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“If it’s all right with you,” Hector said, “I’ll drive you.”
Paris
Once we got Leo to our cottage that night, I left. The excuse I gave was that I would find Achilles, but the truth was, I wanted out.
My reaction to her confused and concerned me. Feeling replaced the distance I was used to, and my entire body cringed with discomfort.
Push. Pull.
I wanted to learn more about Leo, but wanted to pretend she didn’t exist. Everything about her was a problem, from how drawn I was to her, to what she represented.
It had been so much easier when she was this faceless thing who threatened the world’s existence. Black and white.
Her presence put all of us in danger, so she had to die.
I’d fully agreed with Achilles. Orestes had agreed with us, too, and even if Hector didn’t come out and say it, he would have sided with us eventually.
Instead, Pollux, the most unlikely of all of us, refused to let us do what had to be done, and one by one, like dominos, we’d fallen.
I found Achilles in the dark, sitting on a stonewall outside the pub which had long since closed when I arrived. Parking Hector’s old Defender behind him, I waited for him to acknowledge me.
He didn’t. He stared down the road, toward the train station, as if expecting someone to walk up. The slam of the door was loud, and somewhere in the town, a dog barked in reply.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
It was a good question. “I wanted to talk to you.”
He sniffed. “About what? How I failed to do what I meant to do?”
“I’m not sure you did.” He hadn’t killed Leo, but maybe that was okay. I wasn’t sure yet. There was too much gray right now.
“It will only make things harder. Our enemy has a face. A voice. A personality. It’s worse now.” As he spoke, his voice got quieter, and more tired. His shoulders slumped, and he rubbed his hands down his face. “I don’t know what happened.”
Holding out his hands, like the answer was there, he flipped them from palm to top. I didn’t see any injuries, though they’d have to be substantial to last as many hours as had passed. “She fought you?”
“Like a wild animal.” He chuckled. “Surprised me.”
Lie.Nothing surprised him. If she got the upper hand, he let her. Maybe he meant everything about her surprised him. His reaction to her surprised him.
He let out a sigh as I sat next to him. His gaze was fixed on the distance, but not because he saw something. I knew him well enough that he couldn’t look at me when he said whatever it was weighing on him. “I can’t do it now.”
Kill her.He couldn’t kill her now, because she wasn’t faceless, or voiceless. Because she’d gone from a threat to three-dimensional girl who couldn’t lie to save her life. Literally. His own warning, about how things would be harder, made perfect sense.
I might want to jump in—I’ll do it—because I owed it to him. I owed it to all of them. This whole fucking mess…
“I can hear you blaming yourself from here. Knock it the fuck off, would you? Your guilt played itself out about three thousand years ago.” His words were a knife, and he slid it between my ribs so easily.
Letting my head fall forward, my long, unkempt hair made a wall between us. I needed it. He had me. My guilt made them feel as if they had to assuage me, and if I didn’t feel guilty, then I was a fucking monster, wasn’t I?
In the distance, a train whistle blew, and miles beyond that, Leo slept beneath our roof. Our cottage was a spot of brightness on the dark moors. But here, the street lamps and porch lights were bright enough that they obscured the stars.
“I couldn’t see the stars for weeks when you set up camp on the beaches. Maybe it was longer than that.” No matter how much time passed between now and the war, the images never grew fuzzy. “I couldn’t even hear the ocean, you were all so loud. I would sit on my balcony, Helen asleep in bed, and listen. I tried to count the campfires and the shadows, as if I could return each morning to my father and brother, and all the generals, with something helpful. They looked at me the same way you do. The same way you are right now. In their way. A burden. A stupid boy, ruled by his cock, bringing problems for men to solve.”
I didn’t bother to glance at him. I could feel his gaze burning into me. If I looked over, I’d see a glare that could burn the skin off my body. “You have every right to hate me. What I did changed everything.Ruinedeverything. And I’m sorry for what happened because of it.”
“You know,” his deep voice cut through the night. “No matter how much time passes, you’re still a child. This isn’t about you, Paris. It was never about you. Hell, it was never about Helen. You still don’t get it. I don’t fucking blame you for the war, because it was always going to happen. The gods were bored, and they were setting up the dominos to fall well before you were born.”
“I played into their hands.”
