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It meant a lot of profit for some people, right up until my mother died and they lost all three of us.
And Ares and I got a new family, and I got Artemis. And I thought that if I ran fast enough and hard enough, I’d be able to escape where I came from and it would be clinging to me like so many shadows.
But men like my own personal shadow—introduced to me as Colonel Paul, as though I’d ever give him the respect of a rank—are like cockroaches. They keep coming back. They’re very difficult to kill.
I should’ve killed him when we were alone in that building.
Except! I didn’t have any weapons, other than my bare hands, and I don’t think I’d have had the strength to strangle him. Never follow my lead and become a good-faith negotiator. It always screws you over in the end.
I wonder if Artemis has a knife on her.
The thing about knives is?—
Well, the thing about killing is?—
If you’re going to kill the devil, you have to kill him. That’s how the saying goes, right? You have to really kill him. You can’t wound him and piss him off in front of all his buddies. That won’t go in your favor.
The mountains spin. It’s so hot.
“What are you hoping to get out of all this?” I ask in the direction of the nearest soldier-shaped blob.
It takes a lot of energy to ask the question, and I’m rewarded for it by being hauled into a clearing—or somewhere off the path—and punched in the face.
Ouch.
It hurts less than I thought it was, but that’s because my whole head is on fire.
I’ve never had a fever this high, and somehow, it keeps getting worse.
Well, this is it, then. This is how I die.
The thought brings me a fleeting sense of peace.
It’s not peaceful to think about how furious Artemis is going to be.
“Is it money?” My lip is really swollen. I didn’t realize he’d gotten me in the lip.
“Shut up the fuck up,” Guard Number Three says.
“Is that all you can add to the conversation?”
One of them drops me at the base of a tree. I push myself against it as hard as I can. Won’t be able to sit up like this forever, but it’s nice for now.
The three guards confer, standing so close they’re almost on top of me. I don’t think I’d understand them even if they were speaking English.
Oh, now the sun is starting to rise. It’s the dullest, most resentful sunrise I’ve ever seen. It makes the soldiers look washed-out and tired. Rathbek isn’t taking good care of them, that’s for sure, and eventually they’ll get sick of it.
And then what do you get?
A revolution.
Or another military coup.
Whatever people are feeling at the time.
And after that, the great freedom eagle of the United States will swoop in and save the day. We’ll find a way to fight for democracy, or at least for trade agreements. And if innocent women and children were harmed, then so be it.
But not the women and children in the tents, because they went directly into the arms of their families, who had already put together a plan to get them out.
