“Um. Hi.” I tighten the towel around myself and blindly grope for my clothes on the bench behind me.
“Looking for these?” Pearce says and lifts my bra by a finger. It’s not even technically my bra. It showed up in my wardrobe like everything else. But seeing it hanging in the proverbial breeze still makes me flush red.
I grit my teeth. “What do you want?”
The faucet drips faster.
Haven’s eyes pinch at the corners as if he’s sizing me up. “What do I want? I want you to leave, orphan.”
I snort. “Tried that. Hades won’t let me.”
The boys behind him share a glance.
Haven’s expression hardens into a scowl. “Then why not just quit?”
Good question.
It isn’t like I have a hope of winning. And I’ve already proven I can’t just weasel my way out.
So what’re my other options?
Quitting has never been in my nature though, and I’ve often wondered if it’s a characteristic I inherited from my godparent.
I hate quitters.
I hate losing.
By the time I was ten years old, everyone at Hestia House refused to play games with me.
“You’re a sore loser, Ana,” Clea had said when I argued with her about one of the moves she’d made in our game of Flower & Foe. “I forfeit. You win. Are you happy now?”
“Yes,” I’d said, perhaps a bit arrogantly. “Clearly I made my point.”
“Oh, you made it very clear indeed.” And then she’d stalked off, vowing never to play with me ever again.
Why not just quit? Because I’m already abandoned and unwanted, I can’t stand the thought of being banished and forgotten as well. I might not have found a place to belong here in Olympus, but I surely will have no place in the mortal realm.
Maybe I have little chance of winning, but I’ll have zero chance if I give up.
Towel still clutched around me, I straighten and say, “I wouldn’t want to make things easy for you, Knightfall.”
Haven’s friends oooh.
Haven narrows his eyes. “Careful, orphan. Or being banned from Olympus might be the least of your worries.”
“Oh?” I arch a brow. “What do you think you can do to me? Hurt me? Kill me? I’m immortal just like you. In fact, I might be more immortal.” I’m not exactly sure if immortality can be quantified, but it’s a well-known fact that demi-gods far outlive descendants, so if my father is Hades and not just my great-great-great-great grandfather, then I’m more immortal than Haven. Of course, pierce either of us through the heart, and it’s quite possible we’ll keel over and die.
There are some wounds even demi-gods can’t survive.
“Go ahead and do your worst,” I goad Haven. “You’re just a descendant several hundred years removed.”
Quicker than I can comprehend, his hand is around my throat and we’re crashing through the shower door.
He slams me against the black tile and my teeth clack violently together.
“There are things worse than death,” he growls.
My heart hammers in my ears.
I hadn’t meant to get in a standoff with Haven Knightfall with nothing but a towel between us.
The faucet drips faster still.
Plink plink plink-plink-plink.
The air in my lungs flutters uselessly in the base of my throat.
Haven’s grip tightens and my feet scrabble for purchase on the wet floor.
I wrap my hand around his wrist and flail at him with my other hand, trying to find a way through his defenses.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
It’s like fighting a statue.
His face hardens and turns cruel. And somehow achingly more beautiful.
I have to get out of here.
I have to get away from him.
The dripping slows.
My feet find the floor.
Heat runs through my body. An electric energy coils in my gut as I clamp my teeth together and squeeze Haven’s wrist.
A pinch of worry appears between his brows.
I squeeze harder.
The dripping stops.
Haven’s arm starts to turn black. His grip loosens as his mouth drops open. A plume of steam lifts from the tile as the temperature of the room grows hotter and hotter.
“What the fuck?” someone says.
Haven lets me go. Oxygen fills my lungs and my resolve. The blackness spreads up Haven’s arm and disappears beneath the sleeve of his shirt. Pain etches into his face a second later.
“Hey,” one of his friends says. “Hey, stop it!”
Haven backpedals and slams into the opposite wall. I press against him as the blackness creeps up his neck and his lips turn blue.
“Fuck. Get her off him!”
Hands grab at me and quickly snap away.
“Shit. She’s ice cold,” one of them says.
Now it’s Haven gasping for air.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, my voice somehow even and calm and yet far away. It’s like I’ve left my body. Like I’m watching from above. A second ago, I didn’t feel this coiled resolve, this need to strike back, but now it’s nearly blinding me.
If Haven Knightfall wants to play a game, I’m suddenly eager to match his moves. I’m suddenly eager to win.
“There’s something you should know about me, Knightfall,” I say, “I never, ever give up.”
I let him go and he leans against the wall, inhaling deeply.
The blackness in his skin recedes and then disappears. He shakes out his arm like the nerves have fallen asleep.
With a blink, he’s regained his composure. He straightens. “There’s something you should know about me too, orphan.” His amber eye glitters with rage.
“What’s that?”
“I play dirty.”
He grabs hold of the hem of my towel and gives it a yank. Unprepared for it, the material easily slips through my fingers and in an instant, I’m standing there naked in front of him.
My first instinct is to cover myself with my hands and my arms—I’ve never been naked in front of a boy before—but then I realize that’s exactly what he wants me to do. Exactly what he needs to know he’s gotten to me.
So I don’t.
Instead, I level my shoulders, curl a hand around my hip and just stand there staring at him like, now what?
His eyes rake over me and I can’t tell if it’s on purpose or not. Does he think ogling me will somehow get to me?
When his mismatched eyes return to my face, there’s no longer disdain in his gaze. There’s something else.
Something fiery and ravenous.
He seems to realize it at the same time I do.
His nostrils flare as he sucks in a breath, flexes his jaw like he’s gritting his teeth. “Watch your back, orphan,” he says and tosses the towel into a puddle of water.
His friends laugh nervously as they quickly follow him out the door.
When they’re gone, I lean into the shower wall and close my eyes.
The dripping has returned to its even pattern and I realize so has my breathing.
I try to assess how I feel about this. Am I angry? Embarrassed? Ashamed?
Well, I’m definitely confused. What was with the blackness spreading up Haven’s arm? Had I done that?
I have a flash of the bluebonnets withering in my fist.