Chapter 33
Hecate
Leaving Olympus for the last time feels a little like leaving part of my heart behind me…
and like setting down a massive burden I’ve been carrying for far too long.
I have the utmost confidence the new delegates will represent the people’s interests.
The future is wide open with possibilities and hope.
Their story is no longer mine. I’ve done what I set out to do all those years ago. The Thirteen are gone, scattered to the world with their loved ones. The legacy families followed, just like we’d hoped.
Atalanta slips her hand into mine as our ship cuts through the waves, following the shoreline south.
There’s a plane waiting to take us to Circe.
I’m still not entirely sure what she’s been up to over the last few months.
We talked regularly, but all I know is that she’s come alive in the last week or so, her grief over Olympus changing into excitement.
She’s got a new plan. I can’t wait to hear it.
Fourteen hours of tedious travel later, we’re standing in front of a charming brick house on a quiet street in a normal city. It’s so…mundane. I check my phone for the third time, but the address matches the golden numbers running vertically down the front porch beam. “This is it?”
“Huh.” Atalanta crosses her arms over her chest. “I didn’t think this was Circe’s vibe. She’s like you—surrounds herself with nice shit.”
“Atalanta, this is a nice house.”
She shoots me a look. “Yes, it is. Nice and cozy and just needs a white picket fence to finish the pretty picture. It’s also normal, and that woman is not normal.” She straightens a little. “Maybe it has a sex dungeon.”
The image of Atalanta in a sex dungeon is almost enough to distract me from the very real need to walk up and knock. Oh well. I can do this. I didn’t participate in the downfall of an entire city-state just to be too cowardly to ring my no-longer-ex-girlfriend’s doorbell.
Even as I try to talk myself into taking that first step, the door opens and Circe leans against the frame, looking good enough to eat in a pair of leggings and a loose tank top under a silly apron. “Are you coming in? The neighbors are going to start to gossip if you stand outside for too long.”
“Can’t have that,” Atalanta murmurs. She touches the small of my back, nudging me into motion.
Inside is just as charming as the outside. It looks like a grandma lives here, and smells absolutely divine with some kind of cookies. It’s very normal and I don’t know what to think. We follow Circe into the kitchen, where she pulls a sheet of cookies out of the oven. They’re perfect.
I blink. “I didn’t know you could bake.”
“It’s been months, love. After I picked up the pieces for my surviving people, I needed a hobby.” She makes a face at the cookies. “I despise being bad at things, but I despise quitting even more.”
“So, naturally, you had to conquer the cookies,” Atalanta murmurs. She laughs. “Gods, I think I actually missed you.”
Circe’s irritation at the cookies melts away, leaving her vulnerable and hopeful. “I missed you, too.” She turns those intoxicating green eyes on me. “Both of you.”
“It’s been really hard not seeing you.” I manage a smile. I’m happy. Truly. It’s just the blank future spreading out before me that is intimidating. “I guess our new lives start now.”
Circe is still watching me closely. “This is what we’d always talked about.
A cozy house in a nice neighborhood.” She chuckles.
“It took me some time to win over the neighbors, but the cookies help. Ralph next door and I trade off shoveling the sidewalk when it snows. He’s a grumpy old asshole, but he’s got good stories. ”
She’s right. This is exactly what we talked about—what we dreamed about—when we were young. That dream is why I bought and remodeled the house in the upper city, a tribute to a future burned as a sacrifice on the altar of the mission.
The mission is gone now, and I feel strange in my skin, strange in this place. It’s everything I ever wanted—more than I ever could have wanted because in no scenario could I have dreamed having both Atalanta and Circe looking at me with love in their eyes.
And, ungrateful wretch that I am, I can’t help thinking, Is this it?
I turn and move through the doorway into the living room.
The matching couch and love seat set are new enough to still hold their shape perfectly, and the rug on the floor is a muddled gray pattern.
It looks like a thousand other living rooms in a thousand other homes. Except for one key difference. “Circe?”
“Yes, love?” She sounds so sweet and innocent. The little liar.
I toe the rug back a little. The stain I had barely glimpsed extends well under the rug. “Why is there blood on your nice hardwood floors?”
She curses. “Damn it.”
I turn back to find Atalanta glaring at her. “What did you do? Whose blood is that?”
“Would you believe me if I said it was here when I moved in?” We both shake our heads and Circe waves that away. “Fine, fine. Look, the housing market is truly outrageous, even if you have money. It’s just a bad investment to buy at these prices unless the house is practically unlivable.”
“So you killed the owner?” Atalanta shouts.
Circe props her hands on her hips. “That would be shortsighted in the extreme.” When she realizes neither of is buying this innocent act, she sighs dramatically. “The city had a bit of a Russian mob problem when my people and I moved here. Now it doesn’t.”
I blink. “Circe.”
“Don’t say my name in that tone. I did a good thing by any definition of the word.”
“Pretty sure murder isn’t under the definition of ‘good thing.’” Atalanta’s exasperation comes through in every word. “And the Russian mob? We just got through dealing with the Thirteen and you want to give us a legion of enemies?”
“A few points of order. One.” Circe holds up a finger.
“I can be subtle when the situation calls for it. I hardly marched down the street and compelled them into a duel. They died in accidents. It’s tragic, really, but I did get a good deal on the house on account of the bloodstain no one could get out. ”
“Circe, please.”
“Two.” She continues blithely on. “I did try to settle into a civilian life but…” She presses her lips together, that vulnerability creeping through again. “I was so bored.”
My shoulders slump. “Damn.”
Atalanta shakes her head. “Yeah. Damn.” She walks over and slings an arm around Circe’s shoulders. “Can’t say we didn’t feel the same, wading through all the paperwork and meetings to get a new government up and running. Tedious doesn’t begin to cover it.”
Circe bites her bottom lip, but she can’t quite cover up her smirk. “In that case…I had an idea.”
Atalanta groans. “I know I’m going to regret asking this but what is your idea?”
I find myself holding my breath as Circe leans against Atalanta. The picture they make has my heart squeezing in my chest, a feeling that’s both good and almost painful. We’re here. We survived.
“We could attack that bloodstain with some impressive chemical warfare and settle into this house. Scandalize poor Ralph with our unconventional lifestyle. He’s a nice guy… I’m sure he’d still switch off shoveling the sidewalk.”
A normal life. One where we might be happy, or we might go out of our minds with boredom and start inventing trouble. “Or?”
“Or…” Circe grins impishly, though the smile fades almost immediately to seriousness.
“The rest of the world isn’t perfect. They might not have a Thirteen officially, but there are a number of pasty white billionaires who are actively making everything worse—from living conditions to climate change. ”
“Uh-huh,” Atalanta says slowly. “And you’re suggesting we…”
“Kill them.”
I’m already shaking my head. “We are not going around assassinating people.”
“Even if they deserve it? Even if they’re responsible for so much death?” She’s playing now, teasing us. “Besides, we wouldn’t have to kill them all. If word gets out that someone is offing billionaires, eventually the remaining ones will get scared enough to give away their money.”
“Now I know you’re fucking with us.” Atalanta shakes her head. “There’s no way that happens.”
“Maybe not.” She shrugs, still grinning. “I guess then we really do kill them all.”
I laugh, the sound releasing something that had gotten tight and cramped inside me. “We’re not murdering people like that. Their money would just go to whoever is next in line, and nothing would change.”
Circe rolls her eyes theatrically. “Fine, then I suppose we could go with plan B.”
“I hate to even ask this.” Atalanta ruffles her hair. For all her protests, she’s clearly delighted by this turn of events. “What is plan B?”
“We systematically take everything they own and love, leaving them broken men.”
“The scope of what you’re talking about is years in the making.
Even if we somehow managed to drain their accounts, half their money isn’t even money.
It’s assets and rich people debt and other shit.
” When we both look askance at Atalanta, she shrugs.
“What? At least two of them were active trading partners with Olympus before the barrier fell, and an additional four are now in agreements with the new government. I looked into them.” She shakes her head. “Nasty business there.”
“I saw the reports,” I murmur. There were another dozen who had sought trade agreements, but the new delegates voted against working with them because of reports of poor working conditions for their employees and cutting corners in their product. I focus on Atalanta. “You’re considering this.”
“So are you.” She grins. “Come on, Hecate. It will be fun.”
“Yeah, Hecate.” Circe leans her head against Atalanta’s shoulder. “It will be fun.” She gives me innocent eyes. “Unless you want to settle down and be little wives in our suburban neighborhood. Have a few kids, join the PTO, bake cookies.”
I can’t stop the shudder that goes through me.
I’m not opposed to kids…maybe. But that life?
It’s one I thought I wanted, a peaceful existence as reward for all the heartache I—we—endured over the years.
Instead, even being in this house makes it feel like the walls are closing in.
No wonder Circe found the local organized-crime unit and took them out. She was bored.
Judging from the hopeful expression on Atalanta’s face, she wasn’t looking forward to this docile life any more than I was. It’s funny that we didn’t talk about it but were feeling the same. All three of us.
Everything goes light and giddy as I dramatically fling my hand out. “I suppose, since you’re both dead set on twisting my arm, that we could go ruin some rich white men’s lives. As a treat after Olympus.”
“We all deserve a little treat,” Atalanta manages to say with a straight face.
“Thank fuck.” Circe bounces on her toes and presses a kiss to Atalanta’s cheek and then ducks out from under her arm to wrestle off the apron.
“I perfected cookies the first week and I’ve just been doing variations since then.
The neighbors are happy to eat them, but I’m so fucking tired of the smell of vanilla.
If you wanted to stay here, I’d end up opening a damned bakery like an absolute cliché. ”
“Oh no. Not that.”
She snags Atalanta’s hand as she passes, towing her to me and then pulling me down for a kiss. “No need to unpack. My bags are in the hall closet. I have a plane booked.”
I raise my brows. “You were sure of us.”
“Of course I was.” She captures my hand as well, tugging us behind her as she walks backward through the living room. Circe looks happy, lighter than I’ve ever seen her. Hopeful. “Let’s go hunt some billionaires for sport.”
“Circe.”
“Fine, fine, we’ll just ruin their lives. Practically the same thing.” She pulls us to her, and we go happily. I wrap my arms around Circe and Atalanta, feeling whole for the first time in…ever. We have a task before us, nearly overwhelming in scope and ambition, and we have each other.
“I love you both so damned much.” I kiss Atalanta and then Circe. “So, so much.” I grin. “Let’s do this.”
This is what happily-ever-afters are made of.