Arsenio nodded and we all started our trek again, our feet crunching through the light snow as silence fell between us once more.
Chapter Fourteen
“Keep your head down while we’re in town,” Cristos instructed as we neared our predetermined stop a few days later. “I’ll grab you a jacket with a hood, so it won’t be something you have to focus on.
“Arsenio will be getting food and shelter supplies. I’ll be look out. You get whatever medical stuff you think we’ll need.”
I nodded, still feeling off at being part of the team, but ready to help however I could.
“If we get separated, grab what you can and meet us back here.”
He took a small knife out of his bag and scratched an “x” into the tree he was standing next to, marking it as our gathering place.
“Be sure to keep some distance between us all; we’ll look less noticeable that way. The Titans are looking for two men and their captive, not three people working as a team.
I resisted the urge to tell him how right I thought he was. Since the attack from the harpies, it was like Cristos had suddenly decided to like me. If things had been different, I might have even considered him romantic, the daring hero out to save the world. It was hard to forget what I’d been through altogether, though.
Butterflies bumped into each other in my stomach at the thought of sneaking in and getting what we needed, the Titan under my skin purring with a warmth I refused to release. There was also fear there, an anxiousness for what would happen to the people here if the Titans had found us again.
I didn’t want to feel like anyone else’s death was my fault.
As we came within the town limits, we all fell silent, a mutual knowledge of our tasks and how important it was we weren’t found.
We came through the trees into what should have been the edge of town, and my breath caught in my chest as tears instantly filled my eyes, horror washing through me.
Everything was destroyed. Bricks that used to be buildings lay in heaps of rubble, scattered across the ground cracked and dusty. Automobiles sat wrecked into each other, their windshields shattered and metal frames twisted around each other. Holes littered the ground, explosion markers from heavy artillery. That wasn’t the worst of it, no matter how much I wished it to be.
There were bodies, so many I didn’t even try to count them, lying everywhere. Blood washed the streets, coloring the snow, marking a place of massacre. They weren’t all men—soldiers, like you’d expect to see in a place like this—but women and, heaven help them, children, too. Some had been shot, others caught in the blasts that had torn the streets asunder, and some fallen in the car accidents. It didn’t seem even one person had survived.
Wide eyed and lips trembling, I finally tore my gaze away from the battle field, turning my back on it and clutching my chest as I tried to block out the hurt that was filling my entire inside.
“Titans,” I managed to choke out, tears spilling down onto my face.
“No,” Cristos answered sadly, his own voice catching slightly. “Not directly. These people destroyed themselves.”
“How do you know?” I hiccupped, still refusing to turn and look again.
“They’ve all died of mortal wounds, not those of Titans,” he explained. “Titans leave no trace. If it had been them, there would be no bodies.”
“This is the work of the helmet,” Arsenio said, his tone suggesting he agreed with Cristos.
“Helmet?”
“Hades helmet,” Cristos sighed. “The Titans have it. They’ve been using it to fill the mortal world with fear, to the point of attacking each other over things they normally wouldn’t.”
I remembered the Titan I’d ran into in Moscow, the one wearing the golden helmet. Whenever he’d gotten close, I’d been so sick with fear I’d almost vomited. Thinking back, I could remember feeling afraid before anything even happened.
“Why?’ I gasped, shaking with the force of the tears streaming down my cheeks.
“If the mortals kill themselves off, there will be no more Olympians. We exist on mortal’s belief in us, in any god at all. If they’re gone, so are we. The Titans will rule once more.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to be anywhere but where we were, wishing I would finally wake up from whatever horrible nightmare I’d found myself in.
The air even seemed frozen around us, the very ground calling out in pain and suffering over what happened. It was like we’d entered into a scene, one that no one was going to get up from to reveal it was all a joke.
“I’ll see if there’s anything salvageable,” Arsenio whispered, stepping forward.
“No, don’t bother them!” I cried, my hand shooting out and grabbing his arm. “Please,” I whimpered. “Let’s just leave.”
“We have to have supplies,” he answered apologetically. “Otherwise we’ll be no better off.”
“They don’t deserve to be robbed,” I replied vehemently. “We can stop at the next town. Please.”
“Avalon.”
I turned in shock, having never heard Cristos use my name before. When I saw the way he was looking at me, it made my heart feel like it was going to break all over again.
His eyes were full of sadness and pain, lips pressed into a tight frown. He looked as if he might shatter if he let himself go at all.
“Arsenio is right,” he said softly. “We lost too much in our attack. Hunting rabbits isn’t going to keep us fed for the rest of the trip. Let their sacrifice not be in vain. Let them help us, so we can stop the beasts that did this to them.”
“I can’t go in there,” I somehow said around the lump in my throat, fresh tears falling now.
“You don’t have to,” he reassured me. “Arsenio will take care of it.”
“I will,” he answered in reply, his own eyes misty as well when I turned to look at him.
“We’ll go ahead and set camp,” Cristos decided. “About a mile or so in the direction we were heading.”
I looked back out into the trees, the forest seemingly untouched by the disaster behind me. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t banish the images from my head.
I could hear Arsenio leaving us, his quiet form entering the mass grave like a ghost.
It was time to move, and I desperately wished to leave, but I couldn’t make my feet budge. Even with what had happened back in Moscow, what I’d been seeing on the news, and what I’d been hearing about the state of our world, I’d never seen anything like the carnage we’d found. I’d seen bodies taken by war, but this was different. With a start, I realized I felt responsible. The beast inside of me had done this. Those like her had driven people to the point of murder, all for the sake of a stupid throne and being able to say they were in charge. It wasn’t going to stop, not until all of them were destroyed.
And I was one of them.
My chest hurt, heaving under all of the stress and emotion running through me. It was like every part of my body was just trying to breathe, not even worrying about walking. Each nerve cried out to lay down and let the darkness swallow me before I could do anything so heinous as this.
Hands balled into fists at my side, any attempt to calm down resulted in more panic and fear on my part, a massive anxiety attack dragging me further into the clutches of this world.
Warm flesh wrapped around my hand and I looked down to see Cristos’s fingers pulling at mine, relaxing them and intertwining them with his own. Ever so slowly, he led me forward, my feet obeying stiffly as I sobbed. It took a few minutes, but soon he had me moving in the right direction, towards our campground for the night.
Thankfully, he never let go of my hand. I didn’t think I would have been able to move without him.
We sat around the fire that night, eating silently, each lost in their own thoughts. I couldn’t get out of my head that I was partially responsible for what had happened. Every time I thought of it, tears would brim in my eyes and I’d have to stop to steady myself.
&nb
sp; “There’s a hot spring right around here,” Arsenio finally said, once he was done eating. “I saw a paper advertising it while I was . . .”
His voice faded away and I bit my lip, trying to keep the emotions locked inside. The turmoil made it easier for the Titan to break free and I was determined to never let her out again.
“You should go, Avalon,” Cristos said, smiling softly at me. “Relax your muscles and rest from everything. You could use it.”
I nodded stiffly, wanting very much to get away and have a few moments to myself. If they were going to let me do that, I would run to the spring right now.
“I got you some new clothes, from the store,” Arsenio added. “Would you like to take them with you?”
“Yes,” I hiccupped, looking down at my travel and battle worn clothes. My jacket had been the only thing keeping me completely covered since the back of my only warm shirt was torn by the sudden appearance of my wings. A change of clothes would help immensely.
Standing, I retrieved the outfit Arsenio had so thoughtfully gotten me and listened to his instructions on how to get to the spring.
“One of us will stay close by to make sure you’re not taken,” Cristos said. “I’ll give you a few minutes to get in first.”
He blushed slightly, as if he’d slipped up about something, but I smiled graciously anyway.
“Thank you.”
Turning, I started my walk through the woods, breathing steadily to myself and counting the footsteps to the pond to keep my mind busy.
As I neared the hot spring, I could feel the slight change in the air, the warmth bubbling up from the earth steaming through the trees. Coming into the clearing, I could see the pool easily, clearly a popular attraction for those in town and anyone passing through. Someone had created steps down into it, the water sticking out strongly against the dusting of snow on the ground. Bubbles rolled to the surface if a few places, showing where the liquid was coming up from the earth. Based on the dark color of the water, I decided the basin was probably plenty deep, enough so to keep my feet from touching the bottom.
Looking through the new clothes, I saw that Arsenio hadn’t picked up a new bra. I was suddenly struck by the last time I’d needed an outfit, and the way he’d flustered when asking about my underclothes. It brought a smile to my lips just to think of it. He’d probably done the same thing at the abandoned store, deciding to not worry about it instead of embarrass himself.
I cleared a spot on the ground for the clean outfit, setting the clothes on a dry rock so they would be warm-ish when I got out.
After sliding my boots off, I quickly reached under my shirt and removed my bra, leaving it with the new clothes. My pants came off next, everything else on as I entered the warm water. If Cristos was going to be nearby, I didn’t want to be completely nude. It was also embarrassing to think of what would happen if Titans were to suddenly set upon me and I was stark naked. I needed something to dry off with, though, and the pants seemed like the next best thing to a towel right now.
Sighing, I sunk down to where the water was level with my shoulders, feeling the knots and pain in my back vanish almost instantly.
With only a few minutes left to myself, I let the tears out again, sobbing until it felt like I couldn’t cry any more.
Chapter Fifteen
Cristos
A slight breeze whispered through the trees as I slowly followed Avalon to the hot spring, trying to let her have some time to herself, time that she so desperately needed. I’d seen that ever since we’d left the town.
Anger boiled in me as I thought of what had happened to those people, people who could have gone on living happily if the Titans were under the control they should have been. They were casualties in a war that shouldn’t have had anything to do with them, a war I needed to snuff out as soon as possible.
Then there was Avalon. The look on her face told me she’d never truly seen what war could do to people. The tears afterword had almost broken me. I’d wanted to take her in my arms and hold her, just as when she’d cried from the pain of losing her wings before. The best I could do was taking her hand, leading her away from the sight that had hurt her so much.
I’d been so wrong to think she couldn’t feel because of her Titan half. Once again, anger at myself grew for the way I’d treated her before. I knew she was wary of how I acted now, but I wouldn’t let myself bring her harm on purpose any more.
You will join with the demi-Titan, betray your father, and be cast into Tartarus.
The Graeae’s prophecy had been ringing in my ears for hours, like a warning trying to tell me I needed to be mean to her. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be able to help it—I would join with her, whatever that meant, and seal my future. Her tears weren’t something I was sure I could stand, though.
As I came up on the spring, staying in the trees to give her some privacy, I heard her crying again, sobbing over what she’d seen still.
Leaning my back against a tree, I rested my head, eyes screwed shut at the sound I so wanted to comfort.
Zeus, I thought. Father. Help me. Lead me in the right direction.
I wasn’t usually one to pray, but I knew whenever I did, he heard me. He never brought it up, knowing I would find my way eventually. It helped to talk to him anyway, kind of like my head just needed to say what was bothering it.
The weeping behind me continued and I chanced a quick look, catching sight of her in the water, sitting on the steps, her face in her hands.
I couldn’t stand it, seeing her so distraught for some reason. Quietly, I entered the clearing, removing my own shoes and stepping into the warmth that awaited.
She didn’t notice me at first, caught up in her emotions, so I simply just sat by her, my black jeans blending into the water color, not knowing what to do. Finally, I gave into what my instincts were saying and pulled her into my arms, moving out into the water so I could hold her better.
“Cristos?” she hiccupped, wiping her eyes hastily and pushing away some.
“You looked like you needed some help,” I answered lamely.
“I’m fine,” she said, turning to swim back to the steps.
“No, you’re not,” I countered, grabbing her hand. “Anyone could see that.”
She stared at me, at the hand that held onto her own, lips trembling before more tears began to wash her face.
“What happened at that town is my fault,” she whispered.
“No, it’s not,” I said forcefully, pulling her close to me and crushing my arms around her. “No one was there looking for you. You didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”
“But I did,” she insisted, her voice muffled into my chest. “I’m a Titan. I never understood what was so bad about them before, only that they were scary. But you were right. They’re monsters. I’m a monster.”
The last words were barely audible as she clung to me, shoulders shaking fiercely.
“Avalon,” I replied hesitantly.
“How could anyone do something so horrible to another person?” she continued, as if she didn’t hear me. “How could I do something so horrible?”
“You didn’t do it,” I tried to coax her. “It’s not your fault. You’re a good person.”
“You told me I wasn’t worth the air I was breathing,” she snapped, pulling back to look at me. The anger that had flared in her eyes faded almost instantly, replaced by self-loathing. “And you were right.”
“I wasn’t,” I argued as she pushed away, moving onto the steps. “I never should have said that to you, Avalon. I’m so sorry.”
“I want you to take me to Mount Etna and destroy me,” she said, leaving the pool. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt anymore, not because of me.”
“Avalon,” I stammered, following her. “Please stop. This isn’t your fault.”
“Dimitri is dead because of me,” she continued mournfully, ignoring me. “So are those kids. And that whole town. And this whole town. Everywhere I go, someone
dies. Just get rid of me—end it now.”
Desperation was starting to set in on both of us. She was falling into a state I didn’t know how to pull her from. Tears streamed freely down her face, anguish written all over it, staining her perfect skin, and I just wanted it to stop.
Grabbing her hands, I pulled her down to my step in the pool, wanting to hug her again, to hold her until she came out of it, but did something else entirely, something I hadn’t even realized I wanted to do.
I crushed my mouth to hers, fingers winding into her wet tresses as I grabbed her face, holding her to me as strongly as I could without hurting her. Then, as if I’d been struck by lightning, I pulled away, still holding her face, my wide eyes meeting her matching gaze.
The breath between us hung in the air, waiting to see which direction things were going to go, everything silent as I looked at her, struck by how beautiful someone so sad could look. Every nerve in my body urged me to kiss her again, to feel her, to caress her, to make the pain go away.
All she did was stare at me, surprise on her face, her fingers reaching up to gently touch my hands.
Slowly, waiting for her to tell me to stop, I leaned in again, stepping forward to make our bodies flush, and I kissed her, a warning bell going off somewhere in my head. At that moment, I couldn’t really care.
If the burn I felt from catching her in a surprise kiss before was anything, it was nothing compared to what I felt when she kissed me back. Her lips moved against mine, fingers digging into my hands, body pressing against me, driving me insane with a red hot fire and desire I’d never felt before. It was like she was water and I was thirsting to death, unable to get enough of her.
Our lips bruised against each other, breath washing over our faces, warming the skin in the cold, winter air. Steam from the spring heated the moment, our clothes sticking to our bodies, making it as if there was nothing between us at all. The only thought in my mind was I wanted more, so much more.
Adrastia (The God Chronicles Book 4) Page 11
