Hero Worship(5)
Author: Amelia Wilde

 

I’d love to believe that, but it’s not true. He offered me more than I can repay, even if I’ve never been his son. Even if I never will be.

 

“It’s against policy.”

 

“You make your own policy.”

 

He’s right. I do make my own policy. I’m a highly sought-after security consultant. Most of my work revolves around digital security for firms with government contracts, which require a higher clearance level than most people in my field. Occasionally, though, I protect people on the ground. It’s a personal rule that I don’t protect family, and I made that rule for a reason.

 

“You’re going to get me killed over this.”

 

Silence.

 

In that quiet, my face burns with shame. My shoulder aches. I’ve been holding this rep too long, and I’ve been holding myself away from Daisy and her family, not mine, never really mine, for even longer. It’s a flimsy fucking excuse, too, because nothing has managed to kill me yet. I’ve survived beatings and shootings and hitting the ground from a height presumed to be unsurvivable.

 

What I want to do is the simple, easy thing—offer my life for hers. Daisy’s parents and her aunts and uncles and her cousins want her to come home. They can live without me. If I could give my life over the phone, I’d do it.

 

I’d have done it several times over by now. I’d have done it for my mother. I’d have done it for Ollie. I’d do it right now, but I can’t.

 

Deep down, I think Zeus knows this inconvenient unproven fact about me. At the very least, he has his suspicions.

 

Across the city, he’s sitting on the floor with his brothers because this is clearly so stressful for Hades that he’s having a brain problem. I’ve never seen the full result of one of those in person. If I refuse to take this job, will it kill him?

 

Will Zeus kill me?

 

If I hurt his brother, he’ll try, and then we’ll know for sure if I can die.

 

If I can’t, I’m in for a lifetime of torture.

 

But the idea of being in the same room with Daisy again has my stomach in knots. My heart runs an obstacle course in my chest. I feel feverish, and chilled, and what the fuck am I supposed to do? Look at her like she’s not the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen? Talk to her like I don’t resent, with every cell in my body, that I can never have her? She is named after a Daisy, for the love of Christ. She’s delicate and pure, and I’m a tattooed asshole whose primary talents are brute strength and violence. It was bad enough when we lived next door to each other. Bad enough sitting across from her at dinner. Bad enough breathing the scent of her shampoo during all the bullshit family events Zeus and his brothers forced us all to attend.

 

I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses, and I know it, like I knew my parachute wasn’t going to be enough to save Ollie.

 

Fuck. They can all hear me.

 

It’s a phone call, but the ask feels like a physical pressure. I don’t know which one of them is doing that over cellular data or if it’s my own jackass of a body trying to get me to agree. Out of nowhere, I think of a cool, shiny quarter in my palm. Handing it over to someone who needed it more. Being proud.

 

“She won’t want me. We don’t get along.”

 

“Someone shot at Daisy tonight.” Zeus delivers this like he’s mentioning an inoffensive weather forecast.

 

The resistance band rips in two in my hand. The metal loop it was attached to flies out of the wall. I duck before it tears out one of my eyes, and then I’m on my feet, half the shredded band clutched in my fist.

 

“She wasn’t hit.” My mouth gets there before my brain does. If a bullet so much as grazed Daisy’s skin, her father and uncle would already be on a plane. “They didn’t get her.”

 

“No. Shane got her in the car and got her home.”

 

Move. Go. I’m in New York. She’s all the way across the country. There’s nothing I can do to protect her now. All I can do is get my ass to the airport.

 

“When?” The door to the gym thuds behind me. I take the stairs up to my floor two at a time, then three.

 

“About an hour ago. We need someone from the family at her house, and we—I know,” Zeus says, though nobody else has spoken. He’s probably talking to Hades. “I know. We’re doing our best to respect Daisy’s wishes. You’re all we’ve got, Hercules. There’s nobody else we trust.”

 

I only pause to punch in the code at my door, and then I’m inside. There’s a bag in the coat closet with a set of clothes, a black plastic case, an all-in-one charger, a set of ID documents, a box of bullets, and a pistol. I swing it over my shoulder and it drops into place like my old Army gear. I’m not a soldier anymore, and I’m all but certain that I can’t give my life for Daisy. I can’t give her father what he wants, which is a guarantee. Those aren’t real.

 

“Is the plane ready?”

 

“Fueled and on the tarmac.” Knowing Zeus and his brothers, that plane had a full crew and was cleared for takeoff before the call connected. I yank the apartment door shut, punch in the code to lock it, and keep moving.

 

“I’m doing this,” I tell Zeus. My vision is clearer than ever. All the adrenaline has my body prepared for a fight. I have one objective only: get to her. Get to her as quickly as possible, so I can keep her safe. “But I hate you for it.”

 

I hate you for pulling the family card. I hate you for trusting me. I hate you for making me see her when I can’t touch her, when I can’t kiss her, when I can hardly fucking look at her. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

 

What he should say is I hate you too. You’ve always been difficult. You’ve never been grateful. You make everything harder, and you’re a constant reminder of the ways I fucked up in the past.

 

“Hercules.”

 

“Yeah?” I cross the sidewalk in front of my building and step out into the road, waving my good arm over my head. A cab leaves the flow of traffic and slows to a stop.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Don’t thank me yet.” I slam the door shut behind me and tell the driver to take me to Republic. Anything could happen between here and California. “I’ll let you know when I land.”

 

 

 

 

 

I take three separate naps on the flight, all of them less than half an hour. The only thing worse than falling out of an aircraft is being trapped in one. It’s a new sensation. In the Army, long flights were a chance to sleep for at least a full, uninterrupted hour.