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I give him a skeptical look. “They should have been straight with us instead of making us go through all that questioning.”
“Did they ask you that strange Apollo question?” Briar asks softly.
“Yeah,” Marcus says. “About someone who thought he could beat Apollo?”
“Rocky Balboa, obvi,” Pax says.
“Jesus fuck, man.” Marcus glares at him. “You’re a textbook dumb blond.”
“The Greek god Apollo? What does that have to do with anything here?” Olin says.
Briar shrugs and looks at me. “Did they ask you about it?”
“Yeah.” I study Olin’s expression. “You really don’t know why they asked? Or are you playing dumb?”
“I have no clue. They didn’t ask me about it. I had to go through a ton of questioning, too. They wanted every detail I could give them from the time I left here until I got back.”
“So your assignment was to get yourself sent to the island to gather intel?”
He nods. “I haven’t hidden anything from you guys since you found out I was working undercover. I told them I want to be sent wherever you guys are if I can.”
The savory scent of bacon makes us all turn. Several people just walked into the room with large platters of appetizers. My gaze stops on Evander, who’s sitting with the man I think is his brother and another man at a table near the door. He looks better than he did when we got here.
“It’s Marsyas,” I say. “He’s the one who thought he could beat Apollo, but I didn’t tell them when they asked me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Pax asks.
I give him a stern look. “Marsyas was a satyr who challenged Apollo to a musical contest. He lost and was flayed alive.”
“You just know that?”
“It’s familiar now that you mention it,” Marcus says.
“Bullshit.” Pax rolls his eyes.
“Some of us had to work in school,” Marcus fires back. “I didn’t have a daddy who bought my way into anything I wanted.”
Pax scoffs. “Nice of you to bring up my asshole dad, bro. And by the way, he’s now the vice president of New America.”
For a few seconds, we all just look at him in stunned silence.
“What the fuck?” Marcus says.
“Yeah, I had the same reaction,” Pax says.
“The ILF still cleared you?”
Pax narrows his eyes. “I’ve wanted nothing to do with him since I got out of the bunker my parents locked me inside when the virus came.”
“Oh, so you just happened to get sent to the island in a protected position of power? With your experience as an accountant? Virginia was a lieutenant colonel in the Army and I was part of the aromium team.”
“Fuck you, Marcus.” Pax gets up and stalks out of the room, people at other tables looking at him and then us.
“Why do you goad him like that?” Briar asks Marcus. “He’s proven himself to us, but you just won’t treat him like anything but an adversary.”
Marcus just glowers silently.
One of the servers approaches us with an appetizer tray. Olin grabs two small squares of bread with some kind of spread and a bite-sized piece of what smells like candied bacon.
