Furious - By Jill Wolfson Page 0,99

puppet!” Raymond shouts.

Athena’s voice now, like the rumble of a hundred trucks on a freeway exit ramp: “Let Raymond’s pure goodness take them on. Destroy the Furies permanently! Banish them for all eternity. Let it begin.”

He turns on Athena, defiant. “I’m not your puppet, either. I’m not your weapon. I’m not pure anything! I’m just me.”

Here, in their argument, we find our opening. Alix, Stephanie, and I come apart only long enough to close in on him. There’s nowhere for Raymond to go, no place to run in this empty terrain. He’s on his own.

He speaks again, but the words sound weak and clouded. “Meg, your power! It’s up to you how you use it!”

Then no more words. We are beyond that kind of communication. To protect himself, Raymond hums his melody. He gives it a good shot. But alone on a mountaintop, his simple song is porous, a cloth of notes that’s full of holes.

We sing ourselves in. We come into his light.

So much light. Too much light. SPF 25,000 sunscreen bright. His thoughts are filled with it; his brain sparks with it. His memories glow under the polish.

This is unlike any of our other Fury experiences, and we flail around. We’re used to landing in people’s shadows, seeking out gullies, gloomy corners, and deep coves of depression. We are unwelcome visitors who never leave.

Raymond’s light, though, blinds us in a way that darkness doesn’t. I struggle to stay close to the others, but we keep losing our connection. We break apart, come together, break apart again. I find myself hunting alone in this space of endlessly reflecting mirrors and refracting lenses, and understand what Raymond meant when he said that he isn’t perfect. He’s not all goodness. I see his mistakes, the ways that he hurt others and caused pain.

But here’s what’s different. Raymond hasn’t buried his memories and mistakes like other people do. They haven’t shaped him into something mean and ugly. Eagerly I head into what looks like a warped road of defensiveness, only to find a straight pathway leading to an open door of apology. An old embarrassment explodes in a bright moment of insight. Everywhere I search, there’s forgiveness requested and forgiveness given. Instead of blame, he has accepted others and accepted himself.

Still, I am not fooled. I remind myself that we got in, and I know what this means. A jar of jam with a tiny crack isn’t sealed. It’s as vulnerable to bacteria as a jar left wide open on the kitchen counter in the heat. Somewhere there is a chink in Raymond—a lie, a moment of guilt and self-doubt. All I have to do is find it.

I catch a glimpse of something then. A blink and it’s gone. Another blink and it’s back in sight. What is it? A lie never confessed. With a tinge of shame and a hint of regret.

That’s all I need. With it I can summon the others and we can bring him down. And once he is down, nothing will stop us. Athena will be powerless, and we can give the whole world our kind of law and order. We can bring it to its knees.

Sing!

I hear the command from Ambrosia. She orders me forward with every bit of rage and hate from our combined pasts. Her will comes over me through deafening shrieks and rank smell and putrid taste, all of that, but nothing like that, not anything I have ever experienced with any of my senses before.

Call the others! Join together. Sing and destroy!

It’s up to me. We’ll swarm over him, pumping all of our darkness until we transform that tiny pinprick of a lie into his personal black hole.

Do it! Now!

I lift the edge of the dark corner where Raymond’s trembling little lie waits in terror of discovery. Thrilled, I move closer to it. It quakes and shivers at my approach. It can’t hide from me anymore. I watch in fascination as his lie—our weapon against him, the means of Raymond’s destruction—replays itself, as if in real time.

Raymond and Ms. Pallas alone in her classroom. She shakes her head, her expression one of firm resolve. “Meg has to go. I must eliminate her.”

Raymond’s head down, accepting. “What will you do? What will happen?”

“They must never rise again. Meg is the third in the trio, the key, and I will banish her from both realms. She’ll be neither human nor goddess, orphaned into eternity, separated from family and friends, belonging nowhere and to no