From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)

by Staci Hart

  “Are you not concerned that she is too close to the case?”

  “She can manage it,” Artemis answered in such a tone that it closed the subject.

  The Nephelai eyed her. “You are very brash in this competition.”

  Artemis stiffened just a little. “I am no different.”

  “You are.” Eleni shook her head with a smile. “I believe your player is too close to you.”

  “That’s absurd.” Artemis sat back.

  “It is not. You’ve not had a competition with Aphrodite where your player has so much in common with you.” Eleni began to ramble on with her face animated, as if she’d just discovered a clue, “Not the last one…nor the one before. I cannot recall a single one who has had so many likenesses to you.”

  “You are ridiculous.” She adjusted her robes.

  Eleni’s eyes were big and bright. “You deny it, which confirms that it is truth,” she said with a grin. She sat up to tick off points on her fingers. “Josie lost her partner. She’s lonesome—”

  Artemis grew more and more uncomfortable. “I am not lonesome. How could I be lonesome when I’m always surrounded by twits like you, dearest?”

  Eleni rolled her eyes and continued,. “She hunts. She is solitary and jaded. She runs on instinct.” She looked pleased with herself as she leaned back again. “The factor that you never take into account is human nature.”

  “She will not go back to him.” Artemis stood, her fists balled as she glared down at the glittery nymph, who unapologetically smiled back. “She won’t. Am I alone in this game? Have I no one to trust, no one who believes in me? Who believes in my decisions as I do? You most of all I would have expected could see my perspective and appreciate it, but instead, you push and poke and prod me. You and Apollo want to prove that your way is best, but I want none of it. I will make my choices, and damn the rest of you.”

  Eleni’s smile had fallen long before she reached for Artemis’s hand. “Please, my friend. I am sorry, for I did not mean to upset you. I know I am too familiar with you at times, though I also know that you enjoy our small battles. I am always on your side, but I am also your advisor. Would you have so much respect for me if I blindly agreed to all things?”

  Artemis’s lips were flat, but she softened at Eleni’s tone and the pleading and truth in her eyes. “No, I would not,” she said. “Of late, I am at odds with everyone. I feel my back press against the wall, but I am there all alone.”

  “You are never alone, Artemis. We all stand with you.”

  “But the constant combat exhausts me.” She turned and whistled, and her unicorn, Calix, trotted out from the underbrush. “We will meet back at camp.”

  Eleni nodded with sad eyes locked on Artemis, who hopped onto Calix’s back. She gave Eleni a last look before flying into the woods, her mind blurring with the trees that slipped past.

  Dita’s eyes burned and blurred with exhaustion as she lay, swathed in her bedding, watching Adonis in the mirror.

  He sat next to a campfire, leaning against a tree as he ate, the firelight flickering shadows against the hard angles of his nose and jaw. She sighed, but the breath shuddered in her chest.

  It had been forty-eight hours since she truly slept, and she was exhausted to the point of a breakdown, fully aware that her binge had spun out of control. At one point, she’d put the mirror down and tried to sleep, but it had been impossible. She didn’t think she’d lasted more than a few minutes before she flung off the covers and retrieved the mirror, bringing it back to bed with her.

  There was no limiting herself. It was always five more minutes, one more hour, and her far-fetched hope was that she would somehow get it out of her system. But she felt like a junkie. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to stop.

  The elevator pinged from the foyer, and Dita jumped.

  “Dita?” Perry called as she walked through the entry. “Ready to cash in that rain check for our date with the ’80s?”

  Dita scrambled with the mirror, haphazardly shoving it under her quilt. “Uh, hey, I’m in here,” she called from the bedroom.

  Perry walked through the doorway and raised an eyebrow when she saw Dita. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks, ass.” She sat up in bed and ran her fingers through her hair to pull it into a bun.

  Perry climbed onto the end of the bed and sat lotus. “So, what’s on deck for our viewing pleasure? Thanks for giving me a little time by the way.”

  “Oh, it’s fine. Really.”

  Even she could hear the tightness in her voice, so when Perry narrowed her eyes, Dita knew the jig was up.

  “You’re acting funny.”

  Dita made a face, agitated, wishing Perry would just go away. “What? I’m just tired.”

  “Liar. Spill.”

  Dita huffed. “Gods, you’re so bossy. You said you needed some time alone, so I’ve been here, also alone. What do you want from me?”

  Perry frowned. “I want you to tell me what’s the matter with you. And don’t tell me you’re just tired because that gets the bullshit stamp.”

  “Nothing.”

  “You can’t lie to me, Aphrodite.”

  “You sometimes sound like your mother, Persephone.”

  Perry’s mouth hung open. “Are you seriously not going to tell me?”

  “No.” Dita folded her arms across her chest. “You can’t make me.”

  “Is that a challenge?” There was mischief in Perry’s voice.

  She pounced.

  Perry climbed up to sit on top of her, tickling her as she wriggled and writhed and giggled.

  Dita squealed. “Stop! Oh my gods, stop! Get off of me!”

  “No! Tell me!” she said, laughing. But that was the moment when Perry’s hand hit the mirror, hidden under the blanket. “What is that?” she asked curiously.

  Dita’s hands flew to the spot over the mirror. “Nothing.”

  “You are such a dirty, smelly liar. Give it to me.” Perry pulled at the quilt.

  “No!” Dita tugged back, the fabric clenched in her fists.

  “Give it!” Perry ripped the blanket back, and both goddesses froze.

  “Dita, tell me what that is,” Perry said, all levity gone, her dark eyes on the mirror.

  “Nothing.” It was almost a whisper.

  “Stop fucking saying that.” Perry’s eyes didn’t leave the mirror as she picked it up and turned it over in her hands. When she finally looked up, her eyes were wide. “Where did you get this?”

  The room was still and silent, but the tension crackled like lightning between them.

  “I had it for eons, since you kept Adonis from me. I gave it to Echo, but she brought it back to me.”

  “What does it do?”

  Dita chewed her lip. There was no way out and no getting around it. So, she told the truth. “It can see into Elysium.”

  “No, Aphrodite.” The words were a warning.

  Dita panicked, alarms ringing in her mind, telling her it was over.

  “Yes, it’s fine!” she said as she sat up fast and reached for the mirror.

  But Perry, still sitting on Dita’s legs, twisted away.

  Dita rambled, distraught and desperate. “I’ll only watch him on occasion. I’ll limit myself. I know I can. But this way at least I can still see him, remember him.”

  There was no comfort in Perry’s words, only accusation. “You have thousands of years of memories with him. You don’t need this to remember anything but your pain.” She held up the mirror, and Adonis appeared in the glass.

  Dita pressed her hands to her heart, tears burning her eyes, her voice wavering as she begged, “Please, don’t take it from me. It’s all I have.”

  “It is not all you have,” Perry answered heavily, forcefully. “You have me. You have Heff. There are people here who love you, who care for you, but you’re wallowing in your pain, wishing for something you can never, ever have. Can’t you see how fucked up this is?”

  “What am I s
upposed to do?” she cried, hysteria and desperation rushing over her, reaching around Perry for the mirror. “If you lost Hades, wouldn’t you do the same?”

  Perry shook her head and held the mirror out of reach. “This isn’t the same as me and Hades, and you know it. Dita, you can’t have the mirror.”

  “You don’t get to make that decision,” Dita fired back.

  “Stop it. You know this is wrong. Look at you.” Perry motioned to her. “When was the last time you showered? You haven’t even changed your clothes. How long has it been since you’ve gotten out of bed?”

  Dita said nothing.

  Perry stared, her eyes burning into Dita. “I won’t let you do this to yourself.”

  She held up the mirror and let it go, but it didn’t fall; it hovered in front of her. Perry closed her eyes, black smoke crawling up her body in tendrils, and the mirror rose, spinning slowly, shining, glowing brighter with every second as Dita watched in horror.

  It spun faster, just a blur too bright to look at until it burst, the fragments so fine, they rained down on them like glitter.

  “No!” Dita shrieked, tears rolling down her cheeks as she held out her hands to catch the sparkling pieces of her heart. “No,” she whispered as she crumpled. And she shattered with the glass and metal and magic that had given her Adonis.

  But she’d lost him again.

  “I’m sorry,” Perry said, her voice laden with a dozen emotions, but Dita didn’t care.

  “No, you’re not.” Dita looked up with hot, fat tears speeding down her cheeks.

  Perry’s face wrenched. “How can you say that?”

  “You’ve ruined it,” Dita whispered. “You’ve ruined everything.”

  Perry’s cheeks were red, her words low and harsh. “I can’t believe you would ever say that to me. I can’t believe you would hide this from me. Or maybe I can. You will have your way, no matter the cost.” She turned and slipped off the bed, pausing to look down at Dita. “I’m trying to help you. Are you so blind?” Perry laid a hard look on her. “You have got to find a way to see yourself. You need to deal with what you’ve been through. You have to because you will never get past this if you don’t.”

  She turned and took a few steps, stopping in the doorway to address Dita a final time. “I am sorry, and you know that, but he’s gone. Let him go.” And with that, she was gone too.

  Dita took a breath that caught in her throat, and she lay down in her bed, not able to feel anything but her pain. And she curled up into a small ball, clutching her bedding to her chest, alone.

  Ares buried his face in her golden hair, his hands roaming down her naked body. He closed his eyes and breathed her in, needing her like air as he slammed into her again and again.

  “Aphrodite,” he whispered in her ear.

  Anaideia shifted underneath him, shoving him off her. “Fuck you, Ares,” she panted as she climbed out of his bed.

  “Ana, wait.”

  She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she picked up the trail of clothes scattered all over his floor. “Why? I never expect you to be over her, but I’m out the second you call me by her name.” She pulled her jeans on and shirt, walking away with the parting words, “At least I got off first.”

  “Come on, don’t leave.”

  She spun around, smiling, her blue eyes flashing in her heart-shaped face. “Go fuck yourself. I hope you and your fist are real happy together.” Her smile promised his offense wouldn’t go unpunished. “See ya next time. Practice keeping your mouth shut because you ruin it for everybody when you open it.”

  Her hips swayed as she walked away and to the elevator, and he propped his head on his hand to watch.

  He and Ana had a long-standing arrangement, one that involved more fucking than talking. She was the goddess of all things shameless, ruthless, and unforgiving. All traits he admired, but in that moment, he wondered how he’d pay for calling her by Dita’s name.

  Ares sighed and stretched out in bed, folding his hands under his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

  Ana was right; he wasn’t over Dita. He never would be, and he’d never pretend to be.

  He’d known the second she stepped foot in Olympus, and in the days since, he’d been consumed by the nearness of her but the chasm between them was unpassable. But there was nothing to be done, not yet at least. Not with everyone watching him like he would start flipping tables at any given moment. And he couldn’t see her alone; if Zeus found out he’d been to her apartment, things would get ugly, fast.

  So he’d taken to loitering in the common rooms, hoping he’d see her, hoping to catch her alone, but his patience was wearing thin.

  Not that he knew what he’d say to her when he did finally get to her. What could he possibly say? There would be no forgiveness, not yet. He would have to wait and practice restraint in the hope that, given a little time, he would find an opening to exploit.

  But patience and restraint never had been easy for him. What his heart wanted overrode anything his head had to say on the matter. And, if he found himself with the opportunity, he didn’t know that he’d wait at all.

  All of Olympus had been gossiping about her, and her absence had only made it worse. The longer she hid away in her room, the more they considered it confirmation of their rumors. But no one brought her up to him, not after he’d thrown a lesser god through a wall for cracking a joke about her.

  Ares wondered what she was doing right then, if she was sleeping or planning for the competition. The match was one he was interested in—not because of the players, but because Rhodes was involved. The psycho bastard was one of his own and had been inspired to kill by Ares more than a few times.

  Rhodes was calculating and methodical, feeling nothing but apathy outside of each kill. Something in him was twisted and sideways, and he knew it. He knew he didn’t belong, but he knew how to survive, going about unnoticed, living every day for the time he could kill again, a compulsive ritual that completed a cycle for a sociopathic killer.

  Yes, Ares liked him very much.

  He looked in on Rhodes, who was descending the stairs into his dark basement.

  Rhodes flipped the switch on the wall.

  The naked bulbs hanging from dusty exposed beams flickered to life, throwing long shadows and hard highlights across everything the light could reach.

  It was behind the crawl space. He could feel it—he could always feel it—like his own beating heart. He knelt, moving the folded up cardboard boxes out of the way, reaching between the beams.

  Relief slipped over him when his fingers grazed the side of the cherry wood jewelry box.

  He picked it up and reverently carried it to his old tweed couch where he sat, setting the box on the worn coffee table.

  For a moment, he looked at it, laid his palm on the top of the smooth wood, the harsh light illuminating his fingers and the grain of the wood.

  And then he opened it up—his box of treasures, that which he held most dear in all the world.

  He reached in and picked up a necklace—a heart pendant hanging from a thin gold chain. She’d said her name was Cindy. He could see her face as clearly as if he’d only seen it weeks ago, though it had been years since he held her neck in his hands until her heart stopped.

  Rhodes laid it back in the drawer with its sisters, trailing his fingers over his collection—one piece of jewelry for each girl. And when he touched them, he was taken back to the moment he’d taken them for his own.

  Images flashed through his mind like a flip book, each memory captured as he’d stood over them, looking down into his hand as he touched his keepsake at the height of his high. The bulk of his trophies were cheap and gaudy, nothing of monetary value, but that didn’t matter. Not to him.

  Hookers were the simplest choice, girls who were untraceable, expendable, women who no one looked for. He’d pick them up and bring them home, in through the attached garage and to the basement.

  There was always a moment, a single mom
ent in time when they figured it out. Sometimes it was before they’d even made it down the stairs. Sometimes it wasn’t until his hands were around their necks.

  Either way, the end was always the same. But the moment they realized their fate had impressed in his mind. It was the beginning of the end.

  His method had been honed over the years—only prostitutes, twice per year at most, strangled on the cement floor of the basement, wrapped in plastic, dumped in a waterway.

  He never, ever strayed from his method.

  Not until Hannah.

  The first time he’d seen her was just after Labor Day the year before. He’d been mowing the grass after he came home from work and remembered turning to trudge back up the lawn to see a flash of red—her cheerleading uniform—as she crossed the street, heading toward him. He’d stopped moving. The mower had sat idle in front of him as he watched her, and he’d reached down and pulled the bag off, playing as if he’d meant to stop even though he’d just emptied it a few minutes before.

  She’d given him a small smile as she walked past his house with her ponytail swinging.

  Hannah had been more than he could resist. All he could see was Jane when he looked at her, and Jane…

  Sweet Jane.

  Rhodes smiled as he opened the bottom drawer of the jewelry box, which was empty, save for Hannah’s small diamond earrings and a necklace with a gold J hanging from it. He’d given it to Jane on her birthday that year, 1984.

  She hadn’t even said thank you.

  Jane had made her way through a good portion of the football team, and when she’d asked him to homecoming, he couldn’t say no. She’d been known for being ruthless, and he’d worked so hard to fit in, to play along. He’d always known he was different, and Jane had held the power to ruin everything he’d built, explode his cover into dust with her rumors and gossip.

  Her sole purpose in life had seemed to be to get him to sleep with her, a task that stressed an overwhelmed him. Getting hard had never been easy, and Jane was vicious; she’d ruin him if she found out. A few times when they’d been making out, he’d gotten a little turned on, which gave him hope. His best-case scenario was one where he could get it up and get it over with so he could break up with her and get back to some semblance of normality.