The shadows on the wall meet.
She bows to the sound of hissing in her ears, a sound she hates more than anything. A sound that will soon be silenced.
He swings.
The sharp sting on the back of her neck pulls a gasp from her lips, but then relief flows through her. She is finally free. Free of the curse, free of being a monster. She welcomes her death with the comforting memories of her child nestled in her arms.
“Ari!” The back of my head rolled from side to side on the hard floor. Hands gripped both shoulders hard. “Ari! Goddamn it, breathe!”
Sebastian’s voice. Sebastian’s hands. Breathe. Why? I was fine. Everything was fine. Sleepy and fine. I settled back into the numbing, warm blackness that I found so comforting.
Until a fist slammed into my chest.
Fuck!
My eyes flew open. I sat up, mouth open, eyes wide but unseeing. My lungs burned. The pain over my heart, brutal. My mouth gaped like a fish out of water. Suffocating. My vision sharpened and with it came the realization that I needed to inhale, to breathe.
Jesus Christ, I needed to breathe!
My body lurched as my brain finally fired the correct signal, and I was able to suck in a long, desperate draught of air. My heart pistoned so hard, one breath was not enough, not nearly enough.
Sebastian sat back and wiped a hand over his forehead, his eyes filling with relief as he grabbed my hand.
After a long while, he said, “You stopped breathing. You were so still and quiet. The whole time. You didn’t even blink.”
A series of shudders went through me. I bit back tears and swallowed. “I didn’t?” I gasped. Because I sure as hell remembered screaming and crying and moaning.
And I sure as hell remembered my past. No, not my past. My ancestor’s cruel, heartbreaking past. My chest ballooned with the lingering despair I’d experienced as my ancestor. My head fell into my hands.
“You saw.”
I glanced up at Sebastian, hands falling limp into my lap. “Yeah,” I answered, voice ragged and small. “I saw.” He waited. And I couldn’t make the words come. “Do you mind if we get out of here?”
He eyed me for a long moment, and I saw worry and fear in his look, but that was all, just a brief glimpse before his head dipped and he began packing the contents of our ritual into his bag.
After shoving the heavy lid over the unnatural corpse of Alice Cromley, we left the tomb.
Long streaks of purple and orange leaked across the dark sky from the east, revealing the cemetery in all its creepy, broken glory. The high iron fence rose like battlefield spikes, keeping in the undefeated tombs, the ruins, and the mossy, exposed bones.
Still weak and numb, I made my way carefully down the two broken steps, my eyes coming to rest on the backs of the others. Odd. I thought they’d be facing me, waiting, curious to know what had happened.
Four in a line. Shoulder to shoulder. No one moved.
“Guys?” I said slowly, the hairs on my arms rising.
“Shh!” Henri’s head moved slightly, the only indication that the sound had come from him.
I exchanged a quick, confused glance with Sebastian before stepping closer to see what had grabbed their attention.
A gasp lodged in my throat.
No.
Snakes. At least thirty of them. All on the edge of the swamp, where water met ground. Bobbing in the water. Gathered. Drawn there. Eyes on the tomb. On me. Looking at me.
I stumbled back, falling against the steps. Pain lanced though my back and elbow as they cracked against marble. One look was all it took, one brief look that would be burned into my brain forever. And fear, the likes of which I’d never known before, swept me up and propelled me back. Scrambling, falling hard to my knees, my hands scraping across the jagged edges of a broken stone as I continued, turning and running.
Run.
My heart and lungs grew strained with the force of terror pushing the blood through my system, making me tingly and unsteady even as I darted around tombs and leaped over ruins, slowing only when the gate that led to freedom rose up before me.
I paused in front of the overgrown gate, my chest heaving, my arms going limp at my sides, the backpack slipping out of my hand and falling to the ground. Tears flowed down my cheeks and neck as I struggled to breathe and process what I’d just witnessed.
A nightmare. A horrible fucking nightmare.
The quick footsteps of the others approaching made me swipe hastily at the tears.
Crank was the first to reach me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You’re afraid of snakes.” Dub arrived next, sitting on a stone.
Sebastian tossed his backpack at Dub’s feet and joined him on the stone, drawing one leg up, his voice even and quiet. “Never seen them do that before.”
A small, ironic laugh stopped short of my mouth, turning into a harsh sound in my throat. Yeah. Neither had I. I placed my hands on my hips, wanting to toss my head back and scream, but instead I stayed silent, staring at the sky as it transitioned from dawn to day.
My body convulsed with a violent quake. I rubbed my face hard, trying to rub out the vision in my mind, and the horrifying realization that the snakes had come to see me. To pay homage to their queen. Medusa. Gorgon. The one who carried the curse of my family and would one day become a monster. A hideous creature so reviled one look would turn a person to stone. Stone as hard as the one Dub and Sebastian sat on.
That was my legacy. That was what awaited me.
And it was fucked up enough to scare even a goddess. It figured. I laughed.
“So?” Henri said, winded, having finally made it to the gate. “What’d you see in the tomb?”
“Nothing.” My voice was laced with horror and grief.
Violet came strolling up, Pascal under her arm once again. I couldn’t look at those reptilian eyes, so I turned back, coming face-to-face with Henri’s frown and Crank’s incredulous look.
“We just came all the way out here with you and you’re not going to tell us?”
“I didn’t ask you to come, Crank.” I winced, knowing I sounded like a first-rate asshole. “I’m sorry, it’s just . . . I can’t . . .” How could I tell them? How could I tell them and watch their faces turn into shock and disgust?
“You never would’ve figured this out without our help,” Henri pointed out. “We deserve to know what you’re up against. If Athena goes on the warpath, it affects us all.”
“It doesn’t if I’m not here.”
Crank’s eyes widened in disbelief, and her hands curled into two small fists. “So, what are you saying? You’re going to leave us?”
I tossed my hands up, staring hard at a point beyond Crank’s shoulder. I didn’t know what the hell I was saying anymore. Just that I couldn’t tell them what I was, what I would become. I couldn’t watch them run away, turn their backs on me—the biggest misfit of them all, forsaken even by those in New 2. And if that happened, then where was I supposed to go? Where the hell would anyone accept me?
No, this secret would go with me to the grave if it had to. Whether it meant hurting my friends or not, no matter if it meant leaving New 2 and never looking back.
A squawk interrupted my thoughts, reverberating through the thin morning air.
A raven landed on the peak of a nearby tomb, its wings fluttering for a moment before folding behind its back.
“Ari,” Sebastian said, “whatever it is, you can tell us.”
The raven cawed again, the sound echoing Sebastian’s last two words. Tell us! Tell us! Almost as though it laughed at me. God, I was losing it.
But then, the others were staring strangely at the bird too.
I wasn’t the only one who heard.
Tell us! Tell us!
Dread swept beneath my skin as the raven transformed into a black-clad woman perched on her haunches on the peak of the tomb, her hands curling over the edge, fingernails long and vicious, a wicked grin on her lips. “Yes, tell us, Ari. Tell us what you have seen.”
Athena.
Dead flowers and flashing emerald beads threaded through her tangled, upswept hair.
A hard swallow went down my throat, followed by a tightening of every muscle I possessed. All the emotions of my vision boiled over, as fresh and furious as they’d been a few moments ago. “You should know, you petty piece of shit.”
I blinked, surprised by the venom and the words that came out of my mouth. But I knew where they came from. From seeing Medusa, and the horror she had gone through. And for what? For being beautiful? For being raped by some ass-wipe of a god in Athena’s perfect temple?
Fuck Athena.
Athena’s eyes narrowed to fine points. She cocked her head. But the rise in her chest as she breathed told me that the words had cut. Good.
“Well, then,” the goddess said, her perfect lips twitching, “if you won’t tell them, perhaps I should.”
Eighteen
“NO!” I SHOUTED AS ATHENA EASED HER LEGS DOWN SO THAT she straddled the roofline of the tomb, her feet dangling over the edge and swinging like a child’s. Her smug smile chilled me to the bone. “Please,” I whispered, hating myself for begging. “Don’t.”
“Ooh!” She clapped her hands together. “I know. How about we just show them instead? A little taste of what’s to come. Just a vision, not enough to hurt them. And just enough to show you, dear Ari, that you don’t belong here.”
Oh God.
I sank to my knees. “No,” my voice choked. “Please. Don’t do this.”
One corner of her mouth twisted up smugly. I knew it was too late. I saw it in the brutal glint and the incredible arrogance lighting the depths of her eyes.
Athena’s hands shot out, and from them came two shafts of crackling, green-tinged bolts. I didn’t even have time to stand, just stayed frozen on my knees as her power swirled around me, ruffling my clothing and lifting the wisps of my hair. The knot at the back of my head broke free. My hair lifted and spread out in white waves. My stomach clenched as I tried to double over, to curl into myself and hide, but an invisible force held me still, held my chin high and my shoulders straight. I fought against it, sweat breaking out on the small of my back.