AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m wounded.” I’m off the ground the next second, in his arms.
“Dad. I’m way too old for this.” I’malsotoo old to hide my face in his neck. I stopped doing that when I was five. Six, at max. But I’m exhausted, and it’s painfully bright, and I might die.
“Okay.”
His voice is back to normal. No sign that he was ever crying. That having me live across the country was slowly killing him.
But he doesn’t put me down.
I’m never going back to California.
But it’s not because I think I have to stay for my parents, or for my cousins, or for anyone else. It’s because I don’t think this ends with me being able to go anywhere on account of being dead.
I just…I didn’t plan on dying here, where it would be burned into everyone’s memory.
10
HERCULES
This is fucking awkward.
Everyone pretends not to be looking out the window the entire time Daisy is out there with her dad, but that’s not the only thing they’re faking. Persephone keeps exchanging weighted glances with Brigit and Ashley. Orion and Calliope carry on a whispered conversation in the corner of the room like two government spies. Castor and Pollux switch personalities for no reason at all, Pollux putting on a broody, impatient expression and Castor making his face blank and innocent.
They’re all pretending this isn’t an emergency situation.
I told Zeus we were coming home, but I didn’t mean to give the impression that she was on the verge of death.
From the way everyone’s acting, that’s the logical progression.Seizures while asleepto death.
For my part, I pretend to be engrossed in the painting behind the settee, one of the series she was working on just before she left for California and they got spooky. I don’t really understand this one. It somehow manages to avoid committing to either a color or a form. If a Rorschach test could be printed in the dirty-greige shades of snow clouds, it would be this picture. Tilt your head to the left and there’s a suggestion of a dog. To the right, and it hints at a smiling mouth. As soon as I start to pick out a shape, it blends back in.
Everyone avoids talking to me as long as I stare at it, though, so I keep trying.
Meanwhile, Zeus and Poseidon bicker loudly in the kitchen until Cook kicks them out.
“—seriously think you were going to tackle him? For fuck’s sake, Poseidon, the man’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” Zeus says as they come back into the enormous family room, his voice barely hushed.
“So? He’s always on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Iknowyou know this.”
“Next time, do itsooner,is what I’m saying, I can’t have one of my—”
Poseidon slaps Zeus open-handed on the chest. “Shut the fuck up. They’re back.”
“Jesus. Was breaking a rib truly necessary?”
“Zeus, I say this with all the affection in the world, but don’t be a little b—”
The door opens, and Hades comes in carrying Daisy in his arms. I almost turn away, because it feels wrong to watch, like it’s a private moment in a private space, but nobody else does.
“Hungry?” Zeus asks.
“No,” Hades answers. “Turn down the lights.”
Zeus takes out his phone, and within seconds, the house is dark.
I expect complaints from Castor at minimum, but he and Pollux go into the dining room and come back with a bunch of balls. They’re small lamps, with soft light, in the shape of the moon. It’s like what Daisy has in her studio.
Pollux comes over to where I’m standing with Ares and Apollo, feeling like an intruder, and offers me one with a flourish. “Lighted ball?”
