90 days. 2,683 miles. 30 miles a day…
The journey from Las Vegas to Montauk was not a short one, especially not for three demigods with no money, no car, and monsters hot on their trail. It was exhausting. No amount of sleep ever felt like enough to prepare for the next day. It only staved off the overwhelming feeling that their bodies were seconds away from collapsing. If it wasn’t for each other pulling and pushing them along, none of them would have made it.
They were so close… Only five miles away from Camp Half-Blood when the rain came. The sky had turned black, sun hidden behind a wall of clouds that unleashed a deluge on their heads. The water didn’t fall like a storm but like the heavens themselves unleashed a waterfall to wash away the world. They wanted to keep going, tried, but with every step the earth tried swallowing them, wet and traitorous thing, like hungry quick sand pulling them deeper the more they struggled. They were getting nowhere and only exhausting themselves further with every struggled step.
Reluctantly, they stopped along the shore of Lake Montauk, just beyond the treeline. Lux and Beckett started building a shelter with a practiced efficiency of three months of travel, forced proximity, and years of experience. In a matter of minutes tarps were laid beneath a cover of foliage that could fool the average person on a sunny day. In the shadow of the storm beneath a wall of rain? The only way they could be noticed was by their own mistakes.
Lux insisted on taking the first watch. It wasn’t the rain that unsettled her, nor the thunder—which brought her comfort in its cacophony that muted their movements beneath Zeus’s roar—but the dark abyss of the lake that loomed just beyond the trees. The void, black and ominous, engorged itself on the rain, growing slowly, inch by inch, like it could swallow them up in their sleep. It was irrational, and she knew it. But no matter how much she yearned for rest, the closeness of the lake would never let her sleep, not truly.
So, she’d watch, perched high on a branch in a nearby tree, a silent sentinel with one eye on the shadows and another on the creeping edge of the lake.
She had been up in that tree for three hours, maybe four? It was difficult for Lux to keep track of time without the sun, and her watch had stopped working after it was waterlogged when they were forced to swim across the Delaware River while outrunning… Something monstrous with talons. It was after the first hour that she came to the conclusion that the storm must have been a gift from the Gods. There was no other logical reasoning. She recalled seeing sunny skies on the forecast for the next three days, a straight shot to camp. Then this came out of nowhere. But the true reason why it felt like divine intervention was the shadows… dozens of shadows, snarling and growling, prowled the woods around them, sniffing and searching for them. One was just below her and never caught her scent… The rain, the thunder, the darkness, it all erased their trail, covered their scent, and hid them from the monsters.
Lux had no offerings, nothing to give, but she thanked them all the same. Like she had time and time again, she whispered prayers to the Gods for guidance and protection whenever there was a rustle in the bushes or the lake’s tide crept a little too close for comfort.
Only five more miles…
There was a lull between cracks of thunder, where the earth was silent beyond the continuous monsoon that splashed against the leaves and trees, and the gentle trickle of rain made streams that cut small trenches through the mud. In that quiet there was a stirring, a familiar moan, distressed beneath the storm’s hum. A sound, that should have been nothing, made Lux sit upright, pushing off the trunk of the tree to shift into a crouching position like a predator perched high in the treetops, laying in wait. Her gaze darted from the hidden shelter beneath the adjacent tree, and a pair of shadows lurking twenty or so feet deeper in the woods. There was a flash of light that ripped through the forest, casting the creatures’ shadows against the trees like an atom bomb, blinding and swiftly followed by a heavy darkness.
The silence was heavier, like a breath being held waiting for the thunder. But just before the crash rumbled around them another sound groaned from beneath the shelter. Lux’s eyes snapped to the haunting shadows as they froze, attentive, alert… waiting.
Time was precious and stealth was necessary. Lux slowly and cautiously slipped her bow over her back, her breaths measured as she too waited, but not for the creatures… for the lightning. When the sky illuminated she counted… One Mississippi… Two Mississippi… Three—
Crack.
One Mississippi... Lux’s gaze remained fixed on the shadows, how they waited for another sign, another sound.
Two Mississippi... Her hands fell to the slick bark beneath her, fingers curling around the branch, ready.
Three. Crack.
With the crash of thunder as cover and the temporary blindness of the lightning, Lux went into action. Her feet slipped from the branch, body falling until her weight was caught by her fingertips hooked around the wet limb. She hung there for only a fraction of a second, enough to slow her descent, before letting herself fall the remaining drop to the ground. She landed on the balls of her feet, hands squelching in the dense mud as she rolled forward onto all fours from the momentum. She didn’t stand, remaining low in the muck and underbrush as she swiftly made her way toward the false bush and slipped beneath the covering.
Halfway dry and hidden away from the rest of the world Beck and V slept. Reluctant allies forced to share confined quarters, bedrolls, and body heat, curled together in a desperate attempt for a few hours of rest before the final leg of their relentless journey. Shoulder to shoulder they slept. V, dark curls, nearly dry, clung to her cheeks. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest to stave off the chill of the rain and brows furrowed in a permanent scowl, like even in sleep she was pissed off at the weather. Then beside her was Beckett. Sweat gathered along his forehead and dampened his shirt. His head rocked back and forth, breaths heavy, the hand that rested on his chest tightly gripping the hilt of his knife like he was fighting for his life lost within his dream.
Lux had grown familiar with these nightmares. They came nearly every night, and every dream she was forced to wake him before he drew attention… Forced to dodge the blade and be faced with the fear in his eyes. She hated that she had to wake him, hated that she had to wake him to face a different nightmare, and hated it more that there was nothing she could do to rid him of them.
She slowly moved into the small space beside him, legs brushing his side and her back pressed against the top of the shelter. With a practiced caution she shifted her right leg, pinning the arm that wielded his blade in place with her knee and the pressure of her weight. Knowing she had maybe a second before he’d stir, Lux leaned over him, drenched blonde hair dripping water onto his cheek as she quickly covered his mouth before he could make a sound. She waited until he started, ready to seize his blade before he could cut her again, her shadowed gaze trying to catch his eyes and speak the words she could not say.
He’d been here before.
The rain in the dream had been warmer than it should have been, heavy and alive, a living thing that pressed against his skin and seeped into his bones. It came sideways, driven hard by wind that screamed through the Central Highlands like a warning no one heeded. Two typhoons churned off the coast, the radio had said—voices crackling, distant, almost bored with it. As if storms like that weren’t Gods. As if they weren’t teeth and hands and hunger all at once.
They’d been moving for three days straight. No real sleep. No stopping. Jungle so thick it felt like it breathed with them, exhaling rot and heat and the copper tang of old blood. Every step had been mud sucking at boots, every sound a potential death sentence. Leeches clung to calves and thighs. Mosquitoes whined like drills in his ears. The men around him had been hollowed-out things, eyes sunk deep, faces painted in grime and exhaustion. Someone had been praying under their breath, Beckett never found out who, but the words dissolved into the rain before they could mean anything.
Then the storm had broken open.
Command had called it. Temporary halt. Tarps up. Weapons close. Rest while you could. The rain turned the world into noise, erased tracks, swallowed scent. It was supposed to be a risk. It was supposed to make them vulnerable. But Beckett remembered the way his body had loosened for the first time in weeks, the way the water sluiced the heat and fear out of his muscles. Rain meant rivers. Rivers meant home. Even then, before he’d known his father wasn’t human, water had always steadied his hands.
They’d huddled together beneath sagging tarps, ponchos pulled tight, breath fogging in the cooler air dragged inland by the storm. Rifles cradled. Sidearms close. Sleep taken in snatches because it was expected of him, because the others needed him to close his eyes too, to believe they were safe enough for that. He remembered the weight of the Smith & Wesson at his side, the familiar reassurance of it, metal cool and solid against his hip. They’d drilled it into them what to do if someone slipped in close. Wake fast. Control the weapon arm. Turn the body. End it before it ended you.
He’d only needed it twice.
In the dream, more of a memory, it happened again.
A shape moved wrong beneath the rain. Too quiet. Too close. Hands grabbed for him—trying to pin his arm, trying to take the rifle, and Beckett was already moving, already awake in the way that mattered. One hand snapped up, caught a wrist. Bones ground together. The other was on his pistol, coming up smooth, practiced, flipping their positions so he was above, weight driving down, knees in the mud, the world narrowed to breath and pressure and the thunder of his own pulse. He pressed the gun into a stomach, felt the give, remembered the bang, deafening even through the storm—
And then the dream shattered.
The rain was colder now. Sharper. It didn’t roar the way it had in Vietnam; it pattered, distinct, individual drops drumming against leaves and tarp and earth. Not a God screaming, but a thousand small fingers tapping insistently at the world. There was a weight on him that wasn't an enemy, a presence too familiar, too careful.
Beckett blinked.
Lux was beneath him.
For one frozen, horrifying second, his body didn’t know the difference. His heart was a wild thing, slamming against his ribs, every instinct screaming threat. His hand was fisted in the fabric of her shirt at her side, pulling it taut, anchoring himself as if she might disappear. He could feel the heat of her through the wet cloth, the solid, living proof of her. Not a soldier. Not a ghost. Not something trying to kill him in the dark.
Violet was sitting up, eyes wide and feral, curls plastered to her face, watching like she was ready to either intervene or bolt. The shelter felt impossibly small, the air thick with the smell of wet earth and sweat and fear.
His gun wasn’t in his hand.
The realization hit like a second breath. The Colt Mustang was still packed away, useless relic that it was, and relief crashed through him so hard his vision swam. He loosened his grip immediately, hands shaking as he pulled back, weight shifting off Lux with a muttered, broken sound that might have been an apology if it ever found its way out of his throat.
The rain kept falling. Beyond the shelter, Lake Montauk answered it, waves slapping against the shore in a steady, patient rhythm. It was a sound he hadn’t known he’d missed until it reached him then, low and constant, nothing like the chaos of a typhoon. It didn’t demand anything of him. It just was. Water meeting land, again and again, unbothered by Gods or monsters or the long road that had brought them there.
His breathing started to slow.
Beckett dragged a hand over his face, grounding himself in the cold, in the present. Vietnam receded, the jungle dissolving into rain-soaked leaves and tarps and two demigods who trusted him enough to sleep beside him. The nightmares didn’t let go easily, but the lake did what water had always done, it soothed.
Lux had expected it, but was taken by surprise all the same. It didn’t matter how strong she was, how prepared she was, he was stronger in ways she could never match. Lucky enough for both of their consciences, when the world went spinning as Beckett pinned her beneath him, she seized his blade. Her arm shot out to the side keeping the sharp metal as far from them as possible, but still tight in her grasp. In that blink of a moment, with his fist twisted in her damp shirt, she saw the hatred and fear in his eyes. It wasn’t a new sight, but every single time that darkness bore through her, deep, festering, and raw.
It wasn’t until the light returned to his eyes and Lux inhaled sharply that she realized she had been holding her breath the entire time. Beckett’s fist left behind a crumpled bunch of fabric, stretched and damp, clinging to her ribs as her chest heaved with every pant. She didn’t move as he pulled away, legs bent, and feet braced against the ground on either side of his knees, frozen. A shiver ran down her spine at the sudden chill from the absence of his warmth against her rain soaked clothes.
When it looked like he wanted to speak, Lux sat up abruptly, close, too close as she pressed her hand over his mouth and shook her head. They might have been chest to chest. She might have been nearly perched in his lap. But he could be pissed about it later. The fingers on her other hand wrapped around the hilt of his knife and slowly brought it between them, pressing it against his chest in an offering, not a threat. Her gaze flicked between Beckett and V, silent but with a deadly seriousness as she held up two fingers. She then pointed in the last direction she saw the menacing shadows stalking. She waited for the lightning, feeling the anticipation tingle along the back of her neck before it struck. It was only when the thunder crashed that she dared speak. "Twenty-five feet away."
Beckett listened with every fiber of himself, every muscle and sense stretched taut. Lux’s words burned themselves into him, twenty-five feet, a number so precise it was almost cruel in its simplicity. Close enough that a single misstep could leave them exposed, close enough that the shadows could taste fear before he ever had a chance to react. His chest still heaved, breaths shallow and quick, each inhale tasting like desperation, each exhale a shaky attempt at control. He forced himself to slow it, drawing air in through his nose, holding it just long enough to feel the burn in his lungs, and then letting it out slowly, deliberately, forcing his body to remember how to breathe even as his mind still lurked in the chaos of that half-remembered dream.
The rain fell in endless sheets, a constant percussion on the leaves and tarps, but he trained himself to listen past it, straining for the subtle cues that would give them life, or take it. He caught them then, a shift in the brush, the wrong kind of silence, the subtle distortion of the forest floor that only came from something living and dangerous. It was enough to make his muscles coil beneath his skin, taut, ready.
He cataloged the world around him in meticulous, almost obsessive detail, as though doing so could anchor him to the present and stave off the memory that clawed at the edges of his mind. The scents first; his own sweat, bitter and sour beneath the soft wash of rain, the clean, metallic tang of water pressed from the clouds, the gritty, mineral bite of sand carried from the lake to their tiny clearing, and beneath it all, impossibly faint, Lux herself—rose-scented shampoo drifting like a whisper in the damp air, delicate and incongruous among the mud and water. He focused on it, breathed it in, let it remind him that this was reality, that these were human beings beside him and not ghosts of a war that had shaped him in ways he would never forget.
His eyes swept over them, taking in Lux’s taut, alert posture, the way her gaze never rested, scanning shadows for threats he couldn’t yet identify. Violet sat up beside her, curls plastered to her face, wide-eyed and tense, poised to spring into motion at the faintest hint of movement. Beyond them, the forest pressed in like a living wall, darkness bleeding into darkness, trees twisting into jagged silhouettes, turning the night into a landscape of threat. Lightning split the sky in brief, violent clarity, outlining everything in stark relief, only to plunge it back into shadow the instant the flash faded. Beckett’s gaze darted between them, tracing every subtle shift, every twitch of muscle, memorizing them as though simply by seeing them he could protect them.
Taste followed, unwelcome but grounding. The protein bar he’d shoved down earlier had left his mouth dry and chalky, a bitter, lingering residue that no amount of water could cleanse. He ground his teeth briefly, aware of it, letting it tether him to the physical, to the reality of hunger and discomfort, to the knowledge that this body he had, wet and hungry and exhausted, was still alive, still capable of movement. Feeling—he cataloged that too. The dampness of Lux’s shirt where his hand had pressed moments ago, cool against his knuckles, a memory of warmth that was now gone, leaving a phantom chill along his skin. Compared to her, compared to Violet, his own clothes and skin were dry, as though the storm respected him less than it did them, leaving him insulated in his own private bubble of heat.
The air was cold, dragging itself across every inch of exposed skin, biting at him, and he shivered slightly, not from fear, but from the strange intimacy of proximity, the memory of contact that had left him exposed both to danger and to the dangerous pull of his own impulses. He took a slow, deliberate breath, counting as he had been trained to do. One. Two. Three. Each inhale measured, each exhale drawn out, longer than instinct demanded, until the tightness in his chest eased just enough for him to focus on something besides the past.
And then the thunder came, a deep, rolling rumble that seemed to vibrate through the earth itself, long and resonant, as if the storm itself had decided to align with them, to cover their movements, to grant them this fleeting grace. Beckett moved with it instinctively, using the vibration and timing to mask even the slightest sound, a predator within the hush between the roars of the world.
He reached back and grabbed the jacket he had been using as a makeshift blanket, still warm from his body heat, and thrust it into Lux’s hands without hesitation, without ceremony. A practical offering of warmth in a world that had none, a reminder that despite the monsters, despite the storm, they were still alive, still capable of action. He wanted the lightning again, wanted the brief, searing clarity of its illumination, wanted the thunder to cover the next moment, the next choice, the next movement that could save them—or destroy them. His eyes flicked to their shelter, fragile and temporary, a flimsy defense against a hundred unseen threats. Beyond that, just a few miles more, lay Camp Half-Blood, sanctuary and risk intertwined.
Could they afford to abandon everything and push for it? Could they gamble speed over caution? He didn’t need to voice the question; he didn’t need to explain the calculation. Lux would understand, as she always did, as frustrating and annoying as it was, as she had always understood what needed to happen when survival demanded it. He met her gaze, unflinching, silent, communicating what words could not: Do we run? Do we leave it all behind in one last gamble to make it there? Do we trust the storm to hide us a little longer? He let the pause stretch, long enough for the lightning to strike, long enough for the thunder to answer.
And when he spoke, it was nothing more than what was necessary, short and stripped of flourish. “Plan?” His voice carried in the rhythm of the storm, clipped, precise, carrying both command and trust. His eyes lingered on Lux, waiting, measuring, knowing she would not misinterpret the meaning behind the simplicity of his single word. Around them, the rain fell, the lake hissed against the shore, the forest pressed in, but for that instant, Beckett knew exactly where they were, exactly what they had to do, and exactly who he trusted to see it through beside him.
Even if it pissed him off.
Lux’s hands fumbled as a jacket wasn’t handed to her but shoved into her arms, whether or not they were ready and waiting… and they weren’t. A look of indignation furrowed her brows and tugged the corners of her mouth into an annoyed scowl that would have likely led into another one of their notorious arguments, if silence wasn’t more prudent than her pride. The fabric, warm and dry against her damp pruned fingers, nearly pulled a soft moan from her blue tinged lips. Her expression softened as a thread of her tension was pulled free with the gesture, even if there was no tenderness in the way he gave it. Her gaze met Beckett’s, a look of silent gratitude that she didn’t dare speak, it’d only make him scoff and turn from her anyway.
Crack.
Thunder roared, silencing her movements as she pull her bow from over her head and leaned around Beckett. Her chest brushed against his bicep and a single wet lock of hair grazed his cheek in the forced tight confines of their shelter. His warmth was like a beacon, drawing her toward him like a moth to a flame. There was a quiet repressed part of Lux that wanted to melt into it, into him, and pretend like monsters weren’t circling them, like she wasn’t going to die before ever reaching this camp, like he wouldn’t recoil from her like her touch was corrosive. Death was the time for confessions, but she’d prefer to die knowing he hated her rather than face the disappointing expression that would stare back at her afterwards.
Beckett felt her before he fully registered her, the tight confines of the shelter erasing any illusion of distance as she leaned closer, inevitability rather than choice. A wet strand of her hair brushed his cheek, cool and faintly scented as roses, and the contrast sent an unwelcome ache through his chest, sharp and disorientating in a way no blade ever had. He felt the urge to lean into her when her chest brushed his bicep, the cold of her skin bleeding into him, and for a dangerous moment his attention faltered, pulled toward the simple, human fact of her presence. He forced his focus elsewhere, counting the seconds between lightning and thunder like they were lifelines, like numbers could build a wall between him and the way proximity unsettled him more than the monsters ever could. One…two…three…his jaw tightened, breath measured, resolve reasserting itself with stubborn discipline. Aggravating woman.
Lux looked at him, brief and fleeting, knowing it could very well be the last time. She quickly grabbed her pack that she had forced him to use as a pillow, regardless of his arguments and huffing, and sat back down across from him just before the rumbling ceased. Then she waited, hands poised on her flannel, fingers trembling from the cold and adrenaline alike. With the next crash, she quickly peeled the soaked fabric off of her and shoved it into her bag. Then she froze as the sky grew silent once again. A shiver racked her body, rattling her teeth, as the breeze kissed the exposed skin of her arms and abdomen.
Beckett saw the shiver ripple through her before she could hide it, sharp and involuntary, a betrayal of the cold and fear she carried with such stubborn defiance. It lodged in his chest like a hook, tugging at something he hadn’t given himself time to name, something he didn’t have the luxury to examine when every instinct screamed for restraint and distance. He should have stayed still. Should have kept space between them, kept his body coiled and ready, kept his focus where it belonged, on the shadows beyond the trees and the thin line between survival and disaster.
Instead, before he could reason out why it mattered so much, before he could calculate the risk or silence the reflex, he leaned in. Close enough that his chest nearly brushed hers, close enough that his warmth bled into her through the rain-chilled air, a quiet offering made without words. It wasn’t enough to stop the tremor in her body, but it was enough to ease it, just for a heartbeat, just long enough to remind her, and himself, that she wasn’t alone in this storm. Thunder rolled again, deep and consuming, and Beckett pulled back at once, jaw set, expression hardening into something unyielding, as if the brief breach of caution had never happened at all.
Her breath hitched, drawing in sharp like a knife slipped between the ribs when Beckett filled the space between them. If his presence eased her trembling, Lux couldn’t tell beneath the way her pulse thundered in her chest so loud she feared he could hear it in the lull of the storm. There was a part of her that couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze and another part, caged and untamed, that wanted to look… Wanted to—he pulled away the moment they were safe beneath the sound, leaving a vacuum in his wake, cold and abrupt like the stoicism that lined his jaw.
There was a pause, a hesitation where her mind struggled to understand what it meant, like she often did with every move he made… Hot then cold, so fast it gave her whiplash. She cleared her throat, pushing her own foolishness away and pulled on his jacket, letting its dry warmth envelope and ease her, for just a moment. Lux half buried her face beneath the collar in an attempt to burrow as much of herself into the furnace of his coat. She drew in a heavy breath and was hit with a wave of gunmetal, leather and musk that tugged at something beneath her ribs, something like pain and comfort and a million other emotions. She blinked once, twice, then pushed aside whatever thoughts or feelings that plagued her, clearing her mind and focusing on his question… Plan?
Lux’s gaze drifted between Violet and Beckett, making sure they were watching her before she answered. She raised her right hand half swallowed by the sleeve that was too long and too large for her. She pushed the fabric back to her elbow and hovered two fingers over her other palm, an obvious mime of them walking. When the sky was quiet, drawing in its breath, her fingers walked slowly, cautiously across her hand. Lightning struck, everything flashed to life, and her fingers disappeared beneath a sleeve, hiding. Then, when the thunder shook the air and rumbled beneath the ground, her fingers ran… as fast as she could move them.
Silence, walk. Lightning, hide. Thunder, run. It wasn’t much of a plan, but they couldn’t stay there. If she was going to die it was going to be running and fighting, not hiding.
When the next crack of thunder came, Lux pulled the arrows from her pack and rolled them between her fingers. Three. That’s all that remained. It didn’t even hurt the monsters, but she kept trying, just like Beckett with his gun and Violet with her blades. But now it wasn’t going to be for defense or to watch it vanish into a creature’s side in the same way the mud swallowed their feet with every step. Those last three arrows were a…
Crack. "Distraction."
Beckett frowned as Lux laid the plan out in motion instead of words, his gaze following the careful choreography of her fingers as if it were a map sketched in air and skin. Silence, lightning, thunder—walk, hide, run. It was crude and elegant all at once, born not from strategy rooms or war tables but from exhaustion, instinct, and the cruel intelligence of someone who knew they were being hunted. He nodded once, slow and deliberate, jaw tight. It was the best they had. The only thing that made sense when the world had been reduced to sound and timing and how quickly fear could turn lethal. They couldn’t stay. They couldn’t wait. Movement was life, and hesitation was death. He accepted that much without argument, filed it away with all the other impossible decisions he’d learned to live with.
Then she lifted the arrows.
Then, the word slipped from her lips—distraction—timed perfectly with the crack of lightning, and something in him snapped hard and immediate, sharper than fear. His hand shot out before he could temper it, fingers closing around her wrist in a grip that wasn’t cruel or crushing, but firm enough to stop her cold. She would have felt it then, the tremor he couldn’t quite control, the faint betrayal of his body that gave away how violently he rejected the idea.
Lux nearly gasped, almost filled the sacred silence with a startled sound that could doom them all. Was that his pulse or hers? Was it from the fear of the monsters? The need to be the hero? Or something else… Something protective? She held his gaze, intent and unwavering. There was a fiery disobedience behind her eyes, but also a silent plea, not for him to give in to her wishes, but for Beckett not to force her hand. She didn’t need another reason for him to avoid her gaze and recoil whenever he touched her… She didn’t need another reason for him to hate her.
He shook his head once, fiercely, rainwater flinging from his hair, eyes dark and unyielding. He released her wrist just as quickly and jabbed his thumb into his own chest, the gesture blunt and unmistakable. Me. Lightning tore across the sky in a blinding arc, illuminating the low, rolling clouds overhead, and beyond their shelter the lake began to answer the storm in earnest. Waves crashed harder against the shore now, each one louder than the last, water dragging itself up the sand with growing insistence, as if the earth itself were being pulled toward the violence above.
Beckett drew in a sharp breath and waited, counting heartbeats the way he had learned to count seconds between artillery fire, between life and the moment it ended. When the thunder finally came, deep and rolling, longer than all the times before, as if knowing he had too much to say for a mere three seconds, the words burst out of him in a rush, rough-edged but clear. “I’ll be the distraction. We leave everything, run, stay together. I’m—” The sound swallowed the rest, thunder cutting him off mid-thought, and he didn’t fight it. He waited again, still as stone, listening to the lake now instead of the sky, to the pullback of water as it gathered itself for something bigger.
In the quiet between sounds, he wished, fiercely, hungrily, for the next wave to rise higher than the rest, to crash harder, to give him just one more opening. It was a foolish thing, wishing like that, but he did it anyway. And as if the world had decided to humor him, the water surged back in a roaring swell, climbing unseen before slamming into the shore with a force that rattled the ground beneath them. Beckett spoke into it, voice steady and final. “I feel stronger in the rain. I’ll be faster. You two stick together. I’m the distraction—and don’t you dare argue. No time.” The lake spilled into the edge of their shelter, cold water licking at their boots, brushing Violet’s feet just enough to make her flinch. Beckett didn’t look away from Lux. His expression was set, carved into grim resolve, the face of a man who had already decided where he would stand when the line was drawn.
Lux’s stomach churned more violently than the lake that crept closer at his insistence. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t swallow the lump that knotted and clung to walls of her throat like a dry pill. Then the water she had been terrified of swallowing her whole came for them, subtle and swift, sweeping over their boots. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip, filling her mouth with the taste of iron while muffling any sound that fought to burst forth from her chest. If she hadn’t already made up her mind, the creeping tide made it for her, inching her back until her fingers found her bow on the ground behind her.
Thunder rolled low and long, a sound so deep Violet felt it more than heard it, vibrating through her ribs, through the damp earth beneath her knees. It gave her cover—three, maybe four heartbeats where the world was loud enough to swallow anything fragile. Anything human.
They had been running for days. Not miles so much as endurance, measured in blistered feet and the hollow ache behind the eyes, in the way every sound scraped raw against nerves already frayed thin as wire. Sleep came in pieces. Food was rationed by instinct. Fear had become a background noise, constant as breath. Violet could feel the dead beneath them sometimes, restless, unsettled by whatever was stirring the land, but even they seemed cowed by the storm, pressed down by the weight of the sky.
Beckett’s words hit her like a fist to the sternum. I’ll be the distraction.
Of course he would. Of course the man shaped by war and water and loss would offer himself up like an anchor thrown into deep, hostile seas. Violet didn’t look at him right away. If she did, she might see the truth of it too clearly, the way the lake answered him, the way rain seemed to cling to his shoulders like a second skin, like a shield against the world. She had felt it for days now, that pull, that recognition humming low in her chest like a grave-marker struck by lightning. Poseidon, she was almost sure of it. The sea didn’t love lightly or gently, it loved with an intensity that could cause someone to do bold things.
Like volunteering to be a distraction in the place of Lux.
Another flash split the dark.
For a heartbeat, Lux was illuminated in stark white and shadow, too small in the jacket that swallowed her, hair plastered damply to her face, eyes reflecting the storm like cut glass. There was something about her in moments like that, something that made Violet’s thoughts skid sideways. Not just fragile. Not just brave. Something old, buried under layers of quiet and necessity. The thought rose unbidden, sharp as a bone splinter—
Was that the effect a daughter of Zeus could have? Violet crushed it down immediately. Questions could wait. Survival could not.
The thunder rolled again, closer this time, rattling the shelter and shaking loose a cascade of water from the overhang. Waves crashed outside, loud and violent enough to blur the edges of the world. Violet used that sound the way she used shadows, deliberately, reverently. She shifted her weight without speaking, slow and careful, trusting the lake to hide the whisper of movement. Cold soaked through her sleeves, numbing her fingers as she reached out. Lux’s hand was colder than hers.
Cold skin pressed into cold skin, grounding in a way nothing else had been for days. Violet closed her fingers gently around Lux’s, not gripping, not urgent, just there. When Lux looked at her, eyes flicking up in the half-light, Violet met her gaze steadily. Then she glanced toward Beckett, his silhouette rigid with resolve, and back to Lux.
She nodded once.
It was small. Almost nothing. But Violet had learned, growing up in the cold shadows of an orphanage, that some gestures carried more weight than words ever could. As the one who walked between them, who felt the pull of sacrifice and the cost it demanded, her agreement mattered. It tipped the balance. It said I see the danger, I’ve weighed the options, and I accept this choice. Another thunderclap tore through the sky, close enough that Violet felt it in her teeth. She tightened her hold for just a moment, a soft squeeze meant for both of them, then let her hand fall away. Shadows gathered at her feet, restless but obedient, curling close as if waiting for her command.
Lux returned the hold, tighter like a final answer, a final good bye in case this all went south like it undoubtedly would. Their luck had been stretched thin for months. It was almost poetic that the final thread snapped here, so close to camp, so close to the end. But even still in that resolute finality, she didn’t meet their gazes. She could never lie and even in the silence she knew her eyes would speak the truth. Her fingers pressed into the mud and curved around her bow and arrows in preparation. Hair prickled up the back of her neck, whispering to her of the impending lightning just before it strikes. There was the flash and in their blindness her body shifted, just a fraction, back tensed, feet pressed into the mud, and head turned slightly listening for the muffled rustling of a beast in the brush.
Then, in that brief silence when it felt like the world was holding its breath before the thunder, before there was no turning back, she looked up. Blue eyes met in stubborn determination, cast in shadows. There it was, Lux’s truth, laid bare for Beckett in the beat of a second before the sky opened up and swallowed her in its discord.
Crack.
Under the cover of thunder, Lux moved like a prowling cat, pouncing into action. She burst through the back barrier of the shelter, slipping out into the deluge of rain before either of them could grab her. Swift feet ushered by a guiding gust of wind carried her across the mud slick forest, falling into a slide and disappearing beneath a bush just before the rumbling ceased. Hidden in the foliage, she shifted into a crouch, right knee buried in the cold sludge of the earth, left foot poised, ready. The tips of her fingers had lost feeling hours ago, frozen and wrinkled. But she didn’t need touch, it was muscle memory. The arrow twisted between her fingers, instinct leading intuition as the fletching spun and the shaft nocked against the string with a telltale click. Then she waited… praying to the Gods and a father she never knew for guidance, for help… for a miracle.
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