Please let’s forget all about this. Forever.
“Labor?” he asks.
A tiny tapping noise has us both turning to the window, where I can see the outline of my tarantula waving her legs.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Boone mutters behind me.
Spiders. He hates them. Not many know about that. I only do because it’s in his file and I’m his clerk.
The tarantula taps again, and I hear the fox give his high-pitched yip outside. And that’s when realization strikes me between the eyes and my lungs seize. Evening is falling, the purpling shadows in the trees growing longer by the second.
How?
We started this in the afternoon. I had hours before sunset. And it didn’t take that long for us to fly…
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Because if it took that long to get to Boone, the one-way journey is longer than it felt. What if I don’t have enough time to get him back to Olympus?
I’m getting really tired of night as a deadline. Or deadlines at all. That word has taken on a whole new meaning for me.
I reach for one of the pearls tucked into my vest and realize that while things feel real here, they’re not. The tattoos are part of me, but the pearls, the real ones, are back in Olympus.
And Boone is still a ghost.
Why? I confessed my very embarrassing feelings. He should have woken up.
“We don’t have time,” I say, hurrying across the room.
I grab his hand and tug him to the door, which I fling open, but the two giant arachnids scuttle out from the trees to crowd into the doorway. Boone reaches over my head and slams the door, having to put his shoulder into it. The door surges and rattles as the spiders try to push their way inside. He’s breathing hard by the time he gets it shut.
“This is bad,” I say.
“You think?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I mean I think your dream turns into a nightmare that won’t let you leave while you’re still asleep.”
He glances at the window and startles. Probably because a bunch of eyeballs are now pressed up against it, watching us. “So wake me up,” he demands, slowly backing away.
“I tried. I told you what I was supposed to tell you.”
The front door shudders.
“Tell me again, then,” Boone urges. “Maybe I was too shocked to really hear it. Or tell that me.” He points at his body on the bed.
Again? I have to say it again? Fuck me.
Crossing the room, I kneel beside him and take his hand. I have to clear my throat twice. I’d better do this right. “I love—”
My heart pinches, and I swallow the rest of the words. That still doesn’t feel right. Not the way I was going to say it.
So I change it. Just a little. Still the truth. Maybe more of the truth than I’ve been willing to admit, even to myself, until now.
“I’ve had a crush on you since I was fifteen,” I say, my words tumbling over themselves. “You’re the only person who has ever shown me a lick of kindness. It’s pathetic. I’m well aware. And you don’t have to feel anything for me.” I know he won’t. He shouldn’t have to deal with guilt for it. “Just know that I’ll always love you a little, for making my time in the den even the tiniest bit easier.”
Boone’s body doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, nothing.
I look over my shoulder, but…he’s gone.
Gone. Gone. Not just that I don’t see him. It’s a single room. He’d be hard to miss.
“Boone?”
I whirl to face his body. Does he look paler? I glance at the window, where the outside world looks dark, but we’re in a forest. Did I take too long?
“Oh my gods!” The whisper rips through my throat as my hands fly up to cover my mouth. “Oh my gods, it’s too late. I’ve killed you.”
67
Hera’s Blessing
I squeeze my eyes shut, unable to make myself face what I’ve done. My hands, still over my mouth, start shaking, and the quiver travels down my limbs and into the rest of my body.
I killed Boone. I killed him. I took too long. Oh my gods, I—
“Open your eyes, mortal.”
I know that voice. My eyes fly open to find Morpheus standing beside me. And on the bed, lying next to Boone’s body, is mine. No longer chained to the bed in Olympus.
