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I crane my neck but the only people I see are a bunch of high school aged girls wearing Catholic school uniforms pouring from the steps of a church as we walk past. But Persephone?
Persephone flinches.
“No,” she says quickly, looking down at her feet. She draws her arms around herself, hugging herself. Her footsteps on the cobblestones are loud and hurried.
I glance around again and then shrug. “Okay. Our villa is up there…”
I point to a spot in the middle distance, sitting at the top of a hill.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. She nods and heads in the direction I pointed. My eyes stick to her body. I can tell something is off, but I can’t read her mind.
Her breathing is visibly faster, her chest rising and falling as she walks. And her golden green eyes flecked with brown rove over every face that she sees.
Expectant.
As soon as we pass the church, I grab her arm and pull her roughly into a little sheltered alcove just beside the next staircase.
Persephone looks up at me, her face narrowing and her expression growing hard. She wriggles and tries to shake off my steel grip. “Hades, will you let me go?”
A man passes on the street behind me. I know this because she looks at him, her eyes widening alarmingly. I turn my head and do a double take.
“What?” I ask. “Do ye know him?”
For a second, Persephone swallows and looks at the man. He’s just an average guy in black board shorts and a tight white t-shirt. He doesn’t give us a second look and shuffles on down the street, earbuds in his ears.
“Persephone,” I say, shaking her. “Do ye know him?”
She pauses, then shakes her head. “I… I don’t think so.”
She sounds like a mousy little girl. Not at all like the stubborn, odd girl that I’ve come to begin to know over the past weeks.
I grip both of her arms, forcing her to look up at me. She’s shaking like a leaf and I move closer out of some unknown instinct. “Who are ye looking for, lass?” I ask, scanning her face as I block her from view. Protecting her, I guess ye could say.
Her eyes shine with a sudden sheen of tears. “I don’t know. I just… Whenever I am in public, especially around large crowds…” She sucks in a breath to calm herself. “I worry that Constantine might be there. Or he might have someone working for him, feeding information back to him.” She chews on her lip, her eyes sliding away behind me, hyper vigilant. “He might have somebody walk right by me that could stab me with a syringe. My life would be forfeit, just like that.”
My brows rise. I glance over my shoulder. “Is there some reason that ye think he would know where to find us right now?”
She flushes, looking down at my chest. Her denial is barely a whisper. “No.”
I ease my grip, rucking my hands up and down her arms quickly and giving her a hard look. “Do ye think that I should worry about Constantine more than usual here in Valencia?”
She swallows and still doesn’t meet my gaze. “No.”
She sounds like she’s holding back tears. I don’t know what to do with her other than to get her out of the street so that she can stop shaking and jumping every time she hears a loud noise of any kind boom out of our vicinity.
I lick my lips and look behind me a final time. No one is approaching. There is nothing to raise any sort of alarms at all.
“All right.” Stepping out, I pull her away from the wall and put my arm around her. I tuck her under my arm and start to stroll toward the villa, casual yet with purpose. “Stay close. Okay?”
Persephone nods, her eyes fixed on the hilltop that I pointed out earlier. I tense up when I feel her slide an arm around my waist. But she looks so completely freaked out that I just let it slide.
I would be lying if I said that the gentle pressure of her arm pressed against my lower back didn’t feel sinfully good and at the same time extremely alarming.
I need to say something, anything, that will get us both talking. Get us out of our heads, just for a little while.
I end up with, “What did ye study at school?”
Her steps slow for a moment. She looks up at me, her brow furrowing. “What?”
