The Fleece Job (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Chapter 30: He really chooses to play "Die Young" on repeat?

Ari

Ev and Penny show me downstairs. They give the girl, Frankie, Penny's room, and tell me I can share with Reese. Reese is up on deck playing and singing 'Die Young' repeatedly with no regard for my nerves.

Ev gives me one of their shirts and a pair of Jason's jeans, and Penny gives the girl dry clothes. I change in Reese's room, and Penny changes in Ev's room while Ev bounces up top to air dry.

I take a moment to clean up. I'm shaking, not used to a living body, and entirely disoriented. Nobody told me how long I've been dead. Two years at least? Maybe three? Reese is still a kid, but he's not so little anymore. Penny and Ev are in their late teens at least.

And I'm alive again.

I study myself in the mirror. The lightening scars are worst on my chest and arms, through there's some through my hair and on my face as well. Than was right, we do match. He came to see me—I know he did. I just don't know how often. I don't really know how long it was. I remember him sitting in my room reading to me from one of my favorite books. Telling me it was okay and to go to sleep. So I did. And I'd wake and he was gone. And then he'd come back and read to me again.

I put on one of Ev's shirts, which does of course have the sleeves cut off. Whatever. I also wash my face. Reese has hair gel, our hair's about the same, equally curly and annoying. I slick my hair out of my face as best I can. Then I look the bathroom cabinet. A medical kit. Lovely. But is there anything for Reese's eyes? I don't know what caused the blindness exactly, but I suspect I can heal it at least temporarily with proper supplies.

My hands are shaking too much to even open the box. I chug the rest of the ambrosia that Penny brought me. Raising myself was a strain to put it mildly. Blood vessels are broken in my eyes and under most of my skin.

I open the medical kit. It's a surprisingly competent array of herbs and things? As well as another vial of ambrosia.

A note falls out, in my aunt Dara's handwriting it reads simply "Good Luck". I smile a little. So she was rooting for me to make it out. She knew I'd know what to do with this.

I take one of Reese's bags he had musical instruments in and put the medical kit in that, along with an extra blanket for bandages. Theoretically we're going back to shore right? Where are we going? They didn't really say.

I sigh, I'm so tired I half want to lie down on the bunk and sleep until ---forever. I'm so tired. But curiosity gets the better of me. And I've been too much alone. I'd much sooner fall asleep listening to my friend's chatter, knowing I'm not dead.

"Hey," when I step out of the room Peter is waiting there.

"Hi," I say, as I remember it was actually my dad who killed him. I mean,  I did raise him from the dead, but I can see my own handprints on his face from his skin coming off as I raised him. And I know for a fact coming back is more than a little disorienting.

"Hi," I say, putting a hand through my hair, "Um—,"

"No—thanks," He says, nodding, "I'm glad we have you back. And I don't blame your dad for what he did. At least he loved you and he was trying to save you."

"Well, didn't work," I say, shrugging.

"I'm going to ask my dad to let you go. This has to stop," Peter says, shrugging, "Well, Cassian's dad."

"Don't—it's not your fight."

"Kind of is."

I nod a little.

"Come on, let's see what they're up to," he says.

"Yeah, I need to look at my brother's eyes," I sigh.