Hunter

Chapter Eighteen - Flood Gates

I spent the entire bus ride thinking about nothing and everything. I was curled up in the farthest seat back, Deidre and Jasper several seats ahead of me. The sun was warm and beat down on my forehead, the rays blinding me to the extent that I still felt the sun burning behind my closed lids. For the most part, my mind was blank, even though I tried to think about stuff. I knew that Dee had something to do with it despite our current situation. If my mind had been allowed to wander, I would've worried myself into the ground like the head of a fearful ostrich.

I stared at my calloused hands.

I don't know when I suddenly developed callouses on my hands. I felt like I hadn't done enough to actually have callouses on my hands. I had felt that thus far, I hadn't really done anything worth mentioning. My parents had been on Olympus, fighting giant cyclops, and there I was sitting on a bus so that I could get back home. I folded my hands back into each other and blankly watched as the scenery flew past my window, thinking about how I was going to try and explain everything to my mom.

* Ω *

We arrived after dark. My phone was dead, so I didn't bother checking it for the time. I created yet another mental note to invest in a wristwatch. Jasper and Deirdre stretched beside me as I watched the bus drive off to who knew where.

"Hail a cab?" Dee asked. I nodded, pulling out my wallet to see how much I had left.

"I've got it, Hayley." Jasper's hand was on my wrist, ceasing my search. I stared at my hand and stared at him. The hard look on his face told me not to fight it. So I nodded, and he led the way.

The cab ride was quick. Jasper, Deirdre, and I stood in front of my house, our travel bags slung over our shoulders. As if rehearsed, their hands squeezed mine. Encouraging me.

A swirl of conflict danced in my head. I was so angry and tired. I was angry at my friends, my best friends, even though I loved them and I wanted to forgive them. I really wished that they didn't try and hold me back. I really wished that they let me fight so that I didn't have to feel the way that I was feeling. It wasn't their fault: it was all mine! I didn't want to be angry with them, I didn't understand why I was, but I needed to blame someone who wasn't me. I needed to do something so that I wouldn't feel the way that I did.

Above all, I was mad at myself. I was disappointed, and I was afraid. Afraid that I couldn't protect those who needed my help. Disappointed that I wasn't able to help those who need my help. Mad because I should've been able to help them. I should've been able to do that... but I couldn't, and I didn't.

I shut my eyes and stepped forward. I needed them as much as I wanted to be away from them. As I opened my eyes and stared at my familiar front door, I knew that something had changed within me. I felt the tenderness inside me solidify. I felt a foreign hardness in my heart that I knew only one person could break. I hoped, I prayed, that they would be able to shatter the glass before I cut them with it.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward. I opened the door, and when I did, my face was inches apart from the livid glare that my mother was sending my way.

"Hayley, you're so lucky that I was busy being a Celestial, otherwise, you would be regretting every single decision you made in the three days that you were gone." A blank stare watched my mother, and after a moment, I broke down. My bag landed on the floor with a loud thud, and I wrapped my arms around her neck. I couldn't hold back anything that had happened, even though I tried so hard to be strong. It didn't work.

I don't know how long I was crying, but when I lifted my head, I was sitting on my bed, my eyes were red and puffy, and my throat was closed up and rough. I looked down at my hands again, feeling like a big baby for crying like I did.

"What happened, Hayley? Please, tell me everything."

"Mom-"

"Hayley, please. You don't have to do everything on your own."

"I'm a horrible person," I whispered that.

"What?" she questioned gently. I then looked her in the eye and said my line as if I had rehearsed it.

"I killed 400 people."

* Ω *

"Hayley, that's not your fault." She proceeded to say after I had told her everything that had happened. "Atë is the goddess of delusion. She does that to people and plays with their minds. She knows that you would've picked personal relationships over strangers, and it doesn't make you a horrible person for wanting to stop her from killing your friends.

For all we know, she might not have even killed all those people. She makes you see your deepest delusions and fears, and for you, that may have been something to make you feel guilty and weigh you down. For Atë to kill all those people would be like you purposely going around and killing off an entire colony of ants: It's within your power, but you would've had better things to do with your time. She may have been just trying to play with your mind to discourage you because you're a formidable opponent, and all those going against the Laws of Olympus have reason to be scared.

"As for where to find Apollo's Celestial, if you had just asked me and not gone looking for Artemis, I would've told you. Sarina can be found in Sun City, Arizona. It sounds juvenile, I know, but it's that simple. These places were given their names because of relations to the gods." She looked at me with such empathy in her eyes that I couldn't look at her again. I looked down at my hands, which I seemed to be doing a lot of lately. There was a reason for that: they would not judge me.

"Mom," I said, still looking at my non-judgemental hands, "My necklace is gone. Andrea took it and that's why I need to find Apollo."

"I've known from day one, Hayle." My eyes snapped up to hers immediately. There was a look of knowledge and power in her eyes. A look that let me know that I would never be able to hide anything from her.

"I have been waiting for you to tell me. You need to understand that everything is connected, Hayle. Everything. When something that big happens, certain things start to unravel, like when you pull one thread out of a blanket. That one thread can make the entire blanket fall apart.

"I couldn't ask you about it because that would have made the fabric of the blanket unravel even faster. All I can say right now, though, is that you need to get your necklace back as soon as possible. You have become a target. There will be others like Atë who will come after you. You are strong, but your necklace makes you so much stronger. Now that you don't have it, others will find out and they will come after you."

"What should I do?" I asked her. My voice sounded small and lost, and I didn't like the helplessness that had clouded my being.

My mother sighed and wrapped her arms around me. I laid my head on her chest and took another deep, calming breath.

"Go to Apollo. He's probably your best bet right now, but for now, get some sleep."

She kissed the top of my head and stood up. With a small smile, she waved good night and then a second later I was alone in my room. It was then that the thoughts, and the questions, came crashing back.

Was what she had said really true? Could Atë really have played with my mind the way she had and not killed four hundred people? Was I actually not a murderer after all?

My heart was a heavy mass of muscles in my chest as I hoped and hoped that she was right. I felt nauseous and my chest was increasing in tightness. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, not knowing how to calm the impending panic attack that was going to grip me. I threw my blankets off of my body and walked on the cool tile. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my feet sticking to the floor.

I stopped when I heard Jasper's calm breaths through the door.