[ the second book in the drops of sunshine series ]
As much as she ended up loving her first one, AJ Hood never wanted to go on another quest. But somehow, she ended up on one anyway. And this time, it's not going to have a pretty ending... but at...
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~ ☼ ~
I'd been scared to be on the train before, but now I was too shaken to think about it. We couldn't find a ticket to Chicago that we could afford with the pocket change Lucas had, but we could find a train to Cleveland. We decided - or the three of them did - that we'd do that, then figure it out from there.
As we sat in the Amtrak station, waiting for the train to get there, Aria and Kiera went to the bathroom together. They invited me to come, but I didn't want to. Instead, I sat on the plasticky chairs and felt like crap.
"You okay?" asked Lucas, as he sat down next to me.
Usually, I'd reject the intimacy, but now I just picked at my nails and avoided his eyes.
"Yeah," I said. "I just feel bad."
"You don't have to feel bad," he said.
"Yeah, I do," I said. "There could've been another way."
"AJ, what else were you supposed to do?" he said. "Imagine if the kraken had become active again? For all we know, somebody's already been seriously hurt. Or killed. If that was the only thing we could come up with, then that was it. At least you helped save Pittsburgh."
I was surprised about his passion towards the subject. "Do you really think so?"
"I do," he said. He cleared his throat, then said, "I know this is going to sound bad... but the gods, the monsters, they're all immortal. Death isn't the same thing to them as it is to us. Even to us, it's better than it is for mortals. At least we know where we're going."
That made me feel better. It was true that Pallas had been around for millennia, and her peers and enemies existed in an in-between between life and death as we knew them. This was child's play for Olympians.
Even Kiera, who'd been the one that defended Pallas in the first place, seemed to hold no ire for me now. I had this feeling that all demigods felt the same way about the gods, the way the gods felt about us. That we could take anything. I swallowed, then looked at Lucas.
"I don't know where I'm going," I said. "I was raised Christian. Which one am I going to?"
Lucas grimaced. "Heaven, or Hell? I'd hope Heaven."
I snickered. "No. Heaven or the Underworld."
"Ohhh!" Lucas' cheeks went red. "Got it."
I giggled, against my angst. "You think there's a chance I'd go to Hell?"
"No!" he said. He held up his hands. "Well - I mean, you said it, not me."
