“To Iowa?”
Her thin shoulders slumped. “It’s fine. UGA has a graduate program. I can just wait and—”
“Melissa, you should still apply.”
She sighed, looking defeated. “Mom won’t let me. My place is with you, remember?”
For a second I felt relieved. I didn’t want Melissa to go away to college. I wanted her to stay with me. We were best friends. I needed her. But that was so selfish. Melissa wanted to go somewhere else. She shouldn’t be stuck here because of some holy duty to me.
“And you’re letting that stop you? You’re the one who can lie. Apply anyway.” I rolled my eyes for good measure. “When you get in, we’ll find a way to make it work. Don’t we have a whole bunch of priestesses in Iowa?”
She gave me a hug. “Thank you for understanding. I was so worried you would be mad. Mom might change her mind if I actually get in.” She pulled away to look at me. “So, school starts next week, and I have a plan.”
“What’s that?” I sat on the bed.
“You should charm everyone into thinking we’re there and maybe throw in good grades from the teachers. We could do whatever we wanted all day. No one would know.”
I shook my head. “I’m not charming people if I don’t have to. It’s wrong.”
“Oh, come on! You hate school!”
“It’s not my favorite thing, but I don’t hate it.” I gave her an embarrassed smile and fiddled with my necklace. “I’m actually kind of looking forward to it.”
Melissa leaned back. “Why?”
I leaned against the headboard and looked up at the peeling star stickers on the ceiling. “It’s something normal. Not liking school is normal, being overwhelmed by homework assignments is normal, not getting along with the other girls is normal.” I shrugged. “I could do with a little normal.”
“So is that why you want to go to UGA so bad? Continue the normal a bit longer?”
I scowled. “Now you sound like my mom. Ever since I found out I was a goddess, it’s been this all-consuming thing, chipping away at my regular life. There’s lots of good, and I’m not saying I want to turn back the clock or anything, but is it so wrong to want both?”
Melissa looked thoughtful. “No. You planned for life as a human. Every dream and thought you ever had went toward human goals. I think it would be weird to just switch that off one day. I mean, not that it would be wrong to want something else. That’s normal too, right? To plan and prep for something and then decide you want something else?”
“If it were anywhere but Iowa,” I teased. “I’d say that was normal.”
“Oh shut up!” She threw a pillow at me. “Poor little Persephone. I’m a beautiful, powerful goddess. Pity me, pity me. All that will make my life better are boring-ass classes. Gosh, it’s too bad I don’t have anything better to do. Like my hot boyfriend.” She batted her eye lashes dramatically, voice breathy.
I was laughing so hard I could barely catch my breath. “You can’t think of him as hot!”
“I’m not blind.” Melissa brushed her hair out of her face and stood, eyes twinkling. “When he walked into the kitchen…” She put her hand to her chest in an exaggerated swoon. “I’d break girl code for him. It’s been nice being your friend and all, but gods!”
I threw the pillow back. “You’d be breaking more than girl code. The only thing weirder than me hooking up with someone your mother dated would be you hooking up with him. Had things gone differently, he might have been your dad.”
Melissa cried out in disgust. “Why would you say that? I’m never going to get that out of my head now.”
“Serves you right for fantasizing about my husband.” I dissolved into giggles. “You should see your face.”
“You jerk.” She threw the pillow back. “Speaking of hot guys, did you say you ran into Joel?”
* * * *
“What’s your goal?” Joel asked when I met him the following day at the park.
“Three miles in thirty minutes,” I admitted, embarrassed. “I get the first mile in under ten, but it takes me longer and longer every lap.”
Joel nodded. “Okay, so the key is pacing. You don’t want to put all your energy into your first lap…” He trailed off as I shook my head.
“I need that burst of speed if I’m going to get away.”
“Get away?” He leaned forward, face growing concerned. “Kora, who are you trying to run away from?”
A flash of fear passed through me as images of Thanatos, Boreas, and Pirithous filled my mind. “Anyone. I started taking this self-defense class last year, and Char—the instructor—made a good point about it all being useless if I couldn’t run away.”
Joel nodded, considering. “So that’s how you started running? Breakneck speed all the way through?”
“Well, no,” I amended. “I’d walk a little, jog a little, and work my way up to jogging all the way, and then run a little, until I worked my way up to running.”
“Yeah, until you could maintain the speed. Same concept. You’re practicing, not running for your life. Find a pace, keep it steady. Next time you run, push a bit harder, and so on. You’ll get faster. I’m surprised your teacher didn’t tell you that.”
“He doesn’t really oversee my running habits anymore.” I stretched to touch my toes.
We set out, keeping a steady pace. I was surprised to find I’d beaten my best time by the end of the third mile. When we finished, I collapsed onto the cool grass, breathing hard.
Joel’s face hovered inches over me, a mischievous grin on his face. “You gonna make it?”
“Shut up,” I gasped, pushing him away with a laugh. “Every step you take is like three steps for me.”
“Not my fault you’re short.”
“Not my fault you’re freakishly tall.”
He pulled me to my feet. “Let me make it up to you. I’ll buy you a smoothie?”
I hesitated and looked down at my hand, still locked in his. He followed my gaze and dropped my hand, his face going red.
“Sorry, Joel.” I brushed the grass off my legs. “I should probably be going.”
He caught my eye. “Aw come on, how long does it take to drink a smoothie?”
I found myself smiling. “Fine.” I followed him to his car, a juniper Chevy Thunderbird that had caused quite a stir amongst the guys at Athens Academy last year.
He drove over to Smoothie King. I ordered a pomegranate punch and sat at one of the three tables in the tiny shop.
“Your mom’s shop is right around here, isn’t it?” Joel motioned out the window, though all we could see from our vantage point was the gravel parking lot and a steady stream of cars flowing down South Lumpkin Street.
“Yeah, just up the road. Don’t tell me you’ve never been.”
Joel laughed. “I’ve seen her work. You guys do all the centerpieces for school stuff, right?”
I nodded and fiddled with my necklace.
“But I haven’t been to the shop. As much reason as I’ve had to buy flowers…”
I kicked him lightly under the table. I knew he didn’t have a girlfriend, but flowers weren’t just for couples. “What about your mom or aunts or something?” I didn’t know if Joel had any sisters. None had attended Athens Academy, but he could be the youngest child.
Joel hesitated. “I don’t…My mom’s not…” He scowled at the table, rubbing at a spot with his thumb. “She was murdered. Forever ago.”
I gasped. “I’m so sor—”
Joel cut off my apology with a wave of his hand. “Don’t. I never mentioned it to you before. I just don’t like to talk about my family. I’d send flowers to the extended members, but I don’t think they’d appreciate the reminder I still exist.” He shrugged and changed the topic. “If I were to get someone flowers, what would you recommend?”
“My favorites are daisies. But most people prefer something more elaborate.”
He gave me an easy grin. “Daisies, huh? I’ll keep that in mind.�
�
A movement in the corner of my eye caught my gaze. A man stepped through the door of the Smoothie King. No one else seemed to notice his entrance, but that wasn’t surprising. The light fractured around him, bending oddly and seeming to absorb into his black robes.
The Reaper met my gaze and stood behind Joel, hand hovering over his shoulder.
“Stop it.”
Joel followed my gaze past the Reaper. “Stop what? What are you looking at?”
I smiled brightly at Joel. “Being such a shameless flirt. I’m not impressed.”
“Still got a boyfriend?” Joel asked.
I eyed the Reaper, and he gave me a malicious grin.
I turned my attention to Joel. “I have…you know, it’s kind of complicated.”
Joel looked at me over his cup. “Is it exclusive?”
I did my best to ignore the Reaper’s hand hovering over Joel’s head. I had no idea what Hades and I were right now. Everything had gotten so weird. “I’m not interested in anyone that isn’t him.” I shrugged. “I’m flattered, really, but I don’t want to lead you on.”
Joel folded his straw paper into a tiny accordion. “It was worth a shot. Still running buddies?”
When I hesitated, he looked me in the eye. “I can date other girls. Friends are harder to come by. Plus, running alone is dangerous. I could fall and break my ankle, or some random stalker could push me off the path. You never know what kind of crazies are out there. Please?”
I laughed. “Yeah, okay. So what classes are you registered for?”
When he launched into his answer, I dropped a shield so Joel couldn’t hear me and raised my smoothie in front of my mouth. “If his name was on the list, he’d be dead by now.” I kept my voice calm as I addressed the Reaper. “Thanatos doesn’t want to attract attention by taking the wrong souls, so you can cut the theatrics.”
“Thanatos sends his regards,” the Reaper said softly. His threat was completely undermined by his puppy-dog brown eyes. I frowned, trying to focus on his soul instead of the light bending around him. He was not much older than me. How long had he been dead? Why did he decide to become a Reaper instead of just spending his afterlife in the Underworld?
“Bring me to Thanatos,” I demanded.
It was a long shot, but I was Queen of the Underworld, and that included Reapers. He might listen to me. I just needed one second of eye contact to charm Thanatos, and I could uncharm this mess. But so far I hadn’t been able to get near him. Each time I’d gone to the Underworld, he’d managed to be elsewhere.
The Reaper gave me a cutting glare and meandered behind the counter. The brunette girl who’d made our smoothies shivered as though she sensed his presence. He touched her shoulder and she collapsed.
Joel swore and sprang from his seat, rushing behind the counter to check on the girl. I forced myself to stay in my seat and ignore the scream of rage and horror that threatened to erupt from my chest. I buried it and kept my face impassive as I stared down the Reaper. I couldn’t show any weakness. Not to him.
“Your move, Queen.” His lips curved in sarcasm as he gave a shallow bow and vanished.
Chapter XI
I was a nervous wreck the following week when I pulled into the school parking lot. Change is unsettling, and over the last few years there’d been increasing tension between myself and the girls I’d once called friends. Apparently I’d been charming them, which led to all kinds of problems. Mostly their inexplicable hatred. But now that I knew what I was and had a handle on my charm, everything should have been fine.
Instead I was exhausted, angry, and unsettled, and it had nothing to do with school. It was the Reapers. For the past few days, they’d followed me everywhere I went, taking souls along the way. I knew those souls had to be on that day’s list of the dead, otherwise Hades would notice, but it was happening too often to be a coincidence. Were the Reapers following around their marks and hoping to cross paths with me? Maybe they were taking them early. If so, where were they keeping the souls until they were supposed to die? Death runs on a tight schedule.
If they were, they’d have to keep the souls somewhere, right? If I could just find out where…
But I hadn’t had any luck. Charon hadn’t mentioned any unusual activity with the souls, and no souls had said anything about being left to wander around or mentioned anything suspicious. If the humans had noticed an uptick in the amount of deaths in town, they hadn’t bothered to report it to the news.
I ground my teeth. This would be so much easier if I could just ask the souls or ask Charon instead of waiting for someone to notice something was wrong. But Thanatos was in charge of the Reapers so anything I said about them linked to him, and my stupid promise kept me from saying or doing anything about Thanatos or to help Hades discover him in any way.
“I won’t tell anyone anything about you,” I muttered to myself. “Hades won’t get any help from me.” I sighed, letting my head fall back on the seat with a thunk. “How could I have said that?”
I got out of my car, the effort exhausting me. I wasn’t sleeping well. Death shouldn’t bother the Queen of the Underworld, but I didn’t feel very much like a queen right now. I felt scared and powerless. It didn’t matter that I knew they were supposed to die. It didn’t matter that I knew the Underworld was a nice place and the souls would eventually be happy.
Death doesn’t just happen to the person who died. It happens to everyone around them. The faces that haunted my dreams weren’t just the shocked looks of the newly dead souls. No, I dreamed about the faces of their loved ones contorted with panic as they realized there was nothing they could do to bring that soul back. I dreamed about their futile efforts to revive the corpse while the Reapers laughed.
I felt sick. Weak. Powerless. I’m Kora again, I realized as I shouldered my book bag and made my way to the Media Center, keeping an eye out for Melissa and Aphrodite. They weren’t hard to spot. A crowd of students surrounded Aphrodite outside the glass exterior of the building.
“Kora!” Melissa called, making her way through the crowd.
“Hey.”
“You look exhausted! Are you okay?”
“How’s she doing?” I asked, motioning to Aphrodite. I set my book bag down on the stone courtyard, too tired to carry it any longer.
“She’s a natural. Everyone loves her.”
I frowned at the bitterness in Melissa’s voice. I opened my mouth to ask if she was okay when a commotion from the crowd cut me off. “Oh no, what did she say?” I stepped forward, trying to peer through the students to find Aphrodite.
“Kora?” Rachel asked. I turned, surprised to find her standing behind me.
“One sec,” Melissa muttered, edging her way closer to the crowd.
“Hi Rachel.” I stood on my tiptoes trying to see between the book bags. There were days I hated being short.
“I have a message for you.”
I sighed. “If it’s about missing Jessica and Ashley’s birthday, for the thousandth time I’m sorry. I’ve had a crazy summer and—”
“Swear fealty to Zeus.”
I spun to face her. “What did you say?”
“The longer you wait, the more he’ll take from you.”
Rachel’s hair was wrong, almost blindingly red. Her eyes shone brightly; the colors of her outfit were hyperrealistic. Something inside me went numb as I realized what I was seeing. I felt a flash of power, and suddenly the voices of my classmates were no longer muffled. I heard their screams, cries, and frantic calls for help. I tore my gaze away from Rachel.
Now I could see what everyone was staring at. A shield had been crafted within the group of students so well, I hadn’t even noticed it. Now I could see Rachel lying in the middle of the crowd in a crumbled heap on the concrete. Her eyes were wide open, staring straight at me, face frozen in a grimace of agony.
I turned back to Rachel’s soul. I could fix this; I could put her back in her body…somehow. I’d make this right.
&nb
sp; She was gone.
Something brushed my neck, and I hit the ground with a strangled yell. Fire flashed through my veins. I’d felt this before, in the Underworld when I’d shaken a Reaper’s hand. The fire stopped as suddenly as it started. I spun to face my attacker, but no one was there.
“She shook my hand and just collapsed.”
I jumped at the voice, breathing easier when I realized it was Aphrodite. “Did anyone else touch Rachel?” My voice quavered and for some reason my face was wet with tears. Rachel’s dead, I realized. Of course I was crying.
“A man in black robes.” Aphrodite twirled her hair nervously. “Persephone, no one else could see him.”
A Reaper. No, the Reaper. Thanatos was the only one that could cast shields. I’ll kill him. Once I would have been surprised at the coldness of that thought, but I just didn’t have it in me anymore.
“I have to go.” My voice sounded strange to my ears. Distant, like it was coming from the end of a long tunnel.
Melissa walked up to us, giving me an odd look. “Go? Go where? The police are on their way, not to mention all the teachers. I think they’ll want—” She broke off when she saw my face. “Was this a god thing?” she asked in a whisper.
I nodded shakily, and something in her expression closed off.
“Go, we’ve got this.”
Chapter XII
“Where is he?” I demanded, storming into the throne room. I couldn’t say Thanatos’ name. Just asking about him sent a wave of agony ripping through me. The three judges and Cassandra and Moirae looked up from where they were sitting on the side of the room in surprise. Only Hades didn’t seem surprised at how I’d stormed in.
The judges exchanged a look and turned to Charon. “Should we…?”
“Go? Great idea. Later Persephone.” Charon waved.
They hastened across the white marble floors, footsteps echoing off the endlessly tall ceilings.
“Cowards!” I called as the ornate wooden door slammed shut.
“Thanatos told me what happened.” Hades pushed off his onyx throne in the center of the large, round room. “He didn’t want to be around when you got down here—”
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