“Yes,” I say, loud and clear. “You’re all looking at classified information, which is frowned upon in the Navy, I think. And just so we’re clear on what you’re looking at, it’s proof that the US government broke the law and spied on its own citizens. And worse, that the general in charge of the operation benefited financially from the information obtained. So.” I wave my phone in the air. “I can send this to every major news outlet around the planet right now, along with—” I point the phone at them. “Your picture.”
The leader’s face is pale. He doesn’t speak.
“Or you can get on the phone to your commander and tell him you’ve made a terrible mistake. There was no kidnapping, and Joseph Donnelly’s daughter is going to expose all of you to the world. I’ll do a full press tour about all the distress you’ve caused me, by the way. I look great on camera.”
He’s already dialing.
“Wait.”
His eyes snap to mine.
“You’re going to personally guarantee immunity for Poseidon and his crew. Speaking of, you didn’t happen to see any other people here, did you? Poseidon didn’t bring anyone with him.”
I’m having an actual heart attack. Anxiety clenches at my stomach. If this fool decides to play games—
“I don’t see anyone,” he says carefully. Conor barks. “We’re going to. We’re—” A glance at the phone in my hand, my thumb still poised over the screen. “We’re leaving. Consider us gone.”
19
Poseidon
Eighteen years ago
“She’s gone.”
The deck of the Northern Blade rocks under my feet at the city port, and I wish I’d crushed this phone into oblivion the last time Hades called. It’s summer, turning toward fall, and the air is still thick with humidity. Light pollution above the city paints the sky orange. “We’re about to set sail.”
“Can it be delayed?” He’s harried, on edge, and walking somewhere right now. I can hear the way he’s moving. “It’s been two months, Poseidon. I don’t know what the fuck else to do.”
I lean against the railing. “Look harder.”
“If I could look harder, I would do it, asshole. I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Hades snaps. “The sun continues to rise. Every fucking day.”
Oh.
“And since Demeter is missing,” he continues, his voice a slash in the night, “she is not sending what I need.”
His painkillers. This, more than anything else he’s said, might convince me to step foot on land one last time. The fraying in his voice—that’s pain. It won’t matter how much money he has if he can’t get out of bed. If he can’t get out of bed, he won’t be able to bribe and threaten his people into looking for Demeter. Even if they find her, they won’t be prepared to deal with her.
No one ever is.
“I’m looking for her now, but I can’t be gone long.”
“Why? What the hell else do you have to do?”
A frustrated noise. “I will be staying away from the overpowered headlights they’re putting on cars. I’ll be trying not to have a fucking seizure in the middle of the street. And I’ll be convincing Eleanor that Demeter isn’t dead, and she’ll be back for her daughter.”
I’d forgotten about the daughter.
My gut chills. Obviously, other people have not forgotten about the daughter. Someone probably had to retrieve her after that night at the farmhouse. There’s no way Demeter collected herself enough to go back. Not with the way she was screaming. Like she’d lost her mind. Like her soul had cracked down the middle and could never be repaired.
Which means.
The daughter is with Eleanor. I don’t expect the world to be anything but a punishing bastard, but it’s not fair to Eleanor to have to raise Demeter’s child, after everything else. It’s also not fair to ask Eleanor to break the news to the little girl, who must be four or five, that her mother is dead. And then what? What do any of us do? Put her in the foster system?
“Fine.”
Hades lets out a breath. “I’m sending you a list of places to check. I’ve got the other half of the list, but I—fuck.” A car goes by in the background. Overpowered headlights. I can see him like he’s standing in front of me, one hand up to shield his eyes. He hates revealing anything about himself with those small gestures.
It must be bad, then. Because I would bet money he’s doing it right now.
“I sent it.”
The phone beeps. A message appears with a list of addresses. They’re in the parts of the city that no one goes to without a weapon.
“I’ll check them.”
“I might not reach the end of my list.”
“I’ll look wherever you can’t.”
“Good.” Hades hangs up, and I go to find Caspian. He’s on the bow of the ship, looking at the stars through a pair of binoculars.
“Do you have a knife on you?”
He takes one from a holster on his belt and hands it to me without taking the binoculars down. “Did a line get tangled?”
“No. I’m going into the city.”
Now he takes them down and glares at me. “Is this more bullshit with your brothers?”
Caspian was not pleased when I got back from the farmhouse with cut-up knuckles and a black eye. Cronos landed more blows than I remembered, and Caspian was disgusted that my brothers hadn’t stepped in. I didn’t bother explaining that I didn’t want them to. I was trying to make things up to them. “It’s different this time.”
Different because I hate Demeter, and different because her daughter is making things complicated, and different because nothing seems simple anymore. Leaving was supposed to make things easier. I wasn’t going to worry about Hades and his constant pain or Zeus and the hollow sadness behind his eyes that sends bitter fear to coat my tongue. Zeus isn’t a threat to me, but if he loses himself, he’ll become Cronos.
And all the women at the whorehouse will suffer.
Caspian scoffs and raises his binoculars. “Call me if they abandon you again.”
It stays with me all the way through the dockyard and into the city. I don’t know why I have the compulsion to set Caspian straight when it won’t change anything.
Even so, he’s wrong.
I’m the one who abandoned them.
The sky is lightening to gray when I find the last place on the list.
A crack house. It’s a ramshackle two-story shoved between two larger buildings. A notice on the door says it’s uninhabitable and scheduled for demolition. Faint light comes from around the curtain. No—it’s a stained bedsheet, hung at an angle over the front window.
“What the fuck,” I whisper, standing on the sidewalk.
Real worry has set in over the course of the night. I don’t let it get to me at sea. I don’t think about Demeter. I don’t think about any of them. I throw the past overboard in a metal box that sinks like a stone and stays out of sight.