Page 64 of Martyr
She pauses in front of me. “Elodie St. Croix. I used to fight at Olympus as?—”
“Hestia.” I nod sharply as it comes back to me. She came around with her partner when Olympus was new, a fledgling operation. Hestia and… “You were a good fighter.”
She fought Elora a time or two.
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah, well.”
“How did you end up in Emerald Cove?”
Elodie curls her arms around her middle. She’s in a dark-red sweatshirt and black joggers, and she swims in the amount of fabric on her frame. There’s a green-and-yellow bruise under her jaw, and more little ones creating a ring around her throat.
“Long story,” she says after a moment. “Not worth walking down that path again. Just know it wasn’t a good one.”
“But you met Reese somewhere along the way…” I glance over my shoulder. No one followed me, and the stairwell is empty. “You haven’t talked to him yet?”
She frowns. “He’s here?”
“He said he won a fight and used his favor to get you out of your situation.” I shrug. “That’s secondhand information. I was there but I have amnesia.”
Her eyes widen. “Amnesia?”
“Weird, right?”
“The weirdest.” She huffs. “I kind of wish I had amnesia.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “Just know that this house is full of good people. You don’t have to hide out up here. For whenever you feel like getting out of that room.”
Elodie blinks rapidly and swipes at her eye. She shifts, turning away, and nods. “Thanks, Saint. I’m…”
She retreats. I watch her go, oddly at peace with that conversation. I don’t know what happened to her, but it was obviously something bad. And now she has a safe place to take refuge.
Well, as safe as you can get in a town that’s in the middle of a hostile takeover.
“Saint.”
I jump and whirl around. Artemis stands a few steps below me, her hands on the railing. Not on her hips. No accusation in her gaze. I make myself take note of that before I snap at her, which is my first instinct. There’s something wrong about her expression that I can’t put my finger on.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Her shoulders hike. “Ouranos is taking everyone off the board. The Hell Hounds, the sheriff. He tried to remove my brother and his family by stopping them from returning to Sterling Falls. But…”
I squint at her. “You have an idea.”
“Well, who’s making all the moves for him? It’s not a bunch of people—it’s one person.”
“Kade?”
She shakes her head. “No. Gabriel.”
I laugh. I have yet to have the pleasure of that psycho’s company, but I’ve heard tales from Reese. He’s been filling me in the best he can, especially over the last few days. Sure, he wasn’t around for the first gang war in Sterling Falls, and he didn’t get a front-row seat to Jace, Wolfe, and Apollo falling in love withKora. But he seems to have picked up on a lot, and he’s been telling me about what’s happenedsince.
One thing he couldn’t stress enough was that Gabriel was a bad guy.
“So, you want to kill Gabriel?”
She rears back. “What? No!”
I pause. “Then…”
