“I knew, too,” I said, throwing myself under the bus that was Jason's growing anger.
But he didn’t look angry, for once. He just looked…sad.
“Did everybody know but me?” He asked, his voice small.
I cleared my throat. “I only knew because I paid attention, Jason. It may be winter, but we’ve never once seen her without long sleeves on. Even during gym class, she wears that stupid ‘under armor’. Whenever she’s nervous, she plays with her sleeves, tugging them down. And yesterday, I found her in the bathroom biting her hand to calm down from a panic attack. It wasn’t a far stretch to think she might have scars like that.”
Jason looked over at Theseus. “And why didn't you tell us?”
“Because I had no reason to,” He shrugged. “Look, we may have known each other for years, but we don’t actually know each other. We aren't friends, we are barely even colleagues. Hell, before Atalanta came to town, I hardly recall ever having a conversation with most of you. So when I saw those scars, I thought it best to keep it to myself. Scars like those… they each have their own story. And those stories aren't mine to tell.”
I was worried Jason would blow up again, but he continued to look broken. He took a deep breath and held it before letting it out. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
I watched as he walked over to where Ajax held Atalanta in his arms. “Whatever the truth is, we’ll figure it out once this is all over.”
With a little reluctance on his face, Ajax handed Atalanta back over to Jason and said, “Stay close to her.”
“Why?”
“It will help keep her alive,” He replied.
Jason looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms and with resolve, nodded.
From there, we all kind of slinked off to different rooms of the cabin. It had to be around four in the morning. I honestly couldn’t tell because there were no clocks in the house and none of us had our phones.
Dead on my feet, I joined Jason who was in what I assumed to be the father's room. He laid down on the air mattress with the still naked and sleeping Atalanta curled up next to him, his arms wrapped around her possessively.
I shrugged and crawled onto the mattress next to them.
Jason grumbled. "Get your own bed.”
I yawned. “This one is big enough for the three of us.”
“So?”
“So, I wanna get some cuddle action too. Don't be selfish.”
“Is this really the right time for this?” He hissed.
I chuckled. “Why? Because she’s naked? ‘Cause we were all just as exposed earlier.”
Jason sat up a little, his green eyes trying to sear a hole into my skull. “Because she’s unconscious!”
“Well, if we go by that logic then neither of us should be in bed with her,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. Not backing down.
“Will you two shut up and go to sleep?” Percy called from what I believe was the sister's room.
Jason scowled and flopped back down again.
I smirked and made a point to snuggle closer to Atalanta, my hand resting on her hip right near Jason's arm. He seemed to have conceded because he didn't try to move my hand. It was either that, or he was now as dead to the world as she was.
I closed my eyes, a lot more comfortable than I would have thought. My mind slowly drifted off to sleep.
At some point during the night, I was pulled from my sleep just long enough to hear the others one by one tip-toeing into the room and settle down near the mattress, until eventually all of us were surrounding the sleeping beauty.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Atalanta
Why did I feel like my body had been put through a wood chipper and then stuffed into a sack? With my eyes closed, I took a mental stock. Everything ached, just as it had the day I woke up in the hospital over eight years ago. My chest, head, and legs pounded with each thump of my heart.
For a moment I panicked, thinking I had somehow ended up back in the hospital. But no, while I was curled up in probably the hardest bed I’d ever been in, I was pleasantly warm all over. And no hospital was ever this warm or familiar feeling. They were always cold and scary.
My restarting brain tried to recall the last thing I remembered before going to bed that night.
Nothing.
At first, I thought my sluggish brain was the reason I couldn’t remember even going to bed last night, let alone what I had been doing beforehand. But no, pushing harder, I found that there was just a space in my memory. The last thing I recalled was Dad telling Cal and me about going out on the boat this morning and then nothing. I didn’t remember going back to bed or even going to school.
I inhaled nice and deep, the way you normally do when you first wake up. Something weird happened. It felt strange, all wrong. Everything was wrong.
My eyes snapped open. All I could see was white. Reaching my hand out, I felt a smooth white wall underneath my fingertips. It was almost like porcelain.
What was wrong with my hand?
I brought my hand close to my face, but it was blurry, the way everything looked when you were swimming in a pool without goggles.
I froze as I realized why that warm feeling was familiar, why the bed I was in was white and hard as stone.
I sat up in the tub, water streaming down my body as I surfaced. I tried to inhale sweet, sweet oxygen but my lungs were preoccupied as water came pouring out of my mouth. I could literally feel the water being pushed from my lungs. I had been breathing underwater. I HAD BEEN BREATHING UNDERWATER AND NOW THAT WATER WAS BEING PUSHED FROM MY BODY.
As soon as all of the water evacuated my lungs, I took deep, ragged breaths. I didn’t feel starved for oxygen like I should have. I had been sleeping under the water, for fuck's sake.
I felt something wet sticking to the side of my cheek. Pulling at it, I saw that it was hair. My hair. Hair that was attached to my head. When did my hair get so long??
I shrieked.
My hand! Oh my God, my hand!!
It looked like something out of the Black Lagoon! Thin webbing between my fingers, scales covering the back of my hand, and holy fucking shit, I had claws!
I brought up my other hand to see it was the same. Tiny blue and purple scales ran along the back of my hands and up my arms.
“You're awake.”
My eyes snapped to my right and there sitting on the toilet with a book in his lap was Jason.
“Jason?”
He slid off the toilet and crouched down to be eye level to me. Damn. He looked, well, to be frank, not good. His hair, which was usually nicely combed, was sticking up at odd ends, dark shadows graced the area under his eyes, and his cheeks looked a little hollowed, like he had missed several meals. I think he had been asleep on that toilet.
“Jason, what’s going on?” I asked with a shaky voice.
He gave a wobbly smile. “I’m so sorry, Atalanta. It was all my fault. This was the only way I could think to save you.”
“Save me from what?”
He was really freaking me the fuck out. And that was saying something, because my freaked-out meter was already at a ten.
He held out his hand. “Come on, I’ll explain everything. Can you stand?”
I shook my head and backed away from him as far as I could.
A small voice in me whispered to trust him. Fuck that voice, freaked-out logic was in charge at the moment and there was no way in hell I was leaving the safety of this tub.