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Gods, my family really is the worst.
I turn up the pace on the treadmill. It’s only three miles. I can go a little faster, a little harder. Anything to avoid thinking too closely about the fact that my brother and sister sat down and decided, together, that they were willing to sacrifice me for the goodwill of the next Ares. I don’t care what reassurances Perseus mouthed; in that worst-case scenario, I would already be harmed. Vengeance isn’t for the victims. It’s to make the people around them feel better for not doing anything to stop it in the first place.
I am no victim.
Not anymore.
I was helpless in my father’s house. My mother tried to help, but all she got for her trouble was a broken neck while my father moved on to another woman, another Hera. People used to joke about his Heras being interchangeable, toys shattered by an angry man and replaced just as easily. He would have done it again if he hadn’t died. He already had his sights set on Persephone, a woman younger than me.
Perseus was the one to tell me the news of our father’s death. I sat there and waited to feel anything at all. Sorrow. Guilt. Joy. Something. Instead, it simply felt like someone had lifted a great weight from my shoulders. The monster with the charming mask couldn’t hurt or control me anymore.
I didn’t expect my brother to step into the role of Zeus so completely. I didn’t expect him to essentially put me on lockdown—for my safety, of course. To start dictating what was and wasn’t acceptable Kasios behavior, just like our father used to.
To designate me a pawn to be sacrificed, just like our father planned.
I turn up the speed on the treadmill. This isn’t helping. I’m still thinking too much. I can’t outrun the skeletons rattling around inside my brain, but I can exhaust myself until they slumber. I have to. I can’t fucking live like this. Not when I’m so close to freedom, not when distraction means failure.
A hand appears in my field of vision. I don’t have time to do more than flinch before Patroclus hits the stop button on the treadmill. The belt slows, and I yank my headphones out of my ears. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“That’s enough, Helen.”
I open my mouth to tell him where to shove his opinion, but the red numbers catch my attention. Seven miles, not three, and at a pace that I know better than to hold. Now that my momentum has been brought up short, the shakiness in my limbs registers. The sweat coating my body. How each breath saws painfully in and out of my lungs. I’ve run farther and faster, but this wasn’t meant to be this kind of workout.
Weak. Reckless. Impulsive. I try to shove the words away, but they linger just out of reach, taunting me.
Patroclus doesn’t move, his hand still on the stop button. I suspect to keep me from ignoring him and turning the damn thing back on. I swipe sweat from my forehead with my forearm. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? Because you look like you went too hard and were going to keep running until your legs gave out.” His gaze coasts over me. It’s not sexual. He’s looking at me like he’s checking for injuries. There’s absolutely no excuse for the shiver of awareness that goes through me in response. I blame the air conditioner against my sweaty skin for the way my nipples go tight and hard against the thin fabric of my sports bra.
“I’m fine,” I repeat. It’s not true this time any more than the last time I said it. I’m so far from fine, it’s laughable, but what did I really expect? My siblings threw me under the bus; that’s going to affect me, even if a small, dark part of me isn’t surprised in the least. I’m not in the mood to try to explain that to Patroclus, though. He seems like a good guy, but he’s Achilles’s good guy. Just because we were childhood friends and he did a nice thing for me just now doesn’t mean he signed up to have all my baggage dumped on him.
Still, I can’t leave things so curtly. I hesitate. “Look, I’m not inviting you to meddle in the future, because I don’t need a babysitter, but thanks for stopping me.”
“No problem.” He drags his hand through his short, dark hair. He’s got a bit of a five-o’clock shadow going on, which gives him a roguish look that isn’t great for my libido.
Not that anything else about Patroclus is roguish. Best I can tell his nice guy routine isn’t a routine at all. That hasn’t changed, at least. I could use that to my advantage, but I’m suddenly so damn tired that I can’t think straight. He deserves better than to be the whip I pick up to flog myself with, which means I have to get out of here before I do something unforgivably foolish. “I’m going to go take a shower.”
