Heart (3 page)

Before I could agree with him, he
disappeared.

I stared at the space he’d taken up only a
moment ago. His footprints still marked the sand and the atmosphere
still buzzed with his supernatural energy.

What had just happened?

His fast retreat left a cold wind to blow
past me. It rushed over my skin and skimmed the water before
continuing on, out to sea. I wrapped my arms around my torso and
looked down at the foaming waves bumping against my calves.

The water had protected me tonight.

Whatever power Hermes wielded, he was afraid
of the water. But why? What could it do to him?

Or maybe the better question was what could
I
do to him?

I held my fingers up and inspected them
carefully. I half expected lightning to synapse between my palms or
manifest before me like how the Fates had created that electrical
storm between them.

Even Nix could change weather and draw
unnatural lightning in the sky. Hermes had just accomplished the
same thing.

My hands buzzed with energy, but beyond that
nothing happened. The waves were docile at my feet; not even they
could be bothered to respond to whatever energy pulsed inside of
me.

I didn’t understand what was happening to my
body, but I was thankful that I now knew I could use it.

I would just have to stay close to the
ocean.

Was that why Nix hadn’t come for me? If
Hermes had found me, how hard could it have been for Nix to track
me down?

And yet he had not come. Hermes said he was
trying to draw me out... was I more dangerous here than at home in
my landlocked state with no ocean for miles and miles?

Something to think about.

There was actually a lot to think about after
that surprise visit. Most of those thoughts revolved around Ryder
and Honor. I couldn’t stop my mind from drifting there.

They were the two people I cared about most
in this world. If Nix wanted me to take his threats seriously then
those were the two people that would drive his point home.

When the sky lightened to a hazy gray and the
sun began to rise in pinks and purples in the eastern sky, I
finally waded to shore. I picked up my discarded ballet flats and
carried them to my house. My wet feet picked up sand as I went and
then shed it again once I stepped onto my porch.

I pulled my keys from my purse and let myself
into my house. I had to work again at four that afternoon, so my
exhausted body needed to catch a few hours of sleep after my
entirely wakeful night.

I tracked sand through my house and marched
straight to the shower. I rinsed off and washed my hair while my
mind replayed Hermes’ visit over and over.

Once I’d dried off and dressed in loose
shorts and a tank top, I collapsed into bed and buried my face in
my soft pillow. My belongings were meager in this house, but I had
invested in a comfortable bed. I could live without a lot, but not
without sleep.

Except for tonight.

Or this morning.

As exhausted as my body was, I couldn’t shut
my mind off. I argued with myself for hours that Hermes was only
using Ryder as a catalyst to pull me back into this war I wanted no
part of. Ryder was safe. I knew he was because he wore the
protection seal of Zeus. I also knew he was because I would have
known the minute he wasn’t safe.

I knew that without any doubts or misgivings.
If Ryder wasn’t safe,
I would feel it
.

How I knew that, I had no idea. But the
concrete instinct was there and I couldn’t get myself to dismiss
it.

Still, if he was safe now, that didn’t mean
he would always be safe.

And what about Honor? I had been able to flee
before because I trusted Smith to take care of her. Smith had never
let me down and after our last interaction, I had realized why.

Smith was as much a Greek as I was. Probably
more so.

If he couldn’t protect Honor, there was
nothing I could do. Smith was infinitely more powerful than I was.
If Nix had defeated Smith, then Honor was gone.

Forever.

Bitterness and vinegar churned in my stomach
and I lost the ability to breathe.

I couldn’t let that happen. I would not let
Honor take my place and live out my future.

When sleep didn’t come after another hour of
tossing and turning, I finally gave up. I argued that I just needed
to put my mind at ease.

It was impossible for Nix to have found and
taken Honor. I knew that it was. And Ryder being gone was an even
bigger impossibility.

Still, I had to find out for sure. I had to
be positive or I was going to end up doing something stupid.

I crawled out of bed and walked to the small
kitchen that consisted of a mini fridge, two-burner stove-top and
microwave. My clean feet picked up the sand I’d dragged in earlier
and hadn’t cleaned up yet. Drifting in from all of my open windows,
the morning air was cool on my skin.

In the kitchen, on top of the few cabinets
that hung next to the sink, I kept my only lifeline to my old life.
I jumped on the countertop and pulled my body up. The cabinets were
sticky with dust and ocean air, but wrapped in a plastic bag in the
far corner was a cellphone.

I let out a huff of impatient breath,
frustrated with my weakness and fear. I grabbed the phone, jumped
back to the peeling linoleum and forced my fingers to work.

I pulled the phone from the baggie and
plugged it in. I hadn’t even bothered to charge it after I’d bought
it. I didn’t want to tempt myself. I knew that if it was easily
accessible, I would give in. I would make calls, I would check in,
I wouldn’t stay anonymous.

But I hoped that if I had to go through the
work, like scaling my kitchen and waiting for a charge, I could
talk myself out of ruining my only chance at any kind of
future.

I had been right.

This wasn’t the first time I’d stared at this
cellphone. This wasn’t the first time I’d contemplated calling home
just to hear familiar voices or make sure everyone was all
right.

This was just the first time I could justify
my actions.

Once the phone turned on, I took another few
minutes to decide who to call first. In the end I settled on my
mother.

She was the least dangerous for me. Nothing
about her would draw me home, even if I found out Hermes had been
telling the truth.

Who was I to judge the Fates? They probably
had a great reason for wanting her.

Okay, I knew that wasn’t true. Their reasons
were undoubtedly nefarious and evil. But it was my mother… my
mother who had abused me my entire life under the disguise of
protecting me. My mother who had handed me to Nix time and time
again, who sat by and watched as one of Nix’s associates nearly
beat me to death, who stood me before the Fates and a litany of
other evil and expected me to fend for myself.

I dialed the international code and my
mother’s cell and listened to the dial tone ring in my ear while my
breath hitched in my chest. I had memorized this number and two
others as soon as I’d left the States. I had regretted it until
now.

Knowing the numbers made it so much harder to
abstain from calling.

When her voicemail picked up instead of her
voice, I tried again. And again and again. She never answered.

A half hour later, I found the courage to
call Smith.

He didn’t answer either. In fact, his phone
never even went to voicemail. It just rang and rang until the
recorded operator voice informed me that his voicemail had not been
set up yet.

Anxiety rocketed through me and I started to
doubt my refusal to join Hermes. Had he been telling the truth?

I didn’t hesitate to call the next number
this time. Fear pebbled my skin and froze my lungs. I had to
know.

The phone rang three times before a gravelly
voice picked up. “Hello?” he said.

I tilted the phone, so my mouth wasn’t near
the mouthpiece and exhaled slowly.

“Hello?” Ryder demanded. His voice was
rougher than usual and I realized I had probably woken him.

Images of him tangled in his sheets, his eyes
sleepy, his wild hair more tousled than usual shot through me and I
had to close my eyes against the sensation. Tears pricked at my
eyes, spilling over a second later as I listened to him
breathe.

God, how long had it been? Only months.
Almost a year, but not quite.

It wasn’t such a long time, but right now it
felt like eternity. Suddenly my freedom turned into purgatory and
my escape became a prison sentence.

I had fled to protect him, I reminded myself.
I didn’t stay here for me. I stayed here for him.

“Ivy?” his voice hitched with something
dangerous. I wanted it to be hope, but I couldn’t lie to myself in
this moment. I was too low.

Anger laced his tone, pure, raw fury. “Ivy,
is that you?” he demanded.

Before I gave over to the riot of emotions
shooting through me, I jammed my finger on the end button and
stopped the call. Then I ripped the charger from the wall and shut
the damn thing off.

Oh, god.
Why did it hurt so much?

Why couldn’t it be simple to save him? Why
couldn’t it be easy?

My breaths came in gasping sobs and I sank to
my knees, unable to find the strength to hold myself up
anymore.

Lost.

I felt lost. Which was a profound feeling,
since I had felt lost most of my life.

Until Ryder.

And then I had felt intensely found.

But I had given that up so he could be safe,
so he could live his life without the weight of me dragging him
down… drowning him.

I had given up everything for him.

Except what if we were still in danger? What
if
he
was still in danger?

I had trouble living with myself on a daily,
hourly… minute-by-minute basis. If something happened to Ryder,
even my tenuous grasp on survival would slip.

I would never be able to live with myself. I
wouldn’t be able to endure this lonely existence anymore.

Stuck at a crossroads between two impossible
outcomes, between two scenarios that both felt like mistakes,
between what my heart wanted and what my mind argued, I made the
only decision that would let me breathe again.

I went with my heart.

Chapter Three

My plane landed on the tarmac of Omaha,
Eppley Airfield at 6:43pm on a Wednesday.

I would have called that fate, except I had
met the Fates and I highly doubted they had
anything
to do
with my good fortune.

In fact, if they had been in charge of my
flight plans, I was convinced my plane would have ended up at the
bottom of the ocean.

I had packed lightly in the same purse I’d
used around the island. I’d abandoned my entire bungalow, leaving
behind enough rent to cover me through the end of the month, just
in case.

After a quick call to Fleur, explaining to
her that it was time for me to go home, she’d said, “You were
always going to go home.”

“How did you know?” I asked on a strained
whisper.

“Because it’s home. We are nothing without a
home. And you, little girl, are more than nothing.” The conviction
in her tone surprised me. I hadn’t known her that long and the
entire time I had, I was convinced she only put up with me… nothing
else.

But she was right. And as I stepped out into
the heat of a stifling Midwestern summer, I contemplated how I
hadn’t realized this sooner.

This was right. I felt it in my bones. And it
wasn’t just Omaha calling to me, whispering that I had stepped back
into the sublime familiar, it was more than that.

There were thicker strings than childhood
memories and nostalgia that held me to this place.

I hailed a cab, one of the few circling the
airport drop off lanes and gave instructions on where to take
me.

I didn’t have much with me, except for cash.
That I had brought a lot of.

I stared out the window and breathed in the
north part of the city. I noted new construction and new businesses
that had opened in my absence. I watched pedestrians swelter in the
heat and city traffic maneuver around one-way streets and evening
congestion.

I ignored the building nerves that threatened
to sweep me away and concentrated on this city I loved, even with
all of the potential dangers attached to it.

The drive from the airport to the Slowdown
only took a few minutes. The ride was both too long and way too
short. I wasn’t ready for this moment and yet it felt like my
entire life had been a journey to get me exactly here.

I paid the cabby and stepped out to face one
of my most favorite places on earth. My hands shook as I tried to
convince my mind that I was actually here… that I was actually
standing
here
, in this spot, and that Ryder could possibly…
probably… hopefully… be standing just inside the concert hall.

Doubt roiled through me and I questioned my
decision. Maybe I should wait to see him? Or maybe I should turn
around and run again.

I winced and rubbed a shaking hand over my
face.

“Get it together, Ivy,” I grumbled to myself
wishing it was as simple as saying those words out loud.

I hesitated on the sidewalk for another
minute, until a group of girls walked by me. Their laughter broke
my mind out of my cowardly stupor and I followed them into the
Slowdown.

Cool air washed over my bare arms and I
belatedly realized how hot it was outside. I had been so wrapped up
in my fears I hadn’t even noticed the sweat that broke out through
my thick hair and slid down my spine.

It was well after seven by the time I paid my
cover and walked into the main part of the venue. I recognized
Sugar Skulls on stage immediately.

My stomach dropped to my toes and I forgot
how to breathe.