From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(102)

She sat down in the hospital chair and dug through his bag until she found the blue notebook. She held it up, and he nodded.

“Open it.”

Josie did as she’d been told and looked up at him, astonished when she saw her name at the top of what looked like a letter.

“Read it.”

And so, she did.



Josie,

I’ve written and rewritten this letter a hundred times and fifty ways, but the words have never been right. I’ll never do my heart justice, but know that’s just where these words are from.

I remember the first time I saw you. It was summertime, and you were walking with Anne down the sidewalk outside of the station. I don’t know what it was that made me stop, that stopped my breath and heart and time itself. Maybe it was magic. Maybe it was fate. But I knew right then that I would love you.

I’ve thought about you every day, wondered if I’d ever see you again, wondered if you’d ever forgive me as life passed by around me. I was a thousand miles away, far from anything that would remind me of you, but I found you everywhere. I’d see you at a restaurant or walking down the street. I’d hear a song or catch a scent, and you were there.

I thought I would get over you, but in all truth, I think I grew to love you more.

I hoped I could get a second chance, though it’s the last thing you want. But I can’t give up, not until you understand I never meant to hurt you. I need you to know that all I’ve ever wanted was to give you everything, myself included.

Because I love you, Jo. I’ll love you until I take my last breath.

—Jon



Josie set the notebook down and looked up at him from behind her tears, his eyes so full of love and longing that it stole her breath. She moved to sit next to him, to brush his hair from his face and trace the line of his jaw, so strong and covered with stubble.

When she cupped his cheek, he leaned into her hand.

“I’ve been a fool,” she said softly, quietly, the words touched with regret.

He reached for her face, mirroring her. “Don’t,” he said, his voice rough. “Just love me. Just say that you love me.”

She looked into his eyes and told him the truth, “I never stopped loving you, and I never will.”

Jon closed his eyes, his brows furrowed as the words sank in, and he pulled her down to him to mend their hearts with a few words and a promise and a kiss to seal their forever.





Dita walked the path to Artemis’s pond with her hands in her pockets, the only sound around her the wind in the trees as she thought over the last day, the last week, the last month, and how everything had changed. Jon was alive, the competition was over, and she had won, the alarm sounding its hurrah and the game coming to a close.

Not that she’d even cared about winning at that point. Jon had had to live, and thank the gods he had. He and Josie could be together, and they’d be together forever, if Dita had her way.

She smiled down at the path.

The empty camp stretched out before her when she rounded a bend. Artemis sat atop her stone perch, and she looked down at Dita with a smile, motioning for her to come up. It was awkward business, climbing the rock, but she made it to the top without getting winded, which she considered a win.

“Aphrodite.” Artemis bowed her head.

“Artemis,” Dita answered, sitting on the warm slate next to Artemis.

“I suppose you came for this?” Artemis held out her token.

“Why, no, that’s not why I came. But I will take that. Thank you.”

The token lay in her palm, the twin to Apollo’s sun token. The moon hung inside, bright on one side, black as pitch on the other. It glowed dreamily, and when she held it to her ear, it played the songs of crickets chirping so slowly that it sounded like a symphony.

“And did you bring that humble pie I promised to eat should I lose?” Artemis asked.

“No, but I did bring this.” Dita snapped her fingers, and a bowl of Cheerios appeared between them, next to a spoon on a napkin.

Artemis laughed, the sound genuine and merry.

“You weren’t in the theater room when the competition ended today,” Dita said as she closed her fingers around the token and hooked her arms around her knees.

“No, I was not.”

“Are you all right?”

“You care?” she asked with a glance and a raised eyebrow.

“Artemis, of course I care.”

Artemis smiled. “I am well. I knew I would lose the moment Apollo saved Jon. Before that really.”

“You saved him,” Dita insisted.

“Semantics,” Artemis said with a shrug.

“Thank you. It’s not enough, but thank you.”

Artemis looked away. “I couldn’t do it.”

“Do what?”

Her eyes were on the distant mountains. “Jon was lying in her arms, and I couldn’t let him die. I gave Josie something I cannot have. Love.”

“Artemis—”

“I loved him, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Dita said quietly.

“I didn’t know what to do about it at the time. I never was able to be with him, but he was mine, and I was his. I am his. I will forever be his, but my life has not been full of living since he’s been gone. I have been blinded by my anger and hurt for so long, I lost myself. But that changes now.”