The Search for Juno

Chapter XXV

The lobby brimmed with a strange, somewhat noxious array of scents—deodorant, stale cucumber water, a bit of pungent potpourri. Angie rested her back against the wall, eyeing Clio's side profile as she poked at the vending machine.

    Under Hermes's order, they were here to procure some over-processed food, because kidnapping people, apparently, made him snackish. Clio had insisted she be the one to do it, and though she told Angie it was to satisfy her curiosity, Angie knew it was really to prove that she knew how to use a vending machine at all.

    "What did Hermes say he wanted again?" Clio said, a thoughtful thumb perched on her chin. "'Doogles?'"

    "Bugles. The weird-shaped chip things?" Angie said, a slight chuckle at the end of her breath. "Just the regular ones."

    "Right." Clio nodded, slipping the coins into the slot one by one, a quiet thunk sounding as they settled within the machine.

    Angie watched Clio, traced the graceful, ethereal slope of her nose and her lips, the deft flick of her nimble fingers as she slipped silken black hair behind her pointed ears. The same violent sensation that had come over her after the storm earlier gripped her again, as if she had to remind herself how to breathe, her blood rushing in her ears.

    A gentle shuffle sounded as the Bugles fell into the machine's dispensary slot. Clio stooped to get them, but Angie sighed, beating her to it. "Clio," she said, still gripping the bag of chips. "About earlier—"

    Clio crumpled. "You're going to tell me you didn't mean it," she said. "Aren't you?"
     The words hit Angie like a sucker punch to the gut. "No!"

    "It's okay," Clio assured her, though her eyes darkened, turning a deep, sorrowful navy blue. "It's okay, really. You don't have to force yourself to do anything just so you don't hurt my feelings—"

    Angie closed a hand around Clio's wrist, so tight it suddenly drew the nymph to silence. Angie leaned close, close enough to catch the lingering scent of rain in Clio's hair, and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek.

    "I did mean it," she said, stepping back, grinning as Clio touched her cheek in awe. "Of course I meant it. I was just trying to make sure that you did, too. The last thing I would want to do is make you uncomfortable."

    Clio grinned. "But you do."

    A jolt of bitter surprise. "What?"

    "You do make me uncomfortable, Angie. Because I've never felt like this about anyone before...because I've never cared this much before," Clio said, a flush at her high cheekbones. "So it's strange. I'm not used to it. But I like it. I like you."

    The only reason Angie did not kiss her again right there was the unwanted interruption of her cell phone. Sighing, she yanked it from her pocket, glancing at the notification that lit up the screen.

    "It's Hermes," Angie said, tilting her phone screen towards Clio. "He says that Alex just woke up."

It all came to him very slowly, like steam clearing from a mirror.

    Alex peeled his eyes open, his eyelids like lead weights. He blinked sleep away and frowned, making out a closet door, two primped and wrinkle-less white beds, a slow filter of sunlight through curtains. A hotel? he thought, and he remembered—dinner with Remy, a cough rising from his lungs, sludge filling his veins and weighing him down into a deep, dreamless sleep.

    He remembered something else, too: Juno.

    He couldn't stay here much longer; Conny would lose his mind. When he tried to move, however, his muscles strained against a heavy binding of rope, and he nearly sent himself and the desk chair to which he was tied toppling over.