He doesn’t want Ares. He just wants to pave the way for his shit stain of a little brother to be Ares, and he’s willing to step on Patroclus to get there. If Helen hadn’t been on the walls and able to guide me… I don’t like to think what might have happened. “Fuck that.”
Overhead, the screens change and the crowd goes wild. I look up in time to see Paris walk out of the maze. The asshole looks regal as fuck in royal blue. He doesn’t appear to have even worked up a sweat. Bastard.
Right on his heels comes Helen.
She’s limping and smiling, but I can tell she’s furious. It’s carefully hidden in her amber eyes as she turns and gives a wave to the crowd. Part of me had hoped she’d be eliminated in this trial for simplicity’s sake, but I can’t stop the flare of pure pride. She made it through, and she did it in a clever way, too. “That’s our girl.”
“Achilles.” Patroclus’s words are a little slurred, and I can’t tell if it’s because he hit his head or his busted lip. “I’m slowing you down. There are only three keys left. Leave me.”
“Shut up.” I haul him around another corner and another. We’re close to the center. I’m sure of it. This maze isn’t so bad when you’re navigating from the entrance to the center. Sure enough, the next right turn opens up into the center of the maze. There’s a weird metal tree-like structure in the middle of it and two keys hanging from branches. “Only two left.”
The center also hold Theseus. I saw a glimpse of his fight with Helen. She kicked his ass. Or, rather, his knee. He leans against a wall with his eyes closed and his skin gone waxy with pain. Below the bottom of his black shorts, his knee is grotesquely swollen and turning an ugly shade of purple. At best, she dislocated it. At worst, she shattered something important.
Good girl.
He’s out of the tournament with an injury like that even if he’d somehow managed to get a key. Still, I guide us away from him. No reason to tempt the bastard into attempting to attack. I look up. There’s thirty minutes left in the trial. Plenty of time as long as we don’t run into trouble. But only if we don’t linger. I grab one of the keys and drape the lanyard over Patroclus’s neck. The second one goes around mine.
“Achilles.” Patroclus grips my shirt and gives me a weak shake. “Stop being stubborn.”
“I’m not the one being stubborn. Stop telling me to leave you.”
He glares, some of the strength coming back into his body. “You’re being ridiculous. I’m not going to be Ares. I was never going to be Ares. I was only ever here for support, and you didn’t even need me.” He shakes his head and winces. “Leave me behind. It’s what’s best for you.”
True fear flickers to life. I know he’s talking about this trial specifically, but I don’t give a fuck. I can’t shake the potential future where he tells me that for real. He acts like I’m some shooting star and he’s just along for the ride, that I’m the ambitious one dragging him along at my side. As if he’s not a full partner. As if eventually I’ll leave him behind for good. As if choosing to stop striving alongside me isn’t a fucking choice on its own.
I grab his shoulders. Too hard. I’m holding him too fucking harshly. “Listen to me, Patroclus. I am never leaving you behind. Not in this fucking trial. Not in life. Stop acting like a fucking martyr.”
He flinches. “It’s not being a martyr if it’s the truth.”
We’re talking about the trial and not talking about the trial at the same time. I glare. “Are you done with me?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Are you done with me?” I can’t help holding my breath, even as adrenaline floods my system.
He blinks and then blinks again. “No. I can’t… I won’t be the one to walk away.”
Relief makes me a little light-headed, but we don’t have time to get into it properly. Not here. Not like this. “Then shut the fuck up and hold on.” I dip down and yank him over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He curses and sputters, but it’s more out of outrage than pain.
I keep an eye out as I retrace my path toward the entrance. Atalanta and the Minotaur are still in the maze somewhere. There are no keys left, which means one of them have the final key…assuming they can reach the exit.
Patroclus curses me the whole time, but at least he stops telling me to leave him. I’m breathing hard by the time I turn the corner and see the door. The clock overhead reads ten minutes. Cutting it too close, but we did it.
I carefully set Patroclus on his feet. “You go first.”
He doesn’t argue. He weaves his way to the door and inserts the key. The crowd goes wild as he stumbles through. I follow quickly. The moment I step out of the maze, it feels like setting down a massive weight I’ve been carrying for the last two hours. I knew we’d get through. I knew it.
But there were moments when I doubted.
Patroclus and I head for the bench and I see Helen. A furrow of concern appears between her brows as she watches Patroclus limp toward her. She tenses like she’s going to leap to her feet, but I duck under Patroclus’s arm and keep him moving. “I got it, princess.”
“Are you okay?” she murmurs. For a second, I think she’s talking to him, but when I look down, her amber eyes are on me. “I didn’t see you on the screens most of the time I was in there.”
“Just call it anticlimactic. I didn’t see anyone until Hector.” My stomach twists at the memory. I’m not one to linger on things, but I won’t get the image of that last hit out of my head anytime soon. Even though I knew it would take more than a nasty uppercut to take Patroclus out in any permanent way, seeing him fall to the ground was the stuff of nightmares. I swallow hard. “I’m…I’m good.”
I guide Patroclus to the spot next to her, and my chest warms at the way she immediately takes his hand. Patroclus shakes his head. “Stop staring at me like that. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, well, you look like shit.” She says it almost fondly, though her expression is worried.
I sink onto the bench on the other side of Patroclus and he leans on me. Worry eats away at me. We can’t get Patroclus looked at until the trial is over. The last minutes seem to take decades.
With five minutes to spare, the Minotaur comes around the corner toward the exit. The last key is on its lanyard around his thick neck, and he’s got his head down as he charges forward. It’s the only reason he doesn’t see Atalanta until she’s on top of him.
I hold my breath as I watch her sweep his legs out from beneath him. She’s good, really good, but she’s not quite steady on her feet despite her obvious training. That has to be why she’s not able to dance back fast enough when the Minotaur lashes out and yanks her off her feet.