Chapter 26
Circe
My vision whites out the moment I hit the water. It’s cold, ice injected directly into my veins, frozen blocks of muscle and bones weighing me down even more than my foolishly dramatic dress. By the time I can see again, the surface is gone. Darkness reigns.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to give in.
To just…open my mouth and let the water take me.
This time, for good. I’ve heard drowning is the most peaceful way to die a violent death.
My nightmares would disagree with that statement, but this cold darkness is still preferable to what would have happened to me on the bridge.
My bones shattered as I was trampled to death.
My limbs torn, my face bludgeoned. A thousand other ways to go from being a person to simply a body.
Antigone. Did she get out? Did the others?
If I die now, it will all be for nothing.
All the patience and plotting and sacrifice.
The look of betrayal on Hecate’s face, time and time again, as I fail to become the better person she believes I’m capable of being.
The knife sliding into Atalanta’s shoulder, the blood and sweat and tears that have been shed by far too many.
If I die now, Zeus wins.
The last thought slams me back into my abused body. I clamp my jaw shut and force my limbs into motion, struggling through the racing water toward the faint light overhead.
I surface to the roaring of the river. I’m near the middle, and I’m so damned cold I can barely tread water as the river whisks me toward the sea.
My lungs feel like blocks in my chest, my dress tangling around my frantically kicking feet.
The river is moving too quickly. I’m going to drown.
There’s no way out of this, no path forward.
I catch a glimpse of figures downstream on the bank to the right of me, but the current spins me around and slams me into a rock before I can see more.
This time, when I go under, I stay under.
The dress is too damned heavy, the water too cold, my body too tired.
My thoughts become sluggish. Swim. Fight.
Swim. Air. My limbs aren’t obeying, though.
Instead of climbing back to the surface, I sink down into the darkness, the light diminishing above me in a way that has little to do with depth and everything to do with the spots blooming behind my eyes.
I need air. If I could move past the horrific cold permeating every bit of me, I would have drowned by now.
Movement in the shadows, a figure cutting toward me with powerful strokes.
A dream. A nightmare. A hallucination of my oxygen-deprived brain.
It’s the only explanation for seeing Hecate here, drowning right beside me.
Except she’s not drowning. She wraps her arms around me, and then we’re rising, rising, rising.
The first slap of air against my face feels like a blade.
Even as what’s left of the logical part of me demands I hold perfectly still and concentrate on keeping my face above water, my hind brain is screaming I’ll lose access to the air if I don’t fight.
I tense, hands finding the arm banded across my chest, fingers digging in.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Hecate gasps. “We’re probably going to fucking die even without you struggling, but probably isn’t a guarantee.”
My frozen lips can’t form words. I don’t know how she can. It’s everything I’m capable of in this moment to kick my feet in an attempt to keep us moving, to be a help instead of the stone dragging us both down.
It takes forever. It takes a single second.
I can barely feel my hands and feet as Hecate suddenly releases me and I sink again. My ass hits rocks; we’re in the shallows. All I have to do is sit up and I can keep breathing. I just need to…
Different arms, both familiar and not, gather me up and up and up. I see Atalanta’s face twisted into a fearsome scowl, and then everything goes dark.
***
Hecate
“We have to move.” My teeth won’t stop chattering as I grab my boots and the case that contains my rifle.
The moment we realized what way the wind was blowing, we booked it off the roof in an attempt to intervene.
Too slow and too fucking late. I reached the outer edge of the crowd just as Demeter was killed, watched in horror as Antigone shoved Circe off the fucking bridge before the crowd surged and she went down in a tangle of violence.
I’ve never run so fast in my life. Sheer luck put us close enough to the shore to intercept her, that she chose a yellow dress this morning, which we could see at a distance even when she was underwater.
That same dress is a beacon for the mob I can hear howling in the distance. “Atalanta.”
“Hecate, are you sure?” She looks at me, dark-brown eyes sober. “This could end here and now if we just leave her.”
It’s nearly impossible to think with the cold burrowing down to my bones.
“It’s too late. Circe made sure of that.
Demeter, Zeus, Minos, Hades. They’ve all made sure of that.
Us, too.” I look down at Circe’s unconscious form.
Her lips have gone blue. “I can’t let her die if there’s a chance to save her. Can you?”
“I guess not.” She awkwardly gathers up the skirt of Circe’s dress.
It’s drenched and weighs an absolute ton, which can’t be good for her shoulder, but one harsh look tells me I had better not offer to carry the unconscious woman.
“If we don’t get both of you out of your wet clothes, saving her from drowning won’t matter because hypothermia will take you out. ”
“You say the sweetest things.” Can someone chip their teeth from shivering too hard? Distantly, I’m aware it’s a good thing to be shivering violently. It’s when the shivering stops that you’re in serious trouble. Circe isn’t moving at all. “Hurry.”
“Yeah, I know.”
We scramble up the steep incline to the street.
I can’t tell what direction the mob is moving—if it’s moving at all.
It will, though. It’s only a matter of time.
Once a crowd turns into a riot, it will swallow everyone in its path until it dies down.
Which can last days if the anger burns hot enough.
After seeing Demeter gunned down, I’d say their rage is blistering.
I force myself to take lead as we stagger down the street. I have safe places scattered all across the upper city, but damned if I can think straight to figure out where we are and which is the closest one.
It’s Atalanta who picks up her pace and turns down the second street. By the time we move three blocks, my shivering isn’t nearly as violent as it was when I hauled myself out of the river. In fact, I don’t feel much cold at all. Uh-oh. That’s really bad. “Not much time.”
“I know,” she bites out. Atalanta checks the block number and takes another left.
I catch sight of a familiar door and nearly sob with relief. “How do you know about this place?”
“I know about a lot of your places.” She shifts Circe easily to her left arm and punches in my code without hesitation.
And then we’re inside and dragging ourselves up a set of narrow stairs to an equally narrow hallway.
Another code in the door at the end and we’re inside an apartment I bought under a false name a few years back.
I get to work yanking my soaking clothes off. Or trying. My shirt and bra are easy enough, but the button on my pants defies my fumbling attempts to conquer it. “Fuck.”
And then Atalanta is there, nudging my numb hands out of the way and wrestling me out of my pants. The awfulness of the moment makes me laugh. “This isn’t how I wanted to get naked with you.”
“Hecate, I love you, but shut up and hold still.” She tosses the wet clothes away. “Blankets?”
“Closet.”
She rushes to the only closet in the tiny space and yanks out four of them.
“Of course you have space blankets.” But she says it with relief instead of irritation.
“Here.” She wraps one around my lower body and all but shoves me down onto the couch, quickly wrapping a second around my shoulders. “Don’t move.”
I pull my legs up and tuck them against my chest as best I’m able to conserve what little heat my body is producing at this point.
This is going to suck. The awful cold is almost enough to distract me from Atalanta cutting Circe out of her pretty dress.
Her pale skin is almost blue, and she’s still unconscious. “If you—”
“I’ve got it.” She unfolds the two other blankets on the couch next to me and carries Circe over to lay her on them and then wrap them around her.
My body clenches in a shiver that feels like every one of my bones are breaking. “F-f-f-fuck.”
Atalanta drags off her wet shirt and tosses it in the growing pile of discarded clothing. “Going to get worse before it gets better.” She crouches next to us and reaches into my blanket to tug my foot free.
I jerk it back. “C-C-Circe.” She’s in more danger than I am. I’m shivering violently, which is a bitch to experience but means I’m moving in the right way temperature-wise. Circe, on the other hand, hasn’t woken up.
“Damn you,” she mutters, but she tucks me back into my bright silver blanket, pauses to ensure it’s secure around me, and then moves to Circe.
Atalanta systematically checks Circe’s fingers and toes. “She’s a lucky bitch. I don’t think she’ll lose any of these. Assuming she survives.”
I try to give her a sharp look, but I’m having a hard time focusing on anything other than not biting off my tongue. I don’t dare risk talking, but Atalanta doesn’t need my input.
“Sorry. I’m being an asshole. You scared the shit out of me when you dove in after her.” She carefully smooths Circe’s hair back and ensures it’s outside the blanket. “It scared me when she went over, too. I don’t like how much it scared me.”
Circe gives a low moan and her eyes fly open. She tries to lurch forward, but Atalanta plants a hand on her chest, easily keeping her in place. Her expression goes soft in a way I’ve only seen a handful of times. “You’re safe. Breathe.”
Circe gasps in a harsh inhale and then another. Then she begins to shake. Atalanta waits until she’s certain Circe won’t try to move and then rises. “You have tea in this place?”
I nod, or maybe I just jerk my head in a shudder. She doesn’t need any further instruction. She moves around the cramped kitchen, quickly finding some old mugs and washing them while the kettle heats.
Circe slumps down against me, our blankets crinkling against each other. “You s-s-saved me,” she says in between stuttering shivers. “Why?”
I don’t have an answer to that. The smart call would have been to let the river take her, let it end what the ocean began all those years ago. I couldn’t let her go, not then and not now. It’s an intrinsic flaw I don’t think I’ll ever exorcise.
Right now, I can admit to myself that I don’t want to.