The Power

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  people. You were telling him about Apollo.” Okay. My reasoning sounded lame to my own ears, but in for a penny . . . “And you were talking about your mother—”

  “Oh my God! You were totally eavesdropping on us. What the hell, Seth?” Anger tightened her features, and because there was obviously something wrong with me, I hardened. A pissed Josie was a very hot Josie. “You ended things with me without even telling me why. I haven’t seen you in days, and yet, here you are, listening to me talk to another guy?”

  “I wasn’t listening,” I said, and immediately I realized how stupid that stance was going to be. “Not for the reasons you’re getting at.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “That’s bullshit, Seth, and you know it.”

  “This is stupid.” Mainly, I was stupid. I took another step back. “I don’t even know what I was thinking.”

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking either. God, I wish I did, but I do know what you’re feeling.” She raised her hand and pointed at me. “You’re jealous.”

  “Jealous?” I laughed. “Of him?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Of him. Because why else would you be hiding in the garden listening to us?”

  Shit.

  I really didn’t have a good response to that.

  “I shouldn’t have been,” I said after a moment. Bending down, I picked up her sweater and held it out to her. “I should’ve just left you guys alone.”

  Her lips parted, drawing my attention. It took no amount of effort to remember how they felt. Tasted.

  I was getting harder.

  She drew in a deep breath and briefly closed her eyes. “You treated Colin like crap and he didn’t deserve that. That wasn’t cool, but I’m . . . I’m glad you are here, right now.”

  “Come again?”

  Josie’s fingers found the end of her ponytail. She started twisting the length. “I don’t want to argue with you. Can we . . . can we talk? I mean, I want to talk to you. I think it would be good if we did and—”

  “It won’t be good.”

  Her brows knitted. “It can’t be any worse than this.” Her voice cracked on the last word and she quickly looked away, dipping her chin. “I . . . I miss you, Seth. I really miss you, and I lo— I just miss you so much.”

  My hand tightened around her sweater. The words I miss you too burned through my tongue, scalded my entire body.

  Her glistening gaze drifted back to mine. “Nothing?” she whispered, and then she let out a shaky laugh. “I just . . . want to understand what I—” Her voice shook. “I just want to know what I did wrong.”

  What she did wrong? Shocked into silence, I could only stare at her. She thought she’d done something wrong? That this was on her? She hadn’t done a damn thing wrong. She was an angel.

  Thick lashes lowered. “Okay. All right.” When she reopened her eyes, she was looking down. “I . . . Um, I have to go . . .” Josie’s voice trailed off and then she was hurrying away, rushing down the walkway and disappearing behind the vine-covered statues.

  And I was standing there, holding her sweater in my tight grip when I wanted to be holding her.

  Chapter 13

  Josie

  Whitish-red flames crackled over my knuckles, spitting tiny sparks into the air above my hand. I stared at the fire, a little awed over the fact that this was something I could create out of thin air and that I could actually control it.

  And well, that was pretty damn amazing.

  I wasn’t going to think about the fact that it had taken three weeks of working with Laadan to get to this point where I was now an official firestarter. Three. Long. Weeks.

  Laadan was an excellent teacher and incredibly patient, even when I’d singed her eyelashes on more than one occasion. Deacon had been helping out on and off, and he wasn’t as terrible as he’d made it seem. Deacon could control fire. Marcus had been right. Working on controlling one element helped with the other three.

  Two days ago was the last time I’d incorrectly summoned the wrong element, but that had been a fluke. I’d been distracted, because as I stood in front of Laadan, focusing on summoning the element of earth, I’d seen Seth on the closest walkway.

  I’d accidentally knocked Laadan over.

  Seth . . .

  My chest ached and the flames faded out. I’d barely seen him since the day in the gardens. I couldn’t believe I’d even tried to talk to him after he’d been such a jackass, but I’d been desperate to know what had gone wrong between us. Sort of still was. What had I done wrong?

  But he kept away and I didn’t give in to the urge to visit him. I’d thought that the pain would lessen as each day passed, but it hadn’t. The hurt was just as raw and brutal as day one.

  But I was . . . I was going about my life. I was mastering the elements and I was getting really kick-ass at the whole hand-to-hand fighting thing, able to stand on my own against Solos and Luke. I hated myself for thinking this, because it was so lame, like the lamest of the lame, but Seth would’ve been proud if he’d seen how I’d taken Solos down yesterday, sweeping his legs right out from underneath him.

  I’d done a little dance.

  I’d looked like a chicken with its head cut off, but I’d rocked that dance and I was going to rub it Solos’s face every chance I got.

  After practices, I avoided the garden. What once had been a brief respite from all the crap now made me feel uncomfortable, like I needed to bury my face in a pillow and never resurface. But Seth hadn’t scared off Colin.

  Glancing over to where he sat, legs stretched out in front of him and his back against a tree, he was intent on whatever he was reading. On the other side, Luke was studying and Deacon, well, he was not even pretending to study. While Luke held the textbook open, pressed against his chest, Deacon had his head in Luke’s lap. For a few minutes, he’d napped. Now, every couple of seconds, he flicked his fingers off the back of the textbook. Luke had either the concentration of a cobra or the patience of a saint, because he hadn’t punched Deacon yet.

  I looked down at the textbook I’d swiped from Deacon’s room a few days ago, after we did our daily librarian check. It was Myth and History 101, a true account of their history, which was pretty much a Lifetime movie with cheating couples who were immortal and had superpowers. Every one of the gods pretty much hooked up with anything that walked, and I mean, anything that walked.

  Anything.

  I shuddered just thinking about the section on my father. Good gods, I was traumatized. Like there had been this nymph who literally turned herself into a tree to get away from Apollo.

  Turned. Herself. Into. A. Tree.

  Then there was this poor guy who got turned into a bush or something, and that’s not even the worst of it.

  Not even.

  My father put the “who” in whore.

  Speaking of less traumatizing things related to Apollo: he hadn’t shown up since appearing when Seth and I had . . . I cut the thought. There was no news. So no demigod bloodhound, but oddly, I was beginning to be able to sense the difference between pures and halfs. It was something that had started off as a barely noticeable ripple of energy, like a warmth I felt whenever I was around a pure-blood. I didn’t feel it around Luke or Colin or Solos. I’d mentioned it to Laadan and she felt that it was some of my demigod powers starting to kick in, slowly but surely, and she’d said there’d probably be more. Since I was sensing the aether in the pures, I wondered if eventually I would be able to find the other demigods. At this rate, I might have to, since Daddy Dearest was MIA.

  The aether-sniffing thing was pretty cool.

  But weird, really weird.

  Things were rather calm, though. Actually, that wasn’t necessarily true. Things were calm for me. Everyone pretty much gave me a wide berth. Only a few brave souls came around when Colin was hanging out with us. They’d chat with him while trying to inconspicuously stare at me. Other than that, no one really seemed to be all that interested in having a demigod on campus.
r />   What was going down between the halfs and pures, on the other hand, was not calm. From what I gathered there had been no leads on who had killed the half-blood or who had been responsible for the horrific things done to that girl, Felicia. Colin believed that the powers that were—the campus council—hadn’t tried hard even though half of the Council was made up of halfs. It was one of those things you didn’t want to believe, but had to accept as being true, because it was.

  There had been two more rallies in the last week, with halfs calling for serious investigations into what was happening at the campus and in other communities. Deacon and I had joined Colin at the last one, and so far everything had remained peaceful. Probably had to do with Marcus and a crap-ton of Guards having been present.

  Staring out over the quad, the division between the two sides was painfully obvious.

  Since it was actually warm outside—not hot, just warm—a good portion of the school was hanging on the main quad, stretched out under the afternoon sun or playing a really weird version of Frisbee where they weren’t actually touching what looked like a much heavier and dangerous disc.

  Halfs were grouped together on the other side of where we sat, closest to the dorms. It was a Saturday, and only a few were in their black training attire.

  We weren’t the only ones who had a mixture of halfs and pures. There were other small groups clustered around us that had a mixture. I liked them.

  My gaze tracked the silvery disc as it zoomed across the quad. A pure jumped up, throwing his hand out. The disc stopped before it reached his hand. The pure flicked his wrist and it flew back across the quad.

  Why couldn’t they just, I don’t know, catch and throw it like normal people? Pain zinged behind my eyes.

  Closing my eyes, I rubbed my temples with my fingers. The dull ache that had come and gone every day over the last week was back. You’d think with becoming a demigod I wouldn’t have to deal with things like headaches or periods. That would be nice.

  “If you fall asleep again, I’m going to get a marker and draw a mustache on your face,” Luke announced.

  Colin chuckled. “I hope that happens.”

  “I’m not asleep,” protested Deacon. “I’m being all observant and shit.”

  I continued rubbing my temples.

  “Observing what?” Luke asked.

  He huffed. “Look at me, noticing stuff that a trained Sentinel doesn’t notice.”

  “I’m not really a Sentinel anymore,” Luke reminded him.

  “Yeah, and I’m really not lying here thinking about getting that bag of weed and smoking it.”

  I smiled tiredly.

  “You’re always going to be a Sentinel, no matter what you say,” Deacon continued. “Anyway, see the group of pures over there?”

  Opening my eyes, I looked over to where Deacon was pointing with his bare feet. There were five of them. All dudes. Two of them were fooling around with the Frisbee disc of doom.

  “What about them?” Colin asked, closing his book.

  Deacon rolled onto his side and shifted down so his cheek was resting on Luke’s thigh. “They’re up to something. They keep whispering and going over to the red-headed dude.” The redheaded dude was throwing the disc to the blond dude on the other side of the quad. “I’ve been watching them. Each time they throw that damn thing, they’re getting closer and closer to the halfs over there sitting with their backs to them.”

  Colin set his book aside and leaned forward, bending one leg. “Good catch, Deacon.”

  “Like I said, I’m observant.”

  Luke snorted.

  Shutting my eyes again, I increased the pressure on my temples. I had a bad feeling about the disc of doom.

  “Oh crap,” muttered Colin. “I hope I don’t get threatened again.”

  I started to frown, but my lips froze as I felt the shiver of awareness dance down my spine. A new sensation I’d felt several times in the recent days, but only once before, and that was when Seth had been nearby, waiting to speak with Solos after training.

  And Colin’s reaction also made sense if it was Seth. Threatening the guy appeared to be a rather favorite pastime of Seth’s, and that was the only pastime I was aware of. I’m sure he had more fun ones, kinds I didn’t want to think about.

  And that made the ache in my temples increase.

  My heart started pounding as I kept my gaze focused on the grass between my legs. Wasn’t like Seth was actually going to come over here. He was avoiding me just as hardcore as I was avoiding him.

  “Are you okay?”

  Air in my lungs halted at the sound of Seth’s voice. Three weeks since the last time I’d really heard him speak. Three. Long. Weeks. I hadn’t forgotten his voice, but my memories did no justice. The slight accent was still there, hinting at some exotic background.

  “Josie?” he asked.

  “She’s gone mute,” Deacon quipped, and I heard him sit up. “Luke didn’t tell you that in your daily check-ins with him?”

  Oh my God.

  Heart pounding, I slowly lifted my head and my chest clenched when our gazes locked. Muscles tensed in my legs and the fight or flight response kicked in. I wanted to get up and run off. Weak, so very weak, but I’d been doing everything in my power to avoid Seth since the day in the garden.

  Seeing him hurt.

  Having him standing in front of me just killed me.

  God, Seth was beautiful, so beautiful. Looking at him now, with the slightly arched brows a darker blond than the unruly strands atop his head, and the full lips, I had to wonder if I’d been smoking meth thinking he and I actually made sense. That he’d been that seriously wrapped up in me. My personality was only going to carry me so far.

  Geez. Listen to me. I needed some daily affirmations or something.

  The right eyebrow rose further.

  Speaking would be smart. “Headache.”

  He blinked. “Headache?”

  Since I’d spoken one word, proving I was not in fact suddenly struck mute, I nodded.

  Looking over at Luke, Seth’s brows furrowed together. “You haven’t mentioned she’d been having headaches.”

  I frowned and found my voice. “Why would he? Not like you’d care anyway.”

  Seth’s gaze shot back to mine and his eyes narrowed. Maybe no one else had heard that? “I care,” he stated, the two words punctuated clearly.

  Awkward silence descended around us as Seth and I stared at each other. How weird would it be if I jumped up and threw my arms around him, clinging to him like a needy octopus? That would be weird. And pathetic. What about jumping up and punching him in the nuts? Also weird. And violent.

  Colin stood slowly, drawing Seth’s attention as he brushed off the back of his jeans. “You again,” Seth stated.

  “Yep,” Colin replied without looking up. “Me again.”

  “Yay,” murmured Seth.

  I sighed. “Did you need something?”

  Seth’s attention shifted back to me. “Do I need something to walk over here?”

  My fingers curled inward. “Yeah, I think you do.”

  “I missed them together,” Deacon said, bending his knees and resting his arms on them. “They’re so warm and fuzzy, don’t you think? So cute.”

  Seth ignored them. “I didn’t realize I needed a reason to say hello to my friends.”

  “You have friends?” I shot back, and then sort of felt like a bitch immediately afterward.

  His eyes narrowed. “Friends as real as yours.”

  The very personal dig stung as I shot to my feet with a quickness that surprised us both.

  “You’re an ass.” I bent over, picking up my borrowed book. Seth was quick, snatching it out of my hands. “Hey!”

  Stepping back, he turned it over in his hands and his brows flew up. “Really? Myth and History 101? Are you reading this for fun?”

  “So what if I am?” I made a grab for the book, but he