I’ve never felt more alone.
I shiver and pull my hood up. The wind is vicious up here, and I’m just superstitious enough to see it as a sign of things to come. Demeter is certain she can turn the tide in her favor. If anyone can do it, she can, but I’m so fucking afraid we’re underestimating Circe. Again.
I begin to set up my rifle. It feels like busywork, like a fool’s errand. I already know I won’t shoot Circe. If I were capable of killing her, things would be so much simpler, but it would be like putting a bullet into my own heart, no matter how rotted and poisonous.
My phone buzzes gently against my hip, and I put my earbuds in and go back to my rifle. “Yeah?”
“Hey.”
I stop short. “Atalanta.”
“Where are you?” She sounds tired and…guilty. We may not have spent as much time together as I’d like over the last decade, but I’ve spent considerable time attuning myself to her moods, steady as they are, and this has alarm bells ringing. Especially considering how our last call ended.
I still, suspicion blooming. “Tell me you didn’t.”
Instead of doing that, she laughs bitterly. “What’s good for thegoose is good for the gander and all that.”
It’s all but confirmation that she did, in fact, sleep with Circe. When? How? I clamp my jaw shut to keep from shouting the questions and close my eyes. Does it matter? That’s the true question. She’s right; I don’t have a pedestal to stand on when it comes to falling into bed with Circe. Even knowing that, jealousy makes me sick to my stomach. “This is a tangled fucking situation.”
“You can say that again.” She sighs. “I didn’t call to be an asshole, no matter what you think. I need to see you. This whole thing is off the rails.”
“Yeah, I know.” I open my eyes and screw the suppressor onto my rifle. “Do you know what she’s planning?”
“No.”
I don’t know if that’s a check in the positive column or the negative. Circe wasn’t whispering secrets to her in bed, but then Circe has never been the secret-sharing type. Gods, I can’t focus on this now. There’s movement in the crowd, people parting to make way for two columns of soldiers walking down the middle of the street. “Stay away from Cypress Bridge today.”
“It’s too late. I’m here.” Now that she mentions it, I can hear the crowd in the background on her side of the line. Damn it.
I scan the faces of the people on the road, but there’s no chance of picking out anyone in the crowd…except Circe and Demeter. The former is resplendent in a long-sleeved gown that hugs her body and swishes about her feet with every step. The latter is in another one of her wrap dresses, this one a subdued gray with roses under an open peacoat. Behind them, a person walks with a bag over their head. Artemis.
No Atalanta, though. I didn’t really think she’d suddenly switch sides, but I also didn’t think she’d fuck Circe. I don’t have a damned leg to stand on when it comes to jealousy, but that sort of emotion is hardly logical. “Where are you?”
“Where areyou?” She curses. “We don’t have time to fuck around, Hecate. Tell me and I’ll come to you.”
I have to close my eyes again. She never calls me by that name. Even in frustration, it sounds sweet in her low tone. “I’m on top of the Griffin Building.”
“Okay.” She exhales slowly. “Okay, good. I can be there in ten. Less. I’m coming.”
I don’t tell her that it might damn well be over by then. It won’t. We both know it. “I’ll be here.” I hang up before I can say anything else and settle my rifle on the half wall on the edge of the roof. I scan the crowd and then focus on Circe.
She moves as if she’s not of this world, seeming to float above the ground, a serene smile on her face as she spares a word or a touch for the people on either side of her. Does she notice how they look to Demeter just as often as they look to her? Knowing Circe, she’s clocked it.
For her part, Demeter displays no evidence of strain. She’s spent decades perfecting her public persona, and that shows now more than ever. She’s the earth mother, here to visit her people on the ground, to deliver justice to those who have hurt them.
I move back to Circe, my finger brushing the trigger. I’ve been so sure that it’s too late for her death to stop things from spiraling out of control. Now, I’m wondering if I clung to the belief because it meant I wouldn’t have to feel guilty for not being able to take this final step.
No matter what happens today, it’s a tipping point. We just have to survive what comes next so someone is left to pick up the pieces and put Olympus back together again. No matter what happens, we aren’t going back.
Circe’s group stops just short of the bridge and moves to clear a rough circle around her, Demeter, and the captive Artemis. A real fucking bummer, there. Artemis has been a pain in my ass since I became Hermes, and she would have happily allowed Atalanta to die, so it’s not like I’m going to cry if Circe puts a bullet between her eyes. But doing thishereis a clear message in multiple ways. It’s designed to rile the crowd further, for that destruction to roll out in waves as the result of a single death.
I hope Demeter knows what she’s doing. We’re balanced on a knife’s edge, and one wrong move can send us into chaos we might never recover from. “Damn you, Circe. What the fuck are you doing?”
I hear Atalanta well before she arrives at my side, her steady stride one I know as well as my own heartbeat. She crouches down next to me. “We can’t let her do this.”
“Well, you could have snapped her neck while she was eating you out, so I don’t want to hear it.” The snarl in my voice surprises me as much as the words.
“Hecate.” I jerk back from the rifle and twist to find Atalanta looking at me with disappointment in her warm brown eyes. “You’re above that kind of bullshit and you know it. We both had a chance to end this. Neither one of us did. Yeah, I have less of an excuse than you do, but there’s no point in fighting about it.”
