“My father?” I laughed again, but the sound was rough. Absentee Dad? Oh, this was fabulous.
“Yeah, your daddy. And your daddy is one of the biggest pains in my ass—in probably a lot of people’s asses. He’s Apollo, also known as the sun god, and he’s a major dick.”
“Apollo?” Another wheezing laugh escaped me.
His eyes narrowed. “The gods are real, Josie. And there’s a whole world living right among the mortals, moving in and out of what you think is ‘normal’ every day.”
All the humor dried up inside me. “You’re saying I’m a demigod? You’re a Pollyanna or something, and my dad is
Apollo?”
“Apollyon,” he corrected drolly. “And now you and I have a six-and-a-half-foot-and then some tall, asshole god in common.”
I continued to stare at him until I finally found words. “You’re being serious.”
“As serious as the Titans busting loose from Tartarus—which is also a real place—and gunning for your sweet ass.”
My mind got hung up somewhere between Titans and my sweet ass. I couldn’t believe this conversation was actually happening. “You’re…you’re mentally unstable.”
He leaned in again, so close I could feel his breath on my cheek, and boy, did that do a variety of things to me. “I wish I were. It would make things so much more fun. Sadly, I’m not. At least, not yet. And I know this is a lot to swallow, and it would be great to give you time for a learning curve, but I have a feeling we aren’t going to have that luxury.”
This was so not normal. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I reopened them, Seth was still there. My palms were getting clammy, and in the back of my head, a horrible little voice had picked up in the background. You vegone off the deep end. This-is it. You‘re totally crazy. “Is this real?”
His brows knitted. “This is real.”
It couldn’t be. There was no way any of this was real. I dragged in a breath, but it got stuck, and I looked around wildly as a flutter of panic began in my chest. We were outside, but there were invisible walls closing in. Schizophrenia—one of the main symptoms was hallucinations—seeing things that weren’t there. I could’ve totally conjured up a hot guy who thought he was a polly-poo. “I need air.”
He was frowning. “You have air. You’re—”
“No!” My voice exploded harshly. “I need air. Space. I need space!”
For a moment, he didn’t move, and the flutter of panic in my chest turned into a freaking bird of prey, clawing at me from the inside. He must’ve read something in my expression, because he actually backed off.
Flying off the wall, I took a step to my left and tripped over my forgotten bag. I wheeled around, my foot getting tangled up in the strap. Seth shot forward, catching my arm before I turned into a flailing Muppet.
“Hold on,” he said gruffly, bending over. Within a second, he had my bag detached from my foot. “There you go.”
The moment I was free, I yanked on my arm and he let go. I started backing up, trying to get my throat and chest to unconstrict. “This isn’t real.”
This whole thing was a hallucination. My head had drummed up this Seth. Maybe Jesse hadn’t even been meeting me in the library. Maybe none of this was real. I knew—I knew— it was possible. I’d witnessed week-long episodes where Mom thought we were in NYC or in China, even though we hadn’t left the house. Or when she would talk to people who weren’t there, hold entire conversations with them.
Holding my bag in his hand, he straightened. “Josie—”
I spun around and ran. I ran faster than I ever had before, maybe even faster than Erin could run, and I didn’t look back to see if the apolloanna gave chase. Muscles strained and my arms pumped. People I passed were blurs. I thought I heard someone shout my name. I didn’t stop running when I hit the steps leading to my dorm or when I barreled past the occupied couches in the lobby. I only skidded to a stop once I’d slammed my hand on the elevator button.
I was going crazy. My brain had just shit the bed on me.
Chapter 6
YOU HAVE interesting hair?
Had I seriously said that? Yeah, I had, and if I had time, I’d punch myself in the nuts, but alas, my show-and-tell with the girl had gone about as well as walking into Hades’s palace with slabs of meat hanging around my neck while calling for his “puppies” to come out and play.
Perhaps I could’ve handled it better. Then again, how did one gently break that kind of news? Over tea and crumpets? My stomach grumbled. Gods, I was hungry.
With Josie’s book bag in my hand, I stepped off the porch circling the library and cut across the lawn. I knew where her dorm was, which floor she was on and what room was hers. I could give her some time to digest the information, but I’d seen the panic in her blue eyes—so strong and raw I could taste it. Giving her time would backfire. She’d use those hours to further convince herself that none of this was real.
My hand tightened around the strap. Too bad I couldn’t bop her on the head or something, transferring the truth and the knowledge of our world to her. A nifty-ass trick like that would come in handy right about now.
Even more fucked up was the fact that, when I bit down on my lower lip, I could taste her skin, and that sent a bolt of oh-yeah straight through all my happy places. Not that it took much. A breeze could get that same kind of effect, and Josie…she wasn’t the kind of girl I’d go for. I tended to go for more of the in-your-face kind of hotness. Not pretty girls who existed somewhere between plain and sweet.
Her hair wasn’t plain, though.
Neither were her lips. Pouty. Bow-shaped. Soft-looking.
Or her eyes. Even though she clearly got them from her father’s side, there was always something…sexy about a pair of deep-blue peepers.
And she looked like she had a body under the chunky sweaters.
Fuck. Now my happy places were really happy.
I’d just crossed the midway point in the long stretch of lawn when I felt a sudden, oily heaviness slinking over my skin. I stopped, my narrowed gaze swinging over the trees and the students hurrying back and forth in the chilly night air. My attention landed on a middle-aged guy holding a briefcase. Glyphs raced across my skin in warning, but even without them, I would’ve known something wasn’t right about the dude.
He was standing in the middle of the lawn, staring right back at me. In the pale moonlight, his lips pulled back in a sneer.