Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95458 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95458 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Is she meeting Hecate?
My nerves sizzle with something significantly more complicated than jealousy. Hecate may be free with her body, but she’s significantly more careful with her heart. To my knowledge, she’s only given it away twice since my apparent death, and both times with deep constraints.
First with Cassandra, the prickly woman who has been nearly as wronged by the Thirteen as I have. She’s managed to come out on top, and her secretly dating Hecate is the reason I found out about the assassination clause tucked away in archaic Olympian laws. Her parents tried to enact it. They failed and were murdered by the Thirteen in an attempt to keep it secret, but it was too late. I had the information. Hecate and Cassandra went their separate ways after a short, heated affair, but they remain friends to this day. She obviously matters.
The other is Atalanta, a woman who was barely on my radar until a few days ago. Someone I thought was just another tool to be used and tossed away by the powerful in this city. To discover she was actually working with Hecate this whole time…that they’ve been pining for each other like a pair of forbidden lovers… It intrigues me greatly. What other secrets does Atalanta hold?
I mean to find out.
22
Atalanta
The address Achilles gave me is right on the edge between the upper warehouse district and the theater district. It’s not the safest neighborhood, but no neighborhood in Olympus is truly safe these days. I let myself in and close the door softly behind me. He said it would be empty, but I can’t afford to take anything for granted right now.
I clear the small space methodically, cataloging it as I do: living room, kitchen with short peninsula that doubles as a dining table, single bedroom, single bathroom. Everything is clean and pristine, all bearing the mark of a clear personality. This Briseis likes teal and white with pops of coral accents. The color scheme plays out through the whole apartment.
I brace my hands on the kitchen counter and consider my options. My shoulder aches from the climb and my healing injury. The few days of rest were anything but restful when I wasn’t sure if I’d be disappeared like the inconvenient problem I am to the Thirteen. I can’t afford to burrow and stay here until I feel human again, but rushing around the streets without a clear plan is a good way to end up with a brick to the side of the head.
“A shower,” I say aloud. “A shower, clean clothes, a quick nap to get my head on straight.” As plans go, it’s bare-bones, but it’s enough to get me moving.
I locate the washer and dryer in a little closet in the hall and strip down. Once I get the washer going with my clothes, I walk naked into the bathroom, set my gun on the counter, and lock the door for good measure. Old habits die hard, and I’m not fool enough to think I’m truly safe here.
I haven’t been safe in… I don’t know if I’ve ever been safe in my adult life. My parents died when I was eighteen, leaving me adrift and rootless in a way I was too grief-stricken to know how to combat. Instead of fighting the demons summoned by their absence, I fought anyone I could provoke. I lost a lot—including the fight resulting in the scars on my face—and I learned in the process. Until I won, again and again. Until people wouldn’t fuck with me. Until I met Hecate and we offered each other the one thing we’d both been missing in our lives.
Hope.
The shower water is blistering hot as I step beneath the spray and scrub what feels like weeks of grime from my skin. It’s not. I know it’s not. I had a quick shower in the lower city yesterday, when the doctor finally gave me approval as long as I kept the bandage dry. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but I’m tall and I make do.
It feels very, very good to get properly clean. The hot water feels even better, and I run it out completely before I relent and turn off the shower. Exhaustion hits as I dry off and wipe the steam from the oval mirror. My bandage looks fine, so I leave it be. My clothes should be almost ready to switch to the dryer, and I can take a short nap then. When I wake up, I might feel human enough to put together a proper plan and figure out what the fuck to do next.
I’m woozy enough that I almost leave the gun on the counter, but even weaving on my feet, I’m too well trained to be so foolish. I wrap one of the towels around me as best I can—Briseis must be significantly shorter because it barely covers the essentials—and grab the gun as I step out of the bathroom.