Page 107 of Blood of Hercules
It was a strange coincidence that all three of us had names of people on our bodies, but it didn’t make me feel closer to them. If anything, it highlighted the different worlds we came from.
Charlie was a human.
He was homeless.
In a cardboard box, lonely, probably missing me like I was missing him.
I was dealing with billionaires who couldn’t die.
Achilles made a scoffing noise and turned forward.
I’m never speaking aloud ever again. It’s really not worth it.
I followed them both down a narrow hall.
The ceilings were low, and the floor was a rich walnut color that reflected the sparkling sunlight through arched windows. We entered a sprawling rustic kitchen that had an expansive glassless window overlooking the turquoise sea.
I’d never known a house could be so pretty.
At a wood counter, a young woman in an apron was putting chopped fruit into a bowl. She smiled coyly at the men, looked at me curiously, then hurried out of the room.
Warm aromas filled the air; piles of foods that I didn’t recognize were spread across a long stone table. I blinked, but the spectacular feast didn’t disappear.
I wanted to cry.
On the other side of the world, Charlie was counting food vouchers and rationing a single box of cereal over weeks. He was lying awake under a tarp, trying to ignore the gnawing sensation of constant starvation.
But here I was, standing in front of enough food to feed a village.
Eat the rich.
There was no justice in our Titan infested world.
“You need to consume as much as possible to fuel yourself for the next two weeks of starvation,” Patro said as he and Achilles sat down and served themselves in a casual display of gluttony.
Head dizzy, aching limbs tingling like I was having an out-of-body experience, I hobbled slowly across the room.
A muffled noise on my left side made me jump.
Another young woman was smiling, cleaning the floor where I walked. She frowned at me, like she was waiting for a response, but before I could figure out what to do, she hurried away with her bloody mop.
I sat down at the table next to the men (fell toward a seat and somehow landed in it).
All thoughts left my brain as my hunger took over, and I shoveled food into my mouth as fast as I could as I tried to consume every delicious?—
I blinked.
Time shifted.
Stomach churning, I hugged a garbage bin in the corner of the kitchen and wretched into it. Tears streamed down my face. Someone said something, but I couldn’t hear.
I’dnevereaten a big meal before, and my stomach punished me for it.
Eventually, I made it back to the table.
Light-headed, queasy, unwell, exhausted, depressed, and catatonic—exactly how I’d felt after the one gym class I’d attended in high school—I stared at the food.
With shaking fingers, I grabbed a small purple fruit and chewed on it slowly.
