Adrastia (The God Chronicles Book 4) (10 page)

"Cristos, wait."

Arsenio slowed to a stop, putting his hands on his hips as he caught his breath.

"What exactly are you planning on doing with her? You can't kill her without destroying her mortal side, which would only be a help to the Titans."

"If I leave it alive it will be a help to them as well," I said harshly.

"You can't kill a mortal," he reminded me softly. "Not now. Not when we need them so much."

"I know," I argued. "Without their belief in us we will fade away. I remember."

"Then what are we doing?"

"It’s going back to the fire her father came from."

He looked at me carefully, trying to understand something.

"That’s why we were hunting her? I've been thinking about it a lot since we left Moscow and I'm pretty sure she is exactly who you were looking for all that time. How did you even know she existed?"

"I don't want to talk about it," I spat, turning and following her trail again.

"You're going to have to tell me sometime," he called after me.

"Don't bet on it," I yelled back.

Fuming, I followed the steps in the snow, upset at the points he'd brought up. I'd thought of them myself many times, just as angry then as I was now.

"Did we lose them?"

I looked up in surprise, not realizing I'd caught It so soon. That didn't make sense.

"Did you stop to wait for us?"

"Well, yeah. What was I supposed to do? I may be forced to wear handcuffs and almost die when I'm with you, but I don't want the bad guys to get me."

"The bad guys?" I scoffed. "You mean the exact thing that you are?"

"That's not fair," she said, grinding her teeth together. "I didn't ask to be one of them. It wasn't some club I signed up for."

"It makes no difference to me," I said cruelly. "Either way you are one. A monster. A beast, not even worthy of the life that was given to you. If you ask me, or anyone of my family, the world would have been better off without you."

Tears gathered in Its eyes and I smiled triumphantly, pleased I'd hit a nerve.

"You know, someone told me once that a person chooses to be good or evil on their own, that no matter our situation we still have choice in what path we take. I think I'm starting to believe that. I know I'm not a bad Titan and I've got plenty of evidence that not all Olympians are good."

She looked at me with a cold, hateful look, very different from the smile I'd seen her wearing only moments before. Her words were surprisingly hurtful for some reason. I'd never been called out by anyone but Arsenio and my parents. The way her lips had formed a straight line was remarkably like my own mother's when she disapproved of something.

Turning on her heel, she stormed away from me, journeying deeper into the woods without even looking back to see if I was following. Feelings of regret began to fill me as I watched her, the desire to call out and apologize growing in my chest.

In a sudden flurry of movement, her feet caught on fire, melting the snow around her and drying the wetness from her jeans.

"It's not a ‘her,’" I mumbled to myself, not quite convinced. "It's an It. No feelings, no commitment, just proving the Graeae wrong. Soon, It will be dead, and Its kind with it."

Slowly, I followed after It, waiting for either It to calm down or Arsenio to pick up his feet and catch up with me. Approaching It while on fire didn't seem like a good idea at the time, not unless I was ready to fight back and take care of the issue.

As I walked, thoughts of my uncle, Hades filled my mind. He, too, had fallen victim to the Titans. They'd killed his wife Persephone and replaced her with another in disguise, a human girl named Katrina. He never knew until he'd awoken one morning to find her with his helmet, offering it to Erebos. She'd ended up dying during The Undoing, killed by the very Titan she'd been helping. To this day, I couldn't understand why Hades was still fighting so hard to get her back. Because of his abandoning of his job and locking himself in his castle, things had been that much worse at Tartarus.

He said it was love, that he couldn't live without Katrina, despite her betraying him. I thought it might be cowardice over being fooled by our greatest enemies.

Hades was the epitome of what I imagined would happen to me if I didn't get rid of It. He'd joined with the Titans, in a way, and everything was ruined because of it. He was miserable because he'd betrayed his kin, locked in his own Tartarus as an effect.

It wasn't going to happen to me, too.

I continued to follow It slowly, never losing sight. Arsenio caught up eventually, taking his own time as well. We moved side by side in silence, each lost in our own thoughts until we came to a ridge. In the valley below was another tiny town, bigger than the one we'd left that morning. It stood on the edge of the rim, looking down at the definitely populated village.

"I still need to get supplies," Arsenio said, setting his bag on the ground and rubbing the shoulder he'd been shot in.

"We'll stay here for the night," I said, nodding. "Go into town for dinner and provisions and then come back here to sleep."

"What about her?" he asked, nodding at It. "People will want to know why she's handcuffed."

I frowned, thinking for a moment before speaking again.

"I'll stay here with It. You bring back food and whatever else we need."

"Oh good grief, I have a name," It said, turning to look at me, ridicule in Its eyes. "I'm not going to run away, okay? You can un-cuff me."

"And risk you lighting on fire again? I saw you controlling it earlier, keeping your feet warm. Have any plans to light us up and take off? I don't think so. You're not going anywhere."

"Watch me," It said snottily, turning back around and walking towards the town.

Lurching out, I grabbed It by the collar and yanked back, smiling with satisfaction at the sound of pain It whimpered out.

“You are not going anywhere unless I say so,” I growled.

The hatred in Its eyes almost made me feel bad.

Almost.

Chapter Ten

Avalon

My wrists felt like they were on fire, and not the kind that didn’t hurt me.

Arsenio and Cristos sat a couple hundred feet away from me, cooking whatever it was that had been bought on the supply run. Unfortunately, I had no idea what that was, since I’d spent the majority of Arsenio’s time away being tied to another tree and threatened with death if I tried to burn my way out of it.

Funnily enough, I was so angry I couldn’t even begin to summon whatever I had inside me to help me escape. Everything felt like a jumbled mess, locked tight behind a door that required concentration as its key.

The smell of the cooking meat made my mouth water something fierce. I hadn’t had anything to eat in days. It was a miracle I’d been able to make it this long without anything but the water I’d greedily sucked up during my shower.

For a few moments there, I’d thought I was going to be treated as somewhat human and allowed to take care of myself. It was clear I’d received the wrong impression, though.

Maybe my life would be better if I just gave up now. My wrists were going to get infected, if they weren’t already, and either that would kill me or Cristos would.

He didn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing he’d ended me.

Despair washed over me as I took in my situation. I’d been kidnapped, starved, hurt, attacked, and insulted beyond imagination. Never in my life had someone told me I wasn’t worth the air I breathed. It shouldn’t have hurt me so badly, but it had. Death, as much as I didn’t want it to be, looked like my only way out.

Hanging my head in sorrow, I finally let the tears I’d been holding back leak out, running over my skin and dropping into the dirt beneath me. For some reason, I couldn’t get the image of Dimitri trapped beneath the beam out of my head.

I was stuck, just as badly as he’d been. The only difference was his death wasn’t his own fault.

I’m a monster. A Titan. My kind destroys everything they touch.

Shoulders shaking, I tried to accept my new reality and the fact that it was one I couldn’t survive in. I didn’t want to be something so horrible.

“You need to eat.”

I looked up at Cristos, surprised to see him holding a plate of food and a bag of something.

“So you can kill me later?” I spat back. “No thanks.”

“If you die before we reach Sicily I wouldn’t care,” he growled back. “But it would put a damper on the rest of my plans.”

“S-Sicily?” I stuttered, somehow comforted to know where we were heading.

“Eat,” he sighed, holding the plate out to me again.

Cautiously, I look a piece of what appeared to be chicken off the plate and bit into it, sighing as the flavor and juices hit my tongue. Within a minute, I’d eaten all he’d brought and started on the bread. It was the most delicious food I’d ever had and most definitely not enough.

“Can I have more?” I croaked out, wondering if he’d brought anything to drink as well.

“No.”

Sitting in front of me, he set the empty plate on the ground and reached out for my hands.

Instinctively, I jerked away, feeling sick to my stomach.

“Fine, you don’t want your wrists taken care of? Sounds good to me.”

He shoved to his feet, taking the bag with him and leaving the plate to taunt me. When he reached Arsenio, he handed the satchel over and kept walking, disappearing from view.

Shaking his head, Arsenio made his way to me, occasionally looking over his shoulder in the direction his comrade had gone.

“May I take care of your wrists?” he asked formally as soon as he was in front of me.

I nodded, feeling much safer with him than I had with Cristos for some reason.

“The next time he offers you help, I wouldn’t refuse it,” he stated, motioning for me to hold my hands out to him. “If he ever offers again.”

“Why should I trust a man who wants nothing other than to spit on my dead body?” I asked grimly.

“He could have done nothing and let you suffer a long, painful death,” he snapped, losing his cool for a moment.

Shocked into silence, I watched as he unlocked the cuffs, removing them for the first time.

“Don’t even think about trying to get away. I know those ropes are tied tight, but if you burn through them, I’ll have to do whatever it takes to stop you.”

“Why are you suddenly on his side?” I asked, tears brimming in my eyes again.

“I’ve always been on his side.”

“You were nicer before,” I stated softly. “You stuck up for me.”

“We’re taking you to Mount Etna,” he sighed, opening the sack that apparently held the medical supplies I needed. “Do you know what that is?”

“A volcano?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, pulling out a jar of something and screwing the lid off. “But it’s more than that. Have you ever heard of Typhon?”

“He’s my father, right?”

“Yes, but he’s more than that, too. He’s a general in the Titan army, and a strong one at that. Eons ago, he and Zeus fought a terrible battle that ended in the King’s insides being ripped from him and Typhon running off with them gleefully. If it weren’t for Hermes getting them back and Zeus defeating the monster in another fight, our world would have fallen apart.

“After his defeat, Typhon was trapped in Mount Etna, the very fires that had created him. It’s the only place he—and the Titan side of you—can be destroyed.”

“You’re using me as bait,” I said, suddenly catching on. “You think you can lure him there and trap him again.”

“It would appear that is Cristos’s plan, yes,” he said grimly, slathering my wrists in the cool, pain dulling salve.

“I don’t think it’s going to work,” I offered seriously. “I’ve been around for years and he’s never come looking for me. Why would he do it now?”

“I don’t think he knew about you until now,” he muttered, looking over his shoulder again once he’d finished applying the medicine. “I’m pretty sure Cristos didn’t know about you until a few months ago, either. Someone has kept you a secret for a very long time.”

He pulled some bandages from the bag next, unravelling them in preparation to cover my arms.

“I don’t agree with treating you like scum,” he continued, wrapping the cloth around my wrists with ease. “But I won’t stand by and watch while my family is destroyed by the Titans. If there’s a chance we can get them by using you, then that’s what we have to do. I’m sorry.”

“Do you really think he’ll come? Typhon, I mean.”

Pausing in his work, he looked up at me, a sad expression in his eyes.

“I think they will all come. Erebos has already tried to take you. Typhon being your father has given you incredible powers, some of which you’ve already discovered. You are the first, possibly the only, demi-Titan in existence. No one knows what that means for the war. They won’t let you go without a fight.”

“What if they don’t come?” I asked, swallowing hard.

“Then I’ll throw you in the lava myself and be done with you.”

I jumped at the sound of Cristos’s voice, having not seen him approaching from the side.

“Are you done?” he asked Arsenio, nodding at my wrists.

Arsenio stood in reply, stowing away the things he hadn’t used in the bag.

“Great.”

Cristos took the handcuffs from him, snapping them back over my bandages. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt as much as it had been.

“Get some sleep,” he said to the both of us, turning and heading back to the fire they’d cooked dinner over. “We have a lot of walking to do.”

“You want to walk all the way to Sicily?” I shot back incredulously. “Are you insane?”

“We can’t take the normal routes,” he yelled back, turning on me in a sudden fury. “Everyone is looking for you! If we just hop on a plane, the Titans will burn it right out of the sky! Do you want more mortal blood on your hands? Did you get a taste for it when that man and two kids died back in Moscow?”

I shut right up, my mouth snapping closed in shock, a sharp pain like being stabbed with a knife shooting through my heart.

“Everywhere you go, people die. That entire town was empty, probably massacred by the Titans who were waiting to take you. I won’t lose any more innocent lives because you wanted to take the easy way out.”