AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The beating of a helicopter’s rotors.
18
APOLLO
The thing about dying is you never know when it’s going to happen.
Unless you’re me.
It’s happening right now. I know that. If I’m honest, I knew that from the second I walked out of that building, and I knew Artemis was going to be so pissed.
But the thing is, there were children. And women.
What was I supposed to do? Leave them there? No. All they needed was one more piece of the puzzle, and that puzzle piece was me. There’ll be hell to pay for someone, probably, but I’m already in hell.
So maybe that’s up to me, too.
All of this feels like a dream.
Did you know that if your fever gets too high, it can boil your brain?
My brain is boiling.
Feels like an uneven boil. Should have dropped the whole thing in at once instead of doing it in pieces.
Artemis leans over me in the woods. How are we still out here? How did we stay up all night? There were wolves. An entire pack of wolves. They were chasing us, and we were ahead of them, but they must’ve caught up to us. They must’ve bit me in the face, because my face hurts.
Are there more wolves?
No. That’s a helicopter.
The helicopter is so, so loud. Dead leaves tremble under my hands. The entire mountain is trembling. What little sky I can see through the branches is the color of thunderclouds or heavy smoke. Tendrils of Artemis’s hair whip around her face. She’s saying something. I think she’s saying my name, but I can’t hear her over the helicopter.
I can hear Delphi, though. Or a memory of Delphi. I don’t think she’s here. This isn’t the kind of place to have an impromptu guitar concert. Trembling earth. Ashen skies. Am I surprised, though? A little, because this clearing didn’t seem big enough to fit a helicopter.
This feels personal, I try to tell her, but there’s something over my face.
The signs were there before your eyes, standing on their own two feet in a patch of sun that glowed like light through a window
She’s right, though. I should have seen this one coming. The song becomes a ditty about how I didn’t invite her to the wedding, but I did invite her to the wedding. And she declined. Or she hasn’t sent her RSVP. She wants to know if it’s on an aircraft carrier.
Why does she need an aircraft carrier? I gave her my whole think tank. She’s the queen of the think tank now. She can do whatever she wants. She’s the boss.
Fine. She can sing a song and play her guitar while Artemis walks down the aisle.
If Artemis is into that.
If we ever get out of these woods.
Oh—the whole world turned around. Did you see that? It went head over heels. Artemis is upside down. Then she’s right side up. Maybe she’s taking me somewhere. Or maybe I’m going.
There are men with shadows in a circle around us when I land on the ground, but Artemis doesn’t see them. Or maybe she doesn’t care that they’re so close. She just looks at me with flecks of blood on her face.
That’s worrisome.
But it doesn’t seem to be hurting her, because she smiles. Artemis is dressed in black, too.
Oh, fuck. Is Artemis the Angel of Death?
