Apollo (14 page)

Her heart thumped. If they survived this, she was never leaving his side again.

Val jumped when Jenna racked the slide of her gun.

“They are here,” Jenna whispered.

Val looked into the line of the trees and swallowed.

A scream ripped through the air, and for a moment, she wondered if it was her.

She watched in horror as one of the Glycons ran from the trees, with two teens just ahead, sprinting.

“Fuck,” Rem cursed and leveled his gun.

“You’ll shoot them,” Jenna said. She lined up her own shot.

The other Glycons in the line let out a scream and charged. Jenna turned her gun from the boys and aimed at the threat in front.

Val swallowed and watched as the Glycon got closer to the boys with each passing second. Her breath hitched in her throat as the running teens came into more detail: Dean and Peter. She had to help them. There had to be something she could do.

Val cursed and ran toward the boys.

“Val!” Apollo screamed after her, but she couldn’t stop. They needed her.

“Peter,” she shouted. “Duck!”

Peter dove over Dean and covered him with his body. Val opened fire, the sound of the shots ringing through the air. One of her bullets had to hit the bastard. No matter how fast they were, they weren’t bulletproof.

The bullets whizzed past the angry man-beast, but his attention was now fully fixed on her. Val fired until the gun clicked, seemingly empty. She turned to run but found another Glycon stalking her from that direction. She glanced between the two and cursed.

This was it. From what Apollo had said, there was no way she’d be able to use her martial arts, and outrunning them at this point seemed useless. She almost laughed. Apparently, the Horatius Group would get her in the end.

She sucked in a breath as their rotten hatred passed over her. Bestial, primal, terrifying. She closed her eyes.

A gunshot cracked through the air, and she opened her eyes.

Apollo stood just on the other side of the Glycon as it fell.

He shook as he made his way to her. It had been close, closer than he ever wanted to think about.

Apollo raised his gun and aimed for the other Glycon that had been chasing the boys. It let out a piercing growl and lowered its shoulder, as if about to charge.

He fired, and the monster went down with a thud.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he yelled at her. “Some fights you can’t win.”

She wasn’t listening to him. Val was already running to the boys.

Apollo looked back at Rem and Jenna. There were still three Glycons left, but they had the situation under control.

He chased after Val.

Before she even reached the boys, he could see that things weren’t right. Peter hadn’t moved from his spot on the ground, and Dean still hadn’t sat up.

The smell that reached him first. Death.

“No,” he heard Val whisper. She dropped to the ground.

Her sobs wracked her whole body as she wrapped her arms around Peter.

It was too late. The vision of the Dean, dead in the grass, burned into his brain.

Apollo neared the scene, and he swallowed hard. The boy had been cut multiple times. Running like he had only made the blood pump more.

“We need to get back,” he said, the harsh words almost like acid in his mouth.

Val stared up at him. Tears streamed down her face.

“He’s gone,” she whispered.

Apollo nodded. He would mourn later and had a feeling there were more dead than he cared to think of at the moment. The important thing now was to make sure more of their people weren’t killed.

“Rem and Jenna need us,” he said quietly.

Peter turned toward him. His face had lost all color. No emotion registered on his face as he stood, but Apollo couldn’t think about that at the moment.

Val followed, and they moved toward the road.

“Remus!” someone shouted in the distance as they made their way toward them.

Apollo frowned as Rem looked around.

“It’s time, Remus,” another man shouted. “Your brother is waiting.”

Apollo clenched the gun in his hands as they neared the street.

Two men came into view, not Glycon but not quite hybrid as well, definitely more bestial than human, their eyes glowing. They lacked the pale coloring and white hair of Romulus. Apollo grimaced at the idea that they perhaps had overcome both the Pale Man’s disadvantages and the simple mindless brutality of the Glycons.

Apollo watched as Rem eyed the men.

“He certainly took his time, Nero,” Rem said.

Jenna inched closer to him as more Glycons stalked forward. Out of bullets, she tossed the gun to the side.

The other man laughed at their situation. They were clearly outnumbered.

“Oh, now, Remus, you know how he is,” the man said.

Rem gave a bitter laugh. “I do.”

The second man offered him a wide smile.

“Bring the snack, and let’s go,” he said.

Rem looked over to Jenna, who was shaking, her eyes wide with fear.

“Eh, not my type,” he said and moved ahead of her a little.

“Good,” Nero said and nodded to the door. “Let the pets have her, and let’s go.”

“No,” Val whispered.

Apollo could hardly believe it himself. All this time, and he had been right. Rem smiled and flirted, but the bastard had been with the Horatius Group all the time. He would kill the fucker. He would gut him for his part in all of this. He raised his gun. He couldn’t let that asshole get away.

Gunfire suddenly ripped through the air from multiple directions, and Apollo pushed Peter and Val to the ground, wincing as a bullet struck his leg.

He watched in horror as a Glycon made a grab for Jenna.

Rem shot the creature in the head and yanked her away. He strolled through the bullets and stopped five feet from their position.

“I’m sorry,” Rem whispered to Jenna and pulled her in for a hard kiss.

When he pulled away, he shoved her hard toward their position on the ground.

In the distance, several soldiers popped up above a sedan they were using as cover to fire a few shots at the Glycons and other soldiers near the gate. For some reason, they all had their left sleeves rolled up.

“Move out!” the beast named Nero shouted as Rem crossed over to their side of the field.

They loaded into cars with some of Carter’s men and slammed back out the gate in their stolen cars, still under fire from the apparently loyal soldiers.

Apollo tried to keep his eyes open, but the wound on his leg had lost too much blood. His eyes slipped closed, and he sighed as familiar shouts surrounded them.

* * *

A machine beeped in the distance, and Apollo really wished they would just shut it off. All he wanted was a few more minutes of sleep.

Pain tore through him as he tried to move, and the horror of what had happened slowly made its way back into his mind.

“I just can’t do this,” he heard a woman say.

His eyes blinked open, and he stared at Val, who sat quietly beside him. Her eyes were trained on something else.

Apollo looked around and found Rachel trying to talk with the nurse.

“Paige,” Rachel said frantically. “We can’t lose you right now. There are so many who need your help.”

The pretty nurse shook her pale face.

“This is just too much,” she said, raising her hands. “I tried, but I can’t be here if it’s like this. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to die.”

The room grew quiet as she walked to the door without anything further to say.

Rachel scanned the room and paused when her eyes met his.

“Good,” she said with a smile. “You’re awake.” It didn’t quite reach her eyes, and he knew things were worse than he could have ever thought.

Val took over his line of sight as she leaned in toward his face.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey,” he said. His voice hurt, and he noticed that his face did as well when he frowned. A hand came up to touch the chip. Except, instead of the chip, he found a bandage.

“We took it out,” Rachel said.

Apollo frowned again, despite the pain.

“How?” he asked.

Rachel pointed over to Val.

Val leaned back and sighed. “It was the government,” she said quietly. “At least from what I can tell from some tracing. They were behind the hacks and even something in town.”

“Something in town?”

“I don’t know everything. The people in town were acting weird, and it has something to do with a signal that was interfering with their televisions. Some of the frequencies are linked to some of the things going on with your systems, and those all led back to some government servers.”

Apollo shook his head. It was too much to take in.

“Carter?” he asked, not seeing Jenna around. “Jenna said he went down.”

“He’s not doing well,” Rachel said. “The stress was too much. We think it was a heart attack. It looks like it’d been coming for a while.”

His eyes found Val again. “Peter?”

She glanced over to the corner and shook her head. “He’s here, but that’s about it.”

Apollo swallowed and wasn’t really sure if he wanted to know the next answer. “How many did we lose?”

It was Titus, standing in the corner, who spoke this time. “Three of the younger hybrids, eleven adults and five of Carter’s men.”

He shook inside. So many. They had lost more than he would have guessed.

A sudden rush of rage filled him. Rem. That bastard Rem had been involved. He’d pay.

“Rest,” Rachel said, cutting into his thoughts. “He needs the chance to get well.”

Titus nodded and turned toward the door.

Apollo waited until the others in the room had filtered out. All but Val that is. She sat quietly by his bed.

“So you stayed,” he said to her.

She leaned down and placed her face next to his.

“I should have never left,” she whispered.

At this point it didn’t matter. What happened before seemed so very small, especially when he’d been so close to losing her. The thought of it made his stomach turn.

His eyes grew heavy as he stared at her.

“Just stay with me,” he whispered. It was the only thing that echoed in his mind. She would be the light in his time of darkness.

Chapter Sixteen

Tears leaked from Val’s eyes as they silently walked back from the graves. All those funerals at the same time had nearly done her in, the emotion being overwhelming, but there hadn’t been much of a choice. With so many dead and needing to be buried, the best they could do was have a mass service. Her heart still ached at the loss of Dean. He was just a child who never had a chance at full life, dead at the hands of monsters created by the Horatius Group, humans with the morals of monsters.

Her eyes sought Peter throughout the whole service. His face was the same as when Dean had died. She wasn’t sure he would ever recover. If he did, he might not ever be able to forgive himself. She knew his guilt. Even if he never spoke the words, his feelings came across loud and clear to her. He needed them to help him through this, and she wanted to be there for him.

She sighed. Apollo placed an arm around her, and she leaned into his warmth.

“It will get better,” he said.

Val was surprised to hear him say that. For days he had walked around like he was planning the revenge party himself. She could understand. Every once in a while, when the grief cleared for a moment, rage at the evil of the Group filled her as well. She wasn’t even sure anymore if it was her own anger or just her reflecting Apollo’s feelings. Either way, they deserved it.

She turned to look at him.

“How?” she asked.

They made their way up the steps of his cabin and sat on the hard wooden chairs outside.

Apollo took her hand and stared off into the setting sun.

“Slowly,” he said. “Day by day. And then one day, it will just hurt a little less than all the others.”

She sighed. He was right, but it didn’t make the grief she was feeling any less at that moment. This was one of the things she’d always feared about loving and caring for others: losing them.

“And what about Rem?” she asked.

They hadn’t talked about him, the man who smiled at them the day before he had left them all to die.

Apollo squeezed her hand a tad too hard, and she hissed.

He jerked his hand away and stared at her in shock.

“I didn’t mean…” He looked away, shame emanating from him.

Val held up a hand. “It’s fine,” she said. “I think that answers my question.”

Apollo shook his head. “Not really. It doesn’t much answer any questions.”

He was right. Rem had left them all to die, and there was no reason. Nothing. It made no sense.

She really felt sorry for Jenna. Even though her relationship with Rem had been complicated, she obviously liked him on some level, and he’d betrayed them right in front of her, even if he’d saved her from a Glycon.

“Don’t worry though,” he said. “He’ll get what’s coming to him. He’ll pay for siding with those bastards. He’ll pay for Dean. He’ll pay for all of them.” He slammed his fist into his palm.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. She could feel Apollo’s rage lessen as he stuffed it away.

“I’m done talking about that,” Apollo said and smiled sadly at her. “I can’t do anything about the bad stuff right now, so I’m going to take comfort in the good stuff.”

“Good stuff?”

“Stuff like you. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me. You saved me when I’d given up on true happiness.”

Val climbed out of her seat and sat on his lap. She avoided the stitches on his other thigh.

“You know, I haven’t forgotten that you left,” he said.

Her heart hammered in her chest. She only wished she could take away what she had done. His feelings were mixed and confusing: irritation mostly smothered by love and something else, a bit of nervousness from what she could tell.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her mouth grazed his chin, and he smiled at her.

“What if I said I wanted to make sure you never leave me like that again?” he asked.

Val stared at him sideways for a moment. “And how do you plan to do that?”