by Amy Braun
I didn’t answer. Which, I suppose, was an answer in itself.
Thea stopped pouring her next, much larger, drink and placed the bottle on the counter. But she didn’t let go of it.
“Mostly they manipulated me. Made me feel like I belonged. I honestly, really thought Alexi loved me, that Kallis was my new father, and Cat was the sister I’d always wanted. Part of me knew I was doing something wrong, but most of me didn’t care. I just wanted to be accepted. To be in a family. One that didn’t want me just because it would get them another pay check. I wanted something like what you and Liam have, a person or people I could always rely on, who would always stand by me no matter what I did.”
“You have that, Thea. Selena loves you.”
Thea scowled and pushed the bottle aside roughly. I caught it and stopped it from falling off the counter.
“I know that,” she hissed. “I fucking know that. But I don’t feel it. She’s too good, too surreal, and I… I’m not, Derek. I’m not good. You don’t know the things I did for them.”
“You were a kid. A lost one. They pushed you into doing all those crimes. And whatever you did, Thea, it can’t have been that bad.”
She went still as death. “You’d be surprised.”
I settled against the counter. Thea gripped her glass in two hands. She stared at the countertop, her mind locked on a memory.
“None of my foster parents were very great,” she began. “Most were after the welfare check. The last couple I was with, Jane and Brian, were indifferent. Jaded, I guess, or maybe tired. They collected kids like me so the government would pay them. But they had their moments. Jane was always baking for us, and Brian always made sure we had blankets. Small things, but they mattered.”
Frost seeped from Thea’s fingers and curled around her glass. “They used the money to buy a boat. Not a yacht, but it was pretty big. Had an upper and lower deck. Probably a fishing boat.” Thea sucked in a slow breath. “A few years after I left, I was doing a job with Catalina. We were near the marina where Jane and Brian’s boat was docked, and we needed to get rid of some evidence, weapons that implicated one of the Cetea. I was angry that day, I don’t even remember why, so I said we could sink it on Brian and Jane’s boat.”
Tears spilled down Thea’s cheeks. The drinking glass was covered in frost.
“We hid the weapons on the boat, then I used magic to punch a hole in their hull and sink it. The whole thing was easy and fast. It only took seconds. No trace of anything.” A sob wrenched through her. “I didn’t know they were inside. If I’d known, I’d never have done it. They must have been in the lower half of the boat because I didn’t see them, and it was so heavy when it sank…”
She choked and dropped her face into her hands. Her shoulders shook with her sobs.
“I killed my foster parents.” Tears streamed down her face and fell from her cheeks. “They didn’t deserve to die. They didn’t care about me, but they didn’t hurt me. And I still killed them.
“Alex told me it had to happen, like they were fucking dogs that needed to be put down. I told him to burn in Hades. Told all of them. I went to the cops and told them everything, confessed, served the time, but…”
Tears flooded Thea’s eyes.
“But it doesn’t make it hurt less,” I murmured.
A sob wrenched out of her. Thea crumpled, folding her body over the countertop and sobbing into her arms.
I stepped forward, unsure of how to comfort her.
Maybe she was telling me about her past because she was drunk, or maybe because I’d killed someone too. Likely both. But Thea didn’t know that I chose to kill my father. We were both cut up and scarred by our choices, but she was more tormented about hers than I was about mine. I hated the act of murder, but I was glad Thomas Areios was in the Underworld.
Thea never had that choice. It had been made for her by people she believed had her best interests at heart. Both of us had been betrayed by our families, and we would never be free of that guilt.
I wasn’t sure either of us truly wanted to be.
“You didn’t know, Thea. You would have saved them if you’d known.”
She raised her head. “But I—”
I shook my head. “Don’t go down that road. I’ve walked it, and all you get are more regrets.”
Thea stared at me, desperate for absolution. But I couldn’t give it to her. She’d done what penance she could. She’d done the time for her crimes. She’d shot back at the Cetea by talking to police. She’d helped people who hadn’t been able to help themselves. In so many ways, that made her a better person. I’d never done time for my father’s death. It was ruled an act of self-defense, and then I went straight to work for Ares.
She was too drunk to hear anything more, though. She reached for her glass, attempting to drown her guilt, but I snatched it from her hand. She stared at me, tears streaming down her face.
“Get some sleep, Thea. You’ve got a long day tomorrow, and we need you focused for it.”
I dumped the alcohol down the sink—thank the gods that Mason was asleep and unable to witness such sacrilege—and put the nearly empty bottle in one of the upper cabinets where Thea couldn’t reach it easily. I didn’t think she would try to keep drinking, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
I bade her good night and made my way through the crowded living room toward the balcony.
“Are you going to tell Liam?”
The fear in her voice drew me to a stop. I looked over my shoulder. Thea gripped the bar as if it was all that was holding her up.
“Are you going to tell him what I did?”
“No,” I promised. “But if you’re worried about him judging you, he won’t. He knows what can be forgiven and what can’t be. He also knows how badly guilt can destroy a person.”
“He forgave you because you’re his brother. You raised him. Saved his life.”
“Yeah. And people you thought you could trust manipulated you. Liam knows what it’s like to have someone prey on his emotions. He’ll understand if you tell him, and he’ll understand if you don’t.”
I pulled open the balcony’s screen door and stepped outside. Colorful lights shimmered in the distance. Upbeat music drifted on the wind, and I smelled the sweet fragrance of flowers. Cool ocean air swept over me. I closed my eyes and breathed, simply appreciating the night. These days, it was rare that I had moments of simple peace.
“It’s calming, isn’t it?”
I glanced to my right. Selena reclined on a lounge chair in the corner of the balcony. She was dressed in the same jeans, boots, and gray tank top she’d been in earlier in the day, but her hair was unbound and spilling across her pale shoulders. She looked tired and drawn, yet still so, so beautiful.
Selena nodded at the distant party. “Things are simple down there. All you have to do is have fun. There’s no real pressure, no suffering. Just you, the ocean, the music, and whoever you want to be with.” A sly smile curved her lips. “Or however many.”
I grinned and wrapped my hands around the top of the balcony. It was a wide space, about fifteen feet across, yet I could see the entire horizon stretched out in front of me. Selena reclined comfortably on a lounge chair about five feet from where I stood, her feet stretched out and bare on the chair’s plush fabric.
We lapsed into silence, taking in the ambiance of the distant festival. My eyes drifted to the lights then up to the stars. They were barely visible beyond Santa Monica’s smog, but a patch of sky showed through the clouds. Maybe the Olympians had wanted to watch the mortals dance and pretend everything was fine and they were truly free.
“Thea told you? About why she went to juvenile detention?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I feel bad for her, but her situation isn’t going to make our lives easier. The Cetea will want revenge.”
Selena tilted her head. “Since when have you ever wanted an easy life?”
“Hey, I dreamed of it once.”
Selena raised
an eyebrow, skeptical. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. A few minutes later, Selena took a deep breath.
“Do you believe in past lives?”
Her question was unexpected. I moved away from the balcony and sat next to her on the edge of the lounge chair. There was only about a foot of space between us.
“I do. I like the idea that our bodies will die, but our souls will find a new form. I also like the idea that we’ll meet up with people we care about again. Souls recognizing souls, that sort of thing.”
“That’s a romantic outlook.”
I shrugged. “I’d call it more hopeful. Makes death a little less intimidating.” I contemplated her for a moment. “I’m guessing you have a reason for asking.”
Selena turned away, her pale blond hair curtaining her face. “I keep thinking about Apollo and what he showed me in my own damn vision.”
“He showed you another vision?” I’d never heard of a Seer’s vision being manipulated. It was the core of their power—that they could See the entirety of the future, no matter what tried to interfere with it, save for the Olympians. They were the ones who could grant a Seer his or her power, and while it couldn’t be taken away once it was bestowed, they were capable of tampering with it if they chose to.
Apollo, the God of Prophecy, would be a master at this. But what he would want with Selena…
“Kind of,” Selena answered, breaking my thoughts. “I’m not sure what he did. In a blink, I was somewhere else. I was someone else. I don’t know exactly who, but…” She stared across the balcony, her eyes fixed on the city, but not seeing it. “All I can think about is the smoke. The fire. I can still hear the screams. But it was years ago.”
“Five years ago?” I asked. It seemed like a lot of important things happened five years ago—Selena’s memory loss and the confrontation with my father in the barricaded, monster-infested region of the No-Go Zone that ended with him dying at my hands.
Or maybe that’s just me wishing it meant something. That it was the Fates, and that it would lead to something bigger, a destiny that was growing and building to something greater.
Anything to justify that I acted outside of my control.
It was nice to wish that. But it would never be true. I killed my father to save Liam. I killed him to get him out of our lives permanently. Even if that was something designed by the Fates, it would never change the fact that in the heat of the moment, it was the thing I wanted more than anything else.
Selena shook her head. “It was longer than that. Not a handful of years, but… thousands.”
My jaw dropped a little. Selena turned to me, her gaze deep, silver, and haunted.
“He showed me Troy, Derek. He showed it to me as though I were looking through someone else’s eyes. As if I was there.” She toyed with the hem of her pants. Her feet were bare, but she didn’t seem to care about the cold. “It was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen. Almost as bad as the Prophecy.”
I could only imagine. The siege of Troy was one of the most famous in history. Thousands of people had died for petty reasons beyond their control.
“Whatever Apollo showed you, it’s over now,” I told her. “It’s not going to happen again.”
Selena didn’t believe me. “Athena showed you the Prophecy. You know that’s not true.”
Smoke and fire swelled in my chest. I shoved it back down. “We have time to stop it from happening. But I wasn’t just talking about the Prophecy. I was talking about you.”
Her silver-blue eyes rose to meet to mine.
“In your nightmare, you were alone?”
A slow, steady nod.
“Well, you’re not anymore. All six of us are in this together. You’re never going to be alone again.”
Her eyes softened. Maybe it was part of her Farseer nature, but she always seemed to read me better than I anticipated. I knew I should be careful, but I didn’t want to be. Not with her.
“You really are a big softie.”
I grinned and straightened my back. “Maybe I just like being nice to beautiful women.”
I peeked at her from the corner of my eye and grinned when I saw the blush rise in her cheeks.
“So, you’ve asked about me.” Some of Selena’s hair slipped across her face. She tucked it back. “But how are you doing?”
A smile teased my lips. That was typical Selena—bearing some kind of burden that she kept to herself, soldiering through it, and pushing aside her own problems to help others with theirs.
“Kind of worried about Thea. She told me about her foster parents.” I knew first-hand what kind of damage guilt could do.
“Thea will be all right,” Selena assured me. “She’s stronger than she thinks she is. But I want to know how you are. We haven’t talked enough about the Pact, Derek. Or the spear.”
I’d left Ki̱demónas at my bedside—the great thing about that spear is that it would come to me when I commanded it—but the War Pact was much more difficult to ignore. I rubbed the ridged circle-and-arrow scar on the side of my throat.
“Ki̱demónas isn’t what I’m worried about.”
“You don’t think Ares wants it back?”
“Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he?” I lowered my hand. “But as long as I’m on this mission for Zeus, he’s not going to do anything to intervene. Besides, I’m still his heir.”
“As long as you’re alive,” Selena pointed out boldly. “If you die, Liam will be Ares’s heir.”
That thought was a cold dagger to my heart. “Ares isn’t going to do anything else to Liam.”
“You don’t know that,” she challenged. “You don’t know what would happen if you died. You would be gone, and there would be nothing you could do to change the aftermath.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You really think I’m that important?”
I’d said it sarcastically, but Selena’s reply was dead serious.
“Yes. My Sight may be broken, but I can still sense things even when the actual visions are blurred. You have a major role to play in things to come, Derek. What happens to you will affect the rest of us. We can’t afford to lose you.”
She spoke so sincerely, so desperately, that I was speechless for a moment. I knew where I stood in the grand scheme of things. I was an heir, but I wasn’t a god, and I wasn’t a legendary warrior like Achilles or Perseus.
But I recalled my thoughts from earlier. I hadn’t expected the choices I’d made five years ago to have the impact that they did.
I set my elbows on my knees. “This should be the part where I make promises. The ones that say I won’t let anything hurt you or Liam. I want to say those words and have them be true, Selena. More than you know.”
I looked at her. “But I also want to tell you the truth. And the truth is that I’m starting to understand there’s only so much I can do. People I care about are going to get hurt no matter what I do. Gods, I might even be the one to hurt them. But I can’t stand by while they suffer, and I can’t find the remaining Shards and Weapons by myself. If that were an option, I would do it. I would break Liam’s heart if that meant I wouldn’t have to see him bleed on this mission. There are no good choices, and the only thing I can do is fight harder and longer than anyone else. The cost of that is pain, and I’m willing to pay that if we can get this done. I’m not thinking beyond that, Selena. I can’t afford to.”
I ducked my head to meet her gaze. “I can give you promises, or I can tell you the truth.”
Except that I hadn’t. Not the full truth. I hadn’t told her that I was the man in Cassandra’s Prophecy. The man who was going to lead an army to end the world.
I hadn’t told her that yet because I didn’t want to believe it. I still wasn’t ready to face that truth about myself, let alone burden my brother and my friends with it. I had just said I wasn’t ready to think beyond keeping them safe until we’d completed Zeus’s mission. Maybe I should be ready. For all I knew, what we were doing right now�
�–seeking out the Trinity Weapons and the Cronus Shards––was a piece of the Prophecy.
Or maybe telling them that I’m the man standing with the gods at the end is what sparks it. Maybe they’ll question why I’m there, and they aren’t.
Not something I cared to think about for more than a few moments. Only Cassandra knew the details of the Prophecy, and she was either missing or dead.
Selena’s eyes were sharp and fierce, burrowing deep into my own gaze as I fought with myself. They stayed sharp until they locked on my scarred neck. Then the sharpness softened into concern.
I can’t do it. Not here, not now.
“Do you still feel it?” she whispered.
I rubbed my hands together. “Not now, no. Subconsciously, I know it’s there. But it’s like any other scar. Athena’s magic is still working.”
“But you don’t think it will for much longer.”
I froze. Most times, having a Farseer as a friend was wonderful. Other times, she said prescient but uncomfortable things.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “If she doesn’t think of a solution soon, I won’t be able to stay.”
There is was, the cold, bitter truth. If I thought for a second that I might put Liam, Selena, Mason, and Thea in danger, I would leave. I didn’t know how far the Pact would let me go, and I hadn’t dared mention it to Liam, but I didn’t see that I had any choice. Killing someone I hated had nearly broken me. Killing someone I cared for… I would never recover from that. I would never let myself.
Selena’s heavy sigh broke the silence. Then she unfolded herself and slid across the lounge chair to sit next to me. Our shoulders brushed and her fingers curled around mine. Her skin was warm and gentle against my calluses and scars.
“I don’t know how to help you. I’ve tried to look into the future and See what might happen. But every time I do, there’s a haze around you, like you’re never permanent.” Her fingers squeezed mine. “I hate that. I hate knowing I might lose you soon.”
I slipped one of my hands free from hers and tucked it under her chin. Slowly, I raised her gaze to meet mine. Her eyes were shining.
“You’re not going to lose me, Selena,” I murmured. “Someday, maybe. But not now.”
