21/365

  Olympus News was busy running its third segment on how great it would be to make friends with the aliens that nearly killed Rylee by the time Bianca got her mug of watered-down cocoa. The boxy TV above the counter was nearly silent, and the handful of people in the store barely paid any attention to it. Except Bianca, who kept her fingers tightly curled around the metal mug, chewing on the edge of her tongue so hard she was pretty close to tasting blood. She’s barely been gone for a month, and now they're telling everyone how awesome it would be for Earth to make friends with genocidal maniacs? Where the fuck is there backbone? They threatened Earth, and we want to go up there and shake their hand? Fine, sure, let's go kiss their asses, I bet they'll like that too.

  "We might as well make a big red Welcome to Earth sign so the freaking alien empire doesn't miss us," she muttered to herself.

  Bianca tried to unclench her jaw before she cracked a tooth. Maybe she was just tired. Yeah, that’s what it probably was. Sleep deprived and hungry and just a little bit pissed off that the president had all but vanished when America needed answers. But hey, his bunker must be really cozy if nobody's seen his face in weeks. Just the same White House press officer week in, week out, telling America not to panic, the president has everything under control. Let's focus on the real problems, the ones here on home soil: undocumented superhumans, now that's a problem we all need to focus on right now.

  She sipped her cocoa. It tasted like shit. The barister flatly smiled at her as she walked past, and Bianca gave her a thumbs up and a smile, too.

  Candidate Rivers, though, was taking her chance, all motherly and proud with that big white smile and those sparkling green eyes, was on every screen, in front of every microphone, answering questions the White House said were ‘inappropriate at this time.’ Yeah, sure, whatever the hell that meant. She was a superhuman, and probably the first one in office if another election was ever gonna happen. Bianca wasn’t big on politics, but she was big on Rylee. Turns out those two things weren’t mutually exclusive.

  Heck, Miss Rivers was wearing a tiny golden lightning bolt pin on her pantsuit collar in every single photo since the attack. She’d raise her fist and chant about wanting answers, about following Olympia’s lead and not giving up, even if the system is working against everyone. About being rebels. About fighting against the machine and going against the grain and toeing the line and just about every metaphor she could find in a book. Bianca almost rolled her eyes into the back of her skull when—surprise, surprise—Olympus News’ special guest for this segment was none other than Candidate Rivers herself, this time in a red and blue pantsuit, golden pin glinting on her collar as she strode onto the set.

  Earrings, too. Rivers carefully flipped her hair, perfectly practiced, revealing the tiny golden bolts. Compliments. Quietly gasped controvery. She's such a rebel, they'll say. She's got my vote.

  Bianca wanted to be sick.

  The metal bent between her fingers the harder she held the metal mug.

  Where was all of this when Ry was still here?

  “Propaganda, best served hot and American,” Carson grunted, sitting down with a plate stacked with salted bagels and a mug of steaming black coffee. He rubbed his hands together, paused, then slid the plate across to her.

  “Not hungry,” she said, peeling her eyes off the TV and looking at him. Not anymore, at least.

  She was starting to get confused on what being full actually meant these days, because when the worms were hungry, she was starving, sometimes salivating at roadkill like some wolf that hadn’t eaten in months. But as soon as the worms had filled the lioness, she suddenly wasn’t famished anymore. The only reason she wanted cocoa right now was because, well, why not? Cocoa was sweet, perfect, and washed the taste of blood and flesh out of her mouth.

  But she didn’t want it. She was drinking it because that’s what Old Bianca would be doing right now. This time last year, she would’ve been in bed, checking her phone again and again, wondering why Rylee wasn’t online.

  I guess some things don’t change.

  “Suit yourself,” Carson said, ripping a chunk out of a bagel and gingerly sipping on the coffee. He chewed and nodded and licked his fingers for a while, pointedly ignoring her and the news segment for five minutes until the plate was empty and he was picking bits of bread out of his teeth with a toothpick he pulled from his pocket. Carson was weird, very weird—he was always smiling, always looking but never searching, like he was amused by something that was only vaguely interesting. “So,” he said. “Journalism major, huh?”

  Bianca frowned. “I hadn’t picked yet because, you know, I’d been there for a couple weeks before…”

  Well, before everything.

  “Yeah, but…” Another shrug. “You strike me like a journalism kid. You’re athletic, don’t get me wrong: high school gold medalist, captain of your track team—pretty goddamned impressive. I was a book worm around your age. The scrawny geek who’d hide in the bathrooms because he was scared the football players would stuff him inside of his locker.” He grinned like he was expecting her to laugh. Bianca just looked concerned. He cleared his throat, then said, “Well, anyway—journalism. You like finding stuff out, right? Plus you’re a good kid. We need people like that running our stories, because God knows the reporters scuttling around these days just want a scoop and a click and at least a little bit of attention. Personally? I think you’d make a pretty damned good journalist.”

  “When the world is done ending, I’ll talk to my mom about declaring it,” she said. “Now talk. Please?”

  He sighed, drummed his fingers against the table. There weren’t a lot of people in this coffee shop, mostly because it had gotten smashed during the incident and just re-opened, and she figured not everyone was in the mood for a late-night chat and some store-bought bagels. The street outside was still getting flattened and re-paved, and Bianca didn’t want to think smears of Rylee’s blood were still on the gravel they were smashing apart and putting back down. There was something poetic there, putting her blood into the foundation of this city.

  But Bianca wasn’t really in the mood to play poet right now.

  “Alright,” he said. “What do you wanna know? Three questions for three questions.”

  “First,” Bianca said, pushing aside the cocoa. “Why didn’t you save Katie?”

  Carson stopped drumming his fingers on the wood. He chewed his lip, then said, “Wasn’t my job.” Bianca sat back and nodded, ice spreading through her veins. “Look,” he sighed. “My job? My assignment? It’s to watch you. Not to interfere, but to watch you. It’s not like I want to see the people around you get hurt, but it’s not my—”

  “Problem?” Bianca asked quietly.

  “No,” he said softly. “My listing. We get lists of what we can and cannot do, and fighting your fights isn’t part of those things. Besides, kid, I…” He sighed, then massaged his brow. “I can see how you’re staring at me, and it’s killing me, kid.” Bianca folded her arms. “Silent treatment too,” he muttered. “I didn’t want to see her die. But Katie Clear was an…international problem. My handlers don’t give us much to work with, but a lot of people were saying they wanted her gone.” Bianca’s jaw tightened. She tried her best not to sink her fingernails into her bicep. “Maybe…I dunno. Maybe they wanted to have an easier path to you, because tell you what, kid, she was one hell of a pain in my ass. When she was around you, it was almost impossible to get close.” Another small shrug. “I guess the people above me wanted an easier time watching you, and with her gone, they finally got what they wanted.”

  Bianca nodded, head barely moving. “Right,” she whispered. "And they're the good guys?"

  Carson was silent for a moment, then quietly said, "Sure, yeah, we can call them that."

  Silence. Icy wind made the plastic tarps on the windows rustle and whisper.

  Carson sat up a little more. “My turn,” he said, threading his fingers. “Where is Sophie Blackwood?”

  She blinked, staring past him, outside the window covered in flapping plastic tarp. Then she put her face in her hands, took a deep breath, and made her entire body shudder when she slowly breathed out. “I… If…”

  “Bianca?” Carson said gently.

  “What are you, some fucking robot?” she said to the table, face pressed into her palms.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Is that all you do, follow orders, like some…some kind of dog?” She looked up at him, eyes suddenly burning, throat suddenly hot. “So what if Katie was a pain? She was protecting me, protecting me from people like you for all I fucking know. Then you just watched someone you know I care about get killed because your bosses said so? What the fuck is wrong with you?” She was breathing hard. Carson, suddenly, wasn’t smiling. “Well?”

  His jaw went tight. “Good soldiers follow orders.”

  She scoffed and said, “Don’t give me that shit. My dad—”

  “I know,” he said softly, then sighed. “I know about your dad. Bianca, it’s complicated. The world isn’t black and white. Trust me, I had that same naive optimism in my veins at your age, too, but things get complicated, and it gets beaten out of you. Katie Clear almost killed me three times in the space of a week during your final year of high school. She hated my guts so much I think she enjoyed not killing me because she knew it would leave us all a little more alert. Katie Clear wasn’t good to a lot of people. Her files are heavily redacted, top-level shit, you know how it is—but she changed. Suddenly. Especially when she met your brother. We already had an interest in him, mostly because Shrike had another kid in his shadow again, and we all know how great it goes when kids are forged into weapons for wars they don’t understand. Katie turning into a force of neutral good was…news to us. Good news. But after your brother’s death, things changed. I guess my bosses must’ve thought she’d go hunting.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Hunting?” she asked, trying her best to keep her voice level, trying to suffocate the emotion in her throat.

  “Bounty hunting, head hunting, spree killing.” He shook his head. “The Talon. The Order. Fuck, I can spit names at you all day long about the number of people who wanted her dead but were too afraid to actually do it. If she wanted someone dead, she would’ve done it. Love and hate are righteous things, and we expected her to carve a path right toward the devil to get her revenge, but for some reason, she didn’t. She chose to play mother hen with you instead, which, thank fuck.” Carson laughed briefly, sounding more like a grunt. “That would’ve been hell trying to get her to stop murdering people. That girl was a force of goddamned nature.”

  “Katie promised Ben she’d watch over me,” Bianca said quietly. “I guess that’s why she didn’t.”

  “Figures,” he said. “I’m surprised you don’t visit her grave more. You seem like the sentimental kind.”

  “Empty,” she said, rubbing her eyes on her sleeve. “There’s nothing in the dirt to feel sentimental about.”

  Carson frowned. “The casket is empty?”

  Bianca nodded. “Don’t you know that?”

  He pushed a hand through his hair, then cursed. “Holy shit. Hoooly shit. Fuck.” He went for his phone, paused, and to Bianca’s surprise, threw it as hard as he could through the plastic tarp on the window frame. She watched it smash into the pavement and scatter across the street. Bianca pushed away from him a little more. A bored-looking waitress sighed and didn’t bother looking up from her magazine. He leaned forward and stared at her. “Bianca, if you’re being grim and making a bad joke, I need you to stop and tell me the truth.”

  “What’s the joke about my big sister dying in my arms?”

  Carson nodded slowly, then nodded some more and leaned back. “Well, that changes things.”

  “Changes what?”

  “Things. A lot of things.”

  “That’s not a good—”

  “My turn,” he said. “Sophie Blackwood, where is she?”

  “Hold on,” Bianca said. “What do you mean changes things? Is Katie not— Is she—”

  Her therapist told her not to hold onto this kind of hope, because it wasn’t real, and it wasn’t tangible, and hope, a lot of the time, was a very addictive kind of poison that could rot you hollow from the inside out. But if…

  “I don’t know,” Carson said. “Maybe the Talon grabbed her body. That’s what we figured. Or you buried her, or one of your superhero buddies like Olympia brought her back to you. Like I said, I don’t get paid to ask questions. I get paid to nod and tap dance and watch teenagers fail their damned history quizzes.” Bianca didn’t know how to feel about that last part. Carson massaged his face, then finally said, “Alright. Well, I guess that’s something special. I’ll ask around and see what I can find out about her body and get back to you soon.”

  Bianca’s eyebrows rose. “You’d do that? Actually?”

  Hope, there it was again, bursting into her veins, hot and excitable and deadly.

  He shrugged. “Sure. If it means you can answer my three questions.”

  “Oh, right,” she said. Then shook her head. “She’s, um… She’s…” Fuck. Where was she again?

  Bianca nibbled her thumbnail, tasting gristle and dried blood. She raked her memory and massaged her temples, but the last few days were a dizzying blur. Memory. Blank. Memory. Blank. Arguing with her mom, storming out of the house, meeting up with Harper and Victoria. Blank. Lower Olympus, vomiting in an alleyway. Blank. Running for her life, meeting Ruslana. Blank. The Witch with no eyes. Blank. The port and the woman with the loose Olympia costume asking her to join their church or sisterhood or something. Blank The fight with the Pride. Blank. Saving those people. Making sure the Golden Fist took care of them, even though Ru wanted her to lie down before the shard of wood in her stomach made her pass out from blood loss. Blank. And then the subway, just a few hours ago. Blank. Blank. Blank. It was a weird patchwork of violence and sound, of weird, jumbled alleyways and Ru looking at her curiously, and then the Witch’s dark eyes staring at her as she smiled, and the cat—the little black cat that would sniff her toes and curl around her legs and sit on her lap when she was in the Witch’s cramped, stuffy apartment. But nothing at all about the clone.

  Just hatred. Just this sudden, overwhelming urge to find it again and choke it even harder again.

  Again? I choked her once already?

  Bianca looked at her fingers, seeing new callouses, new scars, new cuts darkened with dry blood she hadn’t realized was even there. She’d never been big on makeup and hairstyles, but she painted her nails pink or purple, liked going for manicures with Harper because it was relaxing, and now look at them, bruised and dark and trembling.

  She’d be washing her hands for weeks when she finally got home.

  Kinda like Ben used to do. Sometimes so hard he’d leave blood on the bathroom floor.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, then looked at Carson. “I can’t remember.”

  “What do you mean you can’t remember?” he asked. “It was a few days ago.”

  “It’s the things inside me, the worms,” she said. “I haven’t been myself the last few weeks.”

  Bianca, Part Two, now under the fed’s curious eyes.

  “Huh,” Carson said quietly. “Well, that’s no good.”

  “But she’s alive, I know that much.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I…I don’t know,” Bianca said. “All I know is that it feels like I didn’t, you know…kill her.”

  “Does it feel like you killed Rebecca Freeman?”

  The question came flat and hard, almost like he’d punched her in the gut.

  She shifted in her seat, making it creak, suddenly uncomfortable. “She’s not dead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Bianca nodded. “Clones, Kaiju…they’re different. Not really people, y’know?”

  “Mm,” was all he hummed, folding his arms, observing her carefully.

  “Rebecca was my aunt,” she said. “I don’t kill people. Especially not the ones I care about.”

  God, it sounded so weird saying that out loud. But the waitress didn’t seem to care.

  And neither did Carson as he nodded and said, “I believe you on that. But Rebecca isn’t exactly a fun, friendly, foreign aunt either. Spec ops head-hunter. Asset until she wasn’t and then some.” He rolled his hand. “But who am I to judge? We’re not all angels in this industry, not even Zeus. That’s my three. Ask your two now, kid.”

  “Rylee…Olympia,” Bianca said. “Is she…?”

  He blew a rather rude raspberry in her face. “No idea. We’re not allowed to get close to her. That day of the attack, when you two were together? I was pulled from your detail because she’s classified as a high-threat risk.”

  “Rylee?” Bianca asked, laughing a little. “Rylee, a high-threat risk? Yeah, sure, to bad people.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “If she found out some stranger was stalking you, what do you think she’d do to me? Hug me? High-five me for keeping you safe? Kid, she’d squeeze me like a juice box until I spilled the beans of this whole operation, and then everyone’s fucked. I don’t think anyone realizes just how much that girl means to a lot of people and a lot of agencies around the world. Heck, we’ve got foreign interest groups ready and willing to pour a cool couple hundred million dollars into her pocket, give her a swanky new costume, high-tech as hell, make her a rockstar the likes we've never even seen before, and give her a freaking headquarters—only if she works for them and wears their leash, which is probably never gonna happen. That’s why I need to know where Sophie is, because Sophie isn’t Olympia, and she’s very capable of following orders and not thinking twice about the consequences, because she’s been trained to not think about them by her maker. A lot of people might not like Olympia, but she’s the good option, because I’d rather a nuke that can think than a nuke that throws itself around all willy-nilly, not giving a fuck about the countries it can cripple.”

  “Right,” Bianca said, scratching the back of her hand. “Now I get you.”

  “Last question?” Carson sipped the remnants out of his mug.

  “What’s gonna happen now?” Bianca asked.

  “To you? Nothing much changes. I’ll head back and tell ‘em what they need to know and only that, because I get paid to talk, not to explain.” Bianca almost smiled. “And then…I don’t know, ask a few questions for you? Risk my career because some kid asked me to?” He shrugged again. She was pretty sure it was some kind of tick. “I’m trying to be nicer this year, that’s my resolution. And then I’m gonna pretend this conversation didn’t happen for my sake and try to locate Rebecca and Sophie, then go back to wearing my snug government leash.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Mean it like that?” He smiled. “I know, kid. I’m fuckin’ with you. This job isn’t great all the time, and it’s better that you just don’t think about it sometimes, or else you end up blowing your brains out in some cold little apartment not even your wife knows about.” There wasn’t a ring on his finger, just the mark of one that used to be there. “As for the world…” He sighed, just as the news segment came to an end. Carson stood up the same time as Miss Rivers did, except she was getting applause and nodding, tight smiles for raising her fist the same way Rylee did, pin shining under the harsh white studio lights. And Carson, flipping through dollars in his wallet, put them on the table, then handed her a card. Basic and white, with only a phone number on the back. “We’ll see about the world. But hell, if you believe in your girlfriend, then why shouldn’t I? Since I’m technically always with you, y’know?”

  Her cheeks burned. “Girlfriend?” she stammered. “No, we’re not— We cuddled once. By accident.”

  Carson pocketed his hands and, of course, shrugged. “The world is ending, Bianca. Fall in love. Save lives. Don’t stop doing the right thing, even if it hurts. And if you ever need a hand, just call Carson.”

  With that, he drummed his fingers on the table, spun on his heels, told the waitress she was gorgeous, and then Bianca stood up, making him pause at the door. “Wait,” she said. “Lucian, you never told me where he was.”

  “Oh, that. Right.” He smiled. “He’s close. Not watching you every day, close. But close.”

  “How close?” she said, tongue dry.

  Searching, the worms said, hissing in her head. Searching. The devil is searching for you.

  “Not close enough,” Carson said. “Olympia might not be here, but trust me, if Lucian so much as knotted your shoe laces and made you trip, there’d be hell to pay for the guy who made Lower Olympus into the tartarus pit it already is. He acts tough, but he's scared of your girl.”

  “But what if he comes?” she asked, hands flat on the table. “I can’t fight him, not like this.”

  “Ah, you’ll be fine,” he said, waving his hand. “He had enough trouble with Ben, and Ben was a lot more sane than you, no offence.” She didn’t know about not feeling offended about that. “Lucian won’t get close enough to hurt you, or your family. Like I said, he’s an Old Money Villain. Be smart. Keep your eyes out. Your mom and dad are safe as they are, but sleep with your light on in case you hear something go bump in the night. And hey, kid?”

  “Yeah?”

  Carson nodded at her. “Good job at the river today. You saved a lot of innocent people.”

  “It’s what Ben would’ve done, so…”

  “Nah,” he said. “It’s what you do. Give yourself a little credit, you’ve earned it. See you ‘round, hero.”

  He left, the tiny, bent bell above the door ringing as Carson softly whistled into the quiet night.

  The waitress looked up from her magazine, eyed Bianca, and asked, “You’re dating Olympia?”

  Bianca quickly shook her head. “No. Maybe. Not really. It’s…weird. And complicated. Please don’t—”

  “Tell anyone?” she muttered, flipping the magazine. “The world is ending, who gives a fuck about who you kiss?” She snorted and changed the news to some decade old superhero soap opera. “Gonna tip me?”

  Bianca smiled and handed her the wad of cash Carson left behind. She stuffed it into her bra and nodded once at her, and then Bianca caught a glimpse of her handbag, perched on the shelf behind her, with a lightning bolt button pinned to it. The waitress glanced at her bag, then at Bianca, and gave her a weird, cautious look.

  Because this was New Olympus, who wasn’t cautious of anyone and everyone?

  “Do you have any more of those?” Bianca asked her. “Those golden lightning bolt buttons?”

  “Gonna cost you.”

  “But I already tipped you everything I had.”

  She pulled out her phone. “Take a picture with me so I’ve got bragging rights in the future when you and Goldie finally go public.” Bianca’s face hadn’t flushed that quickly in months. The woman grinned. “Whaddya say?”

  Bianca left the coffee shop a few minutes later, the tiny golden button pinned to her chest, heart firmly in her throat.