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Achilles moved like a flash. One second he was across the aisle, the next—in it. It wasn’t lost on me that I was within strangling distance. “Because while we don’t know where it is exactly, we know it’s close, and we think you might find it. And that can’t happen.”
Leo
“Bullshit.” The words left my mouth, but now I was the one lying.How?How would they know I was close? A million questions rushed to my lips. “Close like, the right country? Or close like, within miles?”
Achilles held up his hand. “Come with us.”
Motherf—It was dumb. It wassodumb. Butdammit. “We sit by the windows, and I’m telling people who I’m with. I want a selfie.”
Achilles shook his head, but Pollux nodded. “Fine. Go ahead.”
I held up my phone, and took—hands down—the most depressing selfie ever. Not one smile in sight. But that wasn’t its purpose. The issue was, of course, who did I send it to?
I didn’t have friends.
Strangely, it was Dr. St. John’s face who popped into my head. I opened my email, because god knows he didn’t text, and sent it to him, along with a note that I was on the train from Oxford, headed to Whitby.
“Whitby?” Orestes asked. He’d been watching. I flipped it over quickly, but then—why?
“Yes.”
“You think it’s in Whitby?” Pollux asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I have a few places I think it could be. I wasn’t going to Whitby because I know for sure it’s there…” I trailed off because the thoughthadoccurred to me. It was that strange piece of jet, carved with the profile of Achilles that had started me thinking. I glanced at the man staring at me straight on and wished it wasn’t rude to compare the jet to his actual profile.
Actually, though, fuck this guy. He tried to push me off a train. One quick flick and I had the image called up. I held it up and out. “Turn to the side.”
Widening his eyes, he stared at me.
“I want to see if there’s a resemblance.”
Achilles touched my phone with one finger, dragging it down so he could see the screen. I let him. He snorted when he saw the image. “No.”
True. The features on the jet were too smooth. But still…
Then again, I’d have to study a profile for years to be able to match it to a real person.
“They’ll meet us there.” Pollux slid his phone into his pocket. I hadn’t noticed he’d made a call, or sent a message.
“Where are we?” I asked, as if they could tell. It had been hours since we left the station. It wasn’t dark out yet, and the scenery was still lush and rolling, though there weren’t as many copses of trees as there had been when we first started out.
“Northeast of York,” Achilles answered.
With that, I sat back in my seat. There wasn’t anything else to do until we got there, and met whoever “they” were. The adrenaline had drained out of my body, and a weird lethargy filled me. Orestes’ jacket was warm. Leaning my face against my shoulder, I took a deep breath. It smelled good, too, like he sprayed himself with cologne, or maybe it was just his body wash. It was pleasant, and I breathed in again.
“Do I smell?” Orestes asked.
Caught, I lifted my head to look at him. He wasn’t making a joke; his light brown eyes studied mine. I wanted to be a jerk. To him. To all of them.
But he hadn’t been the one to push me. Not even Achilles had done that, whether it was by accident or luck. So there was no reason to be a bitch, just because I could be.
And wanted to be.
“No,” I finally answered once I’d wrestled with the devil on my shoulder. “I like it.”
His cheeks flushed, darkening his tan skin, and he dropped his gaze. “Have you had any other episodes? Like the one last night, I mean.”
That chased away all thoughts of sleep. “No. Thankfully. Neither of you slipped me anything, did you?” It was a fair question given what I was dealing with now.
