by Staci Hart
“Should you wake her? How long does she have?”
“She has time. And if I wake her now, she won’t sleep, and she’s going to need all her strength. I’ll tell her first thing in the morning.”
Daphne said nothing for a heartbeat which he heard through her chest. “She’ll stop him. I know she will.”
The conviction in her voice almost gave him hope against the horror he’d seen. And he only wished there was a way.
There had to be a way.
Sleep did not find him again.
Day 11
Dita floated in the swimming pool, hair suspended in the water around her, sounds trickling and muffled and thick in her ears. Her eyes were fixed on the mural covering the ceiling of the bright natatorium, framed with ornate molding and copper ceiling tiles. Chandeliers hung above the patio around the pool, brass candelabras glowing between windows.
It had always reminded her of the old Roman bathhouses but with a Victorian flair, ornate and opulent and familiar.
The fresco on the ceiling was majestic and ridiculous, a scene of the Olympians in robes and diadems floating in the clouds.
She scanned it for anything out of place. Dionysus had been given a mustache like Captain Morgan, which he’d probably given himself. Someone had crossed Hera’s eyes and made one a little bigger than the other, warped her smile, and erased her lipstick. The last point alone would send her into a blind rage when she saw it. Hera didn’t even go to bed without lipstick on.
Ares stood in his chariot with Eris, Phobos, and Deimos, and when she looked closely, she noted that his pupils were vertical, like a snake’s. His skin had a reptilian texture. Subtle. She found it too appropriate to touch.
Her own likeness looked fine at first until she saw that someone had put her in pants and given her a gratuitous camel toe. She scowled and pointed at it with a dripping finger, setting herself right in flowing robes, sans awkward twat wedgie.
She scanned the scene once again, wondering what she should change, and she settled on Zeus, which was predictable, but she didn’t care. She made a finger gun, closed one eye, and fired with a pew.
His robes shrank and turned into a pink leotard, his gray chest hair springing from the top. A pink tutu with sparkles appeared around his waist, and a tiny tiara winked with crystals in his hair. He wore the expression of an angry Russian arms dealer, which had seemed regal before. Now he just looked downright petulant.
Satisfied, she closed her eyes and exhaled, sinking into the warm water. She kicked off toward the end of the pool and swam a few laps underwater, never coming up for breath, emerging at the edge where Perry’s feet dangled in the water.
Perry smirked as Dita folded her arms on the concrete ledge. “Zeus? So obvious. He’s going to see it the second he walks in here.”
Dita shrugged. “That’s the whole point. It’s unmissable and will utterly humiliate him, which makes it quite perfect, thank you very much.”
“What happened after … Dillon?” she asked.
Dita got the feeling she didn’t want to know.
“I went after Ares. How could I not after that? It might have even been what he’d wanted.” Sadness, shame, sickness were slick on her soul. “I shouldn’t have gone there. We fought with words and fists and claws and teeth, and we fucked with the same.”
“I’m sorry,” was all Perry offered, and the words held sincerity and sadness of her own.
“I can’t keep going on like this. I’ve got to drink Mnemosyne’s waters. I know it’s the only answer; I know it in my heart and soul. But I still hesitate. Why? Why can’t I just pull the trigger?”
“Because you know that when you do, part of you will die. You can’t come back from the dead. You can’t undo the knowledge, unring the bell. You’re afraid. And you should be.”
“But I have to. I can’t pretend anymore. And I still hold out the hope that I’m wrong, that he had nothing to do with it. That he’s innocent.”
Perry snorted and said dryly, “And maybe Pegasus will fly out of my ass.”
Dita splashed Perry, who held out her hands.
She watched Dita for a moment. “The only way you’ll know for certain is to drink it.”
“I know. And I will.”
Perry sighed and changed the subject. “What are you going to do about Dillon?”
“I honestly don’t know. That was so unexpected, so cruel. Right now, there’s nothing to be done. They need a minute, and so do I.”
“Well, you have more than two weeks left to figure it out before you’re out of time.”
“That’s the only reason I’m not flipping out right now. I’ll figure it out.”
The French doors behind Perry flew open, and Apollo rushed in, wide-eyed.
“Gods, Dita. I’ve been looking for you all morning. Where have you been?” He was almost accusing.
Her face quirked in confusion. “I’ve been here. What’s wrong?”
Apollo grabbed a towel from the table and handed it to her. “You need to be sitting down for this.”
She pulled herself out of the pool and took the offered towel, wrapping it around herself with dread snaking through her. And then she took a seat and braced herself.
Apollo sat next to her, leaning to rest his elbows on his knees, his eyes apologetic and heavy with concern. “I had a vision.”
Her skin prickled. “Tell me.”
His hand brushed his lips as he stalled for only a moment before admitting what she’d feared. “Eric will come for the girls. Very soon.”
It was a coldness born from deep in her chest, slipping through her veins. It would mean the end, the end of so many things.
“What can we do?” Perry asked.
Dita stood, hands shaking and nerves bubbling. She couldn’t sit still. So she paced, wet feet patting against the concrete, dripping hair stuck to her back.
“There’s nothing to be done today, nothing I can do. It’s too soon; too much passed between them last night. I’m not sure any amount of time would be enough to undo what was done. But the most dangerous thing is this; Kat is alone. She’s left Kiki with Owen to try to process what’s happened, how she feels. To try to mend her own heart. If he comes now, when they’re separated, it will be deadly.”
Perry chewed her thumbnail. “What about Owen?”
Dita paced back toward them, her brain hooking a plan. “If Owen knows Eric is coming …” She slowed. Then, she sped up, turning to pace away again. “Yes. If Owen knows, he can get Dillon to help. If Dillon’s there, Eric won’t stand a chance. And if Dillon saves the girls, Kat will forgive him. I’ve just got to figure out how to get Owen to Kiki and keep him with her. I need as of them together as possible until Kat finds her way back.”
“I think it could work,” Apollo said. “And maybe Kiki will call Katsu. Maybe there’s a way to stop it still.”
Dita was filled with gratitude and knelt before Apollo. “Thank you for this, for telling me. You might have saved their lives.”
“It’s the very least I could do and the only thing I could do.”
Perry’s face was tight. “If Kat dies and Ares didn’t kill her himself, you’ll lose.”
“I don’t care about losing. I have to keep those girls alive because it’s right. I have to protect them from Eric. From Ares. Because he doesn’t care of their suffering. Their lives mean nothing to him beyond being a tool to pin me with.” The thought of Ares controlling her any longer stripped her heart. The imaginings of what Eric would do to them if he found them were too much to bear. “I’m going to have to watch and watch closely. And when the hammer falls, I’ve got to be ready. And I will be.”
She’d never meant anything more.
The city was behind Kat, the coast to the east, the winter clouds high and gray and distant. The sun was too small, too far away to warm the air, Kat’s skin, her heart.
Her car sped around the winds and curves of the shore, and she shifted up and down, racing away from the city, her pa
st, herself.
Kiki had called Jerry once they’d collected themselves, and he’d come to the bar to take over, sending them home. A hot shower had erased nothing from Kat’s soul, and she’d crawled into her bed with her sister where they talked and cried and talked some more. Kiki had fallen asleep sometime very late or very early, depending on where you were standing. But Kat had only drifted, finding only seconds of sleep before Dillon would invade, swallowing her whole.
As the sun had risen, she’d slipped away, leaving a note for Kiki with instructions to go to Owen’s and stay there. She’d said she was going for a drive, that she needed to think. And when Kiki had woken, she’d texted Kat, who reassured her sister she was fine.
She wasn’t.
The moment had been frozen and replayed, the span of perhaps only a second or two that had seemed to stretch out for minutes at the time, and had been looped over and over again in her mind for hours and hours, like a skipping record at a funeral. She could still feel the sting of the jolt when he’d thrown her to the ground. She could feel the coldness, the madness in his eyes as they speared her, possessed. She’d run through all the possibilities, all the outcomes had he not stopped.
A tear slipped down her cheek, her bloodshot eyes never seeming to run out of tears. Maybe it was the stock she’d been saving for years, finally let free.
Somehow, he had stopped, and she wasn’t sure how. He hadn’t been in his head, and then he was. She had touched him, spoken his name, but could never have physically stopped him. He was a runaway train, careening to the edge, the tracks run out and nothing but air to welcome him.
She’d never been afraid of a man the way she’d been afraid of Dillon. Because she always had resources, her faculties, and could get herself out of anything. But no man she’d cared for put her in the position he’d put her in the night before. And there was no way to let herself pretend that it was by chance or by accident.
His behavior had been learned.
It would happen again. And then what?
Kat pulled into a turnout overlooking the winter sea, churning, gray, angry. Her hand clasped the cold handle and opened the door.
She stepped out and around her car to sit on the hood as the waves crashed, frothing and hissing against the rocks below. The colorless winter sky pressed down on her, the ocean wind blowing her hair across her face like a shroud. And she held herself together with her arms but to no avail and with no relief.
Because there was nothing else to be done, no choice to be made other than to walk away.
“I could have killed her.” Dillon’s eyes were down, staring at his hands as he had all night long, all morning, as he would forever.
The group was silent.
Dr. Lovell’s lips were pursed. “Have you spoken to her?”
Dillon shook his head, his voice haggard. “There’s nothing I can say, no way to apologize for what I did.”
“Tell me more about when she stopped you.” Dr. Lovell’s head tipped down to his pad as he wrote.
“I … I threw her. I didn’t even know it was her. I climbed on top of her, but I didn’t see her. All I saw was him.” Jimmy. Even the thought of his name made Dillon’s stomach pitch. “Until she touched me. She spoke my name, and I came back. Owen’s the only one who can bring me back when I’m that far gone.”
“You don’t know how she feels now though. You haven’t asked her.”
“I know how I would feel. I’d never want to see my face again. I’ve already betrayed her, already crossed the line. Calling her would just violate her even more. I have no right.”
“I can understand that. But she knows very little about your past, about what you went through, how far you’ve come. Does she know you come here?”
He glanced up at the doctor. “No. Why does that matter?”
“Because you’ve been seeking help. You’re aware. You’re working to overcome. You want more for yourself, and that’s more than most in your position would do. It’s more than your father did. If she knows everything, you’re giving her a chance to decide with all the details in hand. Only then will you know you did everything you could. It might not hurt less, but then you can move on.”
Move on, as if it were so simple as turning around or closing a door or crossing the street.
Dillon looked at his boots, wishing he could. But there was no way to make it right, no way to come back from the wrongs he’d done. He couldn’t ask for forgiveness.
Not when he couldn’t even forgive himself.
Kiki stared out the window of Owen’s quiet room, her back in the curve of his body, his arms around her, her heart split and chapped and cracked from weathering her worry for her sister, who’d disappeared before she woke.
“Thinking about Kat?” He read her mind, the question in her ear and rumbling through his chest.
“I just wish she’d call me.”
He kissed her hair. “I know. But she’s okay.”
“In the sense that she has a heartbeat and is breathing maybe, but … this feels so much bigger, so much more wrong than just that. For her to leave me alone with Eric unresolved scares me. It’s so unlike her, so far from who I know. That’s how I know just how bad it is. That itself frightens me.”
Owen was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure you’re okay with being here? With Dillon?”
“I’m not afraid of Dillon. I know it might be stupid and naive, but it’s the truth.”
“That’s awfully brave, considering.”
Kiki turned to face him, looking into his velvety brown eyes that made her feel so safe, so cared for. “You trust him. And I trust you.” She curled into him, tucking her head under his chin. “I was going to call my dad today.”
He pulled her closer but said nothing.
“I can’t now though. Not with Kat gone. He’s going to have questions for her, and if she’s not with me, he’ll be upset with her. He’ll ask me where she is and if she’s okay, and I can’t lie. I’ve never been able to lie, especially not to him. And if I tell him what Dillon did …”
“No, that can’t happen. He can’t know.” Owen combed his fingers through her hair.
“But I’m going to call the second she’s back and well enough to handle Dad. I won’t risk you any longer than I have to.”
“I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about you.”
Something in his voice struck her. She leaned back so she could see him, cupping his jaw. “Everyone is. But this is all my fault. If I hadn’t gotten involved with Eric, if I had only ended things sooner. If I’d let Kat pull the trigger. Now everyone is in danger, all because of me.”
Owen turned his face, pressing a kiss to her palm. “If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have met you.”
“But you’d be safe.”
“Safe is an illusion, a lie we tell ourselves. The only way to gain is to risk. And if you hadn’t risked what you did, you wouldn’t be here with me. There is nothing in the world I would trade for that.”
She kissed him. It was all she could do, the only way she could explain how she felt.
They lay together, watching each other across the pillow they shared.
“Will you stay here tonight?” he asked.
“If Kat doesn’t need me. Jerry let us both off for the next two nights, but I don’t know. I hate that she’s alone. I hate that she carries the weight of her burdens without letting anyone help. So if she needs me, I’ll be there. But I don’t think she will.”
“You’re safe here. Dillon’s fighting tonight, but it’s just a few hours, and he’ll be back.”
She wanted to. She didn’t want to leave the comfort of Owen. She didn’t want to go back to their apartment. But she chewed her lip, torn.
Owen smiled, a small, tilted expression. “Sharing my bed can’t be all that bad, is it?”
And she smiled back, cheered by him despite it all. “Oh, no. That’s nothing short of wonderful.”
“Then, it’s settled. You’ll stay here,
and we’ll make wild, passionate love all night to celebrate being alive.”
She giggled and kissed him and yielded just like her heart had asked.
Dillon barely remembered driving home from his session, preoccupied with his thoughts. He didn’t feel the stairs under his feet as he walked inside or the loss of warmth when he pulled off his jacket. He didn’t feel the relief of his body when he sat on the couch, but it was there all the same.
Owen stuck his head out of his room, and on seeing the look on Dillon’s face, he joined his brother, taking a seat on the other side of the couch.
“How was it?”
Dillon sighed. “Hard.”
Owen nodded and waited.
But Dillon didn’t really know what to say. “He suggested that I try to talk to her. That I tell her about Mom, about Jimmy, about therapy. But it feels like excuses. Weak excuses. She owes me nothing, not after what I did.”
“Honestly, it couldn’t make things any worse than they are.”
“She won’t speak to me, Owen.”
“Not right now, she won’t. She won’t speak to anyone. Kiki hasn’t even seen her since last night.”
Dillon rubbed his tired, weary eyes. “There’s nothing to be done. I’m too ashamed to even make that call. I just can’t believe …” He swallowed the stone in his throat, but it bobbed back up. “It’s my nightmare.”
“She needs time, and so do you.”
“I can’t ask her to trust me,” he said desperately. “But I think … I think she’s my antidote, just like you are. I think she can save me from myself. I want her, Owen. I just can’t have her, and I don’t deserve her.”
Kiki appeared in Owen’s doorway looking small and wary.
Dillon shot to his feet and moved away from her, ashamed and remorseful.
“I’m so sorry, Kiki.” His hands were up, palms out in surrender.
She clutched her wrist in front of her as she made her way in to sit next to Owen, who wrapped his arm around her.
