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It’s not much harder to track them, even so. Apollo’s energy is hot and terrified, and I hate it. I hate it so much, but I don’t let it get to me.
Apollo thought I needed to be protected, but the truth is that I thought he needed to be protected, too.
Because I’ve never told him about the other game I play. The game that’s not a game at all.
When I was thirteen, I decided I wanted to hunt. Not do archery practice with targets—hunt. So I did my internet research. I looked up all the rules. I got a license and reviewed the laws and learned how to kill various animals cleanly.
I didn’t want to kill an animal, necessarily, but I felt like I had to. I felt like there was something off about my life, and about the rest of the world. It wasn’t bloodlust I felt, just that there was a cycle I needed to be part of. One that wouldn’t be right until I took my place in it.
So finally, after months of exhausted research, I got up the courage to sneak out of my house in the middle of the night.
I didn’t keep a lot from my parents growing up. I had no reason to. They trusted me and I trusted them. They respected my hobbies, and encouraged me—all the things great parents are supposed to do.
I didn’t want to tell my dad about the hunting.
He was open with us about our childhood, so I’d heard about the things his foster father had done in front of him and to him. I heard about the things he and his brothers and his sister survived.
I didn’t think he would be interested in any more killing of any kind.
I had a plan when I walked out of the house that involved the subway and at least two Ubers and public lands north of Manhattan. It was a very detailed plan that would have me back at home and safe in my bed before sunrise.
But when I got to the end of the driveway, someone was already there.
My Uncle Hades leaned against one of his black SUVs with his arms crossed. He wore black the way he always did, but his clothes that night were sturdy and simple and warm.
I stopped at the curb, and he turned to me like I hadn’t been sneaking. Like I hadn’t been making my footsteps as silent as humanly possible.
“Ready?” he asked.
I thought about lying. I don’t know why. “I?—”
He just gave me a look.
“Yes,” I admitted. “I’m ready.”
Uncle Hades didn’t take me to a public preserve. He drove me to the same piece of property Apollo and I own now. Hades owned it then, and he sold it to me for eighteen dollars on my eighteenth birthday.
Hades was the one who went into the woods with me the first time. He stopped the car at the parking area and zipped me into a hunter-orange vest, then tugged a hunter-orange hat over my hair.
“Is anyone else going to be in the woods?” I asked while he was zipping up his own vest and pulling on his own hat. I used to wonder, when I was really little, if he’d look better in other colors than black. My uncle looks oddly decent in orange, but I don’t think it’d suit him for everyday wear.
“No,” he answered.
“Then why—” I gestured to all the orange gear. I had studied hunting safety practices and had a much smaller reflective vest in my bag, but it seemed like overkill if we were going to be alone.
“Hunting rules.”
“Hunting rules, or you want to cover your ass in case my parents find out?”
“Cover my ass in the event of…what?” He gave me big eyes, which is the funniest expression I’ve ever seen on him. “Your big, scary dad comes to beat me up?”
“I’m going to tell him you said that.”
“No, you’re not.”
Hades was right. I didn’t tell my dad he said that because I thought I might slip up and reveal the hunting trip.
That night, he asked easy questions about what I knew, and wanted to know if I had any questions for him, and asked if I had killed before.
