Chapter 20
Atalanta
I spend the next couple of days recovering.
Or that’s what I’m told I’m doing when I’m stuffed in a room, hooked up to an IV, and checked in on every fifteen minutes like clockwork.
One of the people checking on me is even a doctor, so I guess that holds up.
The rest are a combination of Athena’s and Hades’s people, ensuring that I’m not here in some elaborate double-triple-I’ve-lost-count cross.
As if I have the energy for that shit. Or the desire.
I don’t think the search for Circe’s people is going well.
Everything has been too quiet. I’m almost pathetically grateful when Achilles walks into the room with his usual rolling swagger.
He’s a large man with golden skin, dark hair and beard, and an arrogance that has a tendency to fill a room to the point of suffocation. For all that, I like the bastard.
He’s not smiling as he pulls a chair over to the side of my bed and straddles it. “This is some shit.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
He gives me a severe look, his dark eyes missing their normal charismatic shine. “You can do that with other people. Don’t do it with me.”
That startles a laugh out of me. “We’re not friends, Achilles.
We never were.” Not with him coming up under Athena and me under Artemis.
It was months after the Ares tournament—and everything that came as a result—when I switched from Artemis to Athena, so we never actually worked together.
I liked what I saw of him in the tournament.
He’s bold and arrogant, but he can back it up with skill. Even so, I don’t know him.
“You’re right. We’re not friends. Maybe we could have been under different circumstances.”
“Probably.” This conversation is awkward and weird, and I don’t like that I’m sitting down for it. There’s no room to move if he attacks. “Are you here to snip off a loose end?”
He laughs, the bastard. “I might have been trusted by Athena at one point, but I’m sure as fuck not now. No, if she decides to remove the threat you represent, she’ll probably do it herself. And sending me to murder an injured woman in bed isn’t exactly Ares’s style.”
He has a point. “Then why are you here?”
Achilles sighs, as if I didn’t already anticipate this being bad news.
“You can’t stay in the lower city. No one is interested in tossing you in a dungeon—even though Hades keeps insisting he doesn’t actually have a dungeon—and we can’t spare the manpower to set a guard on you.
It wouldn’t work anyway. I’ve seen what you’re capable of, which means it would have to be me or Patroclus watching you, and we can’t spare either of us right now. Ares needs us.”
I should have seen this coming. I suppose I did, but I wasn’t thinking clearly after waking up to discover Hecate’s betrayal.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t actually have a romantic claim on her; knowing she fucked the woman who caused all this pain, the woman who stabbed me, hurts.
It would hurt even if I only saw her as a friend, and it hurts all the more for me being in love with her.
Knowing she loves me back only makes the pain spike deeper, hotter.
Achilles keeps going, watching me carefully as if he expects me to burst into violence. “This is shitty. I don’t like repaying loyalty with what is essentially exile.”
That draws a bitter laugh from me. “I’m not loyal, Achilles. That’s the whole point of this. I don’t kneel before the Thirteen. I think they should be abolished.”
“Maybe you’re right.” He shrugs when my jaw drops.
“What? I listen when Patroclus talks, and he’s had his doubts about the system for a while, though he put them aside for me—and for Helen.
Getting to see how the sausage is made?” He looks away.
“When Helen became Ares, we got access to a number of files about past members of the Thirteen. It’s not as extensive as what Apollo and Athena must have, but it’s damning enough on its own. ”
I have a moment where I almost ask for more details, but I already know what he’ll tell me, don’t I? Cheating, stealing, abuse, assault, murder—the Thirteen have done it all, and those are the stories I do know. I imagine the things they’ve covered up are even worse. “If you understand—”
“I will back Helen until the day she dies or steps down.” There’s no give in his tone, all the softness gone from his face.
“This whole thing is fucked, and while I’m sure as shit aware of the role you’ve played, you haven’t killed anyone unsanctioned, and I don’t like the idea of tossing you to the wolves. Helen and Patroclus agree.”
I blink. “But why? They have no reason to help me. None of you do.”
“We competed together. You helped Helen when you didn’t have to.
If you hadn’t allied with her to get through the first trial, maybe things would have turned out differently and the three of us wouldn’t have ended up together.
” He shrugs again. “The why doesn’t matter.
We’re wasting time. I’m your escort back to the upper city.
Take this.” He presses something into my hand.
I look down and frown. It’s a key. “What is this?”
“You fought Circe. She’s smart enough to have figured out who you are—if she didn’t already know—and she’ll be watching your place to snatch you up if you are fool enough to try to go home.”
“I don’t understand,” I say slowly. My brain feels like it’s turned to taffy.
I shake my head sharply. “It’s a nice thought, but I don’t see how offering me a place to stay helps.
She’ll have people watching all of the residences of the Thirteen and legacy families.
Going to your place is as dangerous as going to mine. ”
“I know.” He grins suddenly. “It’s not my place. It belongs to a friend, but she won’t be using it. She got the fuck out of Olympus the day after the barrier fell. She’s also not a legacy family, so no reason for anyone to pay attention to her place.”
A…friend. Athena’s intelligence on the Ares trio mentioned they were in an open relationship, but they’ve been very careful to keep it out of MuseWatch. “Is she one of your lovers?”
Achilles laughs. “A friend who I also fuck on occasion, yeah. Are you done asking questions? We need to leave.”
“Almost.” I heft myself off the bed. As I stand, there isn’t even a hint of dizziness.
Good. I’m still going to be off while I heal, and I’ll have to be careful not to tear my stitches, but this is the best-case scenario after being stabbed.
“You might as well toss me in the River Styx as escort me to one of the bridges. There’s a crowd on the Juniper Bridge, and they were rapidly whipping themselves into a mob when I came through before.
They busted up my windshield. I’m sure that hasn’t calmed down in the last few days. ”
“It’s gotten worse,” he says simply. “There’s also one on the Cypress Bridge. It’s a mess.” He moves to the door and pulls it open. “That’s why we’re not taking a bridge.”
My stomach drops out. “Achilles…”
But he’s already on the move, exiting the room in long strides and leaving me to scramble after him.
We walk downstairs to the garage. Within a few minutes, we’re in an SUV and driving toward the river.
He ignores every attempt I make to get more details about the plan, and the asshole is clearly enjoying my agitation.
That agitation reaches its peak when he pulls into a dirt parking lot down by the bank and I follow him to a small building that houses—
“Absolutely not.” The boat is barely large enough for three people with a single motor. That’s not the problem, though. The barrier is.
“It’s this or the crowd of angry people.”
I have to close my eyes and count to ten to keep from punching him in his perfect face.
“A boat is not going to be able to cross the barrier any more than a car can. You want me to swim in the River Styx in late October with a stab wound? Might as well put a bullet in my brain right now. At least it will be a fast death.”
“So dramatic.” His dark-brown eyes are alight with amusement.
“I’m not tossing you in the river, Atalanta.
I’m taking you to the underside of Cypress Bridge.
There’s a walkway under there. It’s only for maintenance, and it’s not like crossing the river has been a regular occurrence even before the barrier solidified, so no one should know about it to watch for you.
Follow it to the other side of the river and you’ll find a path up.
It’s a little tricky, but nothing you can’t handle. ”
I’m not sure I believe him, and it’s a testament to just what a dick he is that he didn’t tell me the plan before letting me jump to conclusions, but I don’t have any other options.
I help him launch the boat and climb in. I wasn’t given a coat after they bandaged me up again, and the wind feels like shards of ice slicing into me. I huddle in an effort to escape it. “You know, this season always makes me wish I lived somewhere warm all year round. Fuck the cold.”
“I find it invigorating.” He seems like it, too, his cheeks pinked in the cold, his eyes bright. “Keeps me sharp.”
“If you say so.”
He cuts through the water, the motor damn near silent. It’s hard to gauge the time of day with the cloud cover, but I think it’s nearing dark. There’s no one around to see us as we veer up the river toward Cypress Bridge.
Despite my doubts, there actually is a small, grated platform with a ladder leading up to a walkway that runs the length of the bridge. It’s rusted and looks less than sturdy, but it’s better than the alternative.
Achilles shrugs out of his coat and tosses it to me. “You won’t find a stash of weapons in Briseis’s place, but it should be safe enough.” He rattles off an address on the outskirts of the upper warehouse district. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I pull the coat on, the leftover warmth from his body already beating back the worst of the chill. The insulation will do the rest. I step carefully onto the platform and pause. “Achilles?”
“Yeah?” His tone is a study in casual.
Suspicion takes root. I frown down at him. “How much trouble are you going to be in for helping me?”
“Hopefully none at all.” He grins. “But if there is trouble, we’re more than capable of handling it.”
The surge of warmth in my chest staggers me. I don’t know these people, not really, but I like what I do know of them. I just hadn’t realized they felt the same way. “Hades is going to be furious.”
“Probably.” He almost sounds like he relishes the incoming argument. “Like I said, we can handle it.”
“Thank you. To all three of you.”
“Thank us by staying alive.” He pushes the boat back from the platform. “Good luck, Atalanta.”
I watch as he turns and heads back downstream, disappearing in short order around the curve of the river.
After so many years of functioning on my own, with only Hecate as relief from the loneliness, it’s odd to discover there are actually people I care about in this city beyond her.
People who seem to care about me, too. It won’t matter in the long run; it changes nothing.
The realization feels monumental all the same.
“Time to move,” I mutter. I turn to the ladder, blow on my hands to put some feeling back in my fingertips, and begin to climb.