Kalliope (PJO)

33. Those are not the rules of hide and seek

Mari and Adela were sitting on opposite sides of the room with three doors, decidedly avoiding the one that led to Tartarus. For a girl who'd spent the last hour and a half (probably) pouring her soul out to Mari, Adela seemed awfully calm. But Mari was angry enough for both of them.

Because seriously, what the fuck?! Hekate had a lot of explaining to do. Mari felt a twinge of guilt for ever feeling sad at the fact that her Dad didn't, well, he didn't do anything. Absence was a hundred times better than... that. If Mari ever met Hekate, she'd... fuck. She wouldn't do anything, because she wouldn't be able to do anything. Hekate was a goddess. Scratch that, a titaness. She'd probably turn Mari into some variation of slug and feed her to that raccoon-cat, Raisin.

"Say something, please." There was a slight tremor beneath Adela's seemingly-calm voice. If Mari hadn't spent a considerable amount of  time around Adela, she probably wouldn't have picked noticed it.

Mari swallowed. She could hear the little cat snoring away in Adela's front  pocket, and see the bulge of its shape beneath the fabric. "How are you touching the cat?"

"Seriously? That's what you're asking?"

"You told me to say something. That was something."

"You can't kill something that's already dead," Adela said.

Mari blinked. That was even more confusing.

"I told you. I hate animal abusers." Adela shook her head. "Just think of it as a zombie cat. I'll explain more later, this isn't exactly the time."

 "Okay. I'm sorry," Mari whispered.

Adela scoffed. "I just told you that at any moment I could kill you, and you're the one apologising to me?"

"What are you talking about?" Mari asked. "If you killed me, it would be an accident."

"Yeah," Adela agreed, eyes narrowing. "It would. But that wouldn't make you any less dead."

Mari gulped. She'd thought about what dying would be like before. Half the time on Circe's island she was convinced that she crazy goddess was going to get sick of her defiance and off her, and then she'd been thrown into a fight against a crazy man-eating cyclops and nearly drowned for all her trouble. She'd certainly had more than enough time to get acquainted with the idea. But the idea of dying right at that moment, down in the labyrinth, with nobody ever knowing how it happened, was somehow a lot worse. Mari's heart banged against her chest, and she wiped her sweaty palm against her jeans. She did not want to die like this.

"How many people have you killed?" Mari's voice was small. She shuffled closer, to the centre of the room.

"Lost count at seventy-three. That was two years ago. Other than that, I don't know. What does that say about me, Marion?" Adela clenched her jaw and looked away from Mari as if she feared she'd find an answer she didn't like in Mari's expression.

Mari crossed her arms. "It certainly doesn't make you some kind of cold-hearted monster, if that's what you're thinking."

"What else would it possibly make me? I lost count of how many people I've killed.  I literally kill anything I touch, and I can and will kill you eventually. Tell me you understand that."

A thought stuck Mari. "Chiron," she whispered. "He told me to stay away from you."

Adela's head snapped up, and her expression was angry. "You told Chiron about me?!"

"No! No," Panic flooded Mari's chest as she stumbled over her words. She hadn't thought about it. She'd just needed to talk to someone, and she- shit, what if Adela got angry and left Mari alone? She didn't want to be alone. She was terrible at alone. "I mean, yes. I did. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to. I'm sorry."