Thalia chased, Bianca ran—their shadows skimmed over the broken Lower Olympus rooftops, puddles disrupted, ledges grabbed, stones and gravel spat out by their feet. Instinct. That’s what this felt like. She’d scale a fire escape and launch off a wall, swing over a ledge and break into a sprint that would launch her over one alleyway and then the next. Her lungs burned. Heart hammered. She swallowed air and let it scrape down her throat. The Arkphage was doing the work. She was along for the ride. Making her legs stretch. Making her fingers hook and pull and claw. But it would be her voice she heard swear when she’d slip, when she’d barely make a gap, when she’d jump and not find a building underneath her to land on, only for a spiked appendage to tear out from her back, slam through a brick wall and violently swing her into the air. It was a rollercoaster of strained muscles and bruises, scrapes and blood in her mouth when she’d bite her tongue trying not to scream. Bianca loved it. She loved every. Single. Second of it.

  She almost didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want to go back to being slow. To being normal.

  Thalia was never more than half a footstep behind. Silent. Barely panting. She’d make jumps Bianca couldn’t even dream of sailing over. She’d hang in the night sky, lit by silver moonlight like a ghost caught by a flashlight, then she’d fall, land in a roll, and pump her legs faster and faster—but not so fast she’d pass Bianca. Not so fast she’d lunge and grab her arm and slam her into the sidewalks far, far below them. Thalia wasn’t planning on hurting her. She just wanted to figure out where Bianca was going, and hell, a part of Bianca wanted to find out, too.

  She was close—closer and closer with every stumbled landing and gasped launch through the air.

  And then her body came to a sudden stop, torn sneakers sliding across a slick, caved-in factory roof. Her feet smashed into the loose iron gutter at the bottom, sending her straight through it and directly onto a weak gray fire escape that rattled and threatened to collapse. Thalia landed beside her, not even panting, barely even sweating. Bianca’s body burned. Every cell. Every inch of sweaty skin. She almost wanted to laugh and go again, but…she needed to get her shit together and focus. This was part of the deal: all the memories, all this…God, she didn’t want to say it, but this power—raw, untamed, making her body feel electric, her blood liquid gasoline—had to come for a price. That price, she felt in her gut, was close. She could smell it. Feel it. Almost like she’d been blind her entire life and could finally breathe and see and taste without doing it all through a thin film of plastic covering her head.

  Thalia grabbed her shoulder. Bianca froze and turned to look at her. The girl’s eyes glowed. A brief flash of lightning painted the sky white and Thalia’s rounded shoulders pale silver. “Don’t,” she said dryly. “You control it.”

  Bianca shrugged off her hand. “I know. It’s just…wow.” She laughed, pushed a hand through her hair, then leaped off the fire escape and slammed into the alleyway below. Her feet cratered the concrete. Spider-web cracks drank the filthy, greasy puddles. Holy hell, she thought, looking at her fingers. She flexed them and slowly stood.

  Her t-shirt felt tight around her shoulders, clutched her back and stretched around her arms.

  Thalia was already there, standing in front of her.

  Bianca stepped aside, and Thalia followed.

  “What’re you doing?” Bianca asked. “Let’s go. We should get this over with before Rhea and the others—”

  “I respect Olympia,” Thalia said. Bianca’s mouth slowly shut, then clenched, almost like the rest of her body. Bianca tried to move. Thalia shoved her backward, feet sliding on the wet alleyway concrete. “But don’t think that’ll stop me from doing what has to be done if you can’t get yourself to control that cancer inside of you.”

  “I was correct,” it said through her skull, her veins and her soul. “Ever distrustful, this race.”

  Bianca shook her head. “We’re not doing this again,” she whispered, then looked at Thalia. She put up her hands and forced her racing heartbeat to slow down, which nearly felt impossible—she wanted more. She wanted to keep running, to keep floating through the air, to keep feeling when she’d slam into rooftops or bend iron just by gripping onto it. It tasted sickly sweet in her mouth. Nauseatingly good. “Fine,” she said, then cleared her throat. “Fine. I’ve got it under control, see?” She stood still, then spread her arms. “Perfectly in control, now let’s go, T.”

  Thalia didn’t move. Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t think you can outrun me, virus.”

  Is…is she talking to me? Did she just call me that?

  Her mouth opened on its own, her tongue twisted without her making it, then a husky, ugly voice came out of her throat. “Your people were stolen and bred for the hunt.” Bianca forced her jaw shut, slapped her fingers over her mouth. Her own hands locked, then her fingers unhooked her cheeks, and the voice came back. “You harm the girl, and I’ll reduce you to the same corpse your precious Empire would rather burn than bury in their own soil.”

  Bianca slapped her hands over her mouth again. Silence stretched the shadows between them.

  Thalia stared at her, blinked slowly, and moved forward.

  “Wait!” Bianca said, hand out. Thalia stopped. Thankfully. “I’ve got this. It won’t do that again. Promise.”

  “All I’ve witnessed on this planet is one broken promise after another. That thing is no different.”

  “Here’s one we can both keep: I make sure I’m in control, or you promise to stop me. Deal?”

  Thalia grudgingly, quietly snorted. “I’ll leave you conscious enough to explain that to Olympia.”

  Rylee this, Rylee that—I can take care of myself.

  Not like she was there to save me from the Talon, anyway. I did that on my own.

  “Sure, whatever,” she said. “Now can we please get out of here? It reeks of trash and dead cats.”

  A flashlight.

  The beam broke the darkness and found Bianca’s face. White light blinded her, slid across the alleyway, froze on Thalia, then turned off. Silence. Neither girl moved. She squinted, tried to blink the flashing dots of light out of her vision. Then she heard bare feet against concrete. Panting. A shriek that echoed: “SUPERHEROES!” Not once. Not twice. So many times it bounced around the alleyway, ricocheting off grimy, graffiti-covered buildings and tore through her thoughts. What the hell? She jogged to the end of the alley, peeked around the corner, swung her head around and squinted through the dark. A kid. A boy. So scrawny, so bony, he was barely a silhouette darting down the street, arms swinging wildly, head cocked back and mouth torn open as he yelled and wailed and screamed so harshly that his voice got lighter and lighter until all he could do was gasp for air and kick trash cans and bang on burnt car shells and throw stones at windows. Bianca frowned, then heard a flag snapping in the wind.

  Multiple flags hanging off window ledges, multiple flags curled around rusting masts.

  Not a single American flag in sight. Those had been reduced to shredded, burnt rags, stuffed into the trash, left on street corners and stuffed inside of gutters, as if Lower Olympus’ underbelly also didn’t want to have a taste.

  These flags were different. Harsher. Made with pieces of filthy fabric and kept on hooks.

  Scarlet. Weak. She’d never seen it in her life. A white domino mask was stitched into the fabric.

  The boy vanished around a corner, but his screaming didn’t stop filling the eerily silent night.

  “What is that?” she whispered.

  Thalia, now beside her, shook her head slowly. Her head snapped around, eyes suddenly darting. She pushed Bianca into the alleyway and walked backward. She said something in Arkathian, something harsh, silent, lashing, sounding like her tongue was snapping against the back of her teeth and tearing apart the top of her mouth.

  Bianca grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “What the fuck is it? You can’t just—”

  Thalia slapped a hand over her mouth and shoved her against a wall so hard her skull smacked into a loose brick. Icy pain. A trickle of warmth down the back of her neck. Thalia’s eyes never stopped moving, never stopped twitching. She swallowed, mouth never fully closing. Her chest heaved, rising and falling and nearly quaking.

  Then she went rigid, not blinking, not moving—Bianca couldn’t even hear her heartbeat anymore.

  “Thalia?” she whispered.

  The flag cracked in the wind, like a bullwhip against flesh.

  Her body locked. Every muscle, every fiber—every ounce of her being froze solid.

  She couldn’t feel her heart inside of her own chest.

  The night slowed until nothing moved, hollowed, gutted of its sound.

  The wind died. The flags all fell still.

  The Earth itself had almost stopped spinning.

  Phage? she thought.

  The virus was silent. Unmoving.

  Then: “It can’t be,” it whispered. It moved deeper inside of her, away from her skin, away from her muscles, filling her stomach with ice that weighed a thousand pounds. “He killed her. He killed her. I watched him do it.”

  Who? she thought. Panic. It was in her head now. In her blood. Thalia hadn’t moved. Couldn’t.

  “Her,” it said. Barely a sound. A gasped word. Shorter than a whisper. “Caesar.”

  A solitary footstep. A crack of a heel against stone.

  The shadows beyond the alleyway bent, curled, stretched away as if to run or kill themselves trying.

  Silence chased after them, tearing apart the night sky with its scream.

  Thalia sank her fingers into Bianca’s biceps, then split the asphalt launching into the air. They smashed into a building barely a second later, through the concrete roof and into a dust-choked room. Bianca groaned and ached on the couch she’d slammed against. Thalia was already up, grabbing her wrist and throwing her through a window. Her body spiralled. She screamed. Glass cut her cheeks. Stone and brick and broken iron tore and slashed and stabbed into her arms and legs and stomach. Thalia grabbed her body, and through another building they went, crashing, rolling, filling her lungs with dust and blinding her eyes with grit until they finally punched another hole through a fireplace and smacked onto the street. They only stopped rolling when they both slammed into a van.

  Bianca’s entire body wasn’t feeling so great anymore. She figured passing out right now would be nice.

  Her vision darkened. The van groaned as it shook on its broken suspension.

  Yeah, she thought, eyes drooping, pain overwhelming, body screaming. Five minutes. That’s it. Just five.

  Thalia had different ideas. “Get up,” she snarled through her teeth, then spat blood. “Artemis, now.”

  She struggled off the ground, arms shaking, suddenly feeling so exhausted it was a miracle her heart was even beating right now. Bianca groaned, held her gut, then puked blood onto the ground. She coughed and choked, then clutched her stomach as hot agony tore through her mid-section. She dragged her t-shirt up. The bandages were soaking through, fresh with more blood, old stitches opening like meaty mouths of their own, vomiting scarlet and muscle and— Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck it hurts. Then came the shards of pain down her back. Her bruised knuckles exploded with pain. Same with the cut in her palm. The side of her jaw where Becca had slammed the gun into her mouth. All at once. All of it consuming her whole. She fell and writhed on the ground, body spasming and teeth gritted and eyes blurred with pain. Saliva frothed in her mouth, spilled through her clenched teeth and covered her lips as she held herself and writhed. Bianca screamed. A hand forced her mouth shut. Then, suddenly, wooziness.

  The ground tilted, turned—rose and fell, spun around in wild arcs, and then there was Thalia above her, shaking her, shouting at her, sounding garbled and far away, and Bianca giggled because she looked so serious, then vomited bile and blood onto her chest and curled into a ball, wanting to die or pass out or just stop living.

  Her teeth chattered. She’d sink her fingernails into her own ribs if she was strong enough.

  All she could do now was stare at the deflated soccer ball stuck under the van’s rusting underbelly.

  Up. She was going up. Into the sky. Wind clawing her face. Something hard. She rolled. Hit something harder. More blood in her mouth. More agony tearing through her stomach. She wheezed. Squeezed her eyes shut, cut open her own trembling palms clenching them. Then the sky again. Another rooftop. Thalia breathing hard. Thalia’s face painted with panic and sweat that glistened off her forehead. She fell. Rolled. Vanished. Suddenly got above Bianca, said something, violently shook her body—Bianca puked more blood, more worms. Everything.

  “Hey,” she said. Vomit. Pain. A flash of darkness. A new rooftop. A sweatier Thalia. “I feel kinda sick.”

  Her head lolled, suddenly heavy, and snapped her eyes shut just as quickly.

  “What’re you thinking about?”

  Ben blinked and turned his head away from the horizon. The sky was sun-kissed, buildings colored pale orange and sun-burnt hues or purple. Lower Olympus had its moments. Brief moments, yeah, but it made sure he wouldn’t go crazy. He still had pizza grease on his finger tips, mayo on his jeans, mustard on his sweaty baseball jersey, ketchup sitting on his tongue and a half empty beer can sitting beside him on the building’s ledge. A few cigarette butts smoldered inside of it. Then Katie. Suddenly here as usual—as silent as a cat, he liked to say. Just as deadly. He’d seen her claws plenty of times, like the first time he forgot their anniversary and she nearly carved him a new mouth to spit more excuses out of. Katie was intense. Scary. But also sexy, smart and dangerous and she was glaring at him now, because she didn’t like being smiled at by good-looking guys with drunken compliments.

  She crouched beside him and sighed through her nose. “Oh, Ben,” she muttered, pulling the beer can out of his hands. He was about to protest, because he wasn’t done with that, thank you very much. “How many of these have you had?” Ben blinked again. Looked around. Bodies surrounded him, some missing heads, most of them with their guts spilling out of their rib cages like serrated meat. He stepped back. Gasped. Looked at his wet fingers, at the blood making them shine. He cringed when a flashlight stabbed into his eyes. He raised his fingers, mouth already moving, saying it wasn’t him, saying the head staring up at him, throat cut open in a meaty mess, wasn’t his fault—but it was Lucas, standing over him, flashlight in his hands and shaking his head. “Come on, kid, What did I tell you about sleeping on the job?” He blinked. Groaned. Katie was already off to the side, dressing up with her back facing him, quietly angry that Lucas had, like always, found them naked and pressed together on a rooftop.

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  A finger snap. Again and again. Another blink. Katie in his face, straddling his stomach, legs either side of him, short black hair falling around her face. Sweat dripped off her nose. Her lips were parted and her mouth smelt like his. His bed was a mess. Covered in spots of dried blood. Bandages. A knife wedged into the wall. One of Katie’s swords stabbed upright into his old, uncomfortable mattress. A tiny green sewing kit he’d used to try and stitch himself together. “Your mom,” she hissed, then pointed at his bedroom door. “Fuck, Ben. What’s wrong with you? I need to go. I’ll—” He grabbed her wrist, stopped her from moving. Katie tried to fight back, to try and get her clothes and her underwear, terrified of getting caught. He pulled her into his arms. She was limp and cold.

  He didn’t want her to go. Katie didn’t move.

  Maybe…

  Maybe she’d stay the night for once.

  Maybe Katie wouldn’t run away again.

  He just didn’t want to be alone with it tonight.

  Colder. Body heavier. Something reeked of blood.

  Always. Always like blood.

  “Katie?” Ben whispered.

  Glassy gray eyes stared up at him. A face with the flesh nearly torn off its skull. Ben choked. Gasped. Clutched onto the corpse. A costume clung to its wounds. Pale green and black spandex, burnt, torn, nearly so skintight it blended with the gored patches of flesh and missing muscle. Ben let go. The body fell to the ground. Not far. He was already on his knees. He tried to stand, to get back up. Not Katie. That wasn’t Katie. But it was Sam. Sam was dead. Why was he… Where… Ben blinked. Nothing changed this time. Same place. Same warehouse. Same couches. Same shattered TV. Same map of Lower Olympus, now torn, now hanging loosely off the far wall.

  Now smoldering at its edges, burning a slow, fiery death.

  “Katie’s not here.” Ben turned. A woman. Pale skin. Black eyes. Golden irises. Hair like old, rotted blood spilled from the crown of her head. A large scarlet coat hung from her shoulders, sweeping through the bloody puddles and mounds of gore she silently carved her way through. Click. Click. Click. Stop. Now above him. Her heels punched through the silence. And her hands, icy, cold, too sharp, clutched his chin and sank into his cheeks and now she was all he could see—her ruby lips, her nearly translucent skin and the faintest spit of blood on her cheeks. “She ran, like cats do. She makes a habit of that, running. I warned you, Benjamin. I really tried to. So did Lucian. So did Zeus. So did Lucas. You just didn’t listen, and now look at what you’ve done.” She made him look, made his head spin around so fast his neck spasmed and locked. She held him firmly against her chest, skull in her fingers, body seized in place—bodies, bodies everywhere, what was left of them, what wasn’t even them, just their parts, their bits and their pieces and sheets of their flesh. Ben gasped. Cried. Tried to move. Caesar didn’t. She turned Ben around, now barely able to stand. She let him fall into the mound of guts at her feet. She lit a cigarette, threw the lighter in the blood. Now he was outside the warehouse, on his knees, watching it burn, walls crumbling, windows shattering from the heat—and the devil’s wife stood, smoking her cigarette, hand in her pocket, watching his world burn. Hate. Hate. Anger. Murder. He stood. Swung wildly, fast. She left him on the floor, spasming and reaching for his severed arm, the worms writhing pathetically, trying to hopelessly reattach his shredded bicep.

  He watched her walk away, heels snapping, the fire burning, the hatred inside of him eternal.

  Her shadow cut across the pavement, gutting the scarlet blaze.

  Ben got up. Just one last time, he needed to get up. He’d done it before.

  So he did, arm attached, the Arkphage wailing murder inside his skull, through his body.

  She stopped. Turned. Narrowed her dark, empty eyes.

  The inferno illuminated them both. It was cold. It was silent. It was nothing compared to what he felt.

  Lucian wouldn’t find his wife’s body—that was a promise to God Almighty and the universe itself.

  By morning, not a piece of Caesar was left to find in Lower Olympus.

  And Ben, exhausted, hollow–a walking corpse, stumbled into his home, trudged past his raging mother, his shouting father, ignored Bianca peeking around her bedroom door at him, and sank into his bed—stomach full.

  But the hatred wasn’t satisfied, and neither was the Arkphage.

  The devil still lived, and so did evil: the job wasn’t done yet.

  No, nowhere near done.

  He’d end this war himself.

  The devil had to die, and by nothing less than Ben's own hands.

  “Ben?” Bianca groaned. Agony. She decided she wasn’t ready to pry her eyes open. Not yet. So she stayed in place, barely breathing, chest feeling tight, muscles clenched so hard everything pulsed with agony. She breathed through her mouth, lips dry, tongue bitter. Bianca shuddered. Cold wind rushed over her body. She sneezed, then cringed as something across her stomach ruptured. She heard swearing, then felt another burst of freezing cold wind in her gut.

  “Fuck,” she heard someone hiss. “What the fuck is wrong with her body? Does she want to die?”

  “Keep trying.” A softer voice. A warm cloth got put on her face. She liked that. A lot. Keep that there forever, Bianca thought, then came the violent chills again, another sneeze, more raging pain. Another warm towel.

  “This isn’t working.” The ice vanished. Bianca gasped for air. “She’s a lost cause.”

  “Do you want to tell the Torchbearer that, or should I so you have a head start finding somewhere to hide?”

  “No point in hiding.” Thalia. That was her. Reassurance? No. Something else. Panic. Maybe. She tried not to shudder again. “Get back to helping her. From what I’ve been told, it’s the least you can do to redeem yourself.”

  “Redeem yourself, redeem yourself,” the voice mocked. “God, I kissed her once—”

  “Mfgh?” Bianca groaned, then dragged the towel off her face. She blinked. Cringed. Kissed? Who?

  Kissed Rylee?

  She grabbed the first thing she could—a necklace, a fistful of them. Her grip was weak. Shaky. That didn’t stop her from bringing a girl’s face into view, past the blur, right up close. Black coils of hair. Pale skin. Dark eyes with rings around them. Bianca squinted. Looked at her. Agony like crashing waves shattered each of her thoughts.

  “So…” the girl said, then looked over her shoulder, “does that mean I’ve helped her enough?”

  Bianca punched her. That was every single ounce of strength she had left.

  “What the fuck!” she cried. Bianca smelt blood. “God, my tooth! She chipped it!”

  “You can heal.” Thalia again, shoving the girl aside and crouching beside her. “You’re awake, thank the Gods.” She fingered aside a strand of brown hair and cupped Bianca’s face. Her head weighed dozens of pounds, a sack of jumbled thoughts and swirling colors and muted faces. She tried to sit up. A hand forced her back. Or maybe that was her body fighting against her, not wanting to move so much as an inch off the piece of wood she was lying on. No, maybe not wood. A cot. Bianca blinked. Tasted bile in the base of her throat. She coughed and vomited, then choked on nothing but stomach acid that dribbled onto her lips. A boy came into view, crouched beside Thalia and wiped Bianca’s mouth. He smiled as he dabbed the cloth around her face, dunked it into a bucket, squeezed, and laid the warm cloth back onto her forehead. She moaned and put a hand on her stomach, her insides twisting. Thalia sighed and quietly said, “I don’t get it. The Arkphage should be keeping her alive, healing her. What’s it—”

  “Who knows?” the girl with dark-rimmed eyes said. “Maybe that’s what she gets for chipping my tooth.”

  Bianca had just enough strength to pull the towel off her face and throw it at the girl. “Bitch,” she spat.

  Well, not really. Her mouth didn’t move like she wanted to, and her tongue was busy doing its own thing. But it was the thought that counted, even if the towel slipped out of her fingers way before she could even throw it.

  “Weak sauce,” the girl muttered.

  “Why is it that you’re here?” Thalia asked icily.

  “I seeked her out for a reason,” the boy said gently. “Irina and the Torchbearer aren’t very close, and I’ve worked with her before. It takes quite a lot to earn Olympia’s trust, but she’ll appreciate Irina healing Bianca. That’s such a wonderful name, by the way. It rolls off the tongue very nicely” He smiled at Bianca. She scowled at him. Too many people. Too many voices. Her head felt like it was getting split in half by a blind axe murderer. “Irina is also very useful, despite her…aggressiveness. We’re still on our healing journey. She hasn’t cursed a lot today!”

  “Fuck you,” Irina said. “I’m only here because everyone else is busy right now.”

  “Regardless, I appreciate your presence, Irina. It is very welcome.”

  “And who are these ‘others’ you talk about?” Thalia asked, still crouched beside Bianca, eyes still flicking to her face, to her body, to the wet, bloody bandages soaking with scarlet liquid. “Would they be of any help, too?”

  “Not everyone in this city would drop everything they’re doing just for Olympia’s girlfriend.” Irina folded her arms. Tattoos laced her forearms and biceps and curled around her fingers. She was tall and lanky, wearing clothes that didn’t fit with hair that brushed her shoulders. She kissed Rylee? When the fuck did that happen? And why didn’t Rylee tell me? “Besides, some of us have big things going on in our lives that don’t revolve around her.”

  “I’ve yet to come across any situation that doesn’t revolve around her,” Thalia said.

  “Yeah, well this one isn’t.”

  Bianca huffed and groaned, rolled onto her side, then glared at Thalia when she tried to shove her down onto the cot. She got up. Slowly. Pain lashed every inch of skin, tore and stabbed and God, this hurts! But she didn’t stop until she could swing her legs off the cot, feel cold, wet stone under her feet, and try her best not to pass out. Her head hung. A bandage wrapped around her skull kept hair out of her face. She spat blood onto her thighs. Sloppily dragged her hand across her mouth. Then looked at Irina, teeth gritted, jaw clenching so hard it hurt.

  Irina unfolded her arms and took half a step back. “Relax,” she said. “I was kidding. You’re important.”

  She coughed blood. Fiery blades of pain stabbed through her gut. She groaned and tilted forward. Thalia grabbed her arm. Bianca steadied, breathed hard, and forced herself to stand—goddamit, stand up. One foot. The other. She’d done this a million fucking times, what was so hard this time? Her legs shook. Ached. And even when she did finally stand, she was bent over, wheezing, tasting blood, feeling it pour through the stitches she’d ruptured.

  “My goodness,” the boy whispered, getting off the ground. “What willpower! I can see why Olympia chose her. I can only imagine an argument between them. No common ground, either an agreement or unfiltered silence.”

  “Quiet,” Bianca snarled. She stumbled. Stopped. Gasped for air and breathed through her mouth.

  “Artemis,” Thalia said behind her. She couldn’t turn to look. “You need to rest.”

  Bianca ignored her and hobbled closer to Irina, right until she was so close she could smell the dampness in the girl’s black hair. She breathed through her mouth, one eye swollen, entire body feeling like she’d been put in a blender for days on end. Irina said nothing, just raised a pierced eyebrow, looked around, then folded her arms.

  The girl’s face swayed in her vision. Or maybe Bianca was swaying. Or the ground.

  Fuck it. Didn’t matter.

  She grabbed Irina’s shirt, almost leaning against her. “Why’d you kiss her?”

  Irina smiled. Almost. It was too big of a twitch on her lips for Bianca’s liking, as if she enjoyed the memory, as if she liked seeing the anger in Bianca’s one good eye. “Well…” The girl shrugged. Heat rose in her chest. “Let’s just say Olympia and I go wayyyy back. She even came all the way to my house, and, well, things just happened.”

  Before Bianca could tear Irina’s nose off her face with nothing but her teeth, the boy spoke.

  “Olympia nearly killed her for that.” This time, Bianca looked over her shoulder. The boy picked up the fallen towel and dropped it inside of a cooling bucket of water. “We were on a journey of making peace with the Normals who live just beyond stadium grounds, and their supposed leader at the time was Wasteland. I’m not sure why or how someone like him was living in a place like that, but Olympia was attacked, and just a few moments later, I found her on the verge of killing Irina.” A shrug as he picked up the bucket. “I’ve always liked to think she didn’t kill Irina as a warning. She was very…reactive. I’ve always wondered why. I suppose I have an idea now.”

  “Wasteland?” Bianca asked, then the ground rushed toward her. Thalia was there, and then she was on the bed again, staring at a tarp ceiling flapping in the wind. She groaned and curled into a ball, then violently shivered.

  “Help her,” Thalia said. No, commanded. The words came out like a bark.

  That made Irina flinch.

  “I tried!” she said, spreading her hands. “I can control blood, sure, but what the fuck does that do when her blood feels so…weird. There’s something inside of her that doesn’t like getting pushed around. It’s like doing heart surgery blindfolded. I don’t want to blow up her heart trying to get blood to flow away from her wounds. And yeah, fine, I’m just a little bit scared of killing this chick, because Olympia would actually kill me this time, so…nope.”

  “She’ll actually kill you if you don’t try.”

  Silence. Silence filled with Bianca’s agonized moaning.

  What the— What the fuck are you doing? she thought. Clutching her ribs, nearly tearing through the filthy bandages. You made a promise. You made a fucking promise! Heal me. Keep me alive. What the hell are you doing?

  Nothing. Stillness. A quietness in her mind she hadn’t felt in nearly a year resonated through her skull.

  Answer me! she screamed.

  “You kept Wasteland alive, didn’t you?” the boy quietly asked. “I know you can help her, too. Please.”

  “Sometimes people die,” Irina muttered. “Sometimes it’s slow, sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it’s worse when you know you tried to save them and nothing worked.” She held herself tighter. Bianca saw her through squinted, blurry eyes. A wave of nausea and pain almost threw her into the darkness. “I tried, OK? I tried my best.”

  “It’s not her time yet,” the boy said. “The universe isn’t done with her.”

  “So what?” Irina said. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t done with Zeus yet, either.”

  “It isn’t, not yet.” The boy got closer to Irina. Bianca, gasping for air, fought to stay awake, fought to keep her eyes open. “But this is much different. I don’t know why her future is blurred, and the Elder Gods’ intent is as skewed as ever, but I can feel it. I can tell. If she was to die, she would’ve died last year. That’s for certain. But not yet. All you’re doing now is prolonging her suffering. You will succeed, Irina. There’s no future in which you fail.”

  Silence. Bianca shut her eyes, made a whining, desperate sound, tears spilling from her eyes.

  Then: “Fine,” Irina sighed. “But I don’t believe in any of the bullshit you just told me. I’m doing this to prove myself right, not because your stupid Elder Gods or fate or whatever thinks I can do it. God doesn’t exist.”

  A deathly cold hand pressed against her skull, and unconscious dragged Bianca into the dark.

  Wait. No. Not entirely dark.

  A skyline. Nighttime. Lights glimmering. Distant ocean sparkling with stars and moonlight.

  And a hiss of a can being popped open, then sloshed around and tipped into a wide open mouth.

  Bianca watched Ben swallow, sitting beside him, so close she could smell his old cologne. He sighed, knuckled the beer foam off his mouth, then turned his head and smiled at her. For a moment, she didn’t move. The wind blew, cold, thick, shoving her hair across her face. Ben nudged her arm and turned to look at the city again.

  “It’s nice up here, isn’t it?” he asked quietly. Violet and black flesh crawled over his body, stopping near his sharp jaw. Just the same with her, on her skin, in her muscles and crawling along her bones. “Distance makes everything look more beautiful. You appreciate life when everything is further away, when it’s all a little slower, because you can really…” Ben sighed. “You can see it for what it’s worth.” He sipped the beer, rested his elbows on his knees, nodded his head. “I need to tell you a couple things, sis. It’s gonna be…a lot, and scary, and a little weird, and I wish you didn’t have to hear it, because I know you hated scary stories when you were young, but I guess by the time you’re listening to this, you won’t be so young anymore. So welcome to the adult club, where life is just so awesome all the time. Cheers.” Another long pull. A burp. He excused himself. Bianca wanted to smile. Her eyes stung instead. She didn’t want to rub the tears away, or blink—she wanted to look at him for as long as she could before she couldn’t anymore. Ben was silent, his hair played with by the wind. He looked so…old. So exhausted. He rubbed his eyes, like that would get rid of the deep bags underneath them. He had frown lines around his mouth, creasing his cheeks and lining his forehead. She reached out. Paused. Couldn’t bring herself to touch his shoulder. They sat in silence, so close, so far, Ben staring at nothing, at everything, trying not to tear up. Ben finally cleared his throat, rubbed his hands together, and said, “Look at me, trying not to cry. Such a fucking loser. What kind of big brother cries in front of his sister? I look so lame.” He put his face in his hands. Shuddered. You’re not. You’re not lame. You’re— “Ok,” he said, then lifted his head to look at the stars, eyes shining with tears. “Let’s do this.”

  He looked at his sister. “From the start.”