Something True (4 page)

Kenna and I locked eyes. So Veronica’s little sister had made it in her first year. Shocker.

“For the sophomore class, the princes will be Liam McKinley and Shane Westwood. The princesses will be Christa Jennings and Tara Schwartz.”

I couldn’t breathe. Oh God. I couldn’t breathe. I sat back in my chair to keep myself from putting my head on the desk.

“And for the junior class . . .”

I swear every person in the room turned to look at me. Was that a good sign, or a bad sign? The juniors voted only for the junior representatives during nominations. Did this mean that a lot of them had voted for me? Or did they just know that I was nervous and they wanted to see me have a major breakdown when I didn’t get it?

I would not break down. No. I would not break down. If I didn’t get it, I would not break down.

Oh God, please let me get it.

“The junior princes will be Orion Floros and Josh Moskowitz.”

My heart leaped. If Orion got it, then I had such a better chance at—

“And the junior princesses will be Darla Shayne and Veronica Vine.”

I squealed so loud everyone laughed, and then they applauded. For me. Kenna jumped up and ran over to me, enveloping me in an awkward standing-to-sitting hug. My whole body flushed with relief, then ecstasy.

I was on homecoming court. I was on homecoming court. Darbot the Geek had made homecoming court!

“Back to your seat, please, Ms. Roy,” our homeroom teacher grumbled.

Kenna air-kissed me, then went back to her chair by the window. It was so loud now I barely heard the seniors get announced, but Peter and Claudia’s names were, obviously, mentioned. Then my phone buzzed and I grabbed for it, my hands shaking. It was a text from Orion.

CONGRATS! I KNEW YOU’D GET IT, MY PRINCESS!

I laughed, so overcome I almost cried, then texted back.

YOU TOO, MY PRINCE!!! XOXO

I sent the text, then texted Veronica.

CONGRATS, V! THREE YEARS IN A ROW! YOU ROCK!

I watched the phone as the VP finished his announcements, my smile so wide it was starting to hurt my face.

“I knew you’d get it,” Jenica Stalb said, leaning across the aisle. “I totally voted for you.”

“Me too,” Rusty said, passing my homework back to me. “And thanks.”

“Thank
you
!” I replied, my heart full.

The bell rang, and everyone began to gather their stuff. I got up and glanced at my phone. No reply from Veronica. A few more people congratulated me as we shuffled up the aisles toward the front of the room, and I waited for Kenna to join me before heading for the door. She wrapped her arm around mine and held me tight.

“So? How does it feel to be a princess?”

“Pretty damn good,” I replied, glancing at my phone again.

My heart sank just a touch.

“What’s wrong?” Kenna asked.

“Nothing. Just . . . I texted Veronica congratulations and she hasn’t texted back.”

“Oh.” Kenna’s face went serious for a second, so I knew I wasn’t overreacting. “Well, she’s probably just busy with people congratulating her. I’m sure she’ll get to it.”

“You’re right. I’m sure that’s it.”

I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but I still held on to my phone the whole way to first period, and she never texted me back. Not one word. Was she mad at me for something? Had I done something wrong? I thought it would be so cool, doing the homecoming thing together for once. Didn’t she want me there?

By the time I sat down in honors chem, my smile was considerably less bright.

“Hey. Congratulations.”

I looked up to find Wallace Bracken hovering next to my lab table on the way to his.

“Oh, um, thanks,” I said.

I felt touched that he’d bothered, considering.

As he moved back to his own table, my cell phone vibrated in my hand. I was so startled I almost dropped it. It was from Veronica. Finally!

CONGRATS

My heart sank. That was it. No smiley face. No exclamation points. But at least it was something. I wasn’t going to let a lack of punctuation get me down. I was nominated for homecoming queen. We were going to meet after school. Just us. Just the elite of the school. Veronica, Orion, Josh, and I were going to have the best time.

I took out a notebook and started to sketch out ideas for posters. No time like the present. It felt like the first day of a brand-new life.

CHAPTER SIX

True

Ninth period, Monday. We’d gotten through an entire day of school and no sign of Artemis and Apollo. Please, Gods, let this Wallace and Darla thing work. Let me be right about them. I just wanted to hold Orion in my arms again. I just wanted to hear him say he loved me. Please, please, please.

As I cleaned up my paints at the end of class, carefully twisting the crusted, corroded caps onto the tiny tubs of color, I kept an eye on Orion two easels over. He was wearing a black sweater that made him appear sophisticated beyond his years, and his dark, wavy hair had grown out a bit since he’d arrived on Earth, giving him a casual, sexy look. He shoved something into his backpack, zipped it up, and glanced my way.

“Hey,” he said with a smile. “How was the rest of your day yesterday?”

I dropped the paint tubs onto the counter and grabbed my stuff, my heart pitter-pattering as I approached him. “Uneventful.”

Thank the Gods.

“Congratulations on the whole homecoming court thing,” I said drily. “I guess that makes you a pretty big deal around here.”

He puffed up his chest. “Yeah. Don’t get bigger than me.” Then he laughed. “Whatever, it’s just kind of cool to be nominated when I’m so new here, you know? Darla’s all over me to come over tonight and make posters and stuff, but it seems kinda pointless. At my old school, the seniors always won.”

Whatever he said next was completely lost on my ears, because I’d just caught sight of his painting, and the entire world around it had faded to a muted gray. He had painted the arrow again—our arrow—the one that hung from the pendant I’d once given him, but that now lay flat against my own chest. I could tell because the fletching was uneven, with nine striations in the feather on one side and eight on the other, which would, of course, make a real arrow imbalanced. In fact, he’d joked when I’d given it to him that I was trying to throw off his shot so I could beat him at target practice.

But this painting was different from the last. This time Orion had painted the arrow flying through the sky over a near-perfect rendering of the cabin we’d lived in together for the last six months in Maine. The six months before we were caught, that is.

Orion was not supposed to remember that cabin. He wasn’t supposed to remember the arrow. Was he actually starting to recall our time together? Was he starting to realize who he really was? Maybe I’d been right from the beginning. Maybe our love was so strong it could survive even a brainwashing by Zeus himself.

“What?” Orion asked, shifting his feet self-consciously as I gaped at his painting. “Is it that bad?”

When he turned briefly to the side, I saw the tiny white scar near his temple, the spot where Artemis had struck him with an arrow those many millennia ago. I felt a surge of something huge and unstoppable inside me, and I knew what I had to do.

“No. I just . . .” I looked into his eyes—the eyes I knew so well I could have painted my very own copy of them down to the last tiny gold fleck. Holding my breath, I reached up and tugged his arrow pendant out from beneath the collar of my T-shirt.

Orion did a double take. The smile fell from his face. He looked at his painting, then back at the arrow. Then, so slowly it felt as if it took an eternity, his eyes met mine. At the easels around us, students gathered their things, dropped brushes into cans, chatted about their days, shuffled toward the door, but the two of us simply stood there, locked together inside our own little world.

“Orion,” I said.

He opened his mouth to speak, and someone in the hallway screamed.

“Get out of the way, cretin!”

There was an awful slam, as if a body had been shoved against a locker door, and a few people shouted.

Orion grabbed my wrist. We stared at the open classroom door. Our teacher, Mrs. Fabrizi, had left for the bathroom or the teacher’s lounge or had gone out to the parking lot for a smoke. We were entirely alone.

“Have you seen this girl? Do you know her?”

The skin on my back began to crawl. That was Apollo’s voice. They had found me.

A door banged shut, and someone cried out in pain. I had to protect Orion. A quick glance around the classroom gave us few options. We were on the second floor, so going out the window would be dangerous, and the entire space was open, with nothing but flimsy easels to hide behind. I saw the handle on the supply closet in the corner and made a snap decision.

“I’m really sorry about this,” I told Orion. Then I opened the door, flung him inside, and started across the room.

“Hey! What’re you doing?!”

The closet’s handle started to turn. There was a lock on it, of course, but I was halfway across the room. Clenching my jaw, I lifted my palm toward the handle and willed it to lock.

Nothing happened.

I tried again. The door began to open. My brain went weightless. My powers. What had happened to my powers?

Using my entire body, I slammed the door closed as hard as I could and turned the key, which Mrs. Fabrizi had carelessly left in the lock.

“True? What the hell? This isn’t funny!”

Ignoring him, I pocketed the key, darted to the classroom door, and peeked ever so carefully into the crowded, end-of-the-day hallway. My heart stopped beating. Artemis and Apollo were dressed in their battle gear. He in short pants, laced boots, and a gold breastplate, she in a short skirt, long sleeves, and a leather vest, and they also looked pissed, which was never a good thing. At least the kids in the hallway were smart enough to be cowering near the walls, staying out of their way. They were showing around a picture of me, which they’d gotten from Zeus knew where, and shoving aside anyone who refused to help them.

Every fiber of my being told me to bolt, but Orion was just twenty feet away, rattling the door and getting louder by the minute. How the hell was I supposed to protect the both of us?

“True.” Hephaestus’s voice rose up behind me. “You’re going to want to run.”

He sat in his wheelchair near my side, his fists clenched atop his knees, the tendons in his neck protruding. At that moment, Artemis turned, and her dark eyes zeroed in on me. We held each other’s gaze for a fury-filled moment as all movement around me seemed to slow. My mortal enemy. She who would as soon rip out my throat as take a breath. The goddess who coveted my love.

“True,” Hephaestus said through his teeth. “Run!”

I whirled around, adrenaline, anger, and liquid terror coursing through my veins. I had to protect Orion. I had to stay alive long enough to restore his memory and regain our love. They were, at that moment, the only objectives that mattered.

I raced back into the art room, closed the door, and shoved a heavy but low supply cabinet up against it as best I could. Orion had grown frantic in my absence. If—no, when—Artemis and Apollo got through the outer door, they would surely hear him and discover him, their prize, sitting like a caged animal.

I pressed my face against the closet door.

“Orion, listen to me,” I said desperately.

“True, what the—”

“Listen! Please!” I screeched. “There are some very dangerous people in the hallway and they’re looking for me, but they won’t hesitate to hurt you if they find you.”

“What?!?! What the hell are you talking about?”

“Please!” I cried. “Please just stay quiet until they’re gone. Please, Orion.”

“True, I don’t understand. Why are they after you?”

“Just trust me. Stay here and I’ll explain everything to you later. Okay?”

Not that I had any idea how I would do that, but I had to say something. There was a pause. “Will you be all right?”

A tear rolled down my cheek at his concern. “I’ll be fine.”

“Hephaestus?” Apollo’s voice shouted. “What in the name of Hades are you doing here?”

They were right outside the door. It was time for me to go. And the only way out was through the window. I ran to the pane farthest from the door, cranked it open, and kicked out the screen. The door opened and slammed into the metal cabinet with an earsplitting clang. I whipped around and saw Artemis’s livid face pressed into the small opening.

“You’re dead!” she shrieked.

I hardly needed more motivation than that. I hooked one leg out the window, then the other, sitting on my butt on the sill. The ground looked so very far away. I had never been afraid of heights before becoming human, but now I realized with every fiber of my being how much it would hurt if my mortal body fell that distance. Artemis slammed against the door again, and then the cabinet went over, shattering glass bottles from the shelves across the linoleum floor. There was no more time to contemplate. I turned around and slid down, hanging by my fingertips out the window, the cold steel rim along the sill cutting into my fingers. There was nothing left to do but drop.

Someone nearby screamed as my body plummeted heavily to the ground. I landed on my feet, but the pain that bolted up my legs sent me immediately sprawling onto my side. I scrambled to my knees, doing a mental check for breaks, and realized with a sigh of relief that my bones were intact. I bounced up to my feet, and ran, flying by a few curious and disturbed bystanders in the courtyard.

“Are you okay?” one pudgy girl with braces asked.

I didn’t answer. I just kept running. Only when I was about to turn the corner at the end of the building did I look back, and I saw both Artemis and Apollo leaning out the window, cursing after me. I gave them a triumphant smile and sprinted into the trees alongside the school. As I leaped over fallen branches and sloshed through muddy, leaf-filled puddles, my breathing grew ragged and I imagined Orion standing terrified inside the closet, trying not to move.

My heart suddenly seized up and I stopped running, bracing my hands over my knees. Was he okay? Had they found him? Through the trees up ahead I could see the backs of a few massive houses, the backyards and patios dotted with lawn furniture and play sets. There was no one outside, and I leaned against a towering maple tree and pulled my phone from my pocket.

It was finally becoming clear to me how these things could come in handy. I hit Hephaestus’s photo, and the phone began to ring.

“True? Thank the Gods,” he whispered harshly. There was no noise behind his voice, as if he’d slipped into a vacuum. “Are you all right?”

“For now,” I said. “Are you?”

“I managed to give Apollo a bloody lip before he got away from me,” he said giddily. “Now I’m in the back of one of the janitor’s closets. I’m gonna stay here until the coast is clear.”

“Good.” I dug my nails into the rough, wet bark of the nearest tree. “Hephaestus, I have a problem.”

“Another one?” he joked.

“My powers. They didn’t work,” I told him.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. Someone must have bound them. Zeus . . . Hera . . .”

“Hera,” he said, then sighed. “It makes perfect sense. If your father is right and she wants to see you and Artemis do battle, she couldn’t let one of you have an unfair advantage. She might not have been able to do it if you were back home, or if you’d known it was coming, but—”

“She caught me with my guard down.” I swallowed hard. “So we’re to fight as mere mortals, then?”

“Looks that way.”

But there were two of them and one of me. Hardly a fair contest. We were silent for a moment. I didn’t want to fight Artemis and Apollo. I didn’t want to fight anyone. All I wanted was to be with my love again, to be at peace. If only my father had never found us. If only Zeus and Hera had stayed out of it. But of course they couldn’t. They were upper gods. They had to control everything.

But they couldn’t control me. I wouldn’t let them.

“I have one more favor to ask of you,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Before you head home, could you go back into the art room and get Orion out of the supply closet?” I asked. “He’s locked inside. You might need a crowbar.”

“What?” Hephaestus blurted. “How’d you manage that?”

“I have my ways,” I murmured regretfully.

“Okay,” he said, his voice turning serious. “I’ll take care of it.”

I felt sad, suddenly, thinking of Orion. I’d missed my opportunity to spill everything, and now that I had some distance from it, I knew it would have been a mistake. I could never tell him the truth about who he was, about who we were. There was no way he’d ever understand. I was just going to have to be patient and do my job. Plus keep the both of us alive long enough for me to succeed.

I saw a flash of something from the corner of my eye and my heart hit my throat, but it was just a robin, taking flight into the trees. Even so, it was a reminder that any false security I’d felt before today had been obliterated.

“I’d better get going,” I said, gazing back in the direction of the school. “And Hephaestus?”

“Yeah?”

“When you do leave for home, make sure you’re not followed. They know where we are now,” I told him. “It’s a whole new world.”

I clicked off and darted out of the trees, putting as many mansions and play yards as I could between myself and my enemies.