Page 63 of Katya and the Young God

“We shouldn’t give them time to prepare,” he says, reluctant, after a long moment, and he folds away the MRE, giving her the rest. “Even if it’s just a little, it might be too much.”

She nods, suddenly looking away, before gingerly shaking Selene’s shoulder. “Wake up, we need you to wake up,” she says, and it feels like they’re just waking her up to be walked into a slaughterhouse. Into a trap. “Think you can do that for me?”

Selene blinks up at Katya, then looks to Pieter. “You’re tired,” she accuses, her voice small. “Why didn’t you tell me you were tired?”

“It’s not your job to be worried about it,” he says, ruffling her hair, and for a second Katya is jealous that he doesn’t worry about a touch killing him. “Just needed to sit down a bit.”

It’s such a vast understatement that it takes Katya’s breath away.

Selene sits up, cross-legged, looking like any small child at school. “Are we almost out?”

She’s so hopeful, she’s so optimistic.

“We’re almost out, and then we get to figure out a home,” Katya says, her mind going to the mental calculus of keeping a child hidden in her small cabin, when literally every magical being in the greater Denver area knows about the location.

Selene nods, then yawns again, but climbs to her feet much faster than either of them. “Is the sky always that color?” She asks, looking up at the sliver of blue, at the filtered green of the leaves above them.

“No, sometimes it’s black,” Pieter says, climbing to his feet, his face twisting in discomfort, but he hoists up his pack anyways. “Sometimes it’s brilliant and full of color.”

Katya withdraws her copper gun from her pack, fitting the holster on her belt. “Just in case,” she says, with what she hopes is a soothing smile to Pieter. “I don’t like to be unprepared.”

Selene reaches out, touching the cool copper of the barrel quick, before snapping back her hand.

“Don’t touch that,” Pieter says, but she appears unharmed. “That’s for adults only.”

While she doesn’t need a weapon to harm something, it’s still a good impulse, so Katya doesn’t disagree. “Only person who gets to touch this one is me.”

“Can I get one?” Selene asks eagerly.

Katya and Pieter exchange quick, despairing glances. “No.”

Katya adjusts her pack, then holds her gloved hand out to Selene, who grabs it tightly, belaying a little more fear than in her eyes. “Shall we?”

After a second, the child nods, and they walk out.

* * *

The breeze ishot against her face the second she steps from the cave mouth, and little Selene’s head tilts up towards the sky, towards the leaves fluttering in the breeze.

There’s a helicopter circling, its blades loud and jarring, the wind whipping branches around. Selene’s eyes follow it, her mouth ajar, all traces of exhaustion gone in the thrill of it.

“That bird is so huge,” she whispers, and Katya can barely hear her over the chop of the blades. “It’s so fast.”

“That’s not a fucking weapon, that’s a fucking kid!” From where he was sitting in the camp chairs, JD rockets up. “You said he commandeered a weapon!”

Stepan sits at his feet, his tail thumping, mouth open in a wide doggy grin the moment he sees Pieter. Despite the terror, despite the horror, a small muscle in the back of Pieter’s shoulders visibly unwinds.

Feketer meets Katya’s eyes for a brief, brief second. “She is a weapon.” Nonchalantly, he digs in one of the camping bags he left in the tent. “She’s killed most of your cavers, and Rory, and caused...” he gestures at the mountain, rendered cleanly in two. “That was child’s play.”

The minor demon hesitates, caught off guard. “But she’s a kid?” His eyes glimmer red, just a bare sheen of color, and for all his sliminess he seems as struck as Katya was at the sight of her. “You can’t commandeer a kid—"

“Everyone who’s touched her bare skin besides the Demigod has died,” Feketer says, and the hair on the back of Katya’s neck rises. He’s too casual, too in control. “She has such unimaginable power, she is nothing but a weapon.”

Selene draws back, her gloved hand fisting into Katya’s shirt, shying away.

“I’m sorry, little girl, he doesn’t mean that,” JD says, struck, and Katya obviously misjudged his basic character. “We’ll get you someplace safe, someplace —"

In a smooth motion, Feketer withdraws a pistol from the extra bag and shoots JD in the head with it.

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