With a shrug, I head into the shower.
The only place I can be alone in here. I turn on the water, strip, and step under the spray, then immediately wrap my arms around my middle, crumbling over them as I try to contain my heartbreak.
I don’t know how long I stay in there like that, letting the water both hide the sounds that escape every so often and wash away the evidence.
“That’s enough!” Nike’s voice is muffled by the walls but still distinct.
Damn.
It takes three tries to answer her in a normal-sounding voice. “Bug guts are sticky. I’ll be out in a bit.”
No answer, which I take as agreement.
Even so, I force myself to stop wallowing and actually wash myself off. The toiletries provided are basic but get the job done, and minutes later, I’m back out in my cell, wet hair slicked back and remarkably comfy in the jumpsuit, which is fashioned from some soft, stretchy material.
I’m holding it all in again. So tightly I feel like an overblown balloon. If I so much as brush against the carpeting wrong, I’ll pop.
Meanwhile, it’s still daylight. Probably time for lunch. I can’t lie down and go to sleep and hide myself in the dark.
So now what?
I go to the computer. Thieves of the Order don’t have email or any kind of online presence. We’re digital ghosts on purpose. So there’s nothing to check. Instead, I open up a browser.
And the first thing I see is a giant headline that reads, Two More Dead as Crucible Nears the End.
Meike and Dex’s deaths immediately replay in my head in detail so distinct I hear Dex’s grunt all over again, see the life leave his body. I click away from that fast but not fast enough, thanks to the renewed shaking of my hands. I close my eyes and try not to see the image on the backs of my lids.
“Are you going to be ill?” Nike asks with an indifference that would do prison guards around the world proud. She clearly doesn’t want to deal with the mess.
“No.”
I force my eyes open to stare at the screen, which is now showing the home page of a streaming service—the first thing I saw that seemed neutral to click on. Except the movie they are featuring at the top, the preview already running, is some bloody action film involving murders and purges.
“Nope,” I mutter, then scroll and click the first thing that looks not that.
K-drama. A romantic comedy.
Right. Better.
The sound will be a shield of sorts. The computer, too. I can stare at it like I’m watching to pass the time, and she’ll pay no attention to me. Maybe it will even distract me. Although I don’t think so.
I’m staring down several days to sit in here and think of nothing but…
I shove his name out of my head before I can think it. I don’t want to think about him.
So think about something else.
Like surviving the final Labor and getting the fuck away from this place. Never seeing him again.
Or maybe I can run now. Skip that last challenge. I can’t win anyway…
I have five pearls left. How long can I keep away from the gods with those?
99
Plans & Schemes
I take a bite of the mango-and-strawberry sorbet cake two satyrs made for my dessert tonight and groan. “Oh my gods, Z, you need to taste this.”
Zeles grunts, staring at the cards in his hand fiercely. “Don’t call me Z.”
He hates it, which is why I do it.
The Daemones take turns babysitting me. They’re not so bad once you get to know them, and I welcome the distraction, given that they’re the only thing in here to keep me company other than the computer. Though I still haven’t figured out how to make Zeles crack a smile. But he’ll play card games with me, using the food slot in the glass wall to pass cards back and forth.
After three days here, I’m thinking of never leaving. Peace, quiet, entertainment, privacy of a sort—in the bathroom, at least—and meals to die for. The cooks figured out that I have a thing for fruit and have managed to work it into every meal. Like the bite of heaven in my mouth right now.
And every single second, every moment of every day, I am mentally working through how I’m going to face Hades before the next Labor and how I’m going to move on with my life after this is over.
That and trying to hold back how that makes me feel.
I shovel in another bite and pick up a card, then grin. “Gin.” The word comes out garbled around the food in my mouth as I lay my cards down.
Zeles grunts, then scowls, and I laugh.
“I only needed one more,” he grumbles and tosses the cards in his hands to the ground in a huff. Then he eyes me narrowly. “You’ve got to be using your thief skills to cheat.”
