Page 5

While Reese watches over Artemis, I am holding vigil at Antonio’s bedside.

He hovered the line between life and death for too long, but six days and two surgeries later, his doctors are optimistic. His wife, who has remained at his side the entire time, finally agreed to go home for a few hours. She deserves a shower and a hot meal.

His kids have come home, too. I know I’m a terrible person, but I can’t remember any of their names. They all look alike, even though there are a few years between all of them. One, who I want to guess is named Anna, is asleep in the chair on his other side.

We’re waiting for him to wake up and tell us his side of the story.

Another development: Kade has disappeared.

It’s not surprising. What Reese and I overheard is essentially that he and Gabriel have been working together.

They’re both part of this gang that has moved into West Falls and made our lives hell.

Once Anna—shit, or is it Hannah?—stirs, I tell her I’m going to step out for some fresh air. Outside, I make a call to Jace King.

He’s a pain in my ass. He clocked my angry, self-destructive tendencies early on after the love of my life died, and he essentially ordered me to move in with Artemis. She was asked, but it was with full expectation of her saying yes.

It was a kindness, I think. It was meant to be.

But fuck, living with someone else immediately following her death hurt. I resented Tem to the fullest extent and made her miserable. In my head, we all deserved it. We let Elora die.

It’s unfair. I see that now.

Every barb thrown in Tem’s direction comes back to needle at me. I haunted her, unaware that she’s been haunted by Terror for a decade.

I’m an asshole.

Jace answers my call on the third ring, and I run my hand down my face. When I called Antonio’s wife, Vittoria was a mess. When I called Apollo…

Jace and Wolfe had to drag him out of the room she’s in with Reese. He wanted her about as far away from him as possible, convinced he was the reason she wouldn’t wake up.

Reminding Tem’s brother that Reese was literally in the same position didn’t help.

“Any update?” Jace asks.

“Not really.”

“Yes or no,” he says. “Apollo is glaring at me. Is she awake?”

Guilt strikes a chord in my chest. I should’ve popped into their room—it’s right down the hall from Antonio’s. Strings were pulled to get them on the same floor. But I went in the opposite direction, unable to bear seeing her unconscious.

“I haven’t heard if there’s been a change,” I settle on. “You are aware of the Cyclopes, right?”

He grunts, which is a poor affirmation.

“What are you doing about them?”

“At the moment? Nothing.”

“Why—”

“We can’t find them.”

I stop and cock my head. “What do you mean, you can’t find them?”

My attention goes to the street across the lawn. It must be the lunch hour, with the sun high overhead, because there seems to be an unordinary amount of traffic. The cars rush by. Do they know how many sick people are in this hospital at any given moment? Do they give a shit?

“We went to look for the roadblocks the past few nights, but there’s nothing. No patrol either. It’s not that I don’t believe you—I do. Sincerely. But even Madness seems to be running straight-laced. We went in and asked for Gabriel, and the bartender didn’t blink an eye.”

Quite the different reaction to when I asked for him…

Although when I replay it, the bartender glanced at Kade first.

Because Kade is connected to the bar, too.

“Find them,” I snap. “For fuck’s sake, man. I don’t think Artemis is going to wake up?—”

“Don’t say that.” Apollo’s voice fills the line. “Don’t fucking say that about my sister, asshole. She’s stronger than anyone I know?—”

“I know that,” I grit out.

I know it and I don’t have much hope either.

“Just keep looking.”

“One more thing,” Jace adds. “We need to go to Emerald Cove for a few days.”

I wait for the punch line.

“It was the favor to Reese,” he hurries to add. “And listen, I know he’s the last person we should be helping, but I figure some goodwill for Reese Avery might go toward finding Kade. And finding Kade…”

“Would mean finding Gabriel,” I finish. Finding Gabriel would put us a step closer to waking up Artemis.

The night the three of us went to Olympus—me, Tem, and Reese—Apollo and I kind of goaded Reese into fighting Kade. It wasn’t completely intentional. But then Reese won. As a prize for winning your fight at Olympus, you can ask a favor of the gods.

He asked for their help extracting an old friend from Emerald Cove.

I still don’t know who they’re looking for. I didn’t see the paperwork Reese handed to them that night, and we got a little distracted from asking questions.

And even as I consider asking now, I can’t get the words out.

It’s not my problem.

“Apollo is staying?” I clarify.

“No.”

“While Artemis?—”

“You’re going to call us with any changes,” Jace says smoothly. “You’re as much her family as we are. Okay, Saint? Can you manage that?”

This is another test, and I fume silently for a long moment. Then I spit out an affirmative and hang up on them. I don’t need another test. I’m sick of them.

I backtrack into the hospital and stop into Reese and Artemis’s room. Reese is awake.

Artemis is not.

He brightens a little when he sees me, struggling to sit up straighter.

I take the chair between their beds, positioning it so I can see both of them.

She’s by the window. It creates least one layer of protection if no one else is in the room—they’d have to get past Reese, first. Which might not be the best benchmark because of his recent injuries.

Still. Better than nothing.

“How is she?”

“Sweating,” he replies. “I don’t know why.”

I go over and touch her skin, shocked at how clammy it is. “This isn’t normal.”

“Her vitals…”

“Are low,” I finish. “That’s low, right?”

He shrugs, then motions to the board. “They’ve been giving her some medicine every few hours, and I think it’s almost time again.”

We’ve been here for six days, and nothing has changed. The blood tests they ran immediately showed normal results, which was the most perplexing part of this whole thing.

How can they not detect the drug that’s holding her mind hostage?

They even compared her results to Reese’s, with no luck.

I hit the call button beside her hand—in case she miraculously wakes and needs help—and brush her hair off her forehead. A light film of cool sweat has collected there, dampening the strands.

A nurse arrives a few minutes later. She checks Artemis over, frowning, and agrees to give her the meds now instead of waiting. She disappears outside to retrieve it and comes back with two syringes. She snaps on gloves, and I scan the board. It only has one medication listed.

“What are you giving her?” I ask.

“An anti-inflammatory.”

“And the second?”

Reese sits up, now watching her, too.

“Just glucose,” she murmurs. “It’s to make sure her levels stay consistent.”

“That would be on her board, wouldn’t it?” Reese narrows his eyes. “Maybe you should wait.”

The nurse shakes her head and inserts the needle into the IV tube. We watch the amber liquid make its way down and into Artemis.

Something is off, though. My gut twists, and I take a step forward.

I grab her wrist.

She stares up at me in shock, fingers freezing.

“Saint,” Reese warns. “What?—”

“Tell me honestly,” I say in a low voice. “Before I break your fucking wrist.”

Her lips part, and then her grip on the syringe tightens. She pushes the plunger down and yanks away from me. She’s gone before I can try to hold her back, but my attention is already shifting to Artemis.

The drug enters her system, and her body tenses. Her back arches.

“That’s not normal.” Reese jumps out of bed, practically falling to her side. He holds the rails erected on either side of her bed, leaning on them, and stares at her face.

The faint furrow between her brows smooths out.

He reaches over for the syringe. There’s still a few drops left, which he swipes from the needle. Totally not sanitary—and neither is licking the liquid.

“What the fuck?” I snatch it back and toss it in the sharps container.

He rolls his eyes at me, then frowns. “It’s heroin.”

I stop.

What?

“They—”

“How many times has that nurse been in here?” I demand. “And how the fuck do you know what it tastes like?”

He flushes, then shakes his head. Guilt flashes in his expression for a moment, then is swiftly overtaken by anger. He turns and leaves me standing there. He limps out of the room. A minute later, he reappears with a nurse.

A different one, luckily.

If I see the original one, I’m going to kill her.

She has something in her hand, and she looks from me to him questioningly. Obviously she’s confused. There’s been little to no explanation. Artemis was admitted unconscious. It’s not like she walked in off the street having an overdose.

“Give it to her,” Reese demands. “Or give it to me and I’ll do it.”

I step away from the bed to give her room, but the urge to flatten myself on top of Artemis and protect her from this shit is hard to ignore. My instinct roars at me that this is my fault.

I should’ve let Antonio’s family watch him—I should’ve been here to question what they were giving her sooner.

The nurse presses a tube to Tem’s nose and pushes a plunger. She steps back, eyeing us like we’re about to pounce on her.

“What was that?” I demand.

Reese sighs. “It’s Naloxone. It reverses narcotic overdoses.”

It’s easy to connect the dots—he thinks Tem has been given enough heroin to keep her unconscious? That that is why?—

“It didn’t show up on the bloodwork,” I argue. “And you tasted a drop of it, but are you an expert on opioids?”

He scowls. “Just trust me.”

Right.

“As for the bloodwork—I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t what they originally gave her.” He throws his hands up. “If it works, we’ll find out in a minute.”

“And if it didn’t work, we’ll have gotten our hopes up and berated a nurse for no fucking reason.”

“Well—”

A low groan from the bed stops our bickering.

Holy shit.

It worked.