“What might happen? What's going on?” Hip asked, looking back and forth at all of us, trying to keep up.
I felt my body tense up, my heart pounding as I look directly at Hip. “Percy is a Guardian.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Atalanta
I called Cal the moment I pulled my stuff out of the office and ran outside. I tried to hold back the sniffles and clear the croakiness in my voice as I asked Cal for a ride. She definitely suspected something as she agreed slowly, her tone full of curiosity.
I kept looking behind my shoulder, expecting one of the guys to come running out to me, but no one came. I was alone.
I wiped the tears off my cheeks and slumped to the cold steps of the center.
The snow fell lightly, slowly covering the parking lot. It was quiet and peaceful, but that only made the despair I felt inside all the more prominent. I’d been called many different things over the years, but slut was a new one and fuck did it sting.
Is he wrong? I mean, five guys.
I shoved away that little voice in my head which had surfaced recently after a few blissful years of… well, not a total lack of self-deprecation, but I had been on a much better track before all this shit happened.
I was so done with this town. Tonight, I would tell Dad that we needed to leave. If not for the betterment of my mental state, then because some of the people suspected something.
Maybe we would go further south, stay near the coast so Dad could keep his new shiny boat. But maybe someplace warmer, like California.
I tried not to think of the guys and the pain I felt at never being able to see them again, but fuck it. I hardly knew them! I would not let myself pine over them. Besides, they were part of the reason the little voice came back.
When Cal pulled up, I gave her a big, if slightly watery, smile. When I hopped in the car and she gave me that expectant look that I knew was coming, I simply said that it had been a rough day, not giving her anything else. She shrugged, probably deciding she would squeeze it out of me later when I was in a better mood out on the boat.
When we got home, the redness in my eyes had cleared up and Dad was none the wiser. He was so excited when he switched places with Cal and drove us down to the docks.
I hadn’t been there yet, though they looked just like any of the other docks I’d seen over the years. There was a long, stretching boardwalk that ran along the water, branching out to a bunch of mini docks that housed a couple hundred boats, bobbing up and down as the waves rolled in beneath them. Large hulking seamen with ocean rough skin and scruffy beards shuffled around each other, several of them shouting orders.
The three of us walked through the little pockets of the crowd, fishing gear in hand. I remembered Dad’s comments regarding the odd behavior of the workers. There were a few odd stares, but nothing abnormal, at least nothing I thought roused suspicion. But Dad was even better than me at reading others, so he probably saw something I didn’t.
He led us down one of the small docking bays before standing in front of a boat, his hands on his hips, chest puffed out proudly.
“Behold!” He swept out his hands towards the boat. “The Flying Sea Scallop!”
It was a decent sized boat, with a boxed in wheelhouse and two seats welded in the back, made for someone to sit in with their fishing rods.
“The Flying Sea Scallop?” Cal asked with a snicker.
He scowled. “I wasn’t the one who picked the name.”
“It sounds like the name of a little dingy,” I said.
Cal clapped her hands together and tilted her head like she was looking at something adorable. "It’s a cute little dingy.”
“This is not a dingy! It is a man’s boat!” He boasted, hitting his chest like a freaking gorilla.
“If you say so, Dad,” Cal and I said together, giggling as we climbed aboard the boat.
It wasn’t in horrible shape. Most of the problems looked cosmetic: some grime on the inside of the walls, the pleather seats were torn and the color bleached. Our dad wouldn’t have bought it if there were any mechanical problems, so that was reassuring.
“If you say so Dad,” he said his voice high pitch and full of annoyance, which only made Cal and me laugh harder.
After about twenty minutes of showing us around the basic controls, we shoved off, slowly floating out into the harbor before revving the engine and speeding out into deeper water. The boat glided smoothly across the ocean. The speed and the wind whipping across my face was exhilarating, clearing away some of the shadow in my heart.
Reaching a good spot, Dad slowed us down, the boat rocking peacefully. Poor Cal was sprawled across a bench seat next to the fishing chairs.
“Why did I come along?” She groaned.
As I was prepared for this scenario, I pulled a little box out of my jacket pocket and shook it at her. “Because you love us.”
Her eyes went wide as she caught sight of the box of sea sickness patches in my hand. “You bitch! Why are you only telling me you had some now! Why not when I was throwing up?”
“Because I wanted to see if you overcame your sea sickness,” I grinned wickedly. “Mind over matter, Calz.”
“Atalanta, just give your sister the medicine,” Dad said, his voice and face deadpan as he worked to set up our poles.
I tossed Cal the box and went to help Dad.
Cal decided to stay on the bench seat while Dad and I strapped into the seats. The fishing chairs were pretty cool. They had buckles to strap a person down in for if the seas were a little rough, along with little metal foot rests and a long tube for us to stick our fishing rods into.
Like the other day, we sat quietly as we fished, comfortable with sparse conversation over the next hour. What little we did say was mostly about how our days were today. There was subtle prodding from Cal for me to say more than ‘my day was good’. I knew I would, but in time. I had to work up the courage to suggest to Dad that we should leave.
“Those clouds don’t look so good,” Cal commented.
Swiveling the chair around, I squinted in the direction she was staring. In the distance of the darkening sky were clouds as black as pitch. Shadowing below them indicated heavy rain.
Dad, who sat in the chair to my left, turned and looked at the clouds as well. “That looks a long way off. We should be okay for a bit but should start heading back home soon.”
Home. Back to the cabin, to Argos. Back to the guys.
“We need to move.” I blurted.
Dad and Cal whipped around to face me, their eyes wide.
“Why? Did you get another call?”
I shook my head, knowing that he was referring to the time I had received a call from my living nightmare. His voice, filled with malice and excitement as he told me that he was close. That once he got his hands on me, he would enjoy making me suffer.
We had packed up our bags in the hour. Our aliases burned. Phones tossed and moving on to the next location.
“No, nothing like that. I…” I fidgeted with the ends of my sleeves. "I’m not doing well. I had an attack earlier.”
My dad's brows furrowed, his voice full of hurt. "Hun, why didn’t you tell me it was getting that bad?”
“I didn’t realize it was,” I said, hugging my middle.
“Is this about those boys?” Cal asked.
Dad looked between the two of us, confused. “Boys? What boys? There's more than just that one guy? Jason?”