[fic] Goddamned - 5/6
Title: Goddamned
Author: garnetice
Part: Five of Six
Previous Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4
Word Count: 8,353 (of 51,011)
A/N: See Pt. 1 for author's notes, disclaimer, and summary!
---
There are s’mores, but nobody sings kumbaya. Jo does exactly the opposite, crafting a spear for Logan because, “If you’re going to freeze in the middle of a fight, you might as well have a weapon with range to clutch while you whimper.”
“I don’t get it,” Logan is saying to Carlos, mouth sticky with chocolate, “Why would you work for Hera?”
“That, my friend, is a long, long story,” Carlos replies, munching happily on marshmallows. He hasn’t brought much else; a box of graham crackers, a few bars of chocolate, a sleeping bag, and a package of puffy white fluff.
“We’ve got time,” Kendall tells him. He thinks they should build a fire. In school, he vaguely remembers them saying that deserts get cold at night.
“Nah, see, me and Tía Callida have a long history, and you guys are perfect strangers.” Carlos wags a finger in the air reproachfully.
“And yet you’re willing to steal from us,” Jo says, her eyes lit with starlight and the purple haze of dusk.
“It’s nothing personal, and it’s not stealing.” Carlos props his elbows on his knees. “It’s repossession.”
“Do you even know what the Apple is? What it does?”
“Don’t care. I owe Tía a solid.”
Kendall makes a grab for the pack of marshmallows. Carlos snorts and pulls it away, but when Kendall makes puppy eyes at him, he gives it up easy. For a thief, he seems pretty laid back. “How’d you get out here, anyway?”
“Drove my papí’s truck. He leant it out ‘cause I’m all responsible and shit.”
“Cool. Well, maybe, since you’re planning on petty theft and you know, stalking, you could do us a solid and give us a ride.”
Carlos considers. “I could do that. LA, right?”
Kendall waits for Jo to object, because judging by the suspicion she’s been wearing, she is the opposite of Carlos’s biggest fan, but she stays shockingly quiet. Logan’s the one who says, “I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”
“You’ve got chocolate on your chin. And do you know how hard hitchhiking is? How many cars do you think come down the roads around here? We’re not exactly in Phoenix.”
Outside, Kendall is talking all sensible. Inside, he’s thinking I cannot listen to The Wall on loop again, I cannot listen to The Wall on loop again.
He slips up by asking Carlos, “You’re not a Pink Floyd fan, right?”
---
Carlos, it turns out, is into boy bands. Kendall may or may not have a lot of experience with those from the nineties station that played endlessly at his job. The two of them end up harmonizing along with the radio for most of the ride.
Logan joins in around the border of California.
Jo simply grits her teeth and mumbles things that sound vaguely homicidal under her breath.
---
The Apple of Discord is being kept inside a nondescript office building in downtown Los Angeles. Carlos drops them off in front with a salute and a cocky grin. “See you later, alligators.” He guns off down the street singing Quit Playing Games With My Heart at the top of his lungs.
“For a backstabber, he’s not all bad,” Logan says mildly, and it is kind of hard to hate someone after you’ve camped under the moon and then spent six hours in a car with them, so Kendall can’t disagree.
He examines the building in front of him. “I thought it would be…Greek-er.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, the center of power in Olympus follows where Western civilization thrives. Very little of it will actually look Greek,” Jo pauses. “The Underworld’s nearby.”
Kendall’s breath catches in his throat, and he has to physically clap his hand over his mouth to keep a where from tumbling out. It all comes back to James, and he will not screw this up. Not with Jo and Logan and the camp depending on him. He can’t.
He lowers his hand. “Right, so are we going to do this?”
“I still vote no,” Logan says immediately. “We’ve barely been gone a day, and we’ve already got one super-nice enemy and a monster on our tails. What do you think is going to happen once we’ve got the Apple?”
“Man up, Mitchell,” Jo barks. “This is our chance. We could be heroes.”
“We could be failures,” Logan shoots back.
Kendall sighs. He’s inclined to agree with Logan here, but he’s been team captain of his varsity league for close to three years. He knows better than to naysay. “Jo’s right.”
“Of course I am.”
“She is not!”
“Well, either way, we have no choice. We’re going.”
---
Actually obtaining the Apple is shockingly easy. In a bland room that looks exactly like a doctor’s office on the fifth floor, they show their Camp Half-Blood credentials to a quiet man in a gray robe. Kendall’s not quite sure what their credentials are, which is odd, seeing as he’s leading this quest and all, but Jo’s got everything well and hand. Creepy Monk Guy appears satisfied, anyway.
He hands them…well, an apple. It’s gold. It’s shiny.
“Can we eat it?” Kendall jokes.
Jo glares. She must have left her sense of humor back at camp. “No, we can’t eat it, why would you even ask that?”
“Well, it’s an apple.” More seriously, he adds, “And wouldn’t it be better if it just, you know, stopped existing?”
Jo slaps his wrist. Ow. Why is everyone constantly hitting Kendall? Between the Hippalectryon, Jo, and his last sparring match with Jett, his bruises have bruises. He tucks the Apple into his knapsack and hopes it doesn’t collect lint down there or anything. “Fine, okay, no, we’ll take it back to New York. At least getting it was easy.”
Jo’s eyes get freakishly large. “Why would you say that?”
“Because…it was easy?”
“You totally jinxed us,” Logan hisses, glancing back at the man in the gray robe and at the door in front of them. Kendall liked it much better when he was examining the laminated posters detailing the dangers of arterial disease on the taupe-colored wall, ignoring them both.
“We’re demigods. From what I can tell, we’re already jinxed.” The only person who seems to agree with him is the smiling model on the cover of a women’s health magazine on the nearest coffee table.
“Now we’re double jinxed,” Logan says emphatically, face scrunching up.
Kendall feels supremely picked on today. Road trips obviously make Jo and Logan grumpy. “Okay, I take it back, yeesh. Don’t give yourself an ulcer, there, Logiebear.”
Jo elbows Kendall in the ribs this time.
“Will the pain never stop?” Kendall might hear Gray Robe Dude snort, or the air conditioning could have let loose a particularly loud gust of air. It’s hard to tell.
They burst out into the hallway, bickering and poking at one another, jostling towards the elevator. Jo punches the down button, but it doesn’t light up.
“It must have broken,” Logan reasons. “In the last five minutes. Weird.”
They head towards the stairwell, sitting squarely between more long, plain beige walls, and Kendall is already pondering how they’re going to get back to Long Island. Maybe they can hold the Apple for ransom until Mr. D zaps them home. He’s a god; that is totally within his power.
Of course, he might also turn them into snails. Best not to try.
Logan’s mulling over the same problem. He demands that Jo give him the map of America she brought, because they are modern and sophisticated demigods who didn’t think to bring a working cellphone with GPS.
Or, no, it’s not that they didn’t think to bring one, it’s just that there’s no outlet in Kendall’s cabin for him to recharge his, and besides, the camp doesn’t get reception anyway. He’s not even sure Logan and Jo own phones, to be honest.
A brief scuffle ensues, as Jo doesn’t want Logan touching her stuff, and Logan doesn’t grasp the part where she’s about to kill him like, at all. Once Logan’s got his prize, Jo takes the lead, bounding down the steps towards daylight and air that does not smell of antiseptic. Logan trudges behind her, clinging to their wrinkled old map like it’s a life line and mumbling about latitude and longitude lines. His makeshift spear is clutched tight in his other hand.
“This doesn’t look strange at all,” Kendall mutters, but he pads carefully after them, intent on being back-up guy in the event that Carlos is waiting to ambush them on the way out.
He does not get to find out if Carlos managed to find a parking space anywhere close by, because they only make it to the second floor landing before Kendall runs face-first into the back of Logan’s head, which is firmly implanted in the back of Jo’s.
“What’s the hold-up?” Kendall whines. Logan’s skull is hard and his face does not like this new development at all.
“Back up the stairs. Slowly,” Jo instructs. Logan stands on his tippy-toes, trying to see around her. “What? What is it?”
Kendall hears a hiss of air, much like a tire with a hole. Or, maybe, a snake. He begins backing up the stairs, slowly. “It’s a monster, isn’t it? Please say it isn’t a monster.”
“It’s a monster,” Logan says dully. “This is not fun, Kendall. You promised questing would be fun.”
“What do I know, I’m new to this. What do we do, Jo?”
Jo, warrior girl extraordinaire, replies amiably, “We turn and run or we stay and fight.”
Logan squawks, “We’re choosing to fight?”
“I hate running.” Jo pauses, and there is a rustling sound at the bottom of the stairwell. “But, um. That’s a Hydra down there.”
Kendall gives into his curiosity and cranes over the railing to look. He immediately wishes he hadn’t. So far, the things he’s dealt with in the demigod world have been vaguely recognizable, in some way. Mrs. Magicowski and Selana were humanoid, sort of, Mormo was flesh colored, at the very least, the Symphalian Bird and other monsters that assaulted him and the Diamond twins were all animal shaped, mostly, and the Hippalectryon had animal parts. There is nothing earthly about this thing, not even a little bit.
Maybe, from above, the Hydra could resemble a nest of angry snakes, if snakes had the spotted collars of raptors, trunks the size of an elephant’s thigh, and one big, solid body with thighs of its very own. It is a thing spliced from a child’s nightmare, and Jo, Logan, and Kendall have its full attention.
“I think the stairs are stumping it,” Logan says unsteadily, his grip on the spear white-knuckled. Kendall uncaps Riptide, and the sword grows to full-length, glowing gold and humming with power.
“That won’t work.” Jo is pale, nibbling at her lips. Her weapons stay tucked away in her bookbag. “If you cut off a head, two more will just grow back. It’s an impossible monster. Fire’s the only thing that can kill a Hydra, and lighting a match in here is not a good idea.”
“So running’s the best plan?”
“Running would be good,” she agrees. “I think it’s starting to figure out the stairs.”
In unison, the three of them turn tail and bolt. On the top floor of the building, there’s an exit onto the roof. They push through it, out into a rather pathetic garden sanctuary with a few sad potted plants. From there though, Kendall can’t see any place to run.
The Hydra thunders after them, roaring with exertion and rage.
“In all honesty, what can that thing really do to us? Bite us to death? We could chop off enough heads to at least buy us some time,” he suggests, brain working in overdrive.
“Its breath is poison,” Jo pants.
“That puts a damper on the plan,” Kendall agrees. “Um. Hide!”
Logan ducks behind the most hideous lawn gnome Kendall has ever had the displeasure of seeing. It is also a completely inadequate hiding place. “That’s not going to work.”
“There,” Jo calls, gesturing wildly over the edge of the roof. About five feet away is the ledge of what looks to be a concrete parking garage adjacent to them.
“You want us to jump? Are you insane?” Kendall asks incredulously.
“Tell me, oh mighty quest leader, do you have a better plan?”
Kendall considers Logan and his hideous lawn gnome. “Jumping’s good.”
Logan is not in agreement with the plan. “The fall is seven stories!” he protests, eyes bulging from his face. “I hate heights.”
This is not a surprise, because Logan hates everything. He cowers and quivers until Jo goads him to his feet.
“Too bad. We’re doing this together, or not at all,” she replies decisively, dragging him along by his elbow. She catches Kendall’s with her other hand, and they stand back and away from the edge of the roof. “Running start, on three?”
“One,” Kendall counts. His blood is rushing in his head. He can feel his heart, pounding kickdrum loud.
“Two,” Logan says shakily.
“Three,” Jo finishes, and she whoops, and they’re off, feet pounding the pavement for a few breathless seconds before they leap. The jump takes forever, and also no time at all, and they land rather badly on the hood of an old Mustang, denting the metal.
Kendall moans through the ache in his everywhere, “We should probably pay for that.”
Logan whimpers, “Should we leave a note?”
“Get up, get up,” Jo rushes them both, “It’s coming,” and she’s right. The Hydra forces its way through the skinny door on the roof garden, and it is definitely, definitely time to get on with the running. It screams, the sound sending shivers up and down Kendall’s spine.
“Please tell me it can’t fly.”
“It can jump,” Jo replies grimly, and she is a mess. There is rust on her cheek and blood on her neck and the pretty fabric of her red shirt has ripped unattractively at the sleeve. Logan looks much the same, and Kendall can’t imagine he’s come out of this particularly pretty either. He’s breathing hard, adrenaline pumping through his veins. It’s just like life before Camp Half-Blood, with much too much fear.
He misses James. James would know what to do, or Shane would, and James would be cracking jokes, and that would make this so much easier, somehow. But Kendall is not alone, and Logan and Jo are not poor substitutes for the Diamond twins, not at all.
“We need to go down,” Jo is saying, tugging them along, but Logan is shaking his head.
“This place is closed for construction. The exit’s sealed off with fences downstairs, I saw it when we went into the other building.”
“Then we’ll have to go down to the second story and jump,” Jo reasons.
Logan, as always, disagrees, “We’ll twist something.”
“Guys,” Kendall tries.
“Soldier up,” Jo bites back. “Do you want to be Monster Kibble?”
Kendall says, “Guys, really.”
“I didn’t want to come on this quest in the first place, you both made me and I want new friends-“
“Guys!”
Both Logan and Jo spin to face him, snapping, “What?”
“There’s a horse. With wings. Parked next to the motorcycle.”
“You can park a horse?” Logan asks.
“Does it have chicken claws?” Jo asks. It’s a much more sensible question, in Kendall’s opinion.
“No, it’s, uh. All horse. I think.” Kendall points to the sleek brown stallion standing docilely between painted white lines halfway down to the next floor. He’d almost missed it, except for the flick of its ears as they rounded the corner. Carefully, the three of them shuffle towards it.
“Aw, it really is a pony,” Logan says once they’re closer, utterly delighted. “Can I pet him?”
“Try it and I’ll kick you in the face,” the horse snorts.
“That’s not nice,” Kendall chides.
A second late he realizes that the horse just spoke.
Logan’s lips tick down. “What’s not nice?”
Kendall is confused. “He said- didn’t you hear him?”
“Hear…wait, you can talk to the pony?” Logan’s eyes get all big, and it’s right about then that Kendall notices he’s clutching something to his chest. To be precise, he’s clutching the hideous lawn gnome from the roof next door. “What’s he saying?”
“Uh.” Kendall stalls. “Uh.”
Kendall is not very good at stalling.
“Close your mouth before you catch flies,” the horse says, and Kendall’s mind stutters to a stop. That break with reality he expected months ago is obviously happening right now, when they’re about to be gunned down by poisonous not-snake breath. “Name’s Gustavo, kid. Why’s your face all red?”
“Uh,” Kendall says eloquently.
“Real conversationalist, you are.”
“Never mind what he said,” Jo interjects, glancing between Kendall, Logan, and the winged horse, “This is a Pegasus. He can fly us out of here.”
“Just because he’s a horse with wings doesn’t mean he can actually fly and support our weight at the same time. Scientifically speaking, Pegasi are totally improbable,” Logan responds, because he is the most disagreeable boy on earth.
Gustavo, the talking horse, dislikes Logan’s contrariness. “Oh yeah? Maybe I should stick my improbable hoof up your -“
“Gustavo,” Kendall yelps, and hey, that’s a word that is not uh. He’s making progress.
Jo frowns. “Who’s Gustavo?”
“I’m Gustavo,” Gustavo makes a disgusted noise.
Jo, unable to hear it, asks, “Is he Gustavo?” She runs a hand soothingly across Gustavo’s flank. He whinnies, but does not kick her, and considering the murderous glare he’s aiming at Logan, Kendall decides that’s a distinct possibility.
“What, what’d he say?” Logan asks again, more focused on Kendall’s new horse-whisperer abilities than whether or not the Pegasus has a name.
“Uh. He promises he’s not a figment of your imagination,” Kendall answers diplomatically.
“Great, good, now can we get on the damned horse, because I’m not seeing a lot of options here.” Jo mounts Gustavo with easy grace, pulling a grumbling Logan up behind her.
Gustavo makes a pained noise in Kendall’s head, emphasized with an actual whinny of total displeasure. “You know, none of you have introduced yourselves, or actually asked for a ride.”
Kendall slaps his butt. “Soldier up. We’ve got to fly.”
He flails around a bit before settling on Gustavo’s rump, wrapping his hands firmly around Logan’s stomach.
“This is more closeness than I’m comfortable with,” Logan announces. Kendall nuzzles his face in Logan’s neck, just to be an ass.
Jo tangles her fingers in Gustavo’s glossy brown mane. Authoritatively, she yells, “Go, go, go.”
Gustavo remains firmly put. He tells Kendall, “I’m really not seeing what’s in this for me.”
Much, much too close, a loud roar resounds. It chills Kendall from the inside out, an icicle pressed to his spine. Gustavo gives a frightened neigh. His tail swishes, his eyes go wide.
Quickly, he decides, “Yep, you’re right, I think we should go.” He flaps his wings, continuing conversationally. “Who wants burgers? Burgers are good. Let’s got to In-N’-Out.”
---
Gustavo fixes their transportation problem. Or, he has the capability to fix their transportation problem. “I don’t want to leave. I like LA,” Gustavo informs Kendall, when Kendall asks how he’d feel about playing chauffeur. “I want to stay here. I think these are my people.”
They’re sitting outside a burger joint that is situated between the seediest mini-golf course Kendall has ever seen and an adult video store that has Logan entranced. He’s staring at the window display, eating a burger but mostly missing his mouth.
“You’re not a person- no, Gustavo, don’t…eat...the grass, no, it’s Astroturf!” Kendall tugs on his hair, but Gustavo ignores him, munching happily away on the fake lawn. “Why did I buy you these animal fries if you were just going to eat the ninth hole?”
Jo is unimpressed with either the idea of getting saddle burn or Kendall’s persuasive skills, and is thusly poring over the map for the safest alternate route across the country.
“M’not a pack mule,” Gustavo contends.
“Come on,” Kendall begs. “Please? We’re on a quest. It’s for the gods!”
“Heroes. You’re always on quests for gods,” he says dismissively through a mouthful of fake grass. Kendall tries not to get discouraged. “Never met one I could talk to before, though. You’re strange.”
“I’m not strange,” Kendall balks.
“You’re kind of strange,” Jo mutters without glancing up from her map. She’s got the concentration skills of a champion, that girl.
“It’s not Pick On Kendall day, I checked my almanac and everything,” Kendall sulks. “I don’t know why I can talk to you, okay?”
“Probably because Poseidon created the first horses. In a contest with my mom, actually,” Jo provides. “It was for the dominion of Athens. My mom won, obviously.”
Kendall pretends she doesn’t sound smug about that. “Stop eavesdropping on my conversation.”
“Technically I’m only eavesdropping on your side of the conversation. All I’m getting from Gustavo are varying levels of-“ Jo imitates one of Gustavo’s snorts, which is hilarious.
“Do it again,” Kendall commands.
Jo sticks her head back in the map. “No.”
Well, then. “Gustavo, please? I’ll buy you more burgers?”
“I am a dignified Pegasus. I am not susceptible to bribery.” Gustavo raises his head. “Also, I’m sick of burgers. What else have you got?”
Kendall digs through his rucksack. “I…have some Swedish Fish. Here.” Kendall thrusts the bag in front of Gustavo’s nose.
Gustavo makes a miffed noise, but scoops up a gummy between his big horse lips, all the while mumbling, “I don’t want some Swedish- what are these?” He makes a sound that would be absolutely obscene from a human, “They’re better than grass and tacos and carrots.”
Kendall wrinkles his nose. “Everything’s better than carrots.”
“Bite your tongue,” Gustavo snaps, but he’s got the bag of Swedish Fish snagged between his teeth.
“Is this how I get you to do things from now on? Ply you with sugar?”
“I am a creature of honor. Coercing me will not work and hey, let go, gimme gimme gimme,” he tugs more insistently at the bag.
“Right, yeah, you’re possessed of magnificent dignity.” Kendall lets go. “Does that mean you’ll take us?”
“I’ll consider it,” Gustavo says, gleefully gulping down the rest of the little red fish.
“Right, that’s one problem down. Logan! Stop looking at porn and get over here.”
Logan blushes bright red and scurries away from the window of the adult video store. “What?”
“You can’t keep the gnome.”
Logan blinks. “Yes I can. I’m naming him Augustus.”
Jo has something to say about this. It is not anything helpful. She grits out, “You can’t name give him a Roman name. They invaded our land, Logan.”
Kendall marvels, “How are you still taking the downfall of Greece personally?”
No one listens to him. Ever. Logan pouts, “But Augustus is-“
“Betty. His name is Betty.” Jo reaches out and pats the lawn gnome on the head.
“Betty is not a boy’s name.”
“Well maybe it should be.” Jo props her hands on her hips. “I had a schnauzer named Betty back in North Carolina, and he didn’t seem to mind.”
“This argument is completely invalid,” Kendall tells them both, “Because the gnome isn’t coming with us.”
Logan hugs Betty-Augustus to his chest. “I’m not leaving him. He saved my life.”
Kendall frowns at the gnome’s pointy red hat. “He’s a lawn gnome.” He neglects to point out that when Logan met Betty, the Hydra wasn’t even on the roof yet.
Logan actually appears to be super offended by this blunt statement of fact. “Gnomes have giant noses. Augustus-“
“Betty,” Jo inserts, back to peering at the map.
“ -Betty doesn’t have a nose. Your argument sucks.”
“This is the worst quest ever,” Kendall announces loudly.
Jo retorts, “This is the only quest you’ve been on.”
He hates it when she’s all smart and shit.
---
Gustavo deigns to transport them back to New York, on the promise that there will be more Swedish Fish in the future. Kendall has to stop by a Circle K and stock up.
They spend the night in Joshua Tree National Park, surrounded by these weird little scrub plants with spiky bark and spiky leaves. Gustavo is curled around the base of one, snoring, Betty tucked beneath his chin. Kendall is sandwiched between Logan and Jo, as if he needs to be protected from the rest of the world. He cuddles closer to them both, thinking of James and Shane, thinking of a time before them, even.
He used to go camping as a kid, laid out beneath the stars with his mom and his dad and Katie. Those memories are laced through with the scent of wood-smoke and the sound of eerie ghost stories, the crackle of fire and his dad’s deep, rich laugh.
His dad who isn’t his dad. Yeah, Kendall’s still having trouble with that one. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop, honestly. Poseidon is his father in name, the reason water heals his wounds, the reason he can talk to Gustavo, but Poseidon is also nothing more than an idea. He’s an empty cabin at Camp Half-Blood and a giant hole in Kendall’s life.
He wonders if bringing the Apple of Discord back to Olympus will make Poseidon proud.
He wonders if he’ll even care.
---
“Can’t you fly a little faster?” Kendall asks Gustavo.
“Maybe if your girlfriend would lay off the sweets,” Gustavo grunts, skimming low to the ground.
“Leave Jo alone.”
“Jo?” Gustavo sniffs and cranes his neck around to glare. “I wasn’t talking about the blonde.”
Kendall decides not to repeat that one to Logan.
---
He meets Aphrodite in the middle of Texas.
What happens is, Kendall, Logan, and Jo have split up. They’ve known for three states that Carlos is tracking them; the rusted hood of his father’s truck is pretty distinctive, and also, he’s waved.
More than once. Carlos doesn’t appear to understand the meaning of stealth. Or personal space.
So Kendall hands off the Apple to Jo, who takes to the air with Gustavo. Logan splits off in one direction in a small, Texan town, and Kendall heads in the other. The general idea is that Carlos can only follow one of them, and it will most likely be Kendall, because somebody - Logan - let it slip during their car ride to LA that Kendall was the leader of this quest.
Kendall figures Carlos will confront him, he’ll knock Carlos out or tie him up in his car or something, and then he’ll regroup with Jo, Logan, and Gustavo the next town over. They’ll take to the sky before Carlos can catch their scent again, right? Right.
It’s an awesome plan. Kendall thought of it himself.
Which is why he’s a little put out when the person who slides into the diner booth across from him is definitely not Carlos. “Can I sit here?”
Kendall wants to say no, because he has a slice of cake (not pie, pie tastes like ash to him now) and a cup of coffee and a thief to wait for.
He wants to say no, and also he does not, because the intruder is a woman, and she is beautiful.
What’s weird is that Kendall can’t exactly pin down why she’s beautiful. Her cheekbones are high, her skin glows, and her sooty, dark eyelashes shade irises that are the loveliest violet he’s ever seen.
Wait, no. They’re blue. And her eyelashes are blonde. Her cheeks are fuller, her skin darker, her lips more of a cupid’s bow than they were seconds ago. She tilts her head exactly like Jo, and her hair cascades in ringlets down the delicate arch of her neck.
Only, when he looks again, it’s shades darker, blonde-auburn, and there are flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, but they are kind, and turning browner by the second, a blush high in her cheeks.
He croaks out, “I think you’re already sitting,” and she laughs, as if he is the funniest, most interesting guy to have ever existed. He is warm, inside and out. He hopes he can make her laugh again, soon.
She says, “You’re the boy with my Apple.”
That stops Kendall cold. “You’re not human.” Of all the things he could have said, that’s probably not the stupidest.
“I’m not,” she agrees. She grins coyly, her eyelashes red as sunset, a mole above her lip exactly like Camille’s. “I’m Aphrodite. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”
“Your name might have come up.”
“Then you know that you’ve got something that belongs to me.” She leans across the table, and Kendall has a magnificent view of her spectacular cleavage, which she must have stolen off a Victoria’s Secret model, because it’s not from anyone he knows. It gets more enticing with every second he stares, and he has to force his gaze back up to her face, which now has a smattering of freckles across her skin, like the girl he dated all through the fifth grade. He thought he was going to marry her.
“I can’t give it to you,” he explains, and he isn’t happy about it. The thing is that he wants to make this very, very pretty goddess happy. He wants her to smile that smile that belongs to his fifth grade girlfriend and his eighth grade crush, to Jo and Jessica Alba and Camille. Her lips jut out, fuller, like Jett’s, and oh, she is wearing him down.
“That’s not very nice.”
“I know,” Kendall agrees, falling all over the linoleum table to appease her.
Everyone in the diner is staring, he’s sure, but Aphrodite only has eyes for him. She purrs, “You’re in love.”
“It’s just sex,” Kendall explains patiently, because Jett means nothing to him, and she has his mouth, his eyes, his cocky, jutted chin. “I’ll leave him for you.”
“I’m sure you would,” Aphrodite smirks. Kendall can see long, lazy nights of sex and chocolate and champagne kisses in the curve of her lips. “I don’t mean with Zeus’s progeny. I can see him in your eyes.”
Her smile holds secrets and mischief, and it’s so familiar it makes his heart ache. “Dear boy. Sweet boy. Give me my apple, and I’ll make sure that James falls into your waiting arms.”
“You can do that?”
She quirks that smile that is so like and unlike James’s, “I can do anything. And, it’s my Apple,” Aphrodite says, breathy, up in his face. He glances back at her cleavage, but it isn’t there; her chest is smooth, androgynous, golden and lickable. “Don’t you want me to have what’s rightfully mine? You do think I’m the fairest…?”
“Of course,” Kendall says immediately, willing to say whatever to make this gorgeous woman smile. She does, albeit a little sadly, and it reminds him, weirdly enough, of Katie and his mom.
“Then you’ll give it to me?”
He shakes his head, knowing he can’t, because common sense is a thing that he has. “That wouldn’t make Hera or Athena very happy.”
He’s supposed to be talking to someone else. Carlos. Where is Carlos? He glances around the diner, but there is nothing but antique wagon wheels and tacky art prints, the smell of Belgian waffles and sausage.
“My mother’s an old bag,” Aphrodite says dismissively, and her mouth is nothing at all like James’s; it’s fiercer, and more closely resembles Lucy’s. Her eyes flash with lightning. “And Athena has no use for beauty. Give me the Apple.”
“Can’t,” Kendall says. Then, because it feels wrong to lie, he adds, “I don’t have it.”
Something flickers across Aphrodite’s face, an expression that he’s never seen on anyone, not ever, and suddenly she is not Lucy or Jo or models or James. She is as distant and gorgeous and foreign as a statue. He has made her mad. “I want it. Now.”
“Can’t,” Kendall says again. “I really don’t have it.”
She sits back in her seat, and for the first time Kendall notices that she’s wearing something tight, flashy, and designer. Weird, he could have sworn she had a sun dress on before. “Then who does?”
“Jo.”
“Jo? Athena’s brat? You gave my Apple to a child of Athena?”
“Well. I didn’t give it to her,” Kendall explains, bewildered and still more than a little bewitched. “You don’t have to yell.”
Aphrodite softens. Her features melt back into something he wants to touch, something he yearns for, those eyes and those lips, and why did James go away? It hurts beneath his ribs, and in his fingers and his toes. She says, “You miss him.”
“More than anything,” Kendall replies fervently. He wants to reach out, but he’s scared that he will melt away, because she is a goddess, she is beauty and she is love, and both of those things have the most jagged of teeth. They tear at his insides, at his heart and at his soul. They leave scars where he cannot see, and where they can never fully heal.
“He may come back yet.” She holds her head high, her graceful neck pale and too exposed. “I’ll keep my eye on you two.” She slaps down a few coins for the food she made Kendall forget all about and stands. Kendall is hypnotized by the sway of her hips.
And her words, her words are important too. They sound exactly like a promise.
---
Carlos never shows. This is apparently because he decided to stalk Logan instead.
Kendall is sure the story of how Logan managed to subdue Hera’s kept-boy is really awesome and important, but he can’t quite focus on it. He’s too busy singing, “Love, love, looooove. I’m in love,” right up until he comes face to face with Jo. “Oh, uh. Hi, Jo. You’re very…Jo.”
Right now, being very Jo involves an expression of complete befuddlement.
“He had a run-in with Aphrodite,” Logan tells her archly. “Now he’s in love.”
“Shhhh,” Kendall tries to clap his hand over Logan’s mouth and misses. He is punch-drunk on Aphrodite, but Jo is having a super-sobering effect on him. “Don’t tell her that. She’s jealous of my loooove.”
“Is that right?” Logan lifts an eyebrow. “Jealous of Jett, Jo?”
“I’m not jealous of Jett,” Jo barks with laughter. It shakes her words. “Gods, no.”
“Really?” Kendall is feeling a little put-out by her laughter. It feels mean. “Then why do you get all bitchfaced whenever we’re hanging out together?”
Jo is still laughing. Hard. But she manages, “Kendall, it’s glaringly clear that you’re not into Jett the way he wants you to be. I don’t think it’s very nice that you’re leading him on, is all.”
“Oh.” Kendall tastes something sour in his throat. His Aphrodite-high is definitely wearing off. “This is only mildly humiliating.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have a crush on you,” Jo says, finally calming down a little. She’s still giggling into her palm. It’s really uncalled for.
“You, uh, really don’t?” Kendall’s forehead pinches. “Are you sure? For sure, sure?”
“Oh yeah. I’ve read the myths. I know better than to fall for boys with magic swords.”
Kendall’s mouth drops open. “You can stop making fun of me now.”
“No, really. Relationships aren’t a good idea. What with the whole monster swarm thing.” Jo pats him on the cheek. “Also, I’m sure you’d make a great boyfriend, but your swordsmanship sucks.”
“Is that like, a requirement to date you? Good with a sword?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I’m not really ready to settle down.” She smiles, but it takes on an edge. “Now why don’t both of you give me a status report. Immediately?”
“Yeah.” Logan starts, “About that…”
---
They’re camping out in the shell of an old train car, and it’s well past midnight. Kendall can’t sleep, too caught up with thoughts of Aphrodite, and love, and James.
He’s not really in love with him. Probably.
No, definitely. Aphrodite was wrong. It’s pathetic to be in love with a memory.
“I can hear you thinking from here,” Logan groans, hugging Betty tight to his chest.
“Sorry.”
“Are you thinking about what Jo said? Don’t take it personally.”
Jo snores, lightly. Gustavo nickers. He’s probably dreaming of Swedish Fish.
But Logan? Logan waits for an answer. Kendall can see his eyes, gleaming in the moonlight. “No.”
“You’re lying. I can tell. Look.” Logan lowers his voice to a whisper. “Jo, Lucy, and another demigod, a daughter of Nemesis, came to Camp Half-Blood together.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not really sure.” Logan shrugs. “Lucy joined the Hunters. And Kat…no one really knows. They never said, but. Jo’s the only one left.”
“Why didn’t she join the Hunters too?”
“I don’t need immortality,” Jo interrupts, voice cracked with exhaustion. Kendall and Logan flush guiltily, sunburn red beneath their skin. Kendall is grateful for the cover of night. “At least, not right now. You have to give up a lot of things to run with Artemis.”
“Like what?” Kendall asks, overcoming his embarrassment.
“Like love, for one.” She meets Kendall’s eyes, and there is no real meaning there, at least not for him. Jo is beautiful, brilliant. She does not need anyone to make her dreams come true. “And the thing with Kat is…Logan, it’s none of your damn business.”
“Sorry,” Logan squeaks.
Jo shoves her head back onto the pillow of her arms. “Go back to sleep. Idiots.”
---
A monster attacks them in Arkansas. This time, they are forced to fight it until its dead.
Right before it dissolves back into the ether, Kendall spots a glint of gold from the distance, like someone is watching.
He says, “I think Carlos has found us again.”
Logan blushes right up to his hairline.
---
The nearer they get to Camp Half-Blood, the more Jo and Logan buzz with excitement. It’s obvious why; they’re going back, they’re going home. But for Kendall home is too many things, and it’s hard to have all of them at once.
His mother’s exasperated smile and the rough swell of her knuckles when she tries to cook.
His sister’s slightly psychotic lilt when she laughs.
James’s eyes shiny and wet with accusation
But also Jo’s lethal grace and Logan’s neuroses, Jett’s ridiculous arrogance and Shane’s hands shaking as he reaches for a coffee cup.
Kendall’s home is scattered across America, and he doesn’t know how to feel whole anymore without any of them.
---
Kentucky is going really well until they stop for gas. Or in this case, Swedish Fish.
Kendall steps outside of the convenience store and drops his plastic bag of goodies right on the ground, because there is a man in a whole lot of black leather pointing a sword straight at Jo.
Worse, Jo actually looks intimidated.
Logan, by Kendall’s side, freezes up. “That doesn’t look like Carlos.”
“I’m thinking it’s not, unless Carlos joined a gym,” Kendall hisses back.
The man and Jo are arguing. He can’t hear what Jo says, but the man’s laughter sparks and flares like a sodium light, a short, sharp bark that dies as quick as it came. “I’ll take it from you. I will kill you, if I have to.”
“You can’t,” Jo yells, and this time, Kendall hears it. He takes a step forward. Something about this man is getting to him, pissing him off, forcing his hands into fists. He wants to scream and he wants to throw a punch, and anger management issues or not, Kendall usually has a better hold of his temper.
“Of course I can. You are whispers in the conversation of history. Why would anyone care if you disappeared?”
“Fine,” Jo grits out. “Go ahead. Kill me.”
“Well, now you’ve just taken all the fun out of it.” The man hefts his sword and lunges at Jo, and before Kendall can even move, can even shout, Logan of all people is bolting for them both. He knocks into the man and sends them sprawling to the ground.
Kendall runs up to catch Jo’s shoulders in his hands. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Why aren’t you fighting-“
“Kendall, that’ s Ares,” Jo says, eyes wide with panic, grabbing at him. “He wants the Apple, for Aphrodite. Oh gods, he’s going to kill Logan. We have to stop him.”
Ares is already on his feet, looming over Logan and his broken spear, and Betty, and his wallet, lying open on the ground. He raises his weapon, telling him, “That will be the last stupid thing you’ll ever do-“ when he happens to glance down at the asphalt. He stops, sword hovering in mid-air.
Kendall isn’t sure what Ares is staring at. Logan’s wallet is an ancient, beat up leather number. The only thing he’s got inside is an expired driver’s license, a library card, and a picture of his mom tucked into the flap.
Logan waits. Kendall holds his breath. Jo’s nails dig into his bicep.
Gustavo, who has a wonderful grasp of gravity and solemnity, sneaks a bag of Swedish Fish from where Kendall dropped it on the sidewalk. Kendall doesn’t see him, but he can hear the munch of his teeth.
Ares looks at Logan. He squints. Logan stares back, terrified. Then Ares says, “That was your mom? Whoa, now, lady does shots like a pro. We had one wild night back at the coast guard reserve.”
That is not what Kendal expected to hear.
Logan, evidently, wasn’t expecting it either. “What?”
“We partied like rockstars,” Ares explains, a grin splitting his face.
Logan’s eyes get bigger. He blinks, rather spastically. “No, but. What?”
“How do I say it more plainly?” Ares cocks his head, smiling widely. “Hey, kid. I’m your dad.”
Logan cradles his face in his hands. “This is not happening.”
Kendall decides it’s safe to go to him. He kneels down on the asphalt and begins rubbing soothing circles on his back. He tries to shoot his most intimidating glare at Ares.
His most intimidating glare is way less intimidating than Jo’s everyday glare, so Ares is way more interested in acknowledging her than Kendall. “Hey, so, I guess you’re my kid’s friend. That makes killing you a little awkward. No hard feelings?”
Jo continues to glare.
Ares raises an eyebrow, “You know, you’re pretty cute. How old are you?”
She gags out loud. Kendall demands, “Are you kidding me?”
“Gods aren’t exactly known for their sense of humor,” Jo says dubiously, watching Ares like he might decide to jump her. “Wreaking havoc, jealous fits, and drunken revelry are more their thing.”
Ares nods. “It’s true.”
Logan chants, “I am not related to the god of war, I am not related to the god of war, I am not related to the god of war.”
“Hey now. Take pride in your heritage. Would you rather be mortal?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being mortal,” Kendall protests, because he knows some perfectly good mortals. His mom and Katie, for example.
Ares’s nose twitches. “I’ll take your word for it, person-thing-friend-of-my-son’s.”
“Logan, son of Ares. Listen, it even sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud,” Logan hyperventilates.
“You are such a spectacular douchebag, I hope you know that,” Kendall tells Ares, because he’s never actually seen Logan this bad. “I mean, not only did you try to kill Jo, but look at Logan. He’s been waiting for you to claim him, oh, I don’t know, his whole life?”
“Yeah.” Ares actually appears to be guilty, hunching into his shoulders a bit. “I’ve got a lot of kids. But I’m sorry about- I’m just sorry. Logan? Your name’s Logan, right?”
He gets down on the asphalt, and that is new. Kendall has seen Dionysus simper and whine, and he has seen Aphrodite seduce and demand, but he has not seen either of them do something that could almost be construed as…well, nice. And it’s even stranger coming from this man, this burly giant of a god who radiates heat and brutality, who makes anger rage beneath Kendall’s skin.
Kendall backs away, because he will not listen in on this private conversation, but he does hear one thing, the last thing that Ares decides to say to Logan. And it almost sounds like, “Make me proud.”
So the upshot of Kentucky is, Logan’s got a dad, and he does not decide to murder them.
At least not on that day.
---
Carlos tracks them all the way to Pennsylvania. Then he shoots an arrow at them and nearly hits Gustavo in the face.
Gustavo, naturally, freaks out and tells them that he cannot continue to function in this hostile environment. Then he dumps them all on their asses in the middle of a field and flies off to do whatever Pegasi do when they’re pissed off.
“It’s always Pennsylvania,” Kendall mutters, dusting off his butt. “I fucking hate this state.”
“Tell me about it,” the boy with the arrows says, and he is actually not Carlos at all. “The humidity is hell on my hair.”
“Who are you?” Kendall squawks indignantly, because seriously, who now? “And why did you try to shoot us?”
“Because tracking you is boring, and you barely ever land except to sleep. I can’t shoot you while you’re sleeping, that’s not good sportsmanship. I’m Dak, by the way.” Dak is a very attractive boy who has arrows strapped across his back and a predatory gleam in his eye. Kendall is getting really sick of attractive people wanting to injure him somehow. It’s bad for his self-esteem. “My mom wants me to kill you.”
“Yeah, but, the problem there is that I really enjoy living,” Kendall replies. The wind rustles the long grass and corn stalks surrounding them. He would not be opposed to a helpful storm from Zeus now. “And I think Jo and Logan will agree with me on this one.”
Jo and Logan nod, frantically.
“So I’m thinking our modus operandi here is that we’re going to have to skip the introductions and you know. Run!”
They run.
And run.
And run.
Dak falls over a root or a scarecrow or a hole in the ground, Kendall doesn’t know or care; his only concern is that they get some distance between them and the Katniss wannabe. They run right up until they come to a giant ass warehouse with a very familiar logo on the side. “Normally I’m really against breaking and entering,” Jo says, “But why don’t we break and enter here?”
“Agreed,” Kendall says, searching for a way in.
“No, not agreed,” Logan protests, because Logan is fond of laws. He hugs his gnome close. “Betty thinks that’s a bad idea.”
“Betty is an inanimate object and therefore does not get a say,” Kendall retorts, and aha, there is a lock and he distinctly recalls Shane showing him how to pick one in between hotwiring cars and building on his caffeine addiction.
He gets to work on that.
There are footsteps coming from the field they just came from, a heavy thud of sneakers on dirt, and shit, shit, shit- there. “Let’s go.”
They creep inside the warehouse, which is filled with shrink wrapped objects of all shapes and sizes, and begin searching for a place to hide. Kendall keeps a careful eye out for cannibals, because his mom knows her shit. Their new friend Dak follows them in like the fearless contender for the Hunger Games that he is.
Kendall knows because he is not particularly good at stealth, and keeps yelling, “Come on out, heroes. Come out, come out, wherever you are?”
That’s not very wise, considering the whole trespassing bit. Dak’s mom is probably not Athena.
Hera doesn’t have children, so. Aphrodite. It must be. That totally explains all the pretty.
Kendall turns to tell this theory to Jo and Logan, but they’re giggling like schoolchildren over the new E-Reader, sitting on a shelf right next to Kendall’s knee. Dorks.
Cursing under his breath, Kendall herds Jo and Logan away from the source of their geeky joy. An arrow through the heart is just not his idea of a good time, and to be honest, he’s hurt that Aphrodite has sent Dak to try. What kind of divine creature pays for your cake and then attempts to murder you? He thought they were connecting, man.
Stupid Apple.
Stupid Aphrodite.
Stupid quest.
The whine of a forklift shakes him out of his funk, because he knows that sound; the Sherwood Market had one in the stock room for heavy things. And if there’s a forklift, there’s probably a forklift operator, and what that means is that they’re so very screwed. Kendall ducks into the nearest aisle, Jo and Logan shadowing his every move. It’s a game of hide-and-seek, slipping between towering industrial shelving, each row a new land of books or DVDs, jewelry or kitchen appliances.
They manage to avoid both Dak and forklift-man for close to half an hour, a half hour that is fraught with tension. They are loud, too loud, from the squeak of their shoes to their ragged breathing. It is almost a relief when Kendall’s next turn in ring-around-the-warehouse takes them straight into danger.
Danger, in this case, is a boy wearing an orange jumpsuit that might have come from Kendall’s not-dad’s personal collection. Kendall makes frantic hand gestures, trying to sign back the hell up, now. Only Logan, son of Ares, chooses that moment to demonstrate some of the grace that makes him so skilled with a sword, and bumps into a collection of what appear to be glass ballerinas.
Everything spirals into chaos.
The guy in orange spins on his heel, spooked. Jo grabs for Logan, pulling him back to his feet and bolting off down the aisle with him. Kendall has bounced up on the toes of his sneakers, ready to dash, but then he…doesn’t.
Because Jumpsuit Dude is Shane.
Kendall stares at him. Shane stares back. It is one big long game of sharing until Kendall manages to choke out, “Why are you wearing a collar?”
---
Part Six
Author: garnetice
Part: Five of Six
Previous Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4
Word Count: 8,353 (of 51,011)
A/N: See Pt. 1 for author's notes, disclaimer, and summary!
---
There are s’mores, but nobody sings kumbaya. Jo does exactly the opposite, crafting a spear for Logan because, “If you’re going to freeze in the middle of a fight, you might as well have a weapon with range to clutch while you whimper.”
“I don’t get it,” Logan is saying to Carlos, mouth sticky with chocolate, “Why would you work for Hera?”
“That, my friend, is a long, long story,” Carlos replies, munching happily on marshmallows. He hasn’t brought much else; a box of graham crackers, a few bars of chocolate, a sleeping bag, and a package of puffy white fluff.
“We’ve got time,” Kendall tells him. He thinks they should build a fire. In school, he vaguely remembers them saying that deserts get cold at night.
“Nah, see, me and Tía Callida have a long history, and you guys are perfect strangers.” Carlos wags a finger in the air reproachfully.
“And yet you’re willing to steal from us,” Jo says, her eyes lit with starlight and the purple haze of dusk.
“It’s nothing personal, and it’s not stealing.” Carlos props his elbows on his knees. “It’s repossession.”
“Do you even know what the Apple is? What it does?”
“Don’t care. I owe Tía a solid.”
Kendall makes a grab for the pack of marshmallows. Carlos snorts and pulls it away, but when Kendall makes puppy eyes at him, he gives it up easy. For a thief, he seems pretty laid back. “How’d you get out here, anyway?”
“Drove my papí’s truck. He leant it out ‘cause I’m all responsible and shit.”
“Cool. Well, maybe, since you’re planning on petty theft and you know, stalking, you could do us a solid and give us a ride.”
Carlos considers. “I could do that. LA, right?”
Kendall waits for Jo to object, because judging by the suspicion she’s been wearing, she is the opposite of Carlos’s biggest fan, but she stays shockingly quiet. Logan’s the one who says, “I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”
“You’ve got chocolate on your chin. And do you know how hard hitchhiking is? How many cars do you think come down the roads around here? We’re not exactly in Phoenix.”
Outside, Kendall is talking all sensible. Inside, he’s thinking I cannot listen to The Wall on loop again, I cannot listen to The Wall on loop again.
He slips up by asking Carlos, “You’re not a Pink Floyd fan, right?”
---
Carlos, it turns out, is into boy bands. Kendall may or may not have a lot of experience with those from the nineties station that played endlessly at his job. The two of them end up harmonizing along with the radio for most of the ride.
Logan joins in around the border of California.
Jo simply grits her teeth and mumbles things that sound vaguely homicidal under her breath.
---
The Apple of Discord is being kept inside a nondescript office building in downtown Los Angeles. Carlos drops them off in front with a salute and a cocky grin. “See you later, alligators.” He guns off down the street singing Quit Playing Games With My Heart at the top of his lungs.
“For a backstabber, he’s not all bad,” Logan says mildly, and it is kind of hard to hate someone after you’ve camped under the moon and then spent six hours in a car with them, so Kendall can’t disagree.
He examines the building in front of him. “I thought it would be…Greek-er.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, the center of power in Olympus follows where Western civilization thrives. Very little of it will actually look Greek,” Jo pauses. “The Underworld’s nearby.”
Kendall’s breath catches in his throat, and he has to physically clap his hand over his mouth to keep a where from tumbling out. It all comes back to James, and he will not screw this up. Not with Jo and Logan and the camp depending on him. He can’t.
He lowers his hand. “Right, so are we going to do this?”
“I still vote no,” Logan says immediately. “We’ve barely been gone a day, and we’ve already got one super-nice enemy and a monster on our tails. What do you think is going to happen once we’ve got the Apple?”
“Man up, Mitchell,” Jo barks. “This is our chance. We could be heroes.”
“We could be failures,” Logan shoots back.
Kendall sighs. He’s inclined to agree with Logan here, but he’s been team captain of his varsity league for close to three years. He knows better than to naysay. “Jo’s right.”
“Of course I am.”
“She is not!”
“Well, either way, we have no choice. We’re going.”
---
Actually obtaining the Apple is shockingly easy. In a bland room that looks exactly like a doctor’s office on the fifth floor, they show their Camp Half-Blood credentials to a quiet man in a gray robe. Kendall’s not quite sure what their credentials are, which is odd, seeing as he’s leading this quest and all, but Jo’s got everything well and hand. Creepy Monk Guy appears satisfied, anyway.
He hands them…well, an apple. It’s gold. It’s shiny.
“Can we eat it?” Kendall jokes.
Jo glares. She must have left her sense of humor back at camp. “No, we can’t eat it, why would you even ask that?”
“Well, it’s an apple.” More seriously, he adds, “And wouldn’t it be better if it just, you know, stopped existing?”
Jo slaps his wrist. Ow. Why is everyone constantly hitting Kendall? Between the Hippalectryon, Jo, and his last sparring match with Jett, his bruises have bruises. He tucks the Apple into his knapsack and hopes it doesn’t collect lint down there or anything. “Fine, okay, no, we’ll take it back to New York. At least getting it was easy.”
Jo’s eyes get freakishly large. “Why would you say that?”
“Because…it was easy?”
“You totally jinxed us,” Logan hisses, glancing back at the man in the gray robe and at the door in front of them. Kendall liked it much better when he was examining the laminated posters detailing the dangers of arterial disease on the taupe-colored wall, ignoring them both.
“We’re demigods. From what I can tell, we’re already jinxed.” The only person who seems to agree with him is the smiling model on the cover of a women’s health magazine on the nearest coffee table.
“Now we’re double jinxed,” Logan says emphatically, face scrunching up.
Kendall feels supremely picked on today. Road trips obviously make Jo and Logan grumpy. “Okay, I take it back, yeesh. Don’t give yourself an ulcer, there, Logiebear.”
Jo elbows Kendall in the ribs this time.
“Will the pain never stop?” Kendall might hear Gray Robe Dude snort, or the air conditioning could have let loose a particularly loud gust of air. It’s hard to tell.
They burst out into the hallway, bickering and poking at one another, jostling towards the elevator. Jo punches the down button, but it doesn’t light up.
“It must have broken,” Logan reasons. “In the last five minutes. Weird.”
They head towards the stairwell, sitting squarely between more long, plain beige walls, and Kendall is already pondering how they’re going to get back to Long Island. Maybe they can hold the Apple for ransom until Mr. D zaps them home. He’s a god; that is totally within his power.
Of course, he might also turn them into snails. Best not to try.
Logan’s mulling over the same problem. He demands that Jo give him the map of America she brought, because they are modern and sophisticated demigods who didn’t think to bring a working cellphone with GPS.
Or, no, it’s not that they didn’t think to bring one, it’s just that there’s no outlet in Kendall’s cabin for him to recharge his, and besides, the camp doesn’t get reception anyway. He’s not even sure Logan and Jo own phones, to be honest.
A brief scuffle ensues, as Jo doesn’t want Logan touching her stuff, and Logan doesn’t grasp the part where she’s about to kill him like, at all. Once Logan’s got his prize, Jo takes the lead, bounding down the steps towards daylight and air that does not smell of antiseptic. Logan trudges behind her, clinging to their wrinkled old map like it’s a life line and mumbling about latitude and longitude lines. His makeshift spear is clutched tight in his other hand.
“This doesn’t look strange at all,” Kendall mutters, but he pads carefully after them, intent on being back-up guy in the event that Carlos is waiting to ambush them on the way out.
He does not get to find out if Carlos managed to find a parking space anywhere close by, because they only make it to the second floor landing before Kendall runs face-first into the back of Logan’s head, which is firmly implanted in the back of Jo’s.
“What’s the hold-up?” Kendall whines. Logan’s skull is hard and his face does not like this new development at all.
“Back up the stairs. Slowly,” Jo instructs. Logan stands on his tippy-toes, trying to see around her. “What? What is it?”
Kendall hears a hiss of air, much like a tire with a hole. Or, maybe, a snake. He begins backing up the stairs, slowly. “It’s a monster, isn’t it? Please say it isn’t a monster.”
“It’s a monster,” Logan says dully. “This is not fun, Kendall. You promised questing would be fun.”
“What do I know, I’m new to this. What do we do, Jo?”
Jo, warrior girl extraordinaire, replies amiably, “We turn and run or we stay and fight.”
Logan squawks, “We’re choosing to fight?”
“I hate running.” Jo pauses, and there is a rustling sound at the bottom of the stairwell. “But, um. That’s a Hydra down there.”
Kendall gives into his curiosity and cranes over the railing to look. He immediately wishes he hadn’t. So far, the things he’s dealt with in the demigod world have been vaguely recognizable, in some way. Mrs. Magicowski and Selana were humanoid, sort of, Mormo was flesh colored, at the very least, the Symphalian Bird and other monsters that assaulted him and the Diamond twins were all animal shaped, mostly, and the Hippalectryon had animal parts. There is nothing earthly about this thing, not even a little bit.
Maybe, from above, the Hydra could resemble a nest of angry snakes, if snakes had the spotted collars of raptors, trunks the size of an elephant’s thigh, and one big, solid body with thighs of its very own. It is a thing spliced from a child’s nightmare, and Jo, Logan, and Kendall have its full attention.
“I think the stairs are stumping it,” Logan says unsteadily, his grip on the spear white-knuckled. Kendall uncaps Riptide, and the sword grows to full-length, glowing gold and humming with power.
“That won’t work.” Jo is pale, nibbling at her lips. Her weapons stay tucked away in her bookbag. “If you cut off a head, two more will just grow back. It’s an impossible monster. Fire’s the only thing that can kill a Hydra, and lighting a match in here is not a good idea.”
“So running’s the best plan?”
“Running would be good,” she agrees. “I think it’s starting to figure out the stairs.”
In unison, the three of them turn tail and bolt. On the top floor of the building, there’s an exit onto the roof. They push through it, out into a rather pathetic garden sanctuary with a few sad potted plants. From there though, Kendall can’t see any place to run.
The Hydra thunders after them, roaring with exertion and rage.
“In all honesty, what can that thing really do to us? Bite us to death? We could chop off enough heads to at least buy us some time,” he suggests, brain working in overdrive.
“Its breath is poison,” Jo pants.
“That puts a damper on the plan,” Kendall agrees. “Um. Hide!”
Logan ducks behind the most hideous lawn gnome Kendall has ever had the displeasure of seeing. It is also a completely inadequate hiding place. “That’s not going to work.”
“There,” Jo calls, gesturing wildly over the edge of the roof. About five feet away is the ledge of what looks to be a concrete parking garage adjacent to them.
“You want us to jump? Are you insane?” Kendall asks incredulously.
“Tell me, oh mighty quest leader, do you have a better plan?”
Kendall considers Logan and his hideous lawn gnome. “Jumping’s good.”
Logan is not in agreement with the plan. “The fall is seven stories!” he protests, eyes bulging from his face. “I hate heights.”
This is not a surprise, because Logan hates everything. He cowers and quivers until Jo goads him to his feet.
“Too bad. We’re doing this together, or not at all,” she replies decisively, dragging him along by his elbow. She catches Kendall’s with her other hand, and they stand back and away from the edge of the roof. “Running start, on three?”
“One,” Kendall counts. His blood is rushing in his head. He can feel his heart, pounding kickdrum loud.
“Two,” Logan says shakily.
“Three,” Jo finishes, and she whoops, and they’re off, feet pounding the pavement for a few breathless seconds before they leap. The jump takes forever, and also no time at all, and they land rather badly on the hood of an old Mustang, denting the metal.
Kendall moans through the ache in his everywhere, “We should probably pay for that.”
Logan whimpers, “Should we leave a note?”
“Get up, get up,” Jo rushes them both, “It’s coming,” and she’s right. The Hydra forces its way through the skinny door on the roof garden, and it is definitely, definitely time to get on with the running. It screams, the sound sending shivers up and down Kendall’s spine.
“Please tell me it can’t fly.”
“It can jump,” Jo replies grimly, and she is a mess. There is rust on her cheek and blood on her neck and the pretty fabric of her red shirt has ripped unattractively at the sleeve. Logan looks much the same, and Kendall can’t imagine he’s come out of this particularly pretty either. He’s breathing hard, adrenaline pumping through his veins. It’s just like life before Camp Half-Blood, with much too much fear.
He misses James. James would know what to do, or Shane would, and James would be cracking jokes, and that would make this so much easier, somehow. But Kendall is not alone, and Logan and Jo are not poor substitutes for the Diamond twins, not at all.
“We need to go down,” Jo is saying, tugging them along, but Logan is shaking his head.
“This place is closed for construction. The exit’s sealed off with fences downstairs, I saw it when we went into the other building.”
“Then we’ll have to go down to the second story and jump,” Jo reasons.
Logan, as always, disagrees, “We’ll twist something.”
“Guys,” Kendall tries.
“Soldier up,” Jo bites back. “Do you want to be Monster Kibble?”
Kendall says, “Guys, really.”
“I didn’t want to come on this quest in the first place, you both made me and I want new friends-“
“Guys!”
Both Logan and Jo spin to face him, snapping, “What?”
“There’s a horse. With wings. Parked next to the motorcycle.”
“You can park a horse?” Logan asks.
“Does it have chicken claws?” Jo asks. It’s a much more sensible question, in Kendall’s opinion.
“No, it’s, uh. All horse. I think.” Kendall points to the sleek brown stallion standing docilely between painted white lines halfway down to the next floor. He’d almost missed it, except for the flick of its ears as they rounded the corner. Carefully, the three of them shuffle towards it.
“Aw, it really is a pony,” Logan says once they’re closer, utterly delighted. “Can I pet him?”
“Try it and I’ll kick you in the face,” the horse snorts.
“That’s not nice,” Kendall chides.
A second late he realizes that the horse just spoke.
Logan’s lips tick down. “What’s not nice?”
Kendall is confused. “He said- didn’t you hear him?”
“Hear…wait, you can talk to the pony?” Logan’s eyes get all big, and it’s right about then that Kendall notices he’s clutching something to his chest. To be precise, he’s clutching the hideous lawn gnome from the roof next door. “What’s he saying?”
“Uh.” Kendall stalls. “Uh.”
Kendall is not very good at stalling.
“Close your mouth before you catch flies,” the horse says, and Kendall’s mind stutters to a stop. That break with reality he expected months ago is obviously happening right now, when they’re about to be gunned down by poisonous not-snake breath. “Name’s Gustavo, kid. Why’s your face all red?”
“Uh,” Kendall says eloquently.
“Real conversationalist, you are.”
“Never mind what he said,” Jo interjects, glancing between Kendall, Logan, and the winged horse, “This is a Pegasus. He can fly us out of here.”
“Just because he’s a horse with wings doesn’t mean he can actually fly and support our weight at the same time. Scientifically speaking, Pegasi are totally improbable,” Logan responds, because he is the most disagreeable boy on earth.
Gustavo, the talking horse, dislikes Logan’s contrariness. “Oh yeah? Maybe I should stick my improbable hoof up your -“
“Gustavo,” Kendall yelps, and hey, that’s a word that is not uh. He’s making progress.
Jo frowns. “Who’s Gustavo?”
“I’m Gustavo,” Gustavo makes a disgusted noise.
Jo, unable to hear it, asks, “Is he Gustavo?” She runs a hand soothingly across Gustavo’s flank. He whinnies, but does not kick her, and considering the murderous glare he’s aiming at Logan, Kendall decides that’s a distinct possibility.
“What, what’d he say?” Logan asks again, more focused on Kendall’s new horse-whisperer abilities than whether or not the Pegasus has a name.
“Uh. He promises he’s not a figment of your imagination,” Kendall answers diplomatically.
“Great, good, now can we get on the damned horse, because I’m not seeing a lot of options here.” Jo mounts Gustavo with easy grace, pulling a grumbling Logan up behind her.
Gustavo makes a pained noise in Kendall’s head, emphasized with an actual whinny of total displeasure. “You know, none of you have introduced yourselves, or actually asked for a ride.”
Kendall slaps his butt. “Soldier up. We’ve got to fly.”
He flails around a bit before settling on Gustavo’s rump, wrapping his hands firmly around Logan’s stomach.
“This is more closeness than I’m comfortable with,” Logan announces. Kendall nuzzles his face in Logan’s neck, just to be an ass.
Jo tangles her fingers in Gustavo’s glossy brown mane. Authoritatively, she yells, “Go, go, go.”
Gustavo remains firmly put. He tells Kendall, “I’m really not seeing what’s in this for me.”
Much, much too close, a loud roar resounds. It chills Kendall from the inside out, an icicle pressed to his spine. Gustavo gives a frightened neigh. His tail swishes, his eyes go wide.
Quickly, he decides, “Yep, you’re right, I think we should go.” He flaps his wings, continuing conversationally. “Who wants burgers? Burgers are good. Let’s got to In-N’-Out.”
---
Gustavo fixes their transportation problem. Or, he has the capability to fix their transportation problem. “I don’t want to leave. I like LA,” Gustavo informs Kendall, when Kendall asks how he’d feel about playing chauffeur. “I want to stay here. I think these are my people.”
They’re sitting outside a burger joint that is situated between the seediest mini-golf course Kendall has ever seen and an adult video store that has Logan entranced. He’s staring at the window display, eating a burger but mostly missing his mouth.
“You’re not a person- no, Gustavo, don’t…eat...the grass, no, it’s Astroturf!” Kendall tugs on his hair, but Gustavo ignores him, munching happily away on the fake lawn. “Why did I buy you these animal fries if you were just going to eat the ninth hole?”
Jo is unimpressed with either the idea of getting saddle burn or Kendall’s persuasive skills, and is thusly poring over the map for the safest alternate route across the country.
“M’not a pack mule,” Gustavo contends.
“Come on,” Kendall begs. “Please? We’re on a quest. It’s for the gods!”
“Heroes. You’re always on quests for gods,” he says dismissively through a mouthful of fake grass. Kendall tries not to get discouraged. “Never met one I could talk to before, though. You’re strange.”
“I’m not strange,” Kendall balks.
“You’re kind of strange,” Jo mutters without glancing up from her map. She’s got the concentration skills of a champion, that girl.
“It’s not Pick On Kendall day, I checked my almanac and everything,” Kendall sulks. “I don’t know why I can talk to you, okay?”
“Probably because Poseidon created the first horses. In a contest with my mom, actually,” Jo provides. “It was for the dominion of Athens. My mom won, obviously.”
Kendall pretends she doesn’t sound smug about that. “Stop eavesdropping on my conversation.”
“Technically I’m only eavesdropping on your side of the conversation. All I’m getting from Gustavo are varying levels of-“ Jo imitates one of Gustavo’s snorts, which is hilarious.
“Do it again,” Kendall commands.
Jo sticks her head back in the map. “No.”
Well, then. “Gustavo, please? I’ll buy you more burgers?”
“I am a dignified Pegasus. I am not susceptible to bribery.” Gustavo raises his head. “Also, I’m sick of burgers. What else have you got?”
Kendall digs through his rucksack. “I…have some Swedish Fish. Here.” Kendall thrusts the bag in front of Gustavo’s nose.
Gustavo makes a miffed noise, but scoops up a gummy between his big horse lips, all the while mumbling, “I don’t want some Swedish- what are these?” He makes a sound that would be absolutely obscene from a human, “They’re better than grass and tacos and carrots.”
Kendall wrinkles his nose. “Everything’s better than carrots.”
“Bite your tongue,” Gustavo snaps, but he’s got the bag of Swedish Fish snagged between his teeth.
“Is this how I get you to do things from now on? Ply you with sugar?”
“I am a creature of honor. Coercing me will not work and hey, let go, gimme gimme gimme,” he tugs more insistently at the bag.
“Right, yeah, you’re possessed of magnificent dignity.” Kendall lets go. “Does that mean you’ll take us?”
“I’ll consider it,” Gustavo says, gleefully gulping down the rest of the little red fish.
“Right, that’s one problem down. Logan! Stop looking at porn and get over here.”
Logan blushes bright red and scurries away from the window of the adult video store. “What?”
“You can’t keep the gnome.”
Logan blinks. “Yes I can. I’m naming him Augustus.”
Jo has something to say about this. It is not anything helpful. She grits out, “You can’t name give him a Roman name. They invaded our land, Logan.”
Kendall marvels, “How are you still taking the downfall of Greece personally?”
No one listens to him. Ever. Logan pouts, “But Augustus is-“
“Betty. His name is Betty.” Jo reaches out and pats the lawn gnome on the head.
“Betty is not a boy’s name.”
“Well maybe it should be.” Jo props her hands on her hips. “I had a schnauzer named Betty back in North Carolina, and he didn’t seem to mind.”
“This argument is completely invalid,” Kendall tells them both, “Because the gnome isn’t coming with us.”
Logan hugs Betty-Augustus to his chest. “I’m not leaving him. He saved my life.”
Kendall frowns at the gnome’s pointy red hat. “He’s a lawn gnome.” He neglects to point out that when Logan met Betty, the Hydra wasn’t even on the roof yet.
Logan actually appears to be super offended by this blunt statement of fact. “Gnomes have giant noses. Augustus-“
“Betty,” Jo inserts, back to peering at the map.
“ -Betty doesn’t have a nose. Your argument sucks.”
“This is the worst quest ever,” Kendall announces loudly.
Jo retorts, “This is the only quest you’ve been on.”
He hates it when she’s all smart and shit.
---
Gustavo deigns to transport them back to New York, on the promise that there will be more Swedish Fish in the future. Kendall has to stop by a Circle K and stock up.
They spend the night in Joshua Tree National Park, surrounded by these weird little scrub plants with spiky bark and spiky leaves. Gustavo is curled around the base of one, snoring, Betty tucked beneath his chin. Kendall is sandwiched between Logan and Jo, as if he needs to be protected from the rest of the world. He cuddles closer to them both, thinking of James and Shane, thinking of a time before them, even.
He used to go camping as a kid, laid out beneath the stars with his mom and his dad and Katie. Those memories are laced through with the scent of wood-smoke and the sound of eerie ghost stories, the crackle of fire and his dad’s deep, rich laugh.
His dad who isn’t his dad. Yeah, Kendall’s still having trouble with that one. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop, honestly. Poseidon is his father in name, the reason water heals his wounds, the reason he can talk to Gustavo, but Poseidon is also nothing more than an idea. He’s an empty cabin at Camp Half-Blood and a giant hole in Kendall’s life.
He wonders if bringing the Apple of Discord back to Olympus will make Poseidon proud.
He wonders if he’ll even care.
---
“Can’t you fly a little faster?” Kendall asks Gustavo.
“Maybe if your girlfriend would lay off the sweets,” Gustavo grunts, skimming low to the ground.
“Leave Jo alone.”
“Jo?” Gustavo sniffs and cranes his neck around to glare. “I wasn’t talking about the blonde.”
Kendall decides not to repeat that one to Logan.
---
He meets Aphrodite in the middle of Texas.
What happens is, Kendall, Logan, and Jo have split up. They’ve known for three states that Carlos is tracking them; the rusted hood of his father’s truck is pretty distinctive, and also, he’s waved.
More than once. Carlos doesn’t appear to understand the meaning of stealth. Or personal space.
So Kendall hands off the Apple to Jo, who takes to the air with Gustavo. Logan splits off in one direction in a small, Texan town, and Kendall heads in the other. The general idea is that Carlos can only follow one of them, and it will most likely be Kendall, because somebody - Logan - let it slip during their car ride to LA that Kendall was the leader of this quest.
Kendall figures Carlos will confront him, he’ll knock Carlos out or tie him up in his car or something, and then he’ll regroup with Jo, Logan, and Gustavo the next town over. They’ll take to the sky before Carlos can catch their scent again, right? Right.
It’s an awesome plan. Kendall thought of it himself.
Which is why he’s a little put out when the person who slides into the diner booth across from him is definitely not Carlos. “Can I sit here?”
Kendall wants to say no, because he has a slice of cake (not pie, pie tastes like ash to him now) and a cup of coffee and a thief to wait for.
He wants to say no, and also he does not, because the intruder is a woman, and she is beautiful.
What’s weird is that Kendall can’t exactly pin down why she’s beautiful. Her cheekbones are high, her skin glows, and her sooty, dark eyelashes shade irises that are the loveliest violet he’s ever seen.
Wait, no. They’re blue. And her eyelashes are blonde. Her cheeks are fuller, her skin darker, her lips more of a cupid’s bow than they were seconds ago. She tilts her head exactly like Jo, and her hair cascades in ringlets down the delicate arch of her neck.
Only, when he looks again, it’s shades darker, blonde-auburn, and there are flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, but they are kind, and turning browner by the second, a blush high in her cheeks.
He croaks out, “I think you’re already sitting,” and she laughs, as if he is the funniest, most interesting guy to have ever existed. He is warm, inside and out. He hopes he can make her laugh again, soon.
She says, “You’re the boy with my Apple.”
That stops Kendall cold. “You’re not human.” Of all the things he could have said, that’s probably not the stupidest.
“I’m not,” she agrees. She grins coyly, her eyelashes red as sunset, a mole above her lip exactly like Camille’s. “I’m Aphrodite. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”
“Your name might have come up.”
“Then you know that you’ve got something that belongs to me.” She leans across the table, and Kendall has a magnificent view of her spectacular cleavage, which she must have stolen off a Victoria’s Secret model, because it’s not from anyone he knows. It gets more enticing with every second he stares, and he has to force his gaze back up to her face, which now has a smattering of freckles across her skin, like the girl he dated all through the fifth grade. He thought he was going to marry her.
“I can’t give it to you,” he explains, and he isn’t happy about it. The thing is that he wants to make this very, very pretty goddess happy. He wants her to smile that smile that belongs to his fifth grade girlfriend and his eighth grade crush, to Jo and Jessica Alba and Camille. Her lips jut out, fuller, like Jett’s, and oh, she is wearing him down.
“That’s not very nice.”
“I know,” Kendall agrees, falling all over the linoleum table to appease her.
Everyone in the diner is staring, he’s sure, but Aphrodite only has eyes for him. She purrs, “You’re in love.”
“It’s just sex,” Kendall explains patiently, because Jett means nothing to him, and she has his mouth, his eyes, his cocky, jutted chin. “I’ll leave him for you.”
“I’m sure you would,” Aphrodite smirks. Kendall can see long, lazy nights of sex and chocolate and champagne kisses in the curve of her lips. “I don’t mean with Zeus’s progeny. I can see him in your eyes.”
Her smile holds secrets and mischief, and it’s so familiar it makes his heart ache. “Dear boy. Sweet boy. Give me my apple, and I’ll make sure that James falls into your waiting arms.”
“You can do that?”
She quirks that smile that is so like and unlike James’s, “I can do anything. And, it’s my Apple,” Aphrodite says, breathy, up in his face. He glances back at her cleavage, but it isn’t there; her chest is smooth, androgynous, golden and lickable. “Don’t you want me to have what’s rightfully mine? You do think I’m the fairest…?”
“Of course,” Kendall says immediately, willing to say whatever to make this gorgeous woman smile. She does, albeit a little sadly, and it reminds him, weirdly enough, of Katie and his mom.
“Then you’ll give it to me?”
He shakes his head, knowing he can’t, because common sense is a thing that he has. “That wouldn’t make Hera or Athena very happy.”
He’s supposed to be talking to someone else. Carlos. Where is Carlos? He glances around the diner, but there is nothing but antique wagon wheels and tacky art prints, the smell of Belgian waffles and sausage.
“My mother’s an old bag,” Aphrodite says dismissively, and her mouth is nothing at all like James’s; it’s fiercer, and more closely resembles Lucy’s. Her eyes flash with lightning. “And Athena has no use for beauty. Give me the Apple.”
“Can’t,” Kendall says. Then, because it feels wrong to lie, he adds, “I don’t have it.”
Something flickers across Aphrodite’s face, an expression that he’s never seen on anyone, not ever, and suddenly she is not Lucy or Jo or models or James. She is as distant and gorgeous and foreign as a statue. He has made her mad. “I want it. Now.”
“Can’t,” Kendall says again. “I really don’t have it.”
She sits back in her seat, and for the first time Kendall notices that she’s wearing something tight, flashy, and designer. Weird, he could have sworn she had a sun dress on before. “Then who does?”
“Jo.”
“Jo? Athena’s brat? You gave my Apple to a child of Athena?”
“Well. I didn’t give it to her,” Kendall explains, bewildered and still more than a little bewitched. “You don’t have to yell.”
Aphrodite softens. Her features melt back into something he wants to touch, something he yearns for, those eyes and those lips, and why did James go away? It hurts beneath his ribs, and in his fingers and his toes. She says, “You miss him.”
“More than anything,” Kendall replies fervently. He wants to reach out, but he’s scared that he will melt away, because she is a goddess, she is beauty and she is love, and both of those things have the most jagged of teeth. They tear at his insides, at his heart and at his soul. They leave scars where he cannot see, and where they can never fully heal.
“He may come back yet.” She holds her head high, her graceful neck pale and too exposed. “I’ll keep my eye on you two.” She slaps down a few coins for the food she made Kendall forget all about and stands. Kendall is hypnotized by the sway of her hips.
And her words, her words are important too. They sound exactly like a promise.
---
Carlos never shows. This is apparently because he decided to stalk Logan instead.
Kendall is sure the story of how Logan managed to subdue Hera’s kept-boy is really awesome and important, but he can’t quite focus on it. He’s too busy singing, “Love, love, looooove. I’m in love,” right up until he comes face to face with Jo. “Oh, uh. Hi, Jo. You’re very…Jo.”
Right now, being very Jo involves an expression of complete befuddlement.
“He had a run-in with Aphrodite,” Logan tells her archly. “Now he’s in love.”
“Shhhh,” Kendall tries to clap his hand over Logan’s mouth and misses. He is punch-drunk on Aphrodite, but Jo is having a super-sobering effect on him. “Don’t tell her that. She’s jealous of my loooove.”
“Is that right?” Logan lifts an eyebrow. “Jealous of Jett, Jo?”
“I’m not jealous of Jett,” Jo barks with laughter. It shakes her words. “Gods, no.”
“Really?” Kendall is feeling a little put-out by her laughter. It feels mean. “Then why do you get all bitchfaced whenever we’re hanging out together?”
Jo is still laughing. Hard. But she manages, “Kendall, it’s glaringly clear that you’re not into Jett the way he wants you to be. I don’t think it’s very nice that you’re leading him on, is all.”
“Oh.” Kendall tastes something sour in his throat. His Aphrodite-high is definitely wearing off. “This is only mildly humiliating.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have a crush on you,” Jo says, finally calming down a little. She’s still giggling into her palm. It’s really uncalled for.
“You, uh, really don’t?” Kendall’s forehead pinches. “Are you sure? For sure, sure?”
“Oh yeah. I’ve read the myths. I know better than to fall for boys with magic swords.”
Kendall’s mouth drops open. “You can stop making fun of me now.”
“No, really. Relationships aren’t a good idea. What with the whole monster swarm thing.” Jo pats him on the cheek. “Also, I’m sure you’d make a great boyfriend, but your swordsmanship sucks.”
“Is that like, a requirement to date you? Good with a sword?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I’m not really ready to settle down.” She smiles, but it takes on an edge. “Now why don’t both of you give me a status report. Immediately?”
“Yeah.” Logan starts, “About that…”
---
They’re camping out in the shell of an old train car, and it’s well past midnight. Kendall can’t sleep, too caught up with thoughts of Aphrodite, and love, and James.
He’s not really in love with him. Probably.
No, definitely. Aphrodite was wrong. It’s pathetic to be in love with a memory.
“I can hear you thinking from here,” Logan groans, hugging Betty tight to his chest.
“Sorry.”
“Are you thinking about what Jo said? Don’t take it personally.”
Jo snores, lightly. Gustavo nickers. He’s probably dreaming of Swedish Fish.
But Logan? Logan waits for an answer. Kendall can see his eyes, gleaming in the moonlight. “No.”
“You’re lying. I can tell. Look.” Logan lowers his voice to a whisper. “Jo, Lucy, and another demigod, a daughter of Nemesis, came to Camp Half-Blood together.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not really sure.” Logan shrugs. “Lucy joined the Hunters. And Kat…no one really knows. They never said, but. Jo’s the only one left.”
“Why didn’t she join the Hunters too?”
“I don’t need immortality,” Jo interrupts, voice cracked with exhaustion. Kendall and Logan flush guiltily, sunburn red beneath their skin. Kendall is grateful for the cover of night. “At least, not right now. You have to give up a lot of things to run with Artemis.”
“Like what?” Kendall asks, overcoming his embarrassment.
“Like love, for one.” She meets Kendall’s eyes, and there is no real meaning there, at least not for him. Jo is beautiful, brilliant. She does not need anyone to make her dreams come true. “And the thing with Kat is…Logan, it’s none of your damn business.”
“Sorry,” Logan squeaks.
Jo shoves her head back onto the pillow of her arms. “Go back to sleep. Idiots.”
---
A monster attacks them in Arkansas. This time, they are forced to fight it until its dead.
Right before it dissolves back into the ether, Kendall spots a glint of gold from the distance, like someone is watching.
He says, “I think Carlos has found us again.”
Logan blushes right up to his hairline.
---
The nearer they get to Camp Half-Blood, the more Jo and Logan buzz with excitement. It’s obvious why; they’re going back, they’re going home. But for Kendall home is too many things, and it’s hard to have all of them at once.
His mother’s exasperated smile and the rough swell of her knuckles when she tries to cook.
His sister’s slightly psychotic lilt when she laughs.
James’s eyes shiny and wet with accusation
But also Jo’s lethal grace and Logan’s neuroses, Jett’s ridiculous arrogance and Shane’s hands shaking as he reaches for a coffee cup.
Kendall’s home is scattered across America, and he doesn’t know how to feel whole anymore without any of them.
---
Kentucky is going really well until they stop for gas. Or in this case, Swedish Fish.
Kendall steps outside of the convenience store and drops his plastic bag of goodies right on the ground, because there is a man in a whole lot of black leather pointing a sword straight at Jo.
Worse, Jo actually looks intimidated.
Logan, by Kendall’s side, freezes up. “That doesn’t look like Carlos.”
“I’m thinking it’s not, unless Carlos joined a gym,” Kendall hisses back.
The man and Jo are arguing. He can’t hear what Jo says, but the man’s laughter sparks and flares like a sodium light, a short, sharp bark that dies as quick as it came. “I’ll take it from you. I will kill you, if I have to.”
“You can’t,” Jo yells, and this time, Kendall hears it. He takes a step forward. Something about this man is getting to him, pissing him off, forcing his hands into fists. He wants to scream and he wants to throw a punch, and anger management issues or not, Kendall usually has a better hold of his temper.
“Of course I can. You are whispers in the conversation of history. Why would anyone care if you disappeared?”
“Fine,” Jo grits out. “Go ahead. Kill me.”
“Well, now you’ve just taken all the fun out of it.” The man hefts his sword and lunges at Jo, and before Kendall can even move, can even shout, Logan of all people is bolting for them both. He knocks into the man and sends them sprawling to the ground.
Kendall runs up to catch Jo’s shoulders in his hands. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Why aren’t you fighting-“
“Kendall, that’ s Ares,” Jo says, eyes wide with panic, grabbing at him. “He wants the Apple, for Aphrodite. Oh gods, he’s going to kill Logan. We have to stop him.”
Ares is already on his feet, looming over Logan and his broken spear, and Betty, and his wallet, lying open on the ground. He raises his weapon, telling him, “That will be the last stupid thing you’ll ever do-“ when he happens to glance down at the asphalt. He stops, sword hovering in mid-air.
Kendall isn’t sure what Ares is staring at. Logan’s wallet is an ancient, beat up leather number. The only thing he’s got inside is an expired driver’s license, a library card, and a picture of his mom tucked into the flap.
Logan waits. Kendall holds his breath. Jo’s nails dig into his bicep.
Gustavo, who has a wonderful grasp of gravity and solemnity, sneaks a bag of Swedish Fish from where Kendall dropped it on the sidewalk. Kendall doesn’t see him, but he can hear the munch of his teeth.
Ares looks at Logan. He squints. Logan stares back, terrified. Then Ares says, “That was your mom? Whoa, now, lady does shots like a pro. We had one wild night back at the coast guard reserve.”
That is not what Kendal expected to hear.
Logan, evidently, wasn’t expecting it either. “What?”
“We partied like rockstars,” Ares explains, a grin splitting his face.
Logan’s eyes get bigger. He blinks, rather spastically. “No, but. What?”
“How do I say it more plainly?” Ares cocks his head, smiling widely. “Hey, kid. I’m your dad.”
Logan cradles his face in his hands. “This is not happening.”
Kendall decides it’s safe to go to him. He kneels down on the asphalt and begins rubbing soothing circles on his back. He tries to shoot his most intimidating glare at Ares.
His most intimidating glare is way less intimidating than Jo’s everyday glare, so Ares is way more interested in acknowledging her than Kendall. “Hey, so, I guess you’re my kid’s friend. That makes killing you a little awkward. No hard feelings?”
Jo continues to glare.
Ares raises an eyebrow, “You know, you’re pretty cute. How old are you?”
She gags out loud. Kendall demands, “Are you kidding me?”
“Gods aren’t exactly known for their sense of humor,” Jo says dubiously, watching Ares like he might decide to jump her. “Wreaking havoc, jealous fits, and drunken revelry are more their thing.”
Ares nods. “It’s true.”
Logan chants, “I am not related to the god of war, I am not related to the god of war, I am not related to the god of war.”
“Hey now. Take pride in your heritage. Would you rather be mortal?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being mortal,” Kendall protests, because he knows some perfectly good mortals. His mom and Katie, for example.
Ares’s nose twitches. “I’ll take your word for it, person-thing-friend-of-my-son’s.”
“Logan, son of Ares. Listen, it even sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud,” Logan hyperventilates.
“You are such a spectacular douchebag, I hope you know that,” Kendall tells Ares, because he’s never actually seen Logan this bad. “I mean, not only did you try to kill Jo, but look at Logan. He’s been waiting for you to claim him, oh, I don’t know, his whole life?”
“Yeah.” Ares actually appears to be guilty, hunching into his shoulders a bit. “I’ve got a lot of kids. But I’m sorry about- I’m just sorry. Logan? Your name’s Logan, right?”
He gets down on the asphalt, and that is new. Kendall has seen Dionysus simper and whine, and he has seen Aphrodite seduce and demand, but he has not seen either of them do something that could almost be construed as…well, nice. And it’s even stranger coming from this man, this burly giant of a god who radiates heat and brutality, who makes anger rage beneath Kendall’s skin.
Kendall backs away, because he will not listen in on this private conversation, but he does hear one thing, the last thing that Ares decides to say to Logan. And it almost sounds like, “Make me proud.”
So the upshot of Kentucky is, Logan’s got a dad, and he does not decide to murder them.
At least not on that day.
---
Carlos tracks them all the way to Pennsylvania. Then he shoots an arrow at them and nearly hits Gustavo in the face.
Gustavo, naturally, freaks out and tells them that he cannot continue to function in this hostile environment. Then he dumps them all on their asses in the middle of a field and flies off to do whatever Pegasi do when they’re pissed off.
“It’s always Pennsylvania,” Kendall mutters, dusting off his butt. “I fucking hate this state.”
“Tell me about it,” the boy with the arrows says, and he is actually not Carlos at all. “The humidity is hell on my hair.”
“Who are you?” Kendall squawks indignantly, because seriously, who now? “And why did you try to shoot us?”
“Because tracking you is boring, and you barely ever land except to sleep. I can’t shoot you while you’re sleeping, that’s not good sportsmanship. I’m Dak, by the way.” Dak is a very attractive boy who has arrows strapped across his back and a predatory gleam in his eye. Kendall is getting really sick of attractive people wanting to injure him somehow. It’s bad for his self-esteem. “My mom wants me to kill you.”
“Yeah, but, the problem there is that I really enjoy living,” Kendall replies. The wind rustles the long grass and corn stalks surrounding them. He would not be opposed to a helpful storm from Zeus now. “And I think Jo and Logan will agree with me on this one.”
Jo and Logan nod, frantically.
“So I’m thinking our modus operandi here is that we’re going to have to skip the introductions and you know. Run!”
They run.
And run.
And run.
Dak falls over a root or a scarecrow or a hole in the ground, Kendall doesn’t know or care; his only concern is that they get some distance between them and the Katniss wannabe. They run right up until they come to a giant ass warehouse with a very familiar logo on the side. “Normally I’m really against breaking and entering,” Jo says, “But why don’t we break and enter here?”
“Agreed,” Kendall says, searching for a way in.
“No, not agreed,” Logan protests, because Logan is fond of laws. He hugs his gnome close. “Betty thinks that’s a bad idea.”
“Betty is an inanimate object and therefore does not get a say,” Kendall retorts, and aha, there is a lock and he distinctly recalls Shane showing him how to pick one in between hotwiring cars and building on his caffeine addiction.
He gets to work on that.
There are footsteps coming from the field they just came from, a heavy thud of sneakers on dirt, and shit, shit, shit- there. “Let’s go.”
They creep inside the warehouse, which is filled with shrink wrapped objects of all shapes and sizes, and begin searching for a place to hide. Kendall keeps a careful eye out for cannibals, because his mom knows her shit. Their new friend Dak follows them in like the fearless contender for the Hunger Games that he is.
Kendall knows because he is not particularly good at stealth, and keeps yelling, “Come on out, heroes. Come out, come out, wherever you are?”
That’s not very wise, considering the whole trespassing bit. Dak’s mom is probably not Athena.
Hera doesn’t have children, so. Aphrodite. It must be. That totally explains all the pretty.
Kendall turns to tell this theory to Jo and Logan, but they’re giggling like schoolchildren over the new E-Reader, sitting on a shelf right next to Kendall’s knee. Dorks.
Cursing under his breath, Kendall herds Jo and Logan away from the source of their geeky joy. An arrow through the heart is just not his idea of a good time, and to be honest, he’s hurt that Aphrodite has sent Dak to try. What kind of divine creature pays for your cake and then attempts to murder you? He thought they were connecting, man.
Stupid Apple.
Stupid Aphrodite.
Stupid quest.
The whine of a forklift shakes him out of his funk, because he knows that sound; the Sherwood Market had one in the stock room for heavy things. And if there’s a forklift, there’s probably a forklift operator, and what that means is that they’re so very screwed. Kendall ducks into the nearest aisle, Jo and Logan shadowing his every move. It’s a game of hide-and-seek, slipping between towering industrial shelving, each row a new land of books or DVDs, jewelry or kitchen appliances.
They manage to avoid both Dak and forklift-man for close to half an hour, a half hour that is fraught with tension. They are loud, too loud, from the squeak of their shoes to their ragged breathing. It is almost a relief when Kendall’s next turn in ring-around-the-warehouse takes them straight into danger.
Danger, in this case, is a boy wearing an orange jumpsuit that might have come from Kendall’s not-dad’s personal collection. Kendall makes frantic hand gestures, trying to sign back the hell up, now. Only Logan, son of Ares, chooses that moment to demonstrate some of the grace that makes him so skilled with a sword, and bumps into a collection of what appear to be glass ballerinas.
Everything spirals into chaos.
The guy in orange spins on his heel, spooked. Jo grabs for Logan, pulling him back to his feet and bolting off down the aisle with him. Kendall has bounced up on the toes of his sneakers, ready to dash, but then he…doesn’t.
Because Jumpsuit Dude is Shane.
Kendall stares at him. Shane stares back. It is one big long game of sharing until Kendall manages to choke out, “Why are you wearing a collar?”
---
Part Six