From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(81)

Apollo hugged Dita, landing a kiss on her cheek. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m good. Just been watching Jon and Josie after getting the best night’s sleep of my life.”

Dita and Perry sat on the couch, and Apollo and Daphne took their spots on his white shag rug.

“What have you two been up to?” Dita asked.

“Not a lot,” Apollo answered. “Been watching the game. This morning was pretty epic, and Jon, well…he’s something else. I don’t know that Josie really stands a chance.”

“She really doesn’t, does she?”

Apollo chuckled. “Artemis is even worse at the game than I am.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Dita smiled.

“True, though Artemis won’t hear logic on Josie—or anything else for that matter.”

“Oh?”

Apollo sighed. “She’s not speaking to me.”

Daphne laid her hand on his knee and leaned into him.

“I didn’t know you fought. What happened?” Dita asked.

“She implied that I chose you over her,” Apollo said as he wrapped his arm around Daphne.

Anger and guilt stirred in Dita’s chest at the thought. “Apollo, I would never put myself between the two of you.”

“You didn’t. I stuck up for you and called her on her shit. She didn’t take it well.”

“Well, thank you. But you didn’t have to do that.”

“I did, and it’ll be fine. It’s not the first time we’ve disagreed, and I doubt it will be the last. She knows that I will always back her up, but she used you as a diversion when I mentioned Orion.”

Dita shook her head. “She’s never going to get over it if she doesn’t face it.”

“Pot, kettle.”

She scoffed. “This is different. All of this just happened to me. Artemis has had thousands of years.”

“You know that she doesn’t accept change very well, and she doesn’t talk about anything—ever—just makes her judgments and buries all her feelings like rotten seeds. She feels justified. You can’t talk sense to someone who’s been rightly pissed off about something for thousands of years. I think we both can attest to that.”

“Yeah, I guess we can.” She tugged at her hair. “I mean, I kind of get it. How do you face such loss? All we can do is try to get through each day, face each challenge that we come across, and listen to ourselves. Time. That’s what people keep telling me. But if Artemis has been ripped to shreds for thousands of years, what hope is there for me?”

Apollo spoke cautiously. “Do you think that your feelings for Ares and Adonis are the same as the love Artemis felt for Orion?”

She considered that, and a heavy, cold feeling snaked through her chest, into her stomach. “No, I suppose you’re right,” she answered, her voice flat. “I’m coming to realize that my feelings are wrapped in fear and guilt, and the love that I thought I had for Ares and Adonis was false. Artemis and Orion had a pure love, based on respect and companionship.” The words made her sad at all that she had missed, though there was a glimmer of hope that her pain wouldn’t last tens of centuries.

“Well, you’re the universal expert on love. How does she get over it?”

“Normally, I would suggest dating, but that’s off the table for Artemis. I’m sure her feelings for Orion were a one-time occurrence for her.” She ran a finger across her lip. “Really, she needs to talk about it or find a way out of the fog and to her truth. Maybe we could help her—talk to her, try to guide her.”

“We’d have better luck trying to teach a goat how to tap dance like Gene Kelly.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

“Wait.” Apollo’s eyebrow quirked. “Are we talking about the goat or Artemis?”

“Both,” she said with a laugh.





Josie’s bare feet rested on the dash, and her computer lay open on her lap as they drove through Pennsylvania. The sun had slipped down in the cloudless sky, burning a gradient of tangerine and yellows to purples and blues, up and away behind her. Her hair whipped around her face, and she twisted it up into a fresh bun before checking her hotspot connection.

“Want me to put up the windows?” Jon asked over Waylon Jennings wailing about a good-hearted woman.

When she met his eyes, she knew he’d been watching her and felt herself flush. “No, it’s so nice out.”

He smiled at her, and she couldn’t help but smile back. Because she had purpose once more. She had a goal and a task and a busy mind and full hands, and it was absolutely, utterly glorious. And she had Jon sitting a few feet away, looking at her like he was, with one hand hooked casually on the wheel and his hair fluttering around his face.

She cleared her throat and shifted in her seat. “Well, I just sent the fax to all the cash motels along both routes and marked all the ones where I think he might have stopped based on travel speed and the time of day he might drive through. I’m about to call those directly and see if I can get someone on the phone.”

“Is Hank sending Walker and Davis this way?”

“He can’t. The information we have on Rhodes isn’t official evidence, so we’re on our own until we get a sighting on him.”