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“Iolaus,” Hades answers.
Ollie makes a gagging noise. “Nobody calls me that. It’s Ollie.”
Hades rolls his eyes. “Okay.”
Ollie laughs like they’ve done this before, which…is impossible.
Or maybe it’s not.
No idea.
Ollie slaps my chest, then throws his arm around my shoulders. “Get the hell out of here, Hercules.”
Not much time left. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ll take care of your Mom, like I’ve been doing.”
“Ollie—” I warn.
With his free hand, he shoves my elbow forward. My hand knocks into Hades’s, and he catches it. There’s pressure like you wouldn’t believe, a sensation like poppies pushing through the ground.
“Take care of yourself.” Ollie’s voice is so clear. Totally unchanged. The field is fading, getting smaller and darker with every second, and I have the most powerful urge to grab for it, to keep some of it, to keepsomething.But this place can’t be kept, already losing form along with color, more of a suggestion now than a vision. “Take care of Daisy. Don’t come back.”
19
DAISY
The gasp is soloud that I don’t know who it’s coming from.
It’s both of them.
It’s Herculesandmy dad.
Hercules blinks, eyelashes fluttering, and I throw myself at him like I’ve lost it, which I have. He grunts when my full weight comes down on his abs and looks up at me, disbelieving, tears in his eyes.
“Daisy.”
The shriek that comes out of me isn’t dignified and it probably isn’t appropriate and it’swaytoo loud and I don’t care. I don’t care that anybody else is in here. I bury my hands in his hair and kiss him.
He doesn’t taste dead. Not that—not that I’ve kissed anyone who’s dead, but he’s warm, he’swarm,he’s not cold and he’s not still and he kisses me back with an amount of force that’s definitely not appropriate for a crowded room.
His hands come to my face, and then he pushes me back a few inches to look at me. Stare, like he’s not sure what I’m supposed to look like.
I slap his chest. “What were youthinking?”
Hercules’s mouth drops open. His eyes get huge, like this is the most foolish thing anyone’s ever said to him in his entire life. “I wassaving you. You’re not serious. I was thinking that Iloveyou, and so I was saving you.”
“I loveyou,” I shout at him.
“I can hear you,” he shouts back.
“Good, because I thought you weredead.”
Then I burst into tears and collapse on top of him, ribs intact, strong enough to hold me.
“Baby.” His voice turns on a dime, and it’s soft and warm and sunny. Hercules runs a hand over my hair, his other hand on my back. “Don’t cry.”
I push my face into his shirt. I’m going to pretend I didn’t make a high, embarrassed noise.
