I watch Beta Sinta disappear on foot up a rocky hillside scattered with scrub. “Good riddance.”
“You don’t mean that,” Flynn says.
I cross my arms, frowning. “Yes, I do.”
“Why?” Kato asks. His golden hair glows almost celestial white in the strong beams of the setting sun, and I have to squint to look at him. “He’s been decent to you.”
“If decent means abducting me and keeping me tied up, then I guess he’s been decent, by your standards.”
Carver moves, forgetting I’m attached, and I lurch, falling to my hands and knees. A stone digs into my palm, and I hiss a breath between my teeth. Grating a curse, I grab the rope and give it a hard enough yank to make Carver stumble.
“I hate this bloody rope!” None of these people have magic. There isn’t a dribble of power to steal, nothing to get me out of here.
Flynn is instantly by my side, reaching down to help me up.
I shove his mammoth hands away. “Don’t touch me. I hate you all.”
He looks sympathetic, which makes me want to throw him under a Cyclops’s boot. “That’s not true.”
I glare at him. “I have no freedom, no privacy, and now I don’t even get to have my own mind? Don’t tell me how I feel!”
Flynn sets his ax down with a sigh. “You hate Griffin, even though you shouldn’t, and the rest of us are just lumped in because that’s easiest for you.”
I roll my eyes as I contemplate making a lunge for the ax. I would if I thought I could lift it. “Spare me your psychological ramblings.”
“Do you want a bath?” Carver asks, his question cutting straight through our argument and ending it.
We’re fifty feet from a stream with a tempting clear pool. I’m hot and dusty, and I desperately want to jump in. Swimming is in my blood. I’m a fish in Poseidon’s sea.
I plant my hands on my hips. “No.”
He shrugs. “It’s just that you and Griffin keep going off for long baths.”
My mouth drops open. What in the Underworld is he implying? “He doesn’t give me any choice! Apparently, I stink.”
Kato leans over and sniffs me, his cobalt eyes dancing with humor. “You don’t smell that bad.”
That bad? “That’s because I bathe.”
Carver glances at the water, then back at me. The rope hangs loosely on his narrow waist. “Except for tonight?” He has the nerve to look like he might laugh, so I level the same cold look at him that I used to give my siblings. It’s my The Ice Plains will melt away and the Underworld will freeze over before I give one inch to you look.
Carver arches dark eyebrows, looking annoyingly like a certain warlord whose ass I’d like to kick from here to a Harpy’s nest. “Suit yourself.”
A bitter smile curves my lips. “Always.” It’s a good thing my own lies don’t burn me.
*
I hate stinking. I hate it with the passion of the Gods. I regret my stubbornness before dinner, and even more after when I’m forced to lie down next to Carver, who smells even worse than I do. Kato is on watch, Flynn is already snoring, Beta Sinta is off in the brush, and Carver doesn’t feel right. His body isn’t solid enough. He doesn’t smell of citrus soap and sunshine. He’s just…not the same. As much as I hate to admit it, I was getting used to his brother.
Sleep takes a long time coming and then is fitful, troubled by memories that resurface in dreams. Anxiety bubbles in my stomach, acidic and sharp. The churning has me fumbling in the dark, tumbling in the undertow, getting dragged out to places I don’t want to be.
The first scorching blast sinks into my belly, and I snap awake with a startled cry. He only attacks at night, when I’m asleep and can’t see. I don’t know how he gets past the locks on my door, but it’s him, always the same one. He wouldn’t dare come after me when I’m ready and alert. I’m too good with a knife.
His magic rips through me. Fiery needles pierce my skin, burning deep into the heart of me. I arch off the bed, throbbing, and scream until my throat turns raw, blind with pain. Red with fury.
He lets up, and I just barely suppress a whimper. He’s not strong enough to keep going. If his magic were mine, I could go for hours, slowly cooking him until the last breath left his body. He’s not me. For every five minutes of torture, he needs one to recover. That’s when fists fly.
I block, curling into a ball until either I can strike back without leaving myself too open, or Thanos comes to pull him off me. He hovers over me, fingers digging into my shoulders and pushing me down. His hands on my blistered skin are excruciating, but I thrash to loosen his hold, shrieking for all I’m worth, and then hammer a fist into his throat.