Page 7 of The Shadow Gods

Orestes glanced at Achilles before meeting my eyes. He was utterly serious. “Thousands of years locked away without their toys. I can't imagine what they've come up with in that time.” He looked over my head to Achilles again. “Maybe we hide her.”

I didn't like that idea, and I liked even less that he'd made the suggestion to Achilles, as if it didn't impact me at all. “No.” That wasn't an option. “I think we're stronger together.” I was going purely off feeling, but my gut was telling me this was the only way any of us stood a chance.

The ship blasted its horn again.

Rather than answer, Achilles pressed a button on his key fob and opened the trunk of his car. Hector took another set of keys from his pocket and handed them to Paris. A quick click of a button flashed the headlights of our new vehicle, and I couldn't help smiling.

The Volkswagen was a newer version of the retro camper van that was popular around the States. It was more streamlined and didn't look like it would tip over at the first switchback it took.

“It'll fit all of us,” Paris said, “and it's one of the most common vehicles in the EU. The seats convert into beds, and there's room for our supplies. We can travel fast.”

“Good idea,” I said as I approached it. Sliding a door open, I studied it, then glanced over my shoulder at Achilles and Pollux.

And Hector.

It was big. But it wasn't giant demigod big.

“You can sit on my lap,” Achilles called. He smiled at me, and my grin grew wider. I liked how he looked at the bright side.

It took no time to transfer the boxes and bags from the cars into the van, and while there was less space, it wasn't as bad as I’d expected. Achilles got in the driver's seat and Pollux, the passenger's. It made sense. If I stood the guys in a row, those two were definitely the biggest of these giants.

“Are you going to tell me where we're going now?” I asked.

Achilles maneuvered us into the line of traffic waiting to get on the ferry. My stomach knotted nervously as we drove over the ramp. Even with a boat this size, I could sense the back-and-forth and up-and-down movement of the ship.

Hector leaned forward and tapped the bin in front of him. “We're getting rid of this.”

Tonight?He must have seen the question on my face, because he nodded. “We're dropping one shard between here and France, and once we hit land again, we're going to smash this thing into dust.”

Hector

Leo's wide brown eyes caught and held mine. She nodded, but she clasped her hands in her lap, fingers playing nervously. “That seems easy. And logical. But why do we have to go to France to do it?”

I'd considered the same thing. While crawling under the cottage to retrieve the shards of the seal, I’d thought about smashing everything with a hammer right then and there. But some instinct warned me not to. Athena might have run off, but she wasn't far away. Before I did anything, I wanted to put some distance between us.

Leo answered the question herself before I had time to reply. “Athena.” Not seeming aware of the movement, she ran her fingers through her hair, tucking back a strand of red behind her ear. I wondered if the action had another, darker meaning now and wasn't just a nervous tell. “She could have followed us.”

“I don't think she did,” Orestes interjected. As a man who had spent much of his eternity trying to outrun immortals, this trek across the continent had been his idea. “She's licking her wounds somewhere. Trying to heal and make a plan. I don't doubt she'll find us, but she's not lurking in the shadows. Not yet.”

Leo did it again. Hands to her head, she found a curl and twisted it around her finger. “Okay.”

I glanced out the window. Achilles had stopped us behind the line of cars and shut off the van. He turned now, arm hanging over the steering wheel to stare at us. At Leo.

Two emotions warred on his face.

Need.

And worry.

In a second, he shut down the emotions, and I caught sight of the general I’d once fought. We had to push aside everything emotional when there was a goal that required our complete focus.

Turning away from him, I faced Leo. I reached for her hand, pulling it gently from where it tangled in her hair to hold between both of mine. “It's not a perfect plan, but it's the one we have right now. We're going to do the best we can to outsmart and outrun the gods. I'm not stupid enough to think we've got it all worked out. But we can do this.”

Outside the van, there was a thud as the ferry pulled away from the dock. Leo's hand clenched in mine and her face paled.

“It's the engines,” Paris told her before I could.

She nodded, but her hand turned in mine so she could interlace our fingers.

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