Arranged.
Hateful.
Real.
It was the hate for each other that bred something else.
It was dormant until she appeared at Arcadia Prep with all the same traits I hated on my beloved, making me hate her just as much. She grew on me the same way, and I knew my heart wouldn’t ever betray me. The punishment would be turning it off forever.
No, my heart knew Arianna had to be the girl that always ran away, and I chased after her every time.
My thumb cleared the moisture from her exposed cheek as she whispered into the material she was still holding on to with a death grip. “This is stupid. He’s not even my real dad.”
“He’s all you remember right now. Zeus is gone too. There’s enough to be upset about without it being stupid.” As soon as I said it, I regretted reminding her that her real father was dead.
“How can gods die? Caellum said he was looking for the ‘God Killer’.”
She was swallowing stray tears and shaking against me less, but her mouth was still upside down—a more consolable version of herself. Smoothing down her hair, I told her, “That’s only a myth…”
She looked at me displeased and too tired to beg for information. “Henry Jon started the collective that hunts us down, forges weapons from crumbs we leave behind, hates us for taking his daughter’s life. Supposedly he passed down the anger and knowledge. I haven’t heard or seen of them, but Caellum is convinced they’re still out there waiting for us to mess up again.”
“But you’ve killed people hoping they were the Sagittarius…”
“My point exactly. Those lives didn’t matter? Legends always die young and live on in rumors.”
Her voice was so small and quiet it sounded more like a whimper, “I have the husk. I found it…”
Sitting up quickly, I looked down at her in shock. Her hand pushed off my chest enough to make eye contact. “I found it in the woods in a box. Henry Jon hid it far away from the book to keep it safe.”
Sometimes legends are true. The hard part is never knowing unless you test legends against reality and see which one wins.
“Where is it?”
“In my bag.” Her casual tone made it easy for me to land on the conclusion she really didn’t know what kind of dynamite she was holding.
The one way to kill gods was stashed at the bottom of her dirty backpack.
“Don’t tell anyone you have this,” I said, trying to be as grave as possible. Every other tone was a motivation to defy someone’s wishes.
The next morning, I felt like I was on a stopwatch, waiting for the dance tonight. Every hour, minute, second… all were accounted for. Each one pushed the anxiety over my tight muscles to contemplate worst case scenarios.
Ari was still asleep, holding my pillow tightly against her as soon as I snuck out of bed this morning. I had some pent up humanity poisoning my ability to listen to common sense, so I went for a run in the forest. It was the only place other than campus that we could freely roam.
Having this curse lifted was either going to set my soul on fire or free of all the bullshit.
Nothing was absolute.
With my headphones pushed into my ears, I got into a rhythm of my sneakers pounding into small rocks, dead leaves, and sticks cracking. I almost hit the edge of the woods when I swore I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye moving swiftly between trees. I slowed down my pace trying to be less obvious that I noticed anything at all.
Sweeping the woods, around the barren tall trees, I saw the same shadow. Following me? Stalking me like prey? Assassinating the king? Divine intervention?
I slowed down my pace to a halt once I entered the clearing close to where the ritual would take place tonight when I shouted, “What do you want?”
Jasper came around a tree trunk with a sly grin on his face, “Scoping it out for tonight. Is the King of Arcadia Prep scared?”
He always hated me, even in Olympus. Why would high school be any different? This was the perfect place to let his hate run thick and wide for me, and then chalk it up to hormones.
Fingering my earbuds out of my ears, I pretended to not hear his insult. “That’s not weird at all. Stay out of trouble. I’m not saving anyone today.”
His mom was Persephone, not royal, more like royally fucked.
Hades, Nyx’s dad, kidnapped her and drug her to the underworld to be his wife. Somehow that makes them step-brothers, but not ones that gave a shit. They stayed clear of each other most of the time.
Here he was equal and ultimately more powerful than back home. He had felt the surge of more power once Arianna got here, and you could see it on his permanent grin. He wasn’t going to relinquish that high any time soon.
Pushing the music back into my ears, I prepared to quicken my pace, glaring at him and wondering why he was really in the woods this early. There wasn’t one truthful bone in Jasper’s body.
As soon as my sneakers hit the pavement of the sidewalk bordering the edge of the woods like a cage, I still didn’t feel like I had left Jasper’s dubious behavior behind. His sly smile and dangerous grin were haunting me.
I fished the phone out of my pocket to text Nyx and Caellum in a group message. I couldn’t be bothered to text them separately about the same thing.
Jasper was in the woods sneaking around. Need any more proof?
We all had different opinions when it came to making someone the villain. Jasper checked all the boxes: motive, opportunity, enough hate to fuel any bad intentions.
My smaller circle of trust was harder to convince to see it that way. Caellum was watching the twins closely, and Nyx had his sight set on Alba. All of us watching someone different just meant nothing should slip past us.
The feeling coating my stomach knew something bad was coming. I could feel the tension in the air, Ari’s memories coming back, the Harvest at our feet, and the ritual that was supposed to take us home already feeling like a failure before we even tried.
I slipped my phone back in my gym shorts and jogged back to my room where I left Arianna sleeping.
She was in the exact position she was in when I left. Not wanting to wake her, I set an alarm for 10 minutes and headed for the showers. We didn’t have bathrooms in the rooms in this dorm. We had community-style bathrooms with no shower curtains or privacy. We didn’t much care; we were all proud.
As soon as I stepped into the hallway, I pulled the door slowly behind me, hoping it would close without that annoying creek my door possessed.
When I looked up, I saw Luna clutching her white tennis shoes to her chest, doing the same thing I was: carefully closing the door and trying not to be seen.
“Luna?” I whisper-shouted in her direction.
I startled her, and her whole body twisted my direction suddenly. The grip on her shoes tightened, and her cheeks flushed to a bright red, like I had caught her stealing.
Technically, she was. Nyx wasn’t aware he truly had a heart, and she was hijacking it without him realizing it.
“You didn’t see me. I’ve gotta get ready for class.” Her small, carefully quiet footsteps turned to tip toeing, like she knew the floor in front of my door was home to the creeks.
Had seen done this before? She was gracefully professional at sneaking—something you’d never expect from her.
Shaking my head, my eyebrows raised, and smirking, I let her slip by me without interrogation, heading down the hallway to the bathrooms.