Preferably a trucker.”

“Why a trucker?”

“They’ll be going farther and they usually have a sleeper in the cab. You have money, don’t you?”

Odysseus nodded and pulled out his wallet. He gave her a ten and headed toward Dunkin’ Donuts. Athena walked into the McDonald’s side. There was a short line and a few of the people waiting were truck drivers, men with cheap ball caps, thin legs, and blue jeans pulled over cowboy boots. She glanced down at herself. She looked like total shit; if not like a criminal then at least like a runaway who’d had a rough couple of days. She buttoned her cardigan up as far as it would go to cover the bloodstains. The tears in her jeans might at least pass for a fashion statement.

When she got in line, she made sure to smile and nod at the guy in front of her. He was thirtysomething, with a goatee and mustache and a long, black mullet hanging down from his baseball cap. She checked the logo: New York Yankees. She smiled again; he turned around.

“You look like you’ve been on the road awhile,” he said with a nod to her clothes.

“Yeah,” she replied. “There was a sort of mix-up with my ride. A difference of opinion.”

He nodded and gave her an understanding smile.

“I wound up losing all of my bags. It’s been kind of a nightmare.”

“Well,” he said, and glanced up at the plastic, backlit menu. “To ease the blow, how about I buy you some lunch?”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Athena replied. The restaurant had just switched over from serving breakfast and the smell of rubbery, overcooked eggs and cheese mingled with the grease of burgers. The smell was thick enough to coat her skin. She should have gone to Dunkin’ Donuts. As she opened her mouth to ask for a ride rather than lunch, Odysseus grabbed her by the elbow.

“Hey,” he said around a mouthful of chicken Parmesan flatbread. “I found us a ride.” He waved to the guy she’d been talking to, then looked at her. “Do you want to get food from here? I got an extra sandwich and some donut holes. We’re supposed to meet him in the lot. He drives a red Freightliner.”

* * *

“That was fast,” Athena said as they walked to the idling truck. Odysseus grinned. He always worked fast. Fast and clever. He opened the white paper bag. She fished out a donut hole and rolled it between her fingers, leaving a circular trail of sugar. She hadn’t eaten in a day, nothing at all except those few blackberries at The Three Sisters. She popped the donut into her mouth and it enlivened her taste buds. Her stomach rumbled, and she eyed the paper sack hungrily. He’d said something about an extra sandwich.

Odysseus waved at the driver through the window of the truck. He was older than the driver Athena had talked to, by a lot. His hair was gray, and he was heavy, maybe 260 pounds and still gaining. The buttons of his shirt looked like they were under extreme pressure. He smiled as they opened the door and climbed into the cab. Odysseus introduced her and she shook the driver’s hand. His name was Craig Melville, and he was doing a run from Minneapolis, with drops in Toledo and Buffalo. He could take them as far as that. After Buffalo, he’d drop his trailer and head for his home in Pennsylvania.

“Thanks again for the ride,” said Odysseus, and then, to Athena, “I told him what a jumble it’s been. He couldn’t believe that Jimmy actually got mad enough to leave us behind. But he doesn’t know Jimmy. Crazy bloke. I told you we shouldn’t have ridden back up to school with him.”

Athena smiled at Craig. “Well, I never thought he’d leave us either. I just hope he doesn’t throw our stuff out of the car before he gets to campus.”

Odysseus grinned. The lie came together naturally and nostalgia hit her in a warm wave. Side by side they were devious and slick.

“I wouldn’t worry about anything.” Craig checked his mirrors and situated his coffee thermos. “I’ve had plenty of crazy friends, and they always turn out right in the end. He’ll probably be damn sorry, the next time you see him.” He put the truck into gear and it jerked forward. He seemed nice enough. He told them about a few of his “crazy” friends; Athena listened and smiled while she ate the ham and cheese flatbread Odysseus had bought. While she chewed, weariness began to sink in again. The truck was nice and clean, and there was a sleeper in the back. She was about to ask Craig if she could use it when he tapped her on the knee.

“Hey,” he said gently. “You both look exhausted. Why don’t you sneak in the back and get some sleep? You’ll have plenty of time to keep me company after we get through Toledo.”

“Thank you,” she said, and was surprised by how much she meant it. It would have been nice to have something to give him in return, something more than a lie and polite conversation. She reached out for his hand. “You’re a very nice man, Craig,” she said. “I hope you have a lot of prosperity and good health.” Craig grinned, and they shook. When they touched, she thought she felt something small pass between them, some slight bit of warmth and electricity, moving from her skin into his.

Of course she might have imagined it. The blessing of a dying goddess probably wasn’t worth much. But at least she’d tried.

Odysseus held back the curtain between the cab and the sleeper. She lumbered into the back and sat down heavily on the small bed.

“Just give a shout if you want us to chip in for gas, or snacks or something,” Odysseus told Craig, then closed the curtain and sat down on the bunk.

“Should we talk now?” he asked softly. Whispering wasn’t necessary. Craig had turned on the strains of an oldies station, and the engine noise from the truck covered their voices well.

Athena sighed. “I’m exhausted. And what you’re going to tell me … I have a feeling is going to keep me up.” I don’t have time to be sleeping. I should make him talk now, so I can think of what to do next. I should make him talk now so I can dream battle plans, for fuck’s sake. Her mind’s arguments were weak. The soft bed spoke much louder.

“It can wait. We’ve got a long ride ahead.” Odysseus’ tender voice soothed her ears. But the concern on his face edged too close to pity.

He’s losing faith in my strength. I’m messing everything up. I can’t protect him. I have to be stronger, faster. I will be, as soon as I get some rest.

“I’m sorry this is happening to you,” Odysseus said. “You don’t deserve it. Of all the gods on that damned hilltop, all of those vain, stupid prigs, you don’t deserve it. You never did.”

It hurt her heart that he gave her so much credit. She wasn’t something to be worshipped; she was something to be contended with. Everything that had gone wrong in his old life could have been blamed on her, or on some twisted member of her family. What did it matter if she tried to fix it? Fixing it was her responsibility. It had been then, and it still was now.

She watched him as he moved down to the floor of the sleeper, as he rolled up a sweatshirt from his bag for a pillow. This was the most time they had ever spent together all at once. In the old days, there had been more to her existence, things for her to do, and she’d dropped in on him only when she was needed. But she’d always watched. She had always made sure he was safe.

Will I fail this time? Will I finally have to watch him die, not in his bed an old man but young, and soon, and painfully?

Her tongue found the slowly healing wound on the roof of her mouth and twisted into it. Bitter tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

Without thinking, she reached down and put her hand on his arm. He jumped at the touch before letting himself be pulled up onto the bed.

It felt strangely natural, even though she had never in her long, long life slept beside a man. It went against everything her father had created her to be. And she’d never wanted it, until now.

Odysseus lay down uncertainly. He kept his eyes on her until his head hit the pillow and released his breath in a slow, nervous shudder. She felt his heartbeat, and heard it, fast and strong in his chest. Words were there, between them, but they went unspoken. It was only moments before they were both deeply asleep.

* * *

When Athena woke, the truck was stopped, and the engine turned off. Something had jolted her awake. She waited and felt a soft jerk from somewhere behind them. It was the movement of the trailer, pulling the truck back as it was unloaded. That meant they were already in Toledo.

Athena looked around in the dimness. Only two shafts of light cut through a gap in the faux leather curtain dividing the sleeper from the cab, and even that light was gray. The weather must’ve turned overcast while they slept.

Odysseus stirred by her side and shifted against her hip. She tensed. The bed was small. They were completely wrapped up in each other. How had that happened? She’d been so deeply under it had felt like oblivion. He was lucky she hadn’t shoved him off onto the floor.

Why did I ask him here in the first place?

She couldn’t remember. A deep breath brought aftershave to her nose, and she didn’t know if it was his or Craig Melville’s. It was probably Craig’s. If it had been Odysseus, it would have smelled like cinnamon massage oil from The Three Sisters. The corner of her mouth twisted into a smile, and she pushed dark hair back off his forehead.

In the shadows, he looked softer, relaxed and innocent, the working of his brain reduced to slow clicks and whirrs. He looked almost harmless, almost gentle, nothing like the swashbuckling liar she knew he was. She leaned closer and studied the curve of his jaw, the easy pulse at his throat. His fingers rested on the small of her back; she’d turned men into stone for less. But she didn’t move. Something grew inside her chest and stomach, some new, unnamed need, unfurling and trying out its wings. She let herself press closer, and shivered.

This is what men risk so much for; this shiver, this acute heat and desire. This is what they think eternity feels like.

The words moved through her mind without warning. Thoughts like that were not meant for her. She was removed from it, completely outside the jurisdiction of Aphrodite’s lasso. But she had to admit it was intoxicating. It took over completely.

I should move away.

Except when she did move, it was her hand, slipping mindlessly up underneath the fabric of his shirt.

Even the touch of my ungainly hand makes him tremble. This is dangerous. It rebounds on everything. I’ve seen it ruin lives.

Athena held her breath, but couldn’t stop. Or she wouldn’t. Boundaries blurred as he woke beneath her hands. His fingers squeezed down on her hip. His eyes opened.

Odysseus pushed the veil of her hair back and drew her closer, nothing but the sound of his quickened breath and moving fabrics in her ears. He was practiced and she was new, the Don Juan of the Aegean and the Virgin Goddess, but it was all instinct, all sensation and response. The heat of his tongue, the firm strength of his body and the way he moved her, they might have done it all a hundred, a thousand times before.

This isn’t real, this feeling. I’m not made for this.

He rolled her onto her back, their fingers entwined. The desperation in his movements filled her with a strange sense of power, and the way he shook and sighed. In her mind an image flashed from long ago: Odysseus in the middle of an ocean, standing on the deck of a ship. He stared out over the water, his expression determined but desolate, skin bronzed by decades of sunlight far from home. He grasped onto the ship’s railing and shouted something, the same word, three times. Penelope. Penelope. Penelope. He screamed for his wife, the wife he loved and continually tried to return to. The ship’s hull had been painted with a depiction of Athena’s eyes.

“Athena,” Odysseus whispered, and kissed her neck.

It was just an image. One brief flash. She didn’t even know if she had really seen it, or if it was her own invention. Penelope was dead, she had to be, she’d used up all her devotion two thousand years ago. And besides, it didn’t matter. Athena was a goddess. She took from mortal women as she liked. Odysseus was hers. He always had been.

Stop. Stop this. Those are Aphrodite’s words, Aphrodite’s justifications. Penelope might be gone but I’m not. He and I are separate. Divided. Just because I’m dying doesn’t mean I give up what I am.

“Stop,” Athena whispered. Odysseus’ arms clenched tight around her, his fingers in her hair.

“Stop,” she said again, and when he hesitated she shoved him, harder than she wanted to. His shoulder struck the wall over the foot of the bed.

It was embarrassing. She could see the mortified expression he wore in the shadows as she pulled herself up.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I don’t know what happened. We were asleep—I half thought I was dreaming!” His hands moved roughly over his face. “Look, just don’t do anything drastic, all right? Don’t turn my eyes to stone in my head or—” He glanced downward. “Or anything worse.” He leapt up and turned toward the curtain. “I’m going to go find a soda or something. I’m sorry.”

He pulled back the curtain and light cut through the sleeper.

“Odysseus,” she said, and he paused. “It’s all right. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He wouldn’t look at her. She hadn’t thought he would be so ashamed. He acted like he’d been cut open.

“Don’t feel so bad.” She tried to smile. It had been her fault. She should say something to make it right. “This is—well—it’s what you always do.”

“What I always do?” he asked, and his eyes darkened. “What I always do. Like on Circe’s island, you mean. Or dallying with Calypso.”

Athena blinked. When he was angry, his accent got thicker. Her neck stiffened as he pointed a finger at her.

“That was a bloody lifetime ago.”

“I was trying to make you feel better.”

“Feel better? By making me sound like a dog? It was thousands of years ago!”

“I found you two days ago in a naked tangle of whores!” Her mind winced at defaming the witches of The Three Sisters, but she couldn’t take it back. They were nice whores, very lovely people, but she was trying to make a point. “I suppose that was just an innocent game of Twister in between readings from Macbeth?” She held up her hands before he could explode. She used to be so good at de-escalating. But then she never would have allowed herself to be in this position. “I’m not saying that it’s wrong. I never judged you. I was never even annoyed; I was amused, mostly—”

Odysseus shook his head. It wasn’t helping.

“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “This is different. You’re not like them.”

Athena swallowed. Not like them. No, she wasn’t like them. She wasn’t beguiling. Enchantments and seductions were mysteries to her. They were ridiculous wastes of time. A heavy feeling built in her chest, just at the base of her throat. The image of Aphrodite’s golden apple rippled into her mind. To the Fairest, it had said.

“I’ve always shown you respect,” Odysseus finished lamely, and she looked away. He said her name and got no response. She might as well have been a statue. So he turned and left, slamming the door of the cab behind him.

* * *

Athena stepped out of the Freightliner and took a breath of Toledo. It smelled about the same as South Bend, only colder. The wind had come up too, and it whipped her hair into her eyes. She couldn’t tell what time it was. The clouds blocked out the sun.

They were parked in the loading dock of a long, navy blue and white warehouse. Half a dozen other trucks were lined up beside Craig’s, a few of them idling, most of them turned off. Workers passed by on forklifts, moving pallets of white boxes. She looked around. Odysseus hadn’t made it far. He stood about fifty feet away, near the hot lunch truck, talking to the driver while he ate a hot dog. She walked up behind him.

“Once you start eating you just don’t quit.”

He turned. Uncertainty floated over his features, like he still half-expected to be turned into a toad. He cleared his throat and his brows lifted.

“I’m a bottomless pit. Can I get you anything?”

“Maybe just a Coke.”

He paid the worker and handed her a cold can. Athena walked away and motioned with her head for him to follow, past the line of parked trucks and over to the end of the lot, where a lonely picnic table stood in the middle of dead brown grass.

“Well,” he said and threw a leg over the bench, “this is awkward.”

“Talking about why Hera and Poseidon are after you?” Athena asked lightly. “Why would that be awkward? Is it that awful?”

She looked him in the eyes. Deal with the problem at hand. The rest we can worry about later.

Odysseus nodded slightly and Athena took a long drink of her soda.

“You know what they’re doing, don’t you?” he asked.

“Looking for tools to help them eat us, you mean?”

He gave her a weird look, and she waved her hand.

“I don’t think the eating part is literal. But who knows? They’re just trying to save their own skins.”

“For them to live, other gods have to die.”

Athena nodded. “So everyone keeps saying. Though nobody seems to be able to say why.”

Odysseus shrugged. “Because that’s the way that it’s been fated to happen. No one escapes Fate. Not a single one of us, after we’re born. Not even you.”

Athena rolled her eyes. He sounded like her father. “So why even bother fighting? If we’re fated to lose, then we lose. If we’re fated to win, then one way or another, we’ll come out on top. Right?”

“Don’t get philosophical on me. For the record, I don’t believe in Fate. I believe that the pieces have been placed. The ending hasn’t been written yet.”

Athena ground her teeth. She did believe in Fate. It was almost impossible not to, after having the king of the gods drive it into her head for so long. But she’d always hated it. It made her feel powerless. Why people saw it as a comfort, she would never understand.

She twisted the tab off of her Coke and flicked it into the recycle bin. “So what are they doing, right now? Do you know?”

“They’re looking for a weapon.”

“I figured on that. What weapon? It can’t be Cassandra. You didn’t even know about her.”

He hesitated, which was good. The fewer who knew the better. But she was the leader of the damned resistance. He needed to cough it up.

“There’s just the one weapon that I know about,” he said softly.

“Okay.” She waited for him to talk. When he didn’t, she nudged him with a finger. “So what is it? And why do they need you in particular to get it?”

Odysseus swallowed. “Because I’m the only one who knows how to find it.”

“How to—?” she asked, and stopped. Suddenly she knew. It was just like it had been before. During the war against Troy. Greece had needed a weapon, and only Odysseus had been able to convince it to come out and fight. Only Odysseus had known where it was hiding.

“It’s Achilles,” she whispered. “They’re looking for Achilles.”

Achilles. The greatest warrior the world had ever seen. She hadn’t thought of him in ages. During the time of the Trojan war, he’d been necessary, but even then she’d wished he hadn’t been. He was cold, smart, and narcissistic. He knew the price of glory and he didn’t care. The slaughter he left in his wake was red and spread with entrails. He knew nothing of pity, and when he was angry, even the gods were afraid.

Of course, the standard for brutality had changed over time. In the twenty-first century, Achilles might actually be comparatively sane. But somehow she doubted it. Somehow she knew that he’d only gotten worse.

I’ve seen mortals do horrifying things. Impale people on pikes, stretch their limbs until the joints blew apart. I looked into the eyes of those torturers, searching for just one spark of recognition, wondering if it was really him, come back again and again.

“When the Cyclops jumped me in England, they weren’t going for the kill. That’s probably why I got the better end of it. They wanted to take me alive, so I could be Hera’s Achilles-dowsing rod. So what do we do?” Odysseus asked. “Do we find him first? I can take you there. We could leave now.”

“No. Nobody finds him.” There was no point. He’d never fight for their side; there wouldn’t be enough blood to sate him. He would fight for Hera, for glory, and a place amongst the gods. If they went looking, they’d lead their enemies right to his doorstep. “I don’t want any part of him. He’s mad, and evil. He always was.”

Odysseus sighed. “No, he wasn’t. He was just an angry boy, caught up in your struggle. Like we all were.”

Athena nodded and bit her tongue on disagreement. He had known Achilles better than she had, after all.

“What about you? Why are you looking for your weapon? Planning to ‘eat’ Hera and Poseidon before they can eat you? You trying to save your own skin?”

She sighed. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing to say yes. It would be nice if Hermes didn’t have to die.” She chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just something Hermes said back in Utah. He called us ‘the last of the sane gods’ and said I had my cape of Justice on again. Seemed stupid. But after what Hera did in Chicago…” She looked down, and her voice grew somber. “The world doesn’t need that running around, I suppose. The world has enough of that as it is. So, yes. I’ll take her out. I’ll handle my own, before they wreck anything else.

“We need to get out of here.” She struck her fist against the softening wood of the picnic table. How long did it take to switch loads on a truck anyway? She didn’t even know where Craig was. Eyeballing the red Freightliner, she wondered just how hard it would be to steal it and how fast it would go.

“Don’t,” Odysseus said. “Just, don’t. We’re not hijacking a semi.”

Athena smiled. Then she coughed. At first it was just a light tickle in her throat, but it got worse. She felt something moving, coming loose down in her right lung. It itched. She coughed harder, until she was bent over, hacking.

“Athena!” Odysseus held her by the shoulder. She took great, whooping breaths; her coughs sounded like someone ripping a bed sheet.

Finally she sputtered. She’d managed to dislodge it and work it up her throat. Her fingers fished around on her tongue, and held the feather in front of her face.

Just one, and mostly white, with a little brown speckling at the edges. Only the shallowest bit of the left side had any blood or tissue stuck to it. The rest was just wet.

“Don’t get upset,” she said shakily. “It’s just a small one. Hardly attached to anything.”

Odysseus stared at it before she crushed it in her fist and flung it off into the grass.

“How long do you think you have?” he asked.

Athena smiled, still a little breathless. “Forever.”

THINGS YOU LOSE

The day after the Halloween party, Cassandra sat around the kitchen table with Andie and Henry. Henry crunched through M&M’s with circles under his eyes so dark they looked like bruises. Andie and Cassandra split their third Kit Kat. Andie’s leg bounced up and down at a jittery pace, and even though she’d showered her costume makeup off an hour ago, Cassandra knew she still looked dead.

“This is too much chocolate on too little sleep,” Henry muttered. But he reached back into the bowl anyway.

“You should stop. Dad wants you to help rake the yard later.”

“Ha-ha,” Andie said between chews.

“You wanna help too?”

Andie dropped the candy bar. “Yeah, sure.” She sighed, and stretched in the chair. “I’ll tell you one thing. That is the last time I lace these bad boys up into a corset. How did women wear those, anyway?”

Nobody answered. Henry’s eyes drifted over Andie’s chest and he looked almost disappointed by the news. Cassandra kicked him in the shin.

She glanced out the window while Andie and Henry talked about taking naps. The day was gray, pale, and disgusting. Leaves shedded off of the trees like pieces of dead skin and frost clung to the brown grass and frozen dirt. Everything was so cold. Cold to the point of cracking.

Henry stood and turned on the TV on the kitchen counter, just a small-screen Panasonic their mother liked to listen to while she cooked. It was tuned to CNN and they were broadcasting more coverage of the attack in Chicago. This time it was footage taken from someone’s camera phone. The video was shaky, shot while running backwards. The collapsed building went in and out of frame, only one half of it visible through the clouds of dust.

“Can you change that? It’s pretty much the last thing I want to see.” She still didn’t know why Hermes and his sister had blown up the warehouse. Not for sure. But he sure as hell hadn’t seemed very sorry about it when she’d seen him.

Henry turned the whole thing off and leaned over the sink to look out the window.

“Hey, it’s Aidan.”

Cassandra stood just in time to see his head pass by the glass, a few seconds before he knocked and came through the front door. His eyes found hers and he smiled. There wasn’t a scratch on him. He was safe. She hadn’t realized how scared she’d been. Her heart thumped like she’d run a mile.

“Aidan!” Cassandra’s dad walked down the hall and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re just in time to rake.” He sipped his coffee and raised his brows at the rest of them in the kitchen. “With so many bright-eyed helpers it should only take a few hours.”

“Sure thing, Tom.” Aidan smiled. “Do you have leaf bags?”

“In the garage. I’ll go get the rakes. You guys meet me out there in five minutes.”

After ten pulls on her rake, Cassandra felt ready to fall over. They were spread out in the backyard, dragging damp brown and yellow leaves into sad-looking piles. Wetness made the piles heavy and flat, and far too cold to jump in.

“Here, let’s get this one.” Aidan handed her a leaf bag and she held it open while he used their two rakes to gather leaves and stuff them inside. Cassandra looked over her shoulder at her dad, who saw and flashed a smile.

“It feels like lying now,” she said.

“What does?”

“Not telling my parents. It didn’t before, because it didn’t feel real. But Hermes was real last night. They’re really here. So now it feels like lying.”

“The less they know, the safer they’ll be.” He didn’t look at her when he said it.

Will they really be? Or will the gods blast through them whether they know or not, if they get in the way?

“Cassandra?”

“Yeah?” She let go of the bag and took her rake back to start the next pile.

“We should think about leaving soon.”

Her rake stopped. There was no pretending that she hadn’t heard, and really no pretending that she hadn’t known, deep down. Not in the dark space in her mind but someplace lower: in her heart, or the pit of her stomach. She looked again at her dad, and at Andie and Henry. They were throwing leaves at the dog, who barked and raced around them in circles. Her mom watched through the kitchen window while she put a casserole together for lunch.

She and Aidan would have to leave. To run. She didn’t know why she felt so shocked; it wasn’t like they’d be able to hide in Kincade. It wasn’t like they could make a stand there. Not against what was coming.

“When can we come back?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Will they be safe here? Will they go after them anyway, even if we’re gone?”

“I don’t know. But it’s their best chance.”

“When?” she asked, and held her breath. Whatever he said would be too soon. Too abrupt and cold.

“I thought after this, we could go to my house and figure it out.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. “Why is this happening?”

Aidan lowered his eyes. “I wish I had answers, or better things to tell you. If it was anything else, I could stop it.” He clenched his teeth. “But I can’t. Believe me when I tell you, running away isn’t my style.”

The breeze whistled through Cassandra’s hair. It smelled like winter. Like change and dying things. She searched the gray sky for the sun and couldn’t find it.

“What am I going to say to them? They’re not going to understand, Aidan.”

He put his arms around her and tears slid down her cheeks.

“I hate this,” he whispered. “And I hate them.”

Cassandra leaned against his shoulder and stared at her family.

“I’ll kill every one of them, I promise. And I’ll give you your life back, as soon as I can.”

* * *

The light in Aidan’s bedroom was scant, silvery, and indirect, filtered through layers of clouds before it hit the window. Long, dark curtains blocked most of it, and they hadn’t turned on the bedside lamp. Aidan paced quietly in front of his open closet, like he wasn’t sure where to begin, and Cassandra didn’t push. If she didn’t push, maybe the moment would drag out, and everything would go away on its own.

“I think we should go south, find the coast. Athena doesn’t care for the sea; she might avoid it.” He stopped, swallowed.

“If you think so.”

“I don’t know what to think. It’s a guess, and a wild one. I don’t have any idea what my sister might or might not do anymore.”

The muscles in Cassandra’s arms and back ached from raking and from plain old fatigue. It didn’t matter where they went. They were going away. She felt numb and exhausted. Aidan would have to drag her along, wherever he decided to go. She’d asked him when they could come back and he’d said he didn’t know. But they were running from gods. Gods. They’d never be able to come back.

I’ll never come back. This life is over.

Aidan started to move suddenly, like someone had flipped a switch. He grabbed clothes out of his closet and stuffed them into a black duffel bag; he emptied his drawers of socks and t-shirts and shoved them in too.

“I’m going to have to get money out,” he said. He’d paused at his desk, his eyes moving over his things: his laptop covered in stickers, a few paperbacks, a small curved snake figurine made of pewter with gold gemstone eyes. His parents had gotten it for him at a festival they’d gone to. Cassandra watched him slide it into the duffel with his laptop.

“I should write them a note. Tell them we went to—tell them we went somewhere together and will be back in a few days. Maybe then they won’t call the police until we’re too far to be caught.” He flipped open a notebook and grabbed a pen. “You should write one for your parents too.”

His hands shook, and he put pen to paper three times before setting it down and taking a breath.

It’s hard for him. But he’s had to do it before. He’s had to love people and leave them before they knew what he was.

She didn’t know whether that made it easier. Whether it made it better or worse.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“I know. But you’re brave too.”

“Am I? Is that why I want to call you a liar? Why I want to run through that door, and down the stairs, and go back home like nothing ever happened?”

He turned and knelt at her feet. He would be with her. She wouldn’t be alone. But she wanted Andie and Henry. She wanted her parents. Aidan’s hands rubbed along the sides of her legs, like he was trying to warm her after coming in from the cold.

“We’d better get going back to your place,” he said. “And we’d better hope that Henry is napping.”

“Why?”

“Because my parents have both of the cars. We’re sort of going to have to borrow his.”

Cassandra laughed humorlessly. “He’s going to kill us.”

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 566