The Blood of the Hydra (22 page)

“Nicole’s right,” Hypatia said. “Helios might not be an Olympian, but he’s still powerful. Once he finds out about what happened, this could be a huge problem for the group of you.”

“But it’s not our fault,” Danielle said. “We didn’t know that the stupid cow would die.”

“The gods are rarely logical when it comes to their wrath,” Hypatia said. “Unfortunately, we have no way of predicting what Helios might do. All we can do is focus on completing the final task of this journey.”

Blake nodded, his jaw muscles tense. “Which means it’s time to discuss slaying the hydra.”

“Yes.” Hypatia nodded. “While you’ve been out on the islands completing the first parts of the mission, I’ve been doing some research to find whatever I can to help you. And this is not going to be an easy task.”

“Figured as much.” I removed my bow and quiver and sat down at the table, clasping my hands in front of me. “So, what’s the plan?”

With that, the others joined us at the table, and we strategized for the rest of the night.

We discussed our plan for the next few hours, and since we needed to be rested for the task ahead, we eventually headed off to bed. But despite needing my rest, it was impossible to sleep. So I went upstairs to grab a snack, and found none other than Danielle there as well, apparently doing the same thing.

“Hey,” she said to me, taking a sip of her drink. “You can’t sleep, either?”

“Nope.” I shrugged. “I just wanted to grab a snack and take it outside—I thought some fresh air would be nice. I’ll be out of your way in a minute.”

“Can I join you?” she asked. “If you don’t mind?”

“Sure,” I said immediately, the word getting stuck in my throat. Because why would Danielle want to have a snack with
me
? Neither of us had ever pretended that we were friends. In fact, in all the time I’d known her, Danielle and I had never once spent time together one-on-one.

I didn’t know what she wanted to talk with me about, but I doubted it would be good.

We didn’t talk much as we made sandwiches and took them up to the top deck. The wind against my cheeks felt refreshing, and I sucked in a deep breath, loving the smell of salt in the air. It was too bad that this trip to Greece had been all business—I would have liked some time to enjoy my first trip abroad.

“So, what’s going on with you and Blake?” Danielle asked immediately after we sat down.

My heart stopped at her question, and I looked down, studying my sandwich. There had to be a reason why she was asking. What did she know? I’d been trying so hard this past month to act like my feelings for Blake were nothing more than friendship. I
thought
I’d been convincing.

“What do you mean?” I asked, figuring it was as safe of an answer as any.

“When we were on the Land of the Lotus Eaters, seeing you kissing Ethan made Blake so angry that he was able to fight past the haze of the lotus fruit,” she said. “I’d suspected there was something between you two, but that made me realize that I was right. You’re the reason why Blake dumped me.”

“No!” I gasped and sat back. “I would never ask him to do that. We’re not together. I promise.”

“As much as I wish you were lying, I can’t help but believe you.” She sighed. “Things were ending between me and Blake before you even moved to town. You might not be the reason why he broke up with me, but you certainly helped moved things along.”

I pressed my lips together, not sure what to say. Because as much as I wished I could tell her otherwise, she was right.

“Blake and are I just friends,” I said, since it was the truth. But the words felt like knives in my throat as I spoke them. Because while they were true, I wished more than anything that they weren’t.

“But you want more.” She held my gaze, as if daring me to claim otherwise. “Don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I shrugged. “Because it’s not going to happen.”

“Why?” she asked. “And
please
don’t say it’s because you don’t think he would be interested. I see the way he looks at you. He’s interested, and we both know it.”

I couldn’t help but smile slightly at her observation, but I did my best to force the feeling away. Instead, I held my gaze with Danielle’s and told her, “It’s because I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “It’s not like we’re friends. You don’t owe me anything.”

“We might not be friends, but the five of us—me, you, Blake, Chris, and Kate—we’re a team,” I said. “So much rests on us being able to work together. If we fail…” I trailed off, not wanting to think about what would happen if we failed. “We
can’t
fail. I’ll do everything in my power not to let that happen.”

“So you’re ignoring your feelings for Blake because you think that being with him would distract you from our mission?”

“No!” I said. “Not at all.”

Actually, I thought that if Blake and I were together, it might make us fight even better together. But there was no way I was telling that to Danielle.

“Then why?” she asked.

“The truth?” I asked, and she nodded. I took a deep breath—I had to tell her
something
. And while it couldn’t be the entire truth, it had to be convincing, and still include some truth. “It’s because I didn’t want to make you angry,” I said, picking at the crust of my sandwich. “How could I make you see me and Blake together every day and still expect you to want to work with us?”

“Back up,” she said, dropping her sandwich onto her plate. “You seriously think that I would be so upset over seeing you and Blake together that I would ditch out on helping to
save the world
?”

“Maybe?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I didn’t want to risk it.”

Then she did something that surprised me—she laughed. “I might be selfish, but I’m not
that
selfish,” she said. “I wouldn’t leave the four of you to seal the portal to Kerberos alone, just because it hurts to see my ex-boyfriend with the new girl.”

“Oh,” I said, since when she put it like that, it did sound extreme. “But even so, I couldn’t imagine how that wouldn’t be distracting for you. We all need to be as focused as possible. One wrong move, and any of these monsters could kill us.”

Danielle flicked her hair over her shoulder and smiled, as if completely unbothered by this all. “My life—and the lives of everyone else on this planet—are more important than my hurt feelings about my ex-boyfriend,” she said. “Come on. Give me some credit here.”

“Right.” Heat rushed to my face, and I focused on removing the crust of my sandwich. “But you don’t mean… you don’t
want
me and Blake to be together?” I asked. “Do you?”

“Of course not.” She scoffed. “But I think it’s lame that you’re keeping your distance from him because of me. After all, like both of us know—we’re not friends. You should do what you want. I would, if I were you.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I was actually thinking that it might be best if the five of us all agreed not to date anyone in the group. It would be easiest that way.”

“Come
on
.” Danielle laughed. “Have you seen the way Kate looks at Chris? She’s crushing on him hard.”

I shared a smile with her, since while Kate had never said so out loud, I’d gotten that impression from her, too. “Even if that’s true, Kate’s the most logical of us all,” I pointed out. “She wouldn’t let her feelings for Chris distract her from our mission.”

“The heart wants what it wants.” Danielle shrugged. “You can’t just tell us that we can’t have feelings for anyone else in the group. We spend so much time together that it’s bound to happen. If you try to keep people apart—you and Blake included—it’s going to make the tension grow and grow until it gets so intense that it explodes. Better to let the waves roll as they may.”

“I think it’s ‘let the cards fall as they may…’” I said.

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “You get what I mean.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a good point. And believe it or not, I think I might agree with you.”

“Imagine that,” she said. “Maybe we have more in common than we thought.”

“Maybe,” I said, and when our eyes met, we both laughed. Then, we sat there in silence and ate our sandwiches, as if we’d been friends for years.

“I should get to sleep,” Danielle said once we were finished. “You should, too. We have a big day tomorrow.”

“This whole conversation wasn’t some big confession in case we don’t make it tomorrow,” I asked as we stood up and picked up our plates. “Was it?”

“Of course not,” she said. “We’re going to make it tomorrow. Don’t doubt it for a second.”

“Good.” I nodded, although my stomach twisted slightly, since neither of us could guarantee that was true. As much as I wanted all five of us—well, all seven of us, including Ethan and Rachael—to survive the fight against the hydra, it might not happen that way.

And it wasn’t just tomorrow—we wouldn’t be safe until the portal to Kerberos was closed. What if the worst happened before then, and I never got a chance to tell Blake about my feelings for him?

I shook the thought away, not allowing myself to think like that. Danielle was right—we would all make it tomorrow. We’d trained for this. We were ready. And Blake was sleeping right now—he
needed
that rest so he was at full strength to fight the hydra tomorrow. I needed my rest, too.

But on the way back to my room, I paused in front of his door, contemplating what would happen if I knocked and woke up him and told him everything. I imagined how it would feel to kiss him again, to feel his arms around me and have him murmur in my ear that we had nothing to worry about and that he would keep me safe no matter what. I wrapped my arms around myself, pretending they were his, and smiled. If I went through with this now, I could tell him the truth about my power, too. It would be a relief to finally get the secret off my chest.

But if I did this right now, I wouldn’t only be waking up Blake—I would be waking up Chris and Ethan, too. Disturbing them would weaken the entire group tomorrow. And we had to beat the hydra. I couldn’t do anything that might risk lowering our chances of completing that final task.

I moved my hand away from the door and shoved it into my pocket, forcing myself to step away. I couldn’t be honest with Blake about my feelings for him until this mission was complete.

So I went back to the room that I shared with the girls, crawled into bed, and despite my worries about what would happen tomorrow, eventually managed to drift asleep.

The stilling of the boat the next morning was all I needed to pull me out of sleep. I rubbed my eyes and peeked out of the window, a sliver of sunlight shining on my face.

“We’re here?” Danielle mumbled, her voice groggy. She brought her covers over her face, hiding from the light.

“Yes,” I said, gazing out at the island in front of me. It was brown and dead—very different from all of the other islands we’d encountered so far in Greece. I shuddered at the thought of the monster lurking somewhere out there. “I think so.”

We got out of bed, gathered our weapons, and met in the living room for breakfast. Chef hadn’t made an appearance since losing his arm—he’d been hiding out in his room, refusing to talk to anyone. I’d tried to go in there once, but he wouldn’t speak a word to me. All he did was stare at me, as if I were as evil as Typhon himself. So we were all helping out with making food ourselves. What we made had nothing on the delicious meals Chef had prepared for us, but the food was keeping us alive, which was all that mattered.

“Are you all ready?” Hypatia asked after we’d finished eating breakfast.

I looked around at the others, not saying a word. I didn’t think I would ever feel ready for the task ahead. Slaying a hydra wasn’t something I think anyone ever
felt
ready for. It was something that you prepared for, tried your best, and hoped it was enough.

“We were born to do this,” Rachael said, chugging down the rest of her coffee. “We’ve got it.” She leaned back and smiled, as if she truly believed it. I wished I could be as fearless as she was. Instead, my stomach swirled with anxiety, and I worried that if I ate any more, I would be sick.

“Are you okay?” Blake asked me, his eyes flashing with concern. “You’re looking at your toast as if it’s your sworn enemy.”

I pushed the plate to the center of the table, unable to tolerate the sweet smell of the jam for a second longer. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just nervous about today.”

“I think we all are,” Kate assured me, and at that, Rachael smirked. “Except for Rachael, of course.”

“You’re really not nervous at all?” I asked Rachael.

“Nope,” she said. “Remember—we’re
meant
to do this. My brother and I are children of Zeus, and you and your friends have elemental powers gifted from the gods. Hypatia’s reminded us so many times that the Book of Shadows sent us on this mission. It wouldn’t have sent us here if this wasn’t something we could handle.”

I nodded, turning over her words in my head. The Book had sent
us
here—as in the five of us. Not Ethan and Rachael. But I didn’t say it out loud, because what did it matter? Rachael and Ethan were determined to help us, and we weren’t going to turn them down. We could use all the help we could get.