she is.
With one step to go she throws herself into my arms. “I knew you’d come,” she says, and it is so fucked up.
Belt, I mouth to Poseidon over her head. He takes it out from the loop of his pants in a fluid movement and tosses it to me without breaking his glare.
Demeter blinks. “What—no.”
But it’s too late. I have her arms pinned, I have the belt around her wrists, and I pull it tight. Then I kick her feet out from under her. It’s gentler than she deserves.
“James,” I call, and he rushes in with two of our people and two of Poseidon’s. He surveys the situation, checks me for blood, and finds nothing. “Take her to the train station.”
18
Brigit
Someone—one of Zeus’s people—has us in the hallway before the bomb goes off and then there is a general chaos. Emergency vehicles arrive to do what they do when there’s a sudden explosion on a city street. Savannah can’t get out by herself so we sit in the hall until one of Zeus’s teams comes to take her to the paramedics. James kisses his husband in a far corner of the hall, whispering to him at every possible moment and directing people the rest of the time.
I want to go back to Zeus—need to go back to him—but Savannah won’t let go of my hand. “Don’t leave me with these people,” she says through gritted teeth.
“They’re just taking you outside. It’ll be okay.”
She doesn’t believe me and she has a death grip on my fingers so I’m the one who goes with her to the sidewalk.
“Why are you like this?” Savannah asks me from the stretcher. “I tried to poison you.”
“Yeah.” I can’t help but laugh. “You did.”
“You’re so weird.” Then she’s gone, loaded into the back of an ambulance. Its red lights turn the shadowy street into a blinking funhouse.
I turn around to run back into the building, but I’m blocked by four men who are carrying a kicking, screeching Demeter out the front doors. James jogs ahead and waves down one of the thousand black SUVs Zeus must own, and it pulls up to the curb.
Zeus follows them out, his hands in his pockets, his golden eyes distant and dark. I don’t know if I should be relieved for him or give in to my lingering fear that something could still go wrong.
As soon as I’m at his side he puts an arm around me and pulls me in close. It’s only once he touches me that I feel it.
His hands are shaking.
I lean into him, watching the scuffle at the back of the SUV. She doesn’t want to go. “Zeus!” Demeter screams, the sound mostly contained by the car. “Don’t let them do this.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Where are they taking her?”
The sigh he lets out is laced in suffering and old pain. “Home.”
I blink up at him. “You’re letting her go home?”
“I’m putting her under house arrest.”
“Zeus.” An even louder voice barrels into us from behind. “You’ve been fooling us all these years, pretending to be competent. What a show.” Poseidon strides up next us, dragging my father along with him in a headlock. He doesn’t seem to register the man fighting weakly at his side. “I just gave you the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“You could have let the bomb go off.” Zeus strokes a hand down my side, brushing my ribs. “It would have accomplished the same goal. She’d be dead.”
“But so would you, and I’m not about to give the bitch that pleasure.”
“You are—” Zeus shakes his head. “You are infuriatingly inconsistent.”
Poseidon frowns. “Your words wound. I’m not inconsistent.”
“Do you not remember working with Hades, then?”
“Of course I remember.” Poseidon refastens a button on his shirt. “He called me first.”
Zeus’s mouth falls open. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen him look genuinely surprised. “Oh my god,” he says. “That’s why you think you’re an honorable pirate? Because you side with whoever calls first? What if it had been Demeter?”
Poseidon laughs, a deep, rolling belly laugh. “I hate her. I’d sooner have dropped her in the sea.”
“But she has something you want,” Zeus points out. What is it?
His brother’s face darkens, and he pushes two fingers into Zeus’s chest. “I hate you. Don’t forget it.” Then he pauses. “Any preference?” This, to me.
“Preference?”
He jerks my father’s head back and forth. “This is the one who sold you off to the uncle, isn’t it? I can leave him in the open ocean. Deserted island. Your