He moved around the room, like I wasn't there, eyed my bag, and dumped it over.
“Hey! That's my stuff. What do you think you're doing?”
He seemed unaffected by my glare or yelling altogether.
His eyes met mine as he poked through my belongings flooding the table. He snatched the journal up and started flipping through, like he knew what he was looking for, like it was his.
I slumped down in a chair on the other side of the desk relinquishing any effect I had on Caellum. He was going to do what he wanted, when he wanted, and I was just an annoyance in his way.
“What are you looking for?”
“Something Henry Jon left behind: a Plan B.” He didn’t look up and continued thumbing the fragile pages.
I tried to stay neutral, even though my mind snapped to the husk in my bedroom under my bed in a Doc Marten shoe box. It was all that was left of Henry Jon: a journal, a tusk, and some part of his daughter I probably took with me when she died for me to live.
“What for?” I shrugged disinterested, when that's all I was: interested.
He slammed the book shut, slammed his palms on the table, and hung his head between his shoulders, defeated. No, probably just annoyed I existed.
“It's the God- Killer. It's a legend that Henry Jon found a tusk from your beast and used it to make weapons that kill gods.” His voice was harsh and curt, like I should know these things, but my memories were still missing.
So that's what that little tusk did. Well, what was left. No wonder it was hidden.
“Wait, my beast?”
He handed the journal back, and I shoved all my belongings back into the confinement of my bag. “Yes, your pet. Ophiotaurus. Half snake, half bull.” The one from the journal that Henry Jon sees Rosalia/me pet in the tall grass.
“Let's just add that to the pile of 'don't know’s’ and ‘now I do’s’. It's a mountain now. Did you know about Nyx?”
I watched him drag his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from falling onto his face, still hunched over the desk, slaving over this map, hoping it would take pity on him and give him answers. “I have my memories. Just like Bolton.”
I sat up even taller, not hiding how interested I was now. “I thought Bolton was the only one with memories.”
“Bolton does a lot to make shit seem one way. Let me guess he was forced to tell you about your connection to Nyx? He probably left out some parts.”
Intrigued, also cautious, I leaned forward with my elbows on the desk and looked up at him. I knew he and Bolton didn't have a winning friendship, and that alone made me question every word.
“Bolton wasn't chosen by Zeus for you,” he said. “He was chosen only after I decided I didn't want you.”
He was aiming to insult me at the same time he spilled some truth. All he really did was add to the pile of confusion sitting next to me, as tall as I was and not going away any time soon.
“You? No offense…” The shock had my tongue too loose.
Bolton, the loyal… Bolton, the king… was also Bolton, the liar.
He was holding all his memories hostage and using them to keep his throne secure.
My hands felt tingly, and the anger inside was only growing with each pause. Bolton weighed everyone’s value on how loyal they could be to him when he was just another false god glorifying secret agendas to get his way.
“Royalty marries royalty. We didn’t have a choice.”
“Who are your parents? Are Bolton’s royal too?”
You couldn’t not hear the snickering against his closed fist pressing to his lips. “Prometheus, the Titan, and Athena. Inner circle type shit. Bolton’s parent is royal; just one, not two.”
I sat back, still dumbfounded at all the information.
I was from Olympus.
My dad was Zeus.
When he died, the lightning he conquered transferred to me.
Nyx was someone I trusted.
Caellum was someone I was promised to.
Bolton was second runner up.
He made our connection seem so important, desperate to make me remember when none of my memories would work in his favor. He was ruining any chance with me after I’d remember the truth, yet he still wanted me to have a choice in who I chose without Zeus alive.
“Do you trust Bolton?”
He stopped fidgeting with the maps and his search, placing his hands on his hips. “He’s a lot of things—conniving, manipulative, selfish… but he does the right thing in the end.”
Caellum could have him. I was done being betrayed by the people I loved.
Just like my ex-boyfriend who felt me up, let his mom press charges, and not care I was forced into Arcadia Prep. Long distance almost never worked, but that asshole didn’t even try.
I contemplated everything up until right now—the mess my life had become. “Why is he so worried about the ritual? No one else has lightning coming from their fingers.”
Caellum sat down finally, still annoyed and grilling his metallic eyes into mine, like it would make me back down. “He likes sure things. Nothing about you is sure, and with the gods dead, Lady Luck and Fate aren’t smiling down on us.”
“Wait, those are real people?”
He shook his head in disgust at my inability to tell metaphor and analogy from swirling possibilities. I was never into Twilight or The Vampire Diaries, but knowing who I was made every impossible thought I ever had seem plausible now.
What else was real that I deemed childish?
“Am I free to go now? Am I your hostage?” Folding my arms against my chest, I sulked like a child, which seemed fitting for the tantrum raging inside my head.
“Leave the journal.” He was making demands while I was weak enough to overlook them.
He was underestimating me.
Mistake number one.
“No, the journal doesn’t leave my sight. Why would I trust you? You’re the enemy and looking for the ‘God Killer’.”
Grabbing the journal off the desk, the spine cracked to its limits and the folds flopped open haphazardly. He was already abusing a key piece of my evidence.
“If I was looking to kill anyone, I would have left you in the woods to die at the hands of Omari. I have no issue with having blood on my hands.”
I looked down at his hands, instinctively expecting to see blood.
Damn metaphors.
“Have you… has Bolton…?”
“We don’t get stuck as teenagers for 14 years for good behavior, Arianna. We went to whatever length we had to... to go home. Sometimes that meant seeing the stars in someone who was only a dark sky.”
I looked around the room for my phone, but the room was like one of those iSpy books with too much to look at—too many distractions for the object you desired to find.
The anxiety blooming in my chest was fully grown and ripping its way through my vital organs.
Bolton had killed innocent people, and he didn’t wear the guilt of his actions.
I was in way over my head, and all I wanted was to sacrifice my love of adventures and mischief for the mundane life I should have been living. I made sure all my things were shoved back into my bag, along with Henry Jon’s journal that I wasn’t done reading, before I backed my way out of the room. Slowly, I hoped he’d let me go.
I bumped into something hard, and when I peered around, I saw Bolton standing in the doorway, looking downright malicious.