by A P Mobley
Karter clenched his jaw. “I don’t want to remember, can’t you see? I want to forget about Spencer and Syrena, forget about my life on Olympus. I want to forget about my mother.”
“No, you don’t. Your past is important in shaping who you are and what you value—which I know, deep down, does not include gaining immortality like this. Not in the slightest.”
“You’re wrong.” He balled his fists, fighting the urge to blast Asteria with gold lightning. “Those things just caused me guilt and pain—endless amounts of it. My mother died because of me. Hera killed her because I was born.”
“Hera didn’t kill your mother because of you. She didn’t even kill your mother for anything your mother did purposefully. Zeus disguised himself before your mother and did not tell her who he really was until it was too late, and when the chance arose, Hera killed her out of jealousy. She would have killed you too had you not been able to escape.”
“Syrena was such a good friend to me,” Karter continued, ignoring Asteria’s reasoning. “And she died because I didn’t stick up for her, because I didn’t try to save her. And Spencer . . .” A lump formed in his throat. He swallowed it down. “He died because I didn’t reach Hades fast enough.”
“None of those things are your fault. The universe—”
“You don’t understand,” Karter said, throwing his hands in the air. “You talk so much about fate and the universe, but you can’t see that the universe has already chosen my destiny. I’m meant to execute Diana and become a god, and I prefer it that way. That’s what I’m meant to do. That’s what I want to do.”
Asteria stared hard at him for a long time, her eyes round with shock, then narrowed them and began backing away. “I understand, Son of Zeus. I understand now. I won’t waste my efforts helping you anymore. Farewell.”
Before Karter could reply, Asteria left as she always did, disintegrating into thousands of small glittering stars and floating away.
The grass behind Karter crunched with footsteps, and he swung around to see Violet as she sauntered toward him, her hips swaying.
He ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath. “Violet. Hello. Why are you, uh, not sleeping?”
“I heard you talking to yourself,” Violet said, stopping only inches before him. “It woke me up.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
She smiled and brushed some dirt from his shoulder. “Don’t be. I’m glad we can finally have some time to ourselves.”
“Uh, what do you mean?” Karter asked, raising a brow.
“I’ve missed you, love.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I didn’t realize how much I missed you until I didn’t have you anymore.”
More like until you realized I was going to be made an immortal god, Karter thought. He studied her, studied the pleasing lines of her face and the way her blonde hair fell in messy waves, then finally allowed himself to look into her eyes. Gods, she’s attractive.
She leaned into him and pressed her lips against his. She tasted sour, like an unripe strawberry, but Karter didn’t care. He kissed her back.
He thought he would have fallen in love with her after looking into her eyes, but somehow, he hadn’t. How he’d evaded her spell, he had no idea. Perhaps he was immune to it because she’d broken his heart all those years ago, or maybe it was something else.
Either way, it didn’t matter. He was sick of feeling rotten about himself, sick of feeling nothing but sorrow, so he kept kissing her until he forgot about everything except how warm her skin felt against his.
*~*~*~
By the next evening, Zoey and the rest of the group had traveled far enough northeast that they’d reached a cliff overlooking Poseidon City, miles of forest behind them.
The city was huge, like the rest the group had seen, and sat atop its own cliff which overlooked a beach, ocean waves crashing against the sand. The city’s buildings were similar in structure to Aphrodite City’s and Hephaestus City’s, but their coloring had a blue-green tinge, as if they’d been submerged in the sea for thousands of years and had just recently risen from the water. Zoey could almost imagine the barnacles encrusting the buildings’ edges, and the seaweed and coral reefs populating the gardens between them.
Zoey had visited the ocean only once in her life, when her parents were still married. She’d been seven at the time, and her family had taken a vacation to southern California. Instead of booking a flight, they’d driven all the way from Nebraska to Cali in her dad’s little Ford Taurus, singing along to classic rock stations the whole way. They rented a pet-friendly house on the beach for a week so even their dog, Daisy, could come with.
She couldn’t remember the little details of what they did on that trip, but she could recall swimming in the ocean, visiting an aquarium, and eating lots of good food. However, what stood out the most about the memory was how happy her parents had been—how happy she’d been—at the time.
A part of her wished her mother hadn’t turned out to be such an irresponsible and vindictive woman, and that her parents had never split, not only so there would be more memories like the one in southern California to look back on, but also so that she would have never made the mistakes she did and then for years dealt with constant taunting from her peers. How much easier would life have been if at fourteen, she had never needed to scrape up enough money to pay her mother’s apartment rent?
But then she thought of how difficult it had been for Andy to let go of the past and assume his role as one of the Chosen Two of the Prophecy, and she decided maybe things were better this way for her. Because of the way things had played out, she could easily bury the past—her greatest mistakes and horrible homelife included—and look to the future.
The future, she thought, biting her lip, her heart skipping with anxiety. What’s going to happen next? Will we be able to steal the Trident, to save Diana, Troy, and Marina?
It seemed impossible, but then again, so had Greek gods being real and her and Andy traveling into the Underworld to steal the Helm of Darkness, but those things had proved themselves to be true or had come true.
Beside her, Prometheus pointed to the opening of a cave at the bottom of the cliff Poseidon City resided on. “That’s the entrance to the Labyrinth.”
“Is there something covering it, or is it just open?” Andy asked. The sight of the white feathered wings stemming from his back still startled Zoey every time she looked at him. She’d been just as shocked as him about the possibility of Asteria planting powers inside them, but it made sense when she put the pieces together in her head. Whether it would help or harm them going forward, she had no idea.
“It’s open,” Prometheus answered.
Andy scrunched his nose and peered at the Labyrinth’s entrance. “Why would the gods leave it like that? Aren’t they worried about the Minotaur getting out, or someone getting in? Doesn’t Poseidon want to protect his portal a little better than that?”
“No one would dare to travel into the Labyrinth,” Prometheus said. “They’d get lost or eaten, and even if they managed to reach the portal, they’d die trying to get through it. Besides, the entrance is outside the city, which they aren’t allowed to leave. As far as the Minotaur goes, because of the way the Labyrinth has been built, he can’t escape either. Anyway, are you guys ready to head in?”
“I think we should wait until after the sun sets to fly down,” Zoey replied. “If we do it at night, there’s less of a chance of anyone seeing us, since it’ll be dark and the citizens will be inside.”
“The astynomia might still catch us, though,” Darko said.
“There’s less astynomia than citizens, right?” Zoey asked. The satyr nodded. “Okay, then in that case there might still be a chance we’re caught, but it’s way slimmer if most of the people who live here aren’t out, ya know? Plus, it’ll be nighttime. So, harder to see.”
“Zoey
’s right,” Kali said. “Let’s rest a little while, have some dinner, and then when everything’s dark head down there.”
“You gonna try to fly yourself down, Bird-Boy?” Prometheus asked Andy, grinning. “Or are you gonna keep having the pegasus do it for you?”
Andy cringed. “If you promise to never call me ‘Bird-Boy’ again, I’ll try to fly tonight.”
Prometheus clapped Andy on the shoulder. “It’s a deal!”
For the next half hour, while Andy attempted flight and the pegasi grazed, the rest of the group prepared for dinner and for the journey into the Labyrinth. Darko hunted several squirrels, which Kali promptly roasted over a fire. Meanwhile, Zoey and Prometheus collected food for their trip. When dinner was ready, Kali called everyone over to eat.
Andy was the last to join them, hanging his head as he made his way over. He hadn’t been able to fly. He’d leapt into the air and flapped his wings, but he couldn’t coordinate himself enough to stay in the air.
As the sun fell completely, they gorged themselves, and soon their only light was that of the moon and stars.
Prometheus sighed happily, patting his stomach. “Immortals don’t have to eat to live, but I sure did get hungry being trapped up in the sky all those years. This stuff isn’t as tasty as godly grub, but food in general always tastes better when you haven’t had any for almost a century.”
“We wouldn’t know,” Andy said. “Since, uh, we’d starve to death if we couldn’t eat for that long.”
Zoey climbed to her feet. “Are we ready?”
“I am,” Darko replied, hopping to his hooves, while Andy, Kali, and Prometheus stood as well.
“Okay then,” Zoey said. “Let’s head out.”
The group started for the pegasi, and someone grabbed Zoey’s arm from behind. She raised an eyebrow, confused, then swung around to see it was Andy. He looked so nervous even his wings seemed to curl in on themselves.
“Zoey—before we go, can I talk to you about something?” he asked. “Like, just you and me?”
Zoey’s stomach churned. She already knew what this was about. “Yeah, of course.” Andy told everyone else he and Zoey were going to take a few minutes to discuss something privately, then walked farther into the trees. Zoey followed.
Once they’d gotten out of earshot of the others, Andy straightened his shoulders and turned to Zoey.
The words began spilling from his mouth. “Look, Zoey, this has been on my mind a while. I’ve thought about telling you a couple of times, but I wimped out before I could, and if something happens to me or you or both of us in Poseidon’s palace, I’m going to regret never saying it. So, I’m just gonna come out and say it.”
Zoey looked into his eyes, her pulse quickening.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “I care about you, Zoey. I care about you a lot.”
“I care about you too,” Zoey said.
“No,” Andy said. “I mean—yes. I know you care about me. But the way I care about you . . . I mean, when I look at you— I’ve just always thought you’re amazing, okay? I . . .”
“You like me,” Zoey answered for him. “As in more than just a friend.”
He ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Well, yeah. But it’s more than that. I mean— I’ve never had a girlfriend or even kissed anybody, but the way I feel about you is more than just a crush. It’s deeper than that.”
Zoey cocked her head. “If you’ve never had a girlfriend or anything, then how do you know your feelings for me run deeper than a crush? You have nothing to compare them to.”
Zoey thought about the last time Andy had tried to explain how he felt toward her, how he’d thought the “rumors” going around the school about her weren’t true, and how he’d reacted when she’d asked him, What if they are true?
“You barely even know who I am,” Zoey said.
Hurt flashed across his face. “What do you mean? Of course I do. You’re brave, smart, selfless, beautiful, and . . . well, you’re perfect.”
She took a step back. “No way. I’m far from perfect. I’m only human.”
“Well, yeah, I know that. Both of us are. But what I mean is you’re perfect to me.”
Zoey turned away from him and crossed her arms to hug her sides. “You wouldn’t think so if you knew the truth about me.”
“What do you mean? Yes, I would.”
Enough is enough, Zoey thought. She couldn’t keep hiding her past; she couldn’t run from it, no matter how much it hurt. She couldn’t lie to Andy as she had last time. The time had come to face the choices she regretted. Then I can put them behind me.
She remembered that night so vividly: It’d been summer, and she’d been fourteen. Her mother had told her they were being kicked out of their apartment again. Zoey yelled at her mother for it, screamed that she wanted her dad. Her mother beat her for yelling—the only way her mother seemed to know how to handle problems—then left her alone with her thoughts.
She remembered the idea she’d come up with that night. It sounded horrible. It made her skin crawl. But nothing could be worse than living on the streets again.
She’d gone out every night that week, hidden between alleyways and shadows, in the rain and in the heat, and she’d offered herself to whatever men she could find. Two took her on the same night, at the same time. They were friends. They did so happily and without a second thought, although she was far too young. She didn’t care who they were or why they were willing to take her. All she cared about was that they gave her the money she needed, and then she gave them what they wanted.
As she grew older, she realized she could have died doing what she did, creeping through town at night for one specific purpose. The men could have killed her easily, could have dumped her body in the middle of nowhere. For some reason, they hadn’t—and now Zoey wondered, Why not? Thoughts like this terrified her. Before the world had ended, they’d kept her up at night.
For years she’d regretted the decision, wished every day she could take it back, especially when Jet told everyone about it. Even though it had kept her and her mother off the streets, it made her feel as though she were less, as if she were tainted. She’d tried to push it down as best she could, but here it was again, staring her straight in the face.
“The rumors are true,” Zoey cried, her eyes filling with tears. “I slept with guys for money. I never told anyone except Jet, and after I broke up with him, he told everybody.”
“W-what?” Andy asked. The shock in his voice cut Zoey like a knife.
She continued, her voice shaking, her chest tight. “I didn’t do it because I wanted to, okay? My mom and I were gonna get kicked out of our apartment again, which we’d only moved into a few months before. We’d lived on the streets before, and I didn’t wanna do that again.”
“Then why didn’t you go get a job or something?”
“We only had a week before they would’ve kicked us out.”
“But there are other ways—I mean, you could have done something else. You could have asked someone for help.”
“I didn’t have anyone but my mom—my dad and her were divorced. He wouldn’t answer my calls. I used to think that—that it was because he abandoned me, but when we were in Deltama Village, Spencer showed me how he died, and I know now he never called me or fought for me because he died in a car crash before he had the chance.” The tears began streaming down her cheeks. “I had no other family to contact, and I was so scared. I—I didn’t know what else to do.”
For a long time, he didn’t say anything, and Zoey cried. I did it, she thought. I admitted it. I faced it. I told him. Now he probably hates me, but so be it. This is part of who I am and I can’t change it. If he values our friendship the way I do, he will accept me for who I am, all of me.
The trees beside them rustled, the sounds of chains clanking sounding in the air. “What in all of
Tartarus is taking you two so long?” Prometheus asked, stomping toward them.
“We were just finishing up, actually,” Andy said.
Zoey wiped her eyes and shot Andy a glare. “That’s right.”
The Titan raised his eyebrows. “Finishing up, hm? Good to hear, because we really need to hurry and go.”
Prometheus started back toward the rest of the group, and Zoey stalked after the Titan. Andy grabbed her arm. She paused, turning to him, hoping he’d say “I understand” or “your past doesn’t matter to me.”
“Zoey,” he said. “I’m sorry . . . I don’t . . .”
That was enough for her. She shook him away. “Don’t touch me.” He didn’t try to again. Instead, he followed her and Prometheus and said nothing.
Zoey choked back tears, refusing to cry anymore about this. Why did she care so much about what Andy thought of her past? He was the one who’d confessed his feelings for her—not the other way around—and she’d already explained to him why she did the things she had. She’d faced her demons. She’d faced what used to keep her up at night, and if he couldn’t accept her for it, then he could consider their friendship over. She’d spent too much of her time in the past dealing with this bullshit from Jet and her classmates, and she wasn’t about to let it trickle into the new life she’d been given.
A pang of grief struck her as she remembered Spencer. If I had told him about my past, he wouldn’t have judged me like this, she thought. He would have understood. She’d even almost told Diana, back in Deltama Village, and at this point she knew Diana wouldn’t care about Zoey’s past either. But, like everyone else from the Before Time, Andy did.
“You’re perfect to me,” he’d said. At least now he knew the truth, right? At least now he could stop crushing on her, stop idealizing her.
By the time they got back, Darko had already mounted Ajax, Kali Luna. Kali helped Zoey onto Luna’s back while Andy hopped onto Ajax, and Prometheus climbed onto Aladdin. They flew down to the beach—careful to stay out of sight—to the entrance of the Labyrinth, the only sound that of waves crashing against the shore.