Chosen (Slayer 2)

“Don’t think about it,” Maricruz answers, coming out of the house. “Trust me. Don’t ever think about anything he says, or you’ll lose your mind. Ooh, kitty!” She rushes Doug and snatches the kitten away. It crawls on her shoulder, disappearing into her hair. “Taylor, come see the kitten.”

Taylor drifts to Maricruz’s side. She seems to relax a little. “We’re riding in the catmobile,” Maricruz declares, climbing into the back and settling in with Taylor.

“Your friend doesn’t look so hot,” Oz says, pointing to Leo. I don’t look. I don’t want to acknowledge how bad he seems, because it makes it harder to settle on being livid or being devastated or being happy.

Oz closes the money case and shoves it into his van. “He can lie down in here. Is it a long trip?”

“Ireland,” I say. “We’ll have to take a ferry.”

Oz pats the side of his van fondly. “She’ll get us there. Slowly but surely. But more slowly than surely.”

“What happened?” Leo groans. His voice triggers memories of training in the gym. Fighting side by side. And not listening when he was trying to kidnap me to get me away from his mother, whom he had known was a killer and still let live in our castle.

I crouch next to him. His eyes, so dark they look black but with a hint of violet when you get close enough and the light is right—and I have been close enough, and the light has been right—focus on my face.

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nbsp; “I thought you were dead,” I whisper.

“Not quite yet.” He tries to sit up but doesn’t make it. Chao-Ahn leans down and together we help him stand. We take him inside to the nearest sitting room.

“Go get snacks and water and whatever else you can raid from the kitchen?” I ask Chao-Ahn. She nods and disappears.

I’m still shaking inside. I can feel it in electric bursts of white-hot anger, more powerful than the jolts I got at the convention. Leo looks winded from the effort to make it this far. My anger flares even brighter, seeing how vulnerable he is. “You came to him? When we were right there, this whole time?”

“I couldn’t,” he whispers.

“You most certainly could have!”

“The things I did … the things I hid from you all.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Oh, join the club. We would have gotten over it. You didn’t give us the chance to.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. You can’t help me.”

“I can help anyone,” I say through gritted teeth. A pained moan from Von Alston’s study contradicts me. I flex my hands, then ball them into fists. Today has nearly broken me. First Artemis proved that when she left, it wasn’t so much to discover herself as it was to get away from me. And now Leo—Leo, who I mourned and blamed myself over—has been alive this whole bloody time and he didn’t think I could help him.

I’m going to help him if it kills him. Chao-Ahn reappears with some full bags, and Doug clears his throat from the hallway. “Good to go.”

“We’re taking you with us.” I hold out my hand to help Leo stand.

“Athena, I don’t—” Leo starts.

I cut him off. No one has called me that since he died—since he didn’t die; gods, I have got to stop thinking of his death that obviously didn’t happen. “I swear to every deity listening, if you say one more word, I will get you to the car by throwing you out the window.”

Leo’s lips twitch like they want to smile but can’t quite remember how. “You can’t.”

“Fine, not throw. Push. I can definitely push you out the window. And the likelihood of me doing that is getting higher every moment we—”

“Right, then.” Doug grabs Leo’s hand and maneuvers him up. He puts Leo’s arm around his shoulders. “It’s been a rough day. Let’s all walk calmly to the car; no defenestration necessary. Sweet hells, you are a heavy skeleton.”

Leo’s half human, half incubus. The earth recognizes he belongs in a hell dimension and pulls on him a little harder. Gravity is greedy like that. Doug and Leo stumble and make agonizingly slow progress down the hall. I follow, glaring at their backs.

“What about our host?” Doug asks, looking back.

“I took care of it.” I help Leo get into the van, avoiding his eyes. I’m glad I’m not riding with him. I don’t want to talk to him. Not yet. It’s still too raw, and I feel so betrayed. And part of me wants to snuggle in next to him and forgive him and not talk about it, which I refuse to do.

Chao-Ahn gets into the van. I take the passenger seat of our car, and we lead the way. Doug steers us out of the estate as dawn breaks on the horizon. We leave unchallenged, the gates gaping open from the happy-dosed employees’ neglect. I close my eyes and take careful breaths. Never mind that my sister is working with demon-snatching zealots, or that we didn’t figure out what this nameless threat is, or that I went against my mom’s wishes and confronted Von Alston.