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It’s not the worst case. The Rathbek military didn’t leave with nothing. They got me!
But I left Artemis.
I don’t know what the situation is back at that base, but it can’t be good. If Artemis is mad enough, she’ll threaten people with her bow. She might even shoot them with arrows. She’s shot me with an arrow, and she likes me.
“You might have to carry me if you want to get me there alive.” Getting harder to talk. “I’m probably not worth much, but I have to be worth more alive than I would be as a corpse.”
“Shut. Up,” Guard Number One says, sounding exhausted.
They move a few steps farther away.
When they step back again, I’ll be dead.
I feel…
Very bad.
As I’m accepting my fate—it’s not like I can get up and rescue myself—the breeze shifts.
I catch the scent of Artemis in the air. Clean. Sweet. Pure. Like a dress that’s been drying on a line in the sun. Like a Christmas cookie. Like her.
Now I know I’m dying. Because she’s not here, and I can breathe her in and feel her in the air.
Artemis can’t be here. They didn’t just let her walk out. She’s probably still in that building, arguing with the colonel and trying to figure out what he did with me. Or maybe they’ve taken her into custody so they can use her as a bargaining chip. That would be an enormous mistake. Someone in that camp will have figured out that she’s Zeus’s daughter by now.
This isn’t such a bad way to die, feeling like she’s close.
There’s a quiet sound, and Guard Number Two’s eyes go wide. He does this pathetic little gurgle and collapses. His friends don’t notice he’s going down until he’s a pile in the leaves, an arrow sticking out of his back.
"Uh oh." My throat hurts. "You're in trouble now."
17
ARTEMIS
The second man dies while he’s blinking down at his buddy’s dead body and the arrow jutting out of him.
The third one has a few seconds to say what sounds like what the fuck is happening? in a language I don’t understand before he’s down, too.
There’s no balance in this, though.
There’s only Apollo, crumpled at the base of a tree, his face red and his eyes glassy, with a swollen lip and a dark bruise spreading under one of his eyes.
He blinks at me when I crouch down next to him.
“They had little kids,” he says, sounding bewildered. “And women.”
“It’s okay.” I put my hand in his. Even his palm is burning up. “I came as fast as I could.”
“I’m dying,” he says sadly, the corners of his mouth turning. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“You’re not dying.”
And of course that’s when it happens. Of course it’s like a bad dream.
From somewhere on the mountain, somewhere close enough to hear, a wolf howls.
But, very faintly, I can hear?—
