I’ve found her. My Boon. My prize. My destiny. Just waiting here to be plucked, like an asphodel blossom. With the gate, pulsing with life, only a few yards away, at that. This couldn’t be more perfect.
An idea strikes me like an arrow hitting a bull’s-eye. Why wait six months to do what I can accomplish right now?
I could be the fastest-returning Champion in the history of the Underrealm. Surely that would warrant glory and honor like no one has received before me. Rowan could not call me a failure again. My father would not look at me as though I am a disgrace.
But at the back of my mind, a worry pulls at me, making me wonder if the situation is too good to be believed. Why would Dax implore me to be patient if my quest were this easy to accomplish? I hesitate for a moment.…
No, I must act.
I reach for the girl’s hand. “Will you come with me?”
She pulls away. “Um, no.”
“I need you to come with me,” I implore.
“I need to leave,” she says quickly, hitching up the long object she’d been strumming on a few moments before. It did not seem dangerous then, but now she holds it as if it can be used as a weapon.
It doesn’t frighten me.
“Say you’ll come with me.” She has to say it. I know that from the Oracle’s instructions. She has to go willingly. I need to convince her. I advance toward her. I can be persuasive like Rowan. “You have to say you’ll come.”
“Get away from me, perv!” She backs away. “Creep!”
I reach out again, trying to clasp her wrist. Electricity surges into my arm, and before I can stop it, a spark of lightning escapes my fingers. She yelps with pain and twists out of my grasp. I reach for her again, and her fist—thankfully not the one holding the wooden object—goes flying at my face. I am so surprised by the action that I don’t have time to block the blow before she punches me. Hard. In the jaw. I stop, completely stunned, and clasp my hand to my face. I’m not injured. It would take more than her small hands to hurt me. But I am still shocked. I did not know Boons are capable of violence.
I don’t regain my composure quickly enough to stop the girl from getting away. She grabs an object, which I recall from Simon’s monologue is called a bicycle. She glances back at me as she flees, fear dancing in her blue eyes.
chapter twelve
DAPHNE
My hand hurts from punching him, but it’s caused enough of a diversion for me to get away. I run for my bicycle, realizing that I don’t have time to stop for my tote bag or guitar case, but I won’t leave Gibby behind. I sling her over my back, with her strap resting against my chest, and jump onto my bike. I glance back at the stranger, and then pedal as fast as I can from the grove.
Gravel spits out from under my tires as I hit the narrow trail that leads from the grove to the bridge. I don’t know if he follows, and I don’t stop to check. I cross the bridge that connects the grove’s island to the paved jogging paths that surround the lake, and keep on going.
I careen down the trail, gaining speed, putting as much distance between me and the stranger as possible. I don’t see the girl until it’s too late. I try to stop, but the brakes on my vintage bike are old and I don’t normally ride this fast. I try to skid around her just as she looks up and counters in the wrong direction. I clip her elbow with one of my handlebars.
“Ouch!” she shouts and tries to push me.
“Sorry!” I swerve away from her, and it takes all my balance to stay upright as my bike keeps skidding along the path. I glance back at her once I’ve regained control.
“You’re such a freak!” she yells when she sees me looking. She clasps at her scraped elbow and starts jogging up the trail despite the fact that she’s wearing a miniskirt with pink and silver wedge platform sandals. Hardly the right outfit for a run.
That strange boy is nowhere to be seen, but I still don’t stop for anything until I get to the school.
chapter thirteen
HADEN
I could have caught her easily. But it is the fear that I saw in her eyes that stops me. Makes me realize my grave mistake.
I have done it again.
I’ve acted without thinking.
I have been here for fewer than twenty-four hours, and I have already erred in the most terrible of ways. If Rowan were here, he would delight in telling me that I have no idea of what I am doing. That I am failing before I even get started.
She fears me now, instead of trusting me.
Another pulse of energy swells in my chest. I grab the branch of the nearest tree. I squeeze the energy into it until the branch disintegrates. The ash slips through my fingers.
I am fighting the urge to fall to my knees and send up a prayer to plead for forgiveness from the Fates, when I hear the crackle of footfalls on the forest floor. A low hiss echoes through the grove. Someone else is coming. I can’t afford to be seen. I can’t afford to make another mistake. I pick up one of the items that the girl left behind, then slip behind the partially burned tree.
I disappear into the shadows.
chapter fourteen
DAPHNE
My legs shake from riding so hard as I roll my cruiser into one of the slots of the bike rack. My voice warbles when I try to whisper to myself to calm down.
“I’m okay. Nothing bad happened. Not really.”
But the question I can’t get out of my mind: where did he want me to go with him?
As if.
I might have been dumb for talking to him in the first place. But I’m not a complete idiot. I’d never follow some creep into the woods.
I try to tell myself to calm down, but my voice warbles and I can’t help thinking about all those “stranger danger” lectures my mom used to drill into me as a kid—like how if I ever encountered something weird or dangerous, or if someone I didn’t know tried to get me to go somewhere with him, I should run away and find someone trustworthy to tell.
But who would I even tell in this particular situation? Joe? He’s the last person I’d confide in. I’d feel stupid going to the police—nothing had exactly happened. Maybe this is a job for the security guards at the main entrance into Olympus Hills? They should be responsible for whatever weirdos they let through the gates.
But I imagine trying to explain what happened and it coming out all wrong: an attractive guy, wearing tight black clothes, with long rough-cut hair, looking like he’d wandered off the set of a pirate movie, talked to me about my singing and then asked me to go somewhere with him? Yeah, the guards would probably say that he was just trying to hit on me.
Maybe I had completely misread the situation?
CeCe always teased me about how I have no idea when guys are flirting with me. She said it’s because I’ve got a wall around me that’s a mile high, so I’m either completely oblivious when guys try to flirt or I think they’re trying to make fun of me.
I’m not here to create amusement.…
That’s what the guy in the grove had said when I accused him of making fun of my singing. It was such a weird thing to say. Maybe he’s even more socially inept when it comes to the opposite sex than I am?
But any idiot should know that you don’t go around trying to grab a girl’s arm like that.
And social awkwardness doesn’t explain his eerie, fiery eyes, or the strange heat that seemed to be radiating off his skin. It had actually hurt when he had tried to touch my arm.
I look down at my wrist. My skin stings, and there are four red marks on my arm. They’re long and thin, like the shape of fingers. Right where the guy had touched my skin.