Page 4 of Descent

Three guys burst out of the door across from me, scanning the alley, spotting me.

Good thing I’m a rabbit when it comes to running. I’m off at a full sprint before they can even react. My mind stays in that sweet slow state, keeping me from panicking, keeping me from worrying and making a mistake.

Task at hand. Get to the meetup, if things don’t go to plan, follow the backup plan.

Except that every step I take feels like I’m being watched. Like someone knows every move I’m making and is one step ahead of me. A car cuts me off, I break left. Two women stand up at the cafe on the corner to intercept me, I spin, losing myself in the small crowd of tourists out in front of the Berlin Cathedral.

Through the press, I snatch a hat, glasses from a purse, drop my coat across a bench, slip into a running jacket I dragged out of a satchel. When I leave the group, I’m walking calm and casual, my shoulders pulled higher, my stride a swagger, hands thrust into my pockets. Just some guy on some sidewalk.

In minutes, I’m at the newsstand. Despite my concentration, I have to carefully control my urge to swivel my head and look around, trying to find any sign of Artemis.

“Cirs…” I hear it faintly, from behind me. Without looking, I back into the gap between two shops. I smell the tang of blood before I turn around and find my cousin slumped against the wall behind a dumpster, her face slick with sweat and pale as death.

“Art…” I hiss, checking her side. It’s bad.

“We got set up,” Artemis gasps.

“No shit,” I mumble, looping my arm under hers. “Can you?—”

“Yeah, but we gotta get off the street…”

“Train station is just up the way,” I start but she shakes her head violently.

“No, Circe. We need to disappear. Full blackout.”

“You’re not thinking clearly. Let’s put distance between us and the?—”

“No. We need to go underground. Now.”

Trusting the fear I see in her eyes, I nod and get us moving. Shouldering the majority of her weight, I hustle us through a few twists and turns. We make it inside an apartment complex through the back, up to the roof, across the terrace, and onto the adjoining building. “Alright, rest for a minute. Talk to me.”

Art huffs for breath, shaking her head. A tear runs down her cheek, but I know she’s been wounded worse than this gunshot before.

The coiling panic hits me like a fist in the gut. Tilting my head, I catch her eye. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Before I lost my phone…I got a message from Ares. He’s dead, Circe. It was his death note.”

Deeper dread writhes in my stomach.

“Zeus’s message came right after that. Other hits gone awry, contacts compromised.”

My eyes widen as the scope of her statement settles over me. We’ve been betrayed. Likely by the clients who hired us. Or a mole.

Lifting Artemis again, I stumble toward the door to the stairs along the lip of the rooftop.

“Come on you lazy bitch, use your legs,” I grumble, but the humor in my voice is strained.

Art’s head lolls to the side against my shoulder, her legs tangling.

I stop to catch her, to catch my breath, and I feel the chill run up my spine. Instinct announces the presence of enemies before I see them. Six officers in full tactical gear, fanning out from cover around us.

“Run,” Artemis whispers, her voice thready and weak.

“No,” I hiss, trying to assess our odds of making the leap to the next roof. “Together, always.”

But her eyes catch mine, steel hardening.

Time slows down to a crawl as I watch her visibly force the pain down, shoving me away toward the door. My foot catches on a crack in the tiles and I pitch forward, falling. My eyes never leave her.

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