Heart (5 page)

I shook my head and licked my dry lips.
“Ryder, I’m not really back…”

“Of course you’re not,” he snapped. “It’s
probably better that you go anyway.”

I winced, unable to hide my heartbreak.
Regret flashed across his face, but he didn’t apologize.

“Isn’t that what you do?” he gritted out,
apparently not caring that he was obliterating whole pieces of me
at a time. “You leave when things get tough? You run just when
people need you the most?”

“Ryder, I left because I wanted to protect
you-”

He cut me off, “I’m not talking about
myself.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Your friends, Ivy. Exie and Sloane. They’re…
they’re in trouble and they needed you and you left them.”

“They’re in trouble?”

He eyed me carefully, taking in the whole of
me. His eyes swept over me from head to toe and his lips pressed
into a frown. When he spoke again, I felt his dismissal. “Find out
for yourself. I have to get back in there.”

He left me on the sidewalk crumbling to
pieces and with so many questions that I didn’t know where to
start. But I had the sick feeling that he was right.

Did I really run when things got hard? Was I
that much of a coward?

As much as I wanted to run now, his words
made it clear that I couldn’t. At least, not yet. First, I needed
to see Exie and Sloane and figure out what the hell he was talking
about.

Chapter Four

There were no cabs near the Slowdown so I had
to walk to a nearby restaurant and call one. While I waited, I
ordered an iced tea and nibbled on soft pretzel sticks.

I wasn’t hungry at all. In fact, after
Ryder’s confrontation, I was nervous I would just puke the pretzels
back up. Still, after waitressing for over a year, I knew what it
was like on the other side. I thought I should not waste my
server’s time.

As soon as the cab arrived, I threw some cash
down on the table and ran back outside. I was too close to Ryder
still. I needed as much space as I could get to clear my head and
figure out what to do next.

I gave the cab driver directions to Exie’s
house first, but everything looked abandoned. There were no lights
on and the grass hadn’t been cut in a while. It pushed onto the
sidewalk and driveway along the edges, looking sloppy and
neglectful.

Echo would have never allowed the yard to
look like this if she were still living here. I didn’t know what to
think about that.

I realized belatedly that I should have tried
to get a rental car at the airport. While I had enough money for
cabs, I didn’t want to spend my entire day driving around the city
in them. Unfortunately, not even my fake passport had my age as old
enough to legally rent a car, and without my Siren’s curse, I had
no hope of convincing a clerk to give me one anyway.

So with few options, I instructed the driver
how to get to Sloane’s house next. If she wasn’t home I didn’t know
what I was going to do or where I would go after.

My options right now wavered between going
back to the island or calling for Hermes.

I had a strong feeling Tortola was not where
I wanted to be, but then again, I really, really,
really
didn’t want to call Hermes.

I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or
anxious when Sloane’s house showed signs of life. The lawn had been
taken care of, blinds were open and so was the garage door,
revealing Sloane’s mom’s car.

I paid the driver, grabbed my purse and
slammed the door shut behind me. My feet dragged as I walked up to
the front door.

Sloane and I hadn’t left things on the best
of terms, but I still loved her. If she was in trouble, I wanted to
help.

I had always wanted to help her. She just
hadn’t let me.

The cab drove away and I felt very alone and
suddenly very afraid. I wouldn’t put it past Sloane’s mom, Thalia,
to knock me unconscious, tie me up and hold me until Nix showed
up.

I was banking on the fact that some love had
been lost between Thalia and Nix after Anaxandra and Evaleen were
killed last year.

Initially she had blamed me. I hoped she’d
realized by now that I wasn’t her daughter’s murderer. I had tried
to save Eva from Nix’s plans.

Shaking out my unease, I met Thalia in the
garage. She had stepped back outside to get groceries from her
trunk. Her long dark hair was pinned in a bun on the top of her
head and worked with her glasses to give her the whole sexy
librarian vibe.

Nix had turned Thalia into a career girl for
him a long time ago. Her house, car and clothes reflected her
success. From a distance she looked pristine… shiny. She looked
like a trophy wife made from every man’s fantasies.

After spending so much time on the island and
away from the Greek circle, her beauty was startling. I had
forgotten that they, er, that
we
were so flawlessly
pretty.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped as
soon as her cold gaze landed on me. “He’ll kill you if he finds
you. You shouldn’t have come back.”

“I’m looking for Sloane,” I answered
honestly. I chose to ignore everything else. It wasn’t anything I
didn’t already know.

Thalia snorted her disgust. I had never heard
her make a sound like that. In fact, the longer I stood there, I
realized that although she looked impeccable from a distance, up
close there were signs that led me to believe she might not be
doing so well.

Dark smudges circled her blood shot eyes and
her lips were dried out, almost cracked. Her clothes and hair were
still nicely styled, but she looked alarmingly frail. She was too
skinny, sickly skinny.

“
Now
you want to know where she is?”
she hissed at me. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Ivy. I
don’t know where she is. I haven’t known where she is since you
took off and left the rest of us to pay for your sins.”

“What are you saying?” Desperation laced my
tone, so raw and obvious that her expression softened just a
bit.

She waved a hand in front of her face, “He
took her. He took my Sloane and Exie and your mother months ago. I
haven’t heard a word from them.”

“Where?”

“
I don’t know
!” she shouted. “He cut
me loose! That’s my punishment. I’m cut off completely. I don’t get
to hear from Sloane or know what’s going on or if she’s all right.
He told me I would never see her again. I don’t even know if she’s
still alive.”

I watched her dissolve in front of me. Her
hands flew to her face to cover hiccupping sobs and her thin
shoulders shook from the force of her sorrow.

Empathy and my own concern rippled through
me, but I couldn’t bring myself to comfort Thalia Clayton. She
brought this on herself by letting her family get so wrapped up in
Nix’s ugly world. Her children should never have been within that
monster’s reach. It was her job as their mother to protect them,
not throw them to the wolves.

“I know you blame me,” she sniffled. She was
not wrong. “But not all of us can be as brave as you, Ivy. Not all
of us know how to get out. I didn’t know what else to do! I didn’t
know how else to protect them than to teach them to stay in line.
That was the best I could do for them!” She wrapped her arms around
her middle and let her tears stream freely. “If I had known… if I
had…”

“Where’s Echo?” I asked in an effort to move
on.

Thalia shrugged. “She probably killed
herself.”

“What?”

She turned back to look at me. “I don’t know
that for sure. I haven’t been able to reach her. Nobody has seen
her. I wouldn’t blame her though.”

The conviction in her voice surprised me. I
had so many questions and I was quickly realizing Hermes was right.
I couldn’t avoid this any longer. Not if my friends were involved
too.

And because of me.

“Have you heard from Nix? Do you know where
he is?”

“Last I heard he went back to Greece. He has
men looking for you, you know. He led the search himself for a
while, but when he couldn’t find you he came back and got the
girls. He thought that might be some incentive for you to reappear.
But you never did.”

Frustration fissured through me, creating
deep craters that would leave scars on my bones. “I didn’t hear,” I
swore to her. “When I left, I never intended to come back. I… I
didn’t check in because I didn’t want to get anyone in
trouble.”

She made another derisive sound, “Thanks for
that.”

I had officially lost my patience. “Thalia, I
asked Sloane and Exie to come with me. I begged them to! We had
planned for years to escape together. That was
always
the
plan. But in the end, they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t leave. They had
been conditioned to believe we couldn’t make it and so they didn’t
even try!”

“And why do you think they thought that?
Could it have something to do with their sisters dying?”

“I know it was that! But that’s why it was so
important that we tried. We would have made it.
I
made
it.”

I thought she would yell right back at me. I
expected all of her fire and brimstone. I expected a display of
power or
something
. Instead, she nodded sadly and said, “You
know, when I was your age, I had the same thoughts. I knew I was
smart. I knew I was motivated. I could get out, I thought. I could
escape. I think all of us believe it. Before you experience the
life, I mean
really
experience it. Before it destroys every
single ounce of hope and will power in you, before it rips out your
insides and shreds what’s left of your dignity, I think it’s
natural to believe that you can be the one that actually breaks
free. I don’t blame you for wanting out, Ivy. I don’t blame any of
you. But what you don’t understand about Nix is that he makes it
impossible to leave. If he cannot find you, then he punishes you by
taking those that you love and care about. It’s his way. You got
out, Ivy. You got farther than anyone else, but here you are. He
drew you back in because we can’t help it.”

I had been listening intently to each of her
words and when she stopped, I felt like I was missing something.
“We can’t help what?”

“As heartless as we try to be, we always end
up caring for someone. He always has
someone
he can use to
bring us back to him. There is always someone left at risk.” She
shook her head and looked down at her feet. “It’s nothing I don’t
deserve though. My daughters were everything to me. We call them
legacies and you know very well what that means, but I really
thought of them that way. They were mine. They were the only good
thing I had done with my entire life and I lost them both.”

I struggled to swallow against the swell of
emotion that expanded suddenly inside of me. “I’m going to get them
back,” I found myself saying. “I’m going to find Sloane and
Exie.”

Her eyes snapped back to mine and held.
“That’s what he wants.”

“What else does he want, Thalia? This goes
beyond just losing one of his girls. Why am I so important?”

She tore her gaze from mine to look up and
down the street. It was quiet, still. The sun was getting ready to
set and the evening light had started to fade quickly.

“Let’s go inside,” she whispered.

Nerves fluttered inside of me and for some
reason I knew that was a very bad idea. I didn’t want to believe
that Thalia would hurt me after what felt like a bonding session
between us, but I couldn’t trust anyone. That was something I had
learned a long time ago.

“Tell me here. Stop stalling.”

She flinched as if I’d caught her. “You’re
really going to find Sloane?”

“Or die trying,” I promised.

She let out a deep sigh and said, “I don’t
know for sure. Nobody does. It’s not like Nix is open about his
plans.” Just as I started to feel disappointment, she went on, “But
there have been rumors. The gods are back in play. They’ve returned
to Olympus and now they’re all gunning for Zeus’ spot.”

“This isn’t anything I don’t know. But why
are the gods back at Olympus and why do they think they can take
over?”

“Zeus is missing,” she whispered. “With Zeus
gone, the throne is up for grabs. Nix has always wanted it. Ares
and Hades too. They have fought wars for it before and I know they
would again in a second if they thought they could win it. There is
a rumor though that Nix has a secret weapon so strong and powerful
that Ares and Hades have stepped back. They are working for him now
instead of with him or against him. Whatever this weapon is must
have serious power to cull those two.”

New nerves skittered over my skin. I
remembered all of those times Nix took me to socialize with Hades
and Ares. I shuddered just thinking about how repugnant they
were.

“So what happens if Nix gets the throne? He
rules Olympus? That doesn’t mean that much these days.”

She shrugged again. “I don’t know. The gods
haven’t had true power in thousands of years. But then, they’re
gods. What’s a few thousand years to them? The rumors flying around
range from world domination to ancient vengeance. Nobody really
knows.”

“They had world domination once and lost it,”
I reminded her. “What makes them think they could keep it this
time?”

“Ivy, I don’t know. I’ve told you everything
I’ve heard, but I’m low on the ladder. Most of this information has
come from bits and pieces I’ve picked up from your mother.”

That floored me. My mother? She had known all
of this? And never said a word?

“Where is she?” I knew, thanks to Hermes, but
I wanted to hear what Thalia could tell me.

I caught the hint of something painful flash
across Thalia’s face before she looked away. “The Fates. Nix gave
her to the Fates.”

“I don’t understand what they could want with
her? What can she do for them?”