Squad Goals

by Kate Karyus Quinn

  He blinks at me, then tackles Themis, trying to push her toward the open portal. Nico has Cassie and Merilee and is trying to drag them out of the way. Mac hits Themis with the force of his blue sex magic, getting her even closer to the portal. Unfortunately it hits Hermes too and he cowers to his knees, although he looks ecstatic.

  I tumble to the ground, my cat body rolling.

  “Go...go,” Shauna’s voice comes from behind me. “You’re free. Go home.”

  “Shit, Mavis!” Tina calls and I turn to find the larger wraith appearing on the scene. She and Griff are closest to it. It reaches out a tendril and touches Tina on her leg. Tina screams in pain and tries to back away, but it has her in its hold. Griff lunges forward, grabbing hold of Tina. He roars as another tendril grabs hold of him too.

  Trevor appears and screams, “Your baby is ugly! I wouldn’t vape that in a million years!”. A wild sort of scream comes out of the mother. The creature releases Tina and swipes at Trevor. The whip of smoke passes right through him, doing no damage.

  “Kill them!” Themis shouts. “Kill them all!”

  “I’m already dead,” Trevor shouts back. “Gods are such twats!”

  The monster hesitates and I change back to my human form. “We released your baby! You don’t have to kill for her anymore. You can go home!”

  Shauna lands on Tina’s shoulder. “We thought you were the bad guy...but you’re just a mommy. I’m sorry I exploded you.”

  “But you seem fine,” Tina adds.

  “Go home,” Griff says quietly.

  The smaller monster moves to the larger one. It gets lost in the bigger one, combining with it before breaking off.

  “Did they just hug?” Mac asks.

  “It gets you in the feels,” Trevor says.

  “Get out of the way,” I shout and everyone backs up. The monster glides toward the portal, toward Themis.

  “I will make the world right,” she says, blocking their way.

  “Move!” I shout.

  But it’s too late. The larger monster reaches out a tentacle of smoke and pierces Themis through the chest. The tendril emerges from Themis’s mouth, lifting her whole body in the air. She shivers and shakes, all of her muscles going slack and tight again as the monster toys with her.

  She wasn’t my mother.

  But she cared for me when no one else would. She loved me. And I loved her.

  A large hand rests on my shoulder. “I...I’m okay,” I assure Griff. But then I realize he’s just showing me he has Hermes in his grasp, dangling a few feet off the ground.

  “I helped,” Hermes screeches. “Now let me go!”

  “Like hell,” I tell him, turning back to the portal.

  The monsters disappear into the portal, and Themis’ body falls to the ground, lifeless.

  “Well, what the hell do we do now?” Mac asks.

  “Just wait,” I say, staring at the portal opening. Tina walks up beside me, her expression both hopeful and terrified.

  There’s a shimmer, then Edie walks out. Her hair is a mess, and she’s covered in bruises—some fresh, others fading to yellow. Even dirty as hell, she still looks like a million bucks. Beside me, Tina grabs my hand, squeezing.

  “Two things went in,” I remind her. “Two have to come out.”

  “Mavis?” Edie asks, her eyes meeting mine.

  A sob escapes my throat as she comes to me, and I wrap my arms around her. She smells like smoke and fire, but she’s here. I almost collapse in relief.

  I pull back from Edie to get a better look at her. Her eyes are dull and glassy, like she might be in shock. Her skin is cold, and I rub her arms. “Edie, you’re safe now,” I assure her. She offers a hesitant smile.

  “Safe?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “I want my brother,” Tina screeches. She grabs Hermes by the back of his shirt and the seat of his pants.

  “Tina, please. Don’t do this,” Hermes pleads.

  “No, Tina! We have to wait. If he goes in, then something else has to—”

  But it’s too late. She tosses Hermes through.

  At the same moment that Hermes disappears, Val exits the portal. He’s filthy, too, and looks like he might have lost weight. He’s wearing a t-shirt that says, “I Went to Hell and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.”

  Tina gives a low moan. She takes one stumbling step toward Val. “You,” she says, and then she collapses.

  “What happened?” I rush to her side. Shauna beats me to it and in her human form shakes Tina. Much like Edie, Val has a hollow look behind his eyes.

  “She just collapsed,” he says, his voice shaking.

  “The wraith touched her!” Mac says.

  “Is it some kind of supernatural infection?” Trevor asks.

  “She’s dead!” Shauna sobs on her chest. I push her out of the way and check Tina’s pulse.

  “She’s not dead,” I tell Shauna.

  She sniffles. “She’s not?”

  “What’s wrong with her then?” Mac asks.

  The truth is, I have no idea. I run my hands across Tina’s body. On the back of her leg, I find...something. Like a tick, but bigger and yuckier. And definitely not of this world. Seeing it, Val hisses softly. Reaching down, he pulls it from Tina and then smashes it beneath his boot heel.

  “What was that?” I ask him.

  “Something bad,” he says. I wait for more, but that’s apparently all he has to say.

  “Nico,” I say, “help me with Tina. We’ve got to get her in the van and find a magical healer.”

  “Um, yeah,” he says. “Give me a minute.” I look up to find that while we were checking on Tina, he used it as a distraction to get his hands on Pandora’s Box. As he screws the lid on, the jar begins to shrink.

  Shifting, Griff growls. Matching him, Nico also shifts and then right back.

  I put a hand on Griff’s arm. “Let him go. We got what we wanted out of Pandora’s Box.” I show Nico my middle finger. “Adios, asshole,” then turn back to my team.

  Both Edie and Val look like they’re in shock. We need to get them to an actual hospital, and fix whatever is wrong with Tina. I have an idea.

  “Let’s get Tina to a healer. My friend Fern can fix her up…”

  “Um… first we’re going to have to deal with that,” Mac says.

  “What?” I ask. There’s a noise that’s been building for a few seconds, but with Tina collapsing I hadn’t fully registered it. The skies above us darken as if a strong storm is coming in.

  The harpies have arrived.

  26

  I do not look good in orange. But for now, it’s the color I’m wearing.

  The harpies didn’t ask any questions once they landed. They just arrested all of us. When I found myself sitting across from Greg in an intake room, his only question was. “Mavis, I know why, but also why? I trusted you. I...I...I…” Tears glittered in his eyes for a moment before he got himself back under control. “Can you help me find a reason to keep you from being locked up?”

  No, I couldn’t, it turns out. And that was fine, because there wasn’t anything that could be said. I’m a criminal now, looking out from the other side of the bars. I traded my bracelet in for a collar, and half the inmates that I ushered into UWR want to kill me. The truth is, they’ll probably get their chance. Even with collars to prevent them from shifting or casting any spells on me, they can do plenty of physical damage.

  Which is why I ended up with Totality as my own personal guard. The super-friendly Scottish terrier hangs out by my cell all day, panting and lifting his leg occasionally. Kalinda is in no hurry to clean up Totality’s mess, either, so half the time my cell smells like dog piss, and since I’m in solitary and never allowed out of my cell, I assume I do, too.

  But really, that’s probably for the best.

  Trevor vamoosed the second the harpies showed up, but the rest of my squad all got collared. They’re back in their cells now, any chance they had of getting out o
n good behavior as gone as Nico was the second he got what he wanted.

  Yes, I’m letting that bother me. I should have known that Nico wasn’t actually there to help me out. He just wanted Pandora’s Box for his client. But it still hurts that he split without making sure the rest of us were okay. And we weren’t. At least, not Tina. She’s in the medical bay of UWR with a collar around her neck even though she’s still in a coma.

  The one thing I did say when Greg talked to me at intake was that Cassie was completely innocent. I explained that we’d kidnapped her from Hermes, and that she’d been in a semi-conscious state the whole time.

  Since she was the one that sent the SOS to the harpies, that was enough to earn her a clean slate. She even gets to visit me.

  I can hear her footsteps now, coming down the corridor. I crane my neck but can’t see much past the fire extinguisher on the wall and the fire axe mounted beside it, encased in glass.

  “Hey,” Cassie says, as the door outside my cell opens. I get to my feet and walk to the bars, and peer through, my collar clanking against them. Totality runs in small, excited circles, little droplets of pee forming a circle around Cassie’s feet.

  “Hey,” I say back. “Any news?”

  Cassie shakes her head. “Tina is still out cold. They don’t know if that bug thing on her leg caused it because Val smushed it to goo.” She bites her lip, looking unsure of herself. “Can you tell me again what happened right before she lost consciousness?”

  I nod. “The wraith touched her ankle, but then Trevor—”

  “No,” Cassie shakes her head. “I mean, right before.”

  “Oh,” I say, thinking hard. “Well, she was worried because Edie had come out of the portal, but Val hadn’t. Then when he showed up she ran to him, and he hugged her.”

  “Did she do anything else?”

  “Um…” I close my eyes, thinking hard. It had been a strong moment, and I pull up everything I can to try to recreate it. The smell of the smoke in Edie’s hair, the little bruises on her arms.

  “She… Tina moved toward Val,” I say. “She looked so relieved to see him, like she was gonna fall over and cry.” I smile at the memory, at how relieved the normally cold and reserved Tina had been to see her twin brother. But then…

  “Wait,” I say, my eyes still closed as I remember. “Tina’s expression changed. She gave him a weird look and then said ‘You’, which seemed kinda strange…”

  I open my eyes to see Cassie staring back at me. “Something was wrong,” I say. I should’ve seen it then, but so much was happening. In retrospect, I can almost see the moment where Tina’s body went weak with relief to suddenly tense again. And the way she said ‘you’ wasn’t like she was gonna say ‘You old so and so, you scared me.’ It was angry. A threat.

  Cassie nods. “I thought so. I wasn’t sure if I was remembering it right, I was so messed up. But I keep remembering her expression when she fell. She looked pissed.”

  “All clear on the floor!” comes Greg’s voice from the hallway. Instinctively, I answer him as if I were still an employee.

  “All clear!” I yell back.

  Greg comes down the hall, his eyebrows together in frustration. “Cassie,” he says. “I know that you and Mavis are close, but she is a prisoner now.”

  “I know,” Cassie says, tears standing out in her eyes. “But I told you! She’s a prisoner for all the right reasons. She had to save her sister, Greg.”

  Greg shakes his head. “I can’t go over this again. Mavis broke the law, and she’ll have to serve her time.”

  “Cassie, it’s fine,” I say. “Really.” And honestly, it kind of is. Yes, it sucks that I’m in prison, but I did save my sister. Any real regrets I have are for my team, and their extended sentences.

  “But hey, speaking of your sister,” Greg brightens considerably. “You’ve got a visitor!”

  Totality hops up and down at the sound, yipping happily. We were never able to train him out of being just as excited as the prisoners when they had visitors.

  “Mavis!” Edie’s voice rings down the hall, and my heart jumps into my throat.

  “Down here!” I yell, sticking my arm out of the cell and waving it wildly, like an idiot. Greg and Cassie stand back as Totality starts barking.

  Edie comes into view, clean now. Her hair upswept and shining. She looks great. All the bruises are gone and her eyes are shining…or, wait.

  No, they’re not. They’re still kind of vacant.

  At our feet, Totality begins to growl.

  “Total!” Greg shushes him. “It’s Edie! Friend!”

  My sister approaches my cell, arms outstretched. She reaches through the bars and I go to her, turning my face into her neck to inhale the smell of her. But it’s not there. Edie usually smells a little like fresh milk and grass clippings, but there’s a lingering scent of smoke, like maybe she couldn’t get it entirely washed out of her hair.

  Totality is barking furiously and growling in the back of his throat. He lunges for Edie’s ankles and Greg swoops down, gathering up the little dog in his arms.

  “I’m sorry, Edie,” Greg says. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

  “It’s okay,” Edie says, flashing a smile. “I’m just glad to see my big sister who always watches out for me and saved me once again.”

  She’s still smiling when there’s the sound of glass breaking.

  She’s still smiling when Cassie plants the axe between her shoulder blades.

  Greg screams, shrill.

  But I don’t join in. I could’ve warned Edie. Or reached through the bars and jerked away.

  I didn’t because Edie—my Edie—would never say I’m the big sister who always watches out for her and saves her. No way. If Edie said something like that it would be with an eye roll. And a reminder that she’s saved me a bunch of times too.

  Sure, we’re sisters, but it doesn’t mean we go around kissing each other’s asses all the time.

  “Where is my sister?” I demand, grabbing hold of fake Edie’s shirt and jerking her toward the bars.

  She smiles at me and her eyes for a moment are bright with life. Then teeth fall from her mouth and millions of roaches crawl out of her eyes, noise, mouth…

  Releasing her, I stumble back. Greg and Cassie do the same.

  But fake Edie continues to disintegrate, skin flaking away so more bugs can crawl out of it and scuttle away disappearing into the walls. She grows smaller, her clothing crumbling inward with no body to hold it. The axe that had been buried in her back falls to the floor with a loud clang.

  And then there’s nothing left of what I’d thought was my sister except empty clothes laying on the floor. Cassie and Greg attempt to stomp the last few roaches, but the little shits are fast, easily dodging and getting away.

  Totality barks once, a mournful howl. I pat his head. “I know, buddy.”

  Greg shifts into a bat and flies around the room in dizzying circles. I wait for him to get it out of his system. Finally, he shifts back into human form. “Is that...Was that...Did I?” He stops and shakes his head, obviously overwhelmed.

  I understand the feeling. But I also have no patience for it. Not now.

  Wrapping my hands around the bars, I stare at Greg until he meets my eyes. “Get me out of here,” I tell him. “And the rest of my squad too. We’re not done. Not by a longshot.”

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r />   RAGE & RUIN is part of the Mount Olympus Academy trilogy and features Nico’s mom, Maddox.

  FIGHT OR SIGHT and TOOTH OR CLAW are prequels to Squad Goals.

  Make sure to pre-order the next book in the Mythverse!

  Dream Team: Underworld Reformatory Book 2

  Available June 23rd, 2020

  Want to find out what went down between Edie and Zeus before Brandee Jean inherited his powers?

  Make sure to check out the Mount Olympus Academy trilogy!

  Fire & Flood

  Pillage & Plague

  Wither & Wound

  Chaos & Christmas: Novella

  It all starts with Fire & Flood

  Mount Olympus Academy Book 1

  Revenge. That's why I decided to join the assassination class at Mount Olympus Academy. A monster killed my father and grandmother - and I'm going to make them pay.

  But first I have to learn how.

  I'm Edie. Once I was just a normal girl with asthma and a bad back. Now, though, I'm at a school taught by Greek gods. My classmates are vampires, witches, and shifters. We're all training to fight in the war between the gods and monsters.

  There's also...Val. He's a vampire, but he's different from the others. Plus, he's got secrets too.

  I get secrets. The wings that sprout from my back were hidden from me my entire life. I also sometimes breathe fire. But no one - including me - can figure out what I fully shift into. Honestly...a part of me doesn't want to know.

  But if I'm going to avenge my family, I need to figure it out before I flunk out.

  Classes start now - one-click to enroll with Edie in the assassination class!