“Two lemonades and two turkey sandwiches, please,” I replied after checking with Katie. Then my second mother nodded before disappearing through a wooden door that led to the kitchen, and she came back only a few minutes later, lemonades in hand. “Thanks, Mom,” I told her, and Katie gave me a strange look. Again, this was something that she would never understand.
Katie and I had barely even touched our food when I heard the familiar voice of Josh come from right in front of me, saying, “Hey, Ash. What’s up?” Immediately, I looked up to answer him, but in shock, I started choking on the big gulp of lemonade that I had just taken. My mind was already bursting with a thousand different thoughts at once.
Standing in front of me next to Josh was none other than Alec, who happened to be wearing an old blue shirt that I instantly recognized as one of Zach’s. I figured that Zach must have lent it to Alec, since Alec’s only other shirt was currently covered in his dead father’s blood. This reminded me that we still had to give his father a proper funeral ceremony. All we had done was bury him under a pile of rocks deep in the forest, so the sight of him wouldn’t scare anyone.
Anyway, Alec was grinning, his bright blue eyes shining because he knew he had one up on me by surprising me there. I quickly wiped my mouth, blushing and realizing that I had a few drops of lemonade dribbling down my chin. Katie was correct in that I didn’t always need her to embarrass me; sometimes I embarrassed myself.
“I just wanted to introduce my own cousin to Katie. Ash, I think you already know him,” Josh explained, sharing a goofy grin with Alec. Wondering if those two realized how dangerous it was for Alec to be out here in the town, I just frowned. It was obviously not the reaction that the two of them had been expecting, however, as the smiles quickly disappeared from their own faces. They knew they were in for a lecture.
Still frowning, I got up out of my chair and grabbed Josh’s arm. “Excuse us for a moment,” I said to Katie with a tight smile. Alec followed obediently. As soon as we were outside and away from anyone who could overhear us, I quickly turned to Josh but squinted because I found myself staring right into the sun. Although I loved warm weather, sometimes clouds were a good thing.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.
Josh simply shrugged. “No one here will know that he’s not my cousin, except for the gods. So what’s the harm? It’s only for today.”
“You’re just lucky your parents didn’t come here for lunch,” I hissed back at him irritably. With that, I turned on my heel and walked back inside the restaurant to finish my lunch with Katie.
Josh and Alec also went back inside, but the two of them sat at the back table with the rest of the Monster Watch. The daring Alec winked at me as he walked by, still laughing to himself, and it was enough to make any other girl faint in delight. I just rolled my eyes, however, because I couldn’t help but think I had just been introduced to a side of Alec that I was sure no one on Earth had seen in a very long time—a happier side, that is. In just one day, he had gone from being quiet, submissive, and nervous to being confident, proud, and playful. If he wasn’t proof of the effect that the gods had on people, I didn’t know what was.
As soon as I looked back over at Katie, she raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows at me in an unreadable expression. “What?” I asked her, annoyed.
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” she whispered mischievously, and I glared at my lemonade, suddenly wishing we had never come to the Fire Pit for lunch and worried that I had accidentally given Alec the wrong impression. I purposely avoided looking at the Monster Watch’s table for the rest of our meal.
___________________
The next few days went by slowly and uneventfully, but I cannot even put into words how happy I was when Katie left to go back home. But I didn’t stop to think about that, because I had way better things to do. It was the Fourth of July, after all, and decorations were going up like crazy.
Every house and shop had an American flag hung outside a window, and sparkly red and blue stars completely covered the few old-fashioned street lamps that were lined up along Main Street. As you could probably guess, the Fourth of July was one of the most popular holidays in the Woods, if only because it had the biggest celebration. For the entire day, the Fire Pit gave out free glasses of lemonade (of course, that didn’t really make much of a difference to the rest of the Monster Watch and me, since we got free food all the time), and our county prided itself with having the most spectacular fireworks show in the entire state. The houses on Maple Street, such as mine, had the best views of the show, if you sat on the roof, like I always did.
The Monster Watch and I had been helping out with the decorations all morning, but we were also itching to get into the forest to play a good round of reverse hide-and-seek. After all, I hadn’t played a round since before Alec arrived. So, weapons in hand, Apollo, Poseidon, and I raced deep into the darkness of the forest and split up to find Zeus, who had run off to hide. Apollo had started jogging in the direction of the meadow, and I was making my way toward Pan’s hideout. I was feeling a little lazy that day, so I decided to take my sword, which was much easier to carry than the long metallic spear I usually used. (A word of advice: It’s good to be versatile with weapons because you never know who or what you might run into.)
Within half an hour, I had found Zeus hiding in the bushes and the two of us had met up with Poseidon and Apollo. (While silently cowering in the foliage, Zeus had almost been trampled by a giant wild boar, but I had chucked my sword at it and thus killed it.) It was almost dinnertime, however, so we headed home right away. “Your house?” I suggested to Luke and Zach, but they only exchanged uneasy glances.
“Um, Ash,” Zach started as he hid his weapons and armor in a hollow log. “I’m supposed to tell you that Maddie and Alicia are throwing a barbecue and a watch party for the fireworks, and, um, you’re kind of … not invited.”
I sighed, shaking my head. “That’s not really surprising,” I told him with a small smile. I tried to be nice to Alicia, but she was so jealous of me and Zach all the time that she didn’t really care what I did. However, I had gotten used to her rude actions over the years, so they no longer bothered me very much. A little company would have been nice, though.
“Well, bye, guys.” They waved and headed off, while I went into my house. Neither my father nor my mother was home, so I went straight upstairs to work on an essay for one of my online college classes.
A few hours later, I checked the time, finally realizing how late it was and then cursing aloud. My parents still hadn’t come home, and the fireworks were about to start. Remembering that I hadn’t had any dinner yet, I raced downstairs and popped a bag of microwave popcorn. Then I went back up to my room and, from my tiny balcony, I climbed up the trellis and rain gutters to the roof of my house, where I situated myself comfortably at the highest point. Silently, I stared out into the dark night sky, which was lit up by glittering stars as far as the eye could see. It was a beautiful sight, as usual, and it completely lived up to my high expectations.
I was just thinking that the night would be perfect if only I wasn’t alone when I heard a rustling from the rose bushes down on the ground, under my balcony. I froze, my hand still in the popcorn bag, wondering what it was and realizing that I probably should have brought my pocketknife up to the roof with me. Reluctantly, I peered over at the edge of the roof and saw an arm reach up, and—you guessed it—Alec pulled himself up and sat down next to me.
“Hey,” he said casually, as if he did this sort of thing every day. But now that I was thinking about it, I thought that it wouldn’t be surprising if he did. You might have guessed that he would be breathless after climbing up all the way to my roof, but you would have been wrong. That boy had skills. I felt my heartbeat flutter a tiny bit, but I tried to ignore it. The gods were much more handsome and completed much more difficult tasks every day, after all. I shouldn’t have been so amazed by Alec.
“Why are you here
?” I asked slowly, in English, not even bothering to say hello back to him. Instead, I studied him closely as he sat down next to me. It seemed that over the course of the three days I had been banned from the forest, Alec had very eagerly followed Zeus’s orders and had all too quickly trained himself to stop referring to us gods as “sir,” “lady,” or “lord.” Because we gods were the same age as him, I knew Alec found us to be a lot more relatable and open-minded than he had originally expected, thus he was starting to become much more comfortable around us. Maybe a little too comfortable.
Alec simply sent me a sideways glance and shrugged. “The same reason you are,” he answered blandly, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I wanted to watch the fireworks. And of course I wasn’t invited to the party, since I’m not even supposed to exist here, so Zeus just told me where you lived. He said you would probably be home and that you’d most likely be up on the roof, and apparently he was right.”
I smiled, suddenly thankful that I wasn’t alone anymore. “Popcorn?” I offered, holding out the bag to him. He nodded and grabbed a handful, and loud booms filled our ears as the sky was lit up with red and white explosions. I wondered what was happening at Alicia’s party.
For a second, we sat silently, only eating our popcorn, until Alec leaned over and whispered in my ear, “So what’s your human name again? Ashley, is it?”
I frowned, thinking for a moment, and then admitted, “I like Athena better.” Ashley was cool, I supposed. She was a tomboy, smart, and somewhat popular, but her parents had no trust in her whatsoever. Basically, her life at home sucked, for lack of a better word. In truth, Ashley just couldn’t compare with Athena, who knew everything, could do whatever the hell she wanted, and was praised for almost everything she did.
After a long pause, Alec switched from English to Greek and reluctantly confessed, “Me too. But I suppose I don’t even know Ashley, really.”
My heart fluttered again, and I bit my lip, hoping he couldn’t see straight through me and reminding myself how dangerous he was. He had only met me a few days ago, yet he totally understood me! No one but Zeus had ever gotten to know me so quickly and completely. But I cursed myself again and again, knowing I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about this or letting my heart run off without my brain, my logic. I was Athena, after all. Besides, no dating equals less drama.
Just as another firework exploded into balls of color, Alec changed the subject and asked, with a sly smirk on his face, “When will you train me to fight? You promised me, remember? And you owe me for forgetting to tell me that you would be busy dealing with your cousin for three whole days.”
Sensing his eagerness and playfulness, I looked him right in the eye and challenged, also in Greek, “How about after the fireworks? Or is that too late for you?”
“Bring it on,” Alec answered immediately, and I saw him grin as yet another red firework lit up the night. “But before we do this, you have to tell me why you think I’m so dangerous.”
I sighed. “You really are impatient, aren’t you?” I muttered, not really wanting to have this discussion, but Alec just waited expectantly for me to continue.
“You said you would tell me at a later time, and now is a later time,” Alec pointed out in annoyance.
“Fine,” I grumbled, tugging at the end of my ponytail in anguish. He only tapped the rooftop with his fingers incessantly, until I finally continued, “The first reason why you’re dangerous is that you are probably the only living human who knows where this current generation of Greek gods lives. Knowledge is power, after all.”
Alec nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense,” he murmured as he watched another explosion of color light up the sky. “And the second reason?”
“The second reason is that you’ve been lying about your amount of training,” I accused, studying his arms a little more closely. “You say you’ve had none, but I can see you have toned muscles from some kind of workout. Granted, they’ll be at least twice as big once I’m done training you, but they’re muscles nonetheless.”
“Fair enough,” he solemnly whispered under his breath as he closed his eyes. His voice had gotten softer and softer. I noticed that he didn’t ask me for any more reasons why I thought he was dangerous (and I did have a couple more), but I guessed I had hit a sore spot on his character, something that related to his past with the Knowing. I let him be.
For a few more long minutes, we lay on the roof together, staring quietly at the colorful sky over the forest. The Woods actually seemed quite calm for once, although I could hear excited shouts coming from Alicia and Maddie’s house party across the street, shouts that were interrupting the rhythmic booms of the fireworks show. I found myself starting to think about what my life would have been like if I wasn’t a god, but then I quickly decided that I liked this life just fine. Without my other identity and monsters to fight and forests to explore, I figured that my life in such a small, isolated town would have been quite boring. Maybe I really was just an adrenaline junkie at heart.
Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted when I heard someone else down on the ground. This time, however, the voice belonged to Cole. “Hey, Ashley, is that you up there?” he yelled, and I cursed under my breath in almost perfect unison with Alec. Now what were we supposed to do?
Chapter 8:
A FLASH
Can I come up there?” Cole shouted at me from somewhere down below.
“Sure,” I yelled back reluctantly, knowing Cole probably wouldn’t leave me alone. Then turning to Alec, I whispered, “Hide.” With that, the dark-haired boy disappeared over the peak of the roof and into the darkness.
Meanwhile, Cole climbed his way up the side of my house, though he was much less graceful and agile than Alec. By the time Cole sat down next to me, he was breathless, and I was certain that Alec was snickering at him from the other side of the roof. When he finally regained the ability to speak, nodding to the colorful sky, Cole said, “Great fireworks, huh?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, tugging at the end of my ponytail in thought. “The colors remind me of when you pulled that prank on Matt six years ago.”
We both started chuckling at the memory of an angry Matt covered in paint. “That was a good one, wasn’t it?” Cole remarked, running his fingers through his caramel-colored hair, and I just smiled.
After a long pause, I offered, “Popcorn?” for the second time that night. Like Alec had done only a few minutes earlier, Cole nodded and took a handful. Our conversation turned back into awkward silence, and again I pictured Alec laughing hysterically at Cole and me. Then I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to get him out of my head. I found the fact that Alec was listening to every word we said kind of unnerving, and I wondered what he was thinking about Cole.
After fidgeting for a while, Cole finally whispered, “What’s really in there?” I didn’t have to open my eyes and look at him to know he was talking about the woods. That was the question everyone around the county wanted to ask the Monster Watch. And really, who could blame them?
But sometimes, the truth is so outrageous that it’s better to actually tell a piece of it than to lie. So, in the spookiest voice I could muster, I told him, “Monsters.”
“Ha, ha,” he laughed sarcastically. “No, just tell me. Ever since that day Josh and I pulled that prank, I’ve been thinking I made a mistake by not going in there. Is that crazy?”
Trapped in an awkward moment and not exactly sure what to say, I sighed and said, shrugging, “Well, everything happens for a reason.” Even if it really is the Fates who control everyone’s destinies.
Cole and I sat quietly for a few more minutes, watching the fireworks burst in the night sky, but I couldn’t sit still at all. As the seconds ticked by, I became more and more restless, silently wondering what time it was because I had promised to start training Alec after the show. Over the past six years, my life as a god had slowly become my first priority over school and home life, and I knew the same could have been
said for the rest of the gods too. We couldn’t exactly prevent it from happening, however, because we had so much to keep track of, not just in the Woods, but also around the world, a duty we often neglected.
Eventually, Cole broke the silence and asked me, his gentle brown eyes looking straight into my stormy gray ones, “Can you take me into the forest someday?”
I froze in place and chewed my lip. What am I supposed to say to that? I thought to myself, slightly surprised by Cole’s question, although I always knew he would ask it one day. Even if I wanted to give Cole a short tour of my second home (and I’ll admit I was tempted to), the decision of whether or not to allow people into the forest wasn’t really mine to make. The majority of the Olympian Council had to agree on what was best.
Just then, I heard the familiar sound of my father’s old pickup truck driving up to the house. “We’ll see,” I told Cole honestly, considering the timely arrival of my father to be very lucky. “But right now, you have to go.” I practically shoved him off the roof, and he obediently took off running down the road. Cole didn’t need to be told twice in this case; the entire town knew my father wasn’t the nicest guy, let alone the fact that he was one of the few non-native, virtually untrustworthy citizens of the town.
When I was sure that Cole was gone, I turned around to call Alec back over, but he was already sitting next to me. “Boo,” he whispered right into my ear, smiling in spite of himself. But before he could even blink, I slapped him hard across the face. Not too hard, though.
“First lesson,” I started in Greek, “don’t mess with Athena. She hits back. Harder.”
Alec just grinned back at me, looking unfazed. “Good to know,” he whispered brightly, and I rolled my eyes at him as I jumped off the roof onto the balcony and then to the ground, carefully rolling when I hit the ground so I didn’t hurt myself. Alec did the same, and we sprinted down the road and into the forest when my father was looking the other way. After all, my father probably would have yelled at me for going in so late at night, and the same could have been said for my mother, wherever she was.
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