The Search for Juno

Chapter XXVIII

The last thing Conny wanted to do was return to the house; June was there, after all, and Alex wasn't. Instead, Conny sat in the sedan for a while, until his mint was no more than a tiny reddish-white speck on his tongue. Then he drove aimlessly around Portland, stopping in random shops along the main street and buying whatever strange commodities caught his eye. Alex was a good ninety-five percent of the man's impulse control, essentially, and the other five percent Conny supplied for himself was about as strong as an Oreo dunked in milk.

He was frustrated. Conny, being Conny, was usually frustrated, but this was a different beast: a simmering, uncomfortable heat in his chest, tightening his every word, fogging his brain. Try as he might to blame Remy for this messy predicament, he knew it was no one's fault but his own. So it was no one's responsibility to fix it, then, but his own.

The sky was black when Conny ran out of both gas and money and had to return to Dolinski's estate. He blinked up at the dated Tudor exterior, dark siding criss-crossing white. The porch was dark, rosebushes tossing amorphous shadows across it, though the foyer and living room windows were a luminous, bright yellow. Leaning back against the driver's side door, shopping bags in hand, he allowed himself one more moment of blissful hesitation before he stalked up to the front door.

Silence greeted him, which was only possible, Conny figured, if June was not here. Lucky him. He could polish off the half a bottle of whiskey left in the liquor cabinet and forget that his life, for approximately the third time, was going to shit.

At the mouth of the kitchen, however, he stopped.

June sat, uncomfortably stiff, at the breakfast bar, one leg folded across the other, a worn cardigan wrapped around her shoulders. Across from her, picking at a leftover McDonald's apple pie, was the god Apollo. He was dressed as if he'd just left some sort of stoner-infested beach party, in a wifebeater and multicolored shorts, his skin such a gleaming brownish-bronze that it almost hurt Conny's tired eyes.

Two pairs of eyes slid towards Conny as he entered. No one said a word.

"June?" Conny said, setting his bags down with a gentle thunk. He narrowed his eyes at her, demanding tacitly to know what the hell was going on. "I didn't know we were having...guests."

Not looking up from his pie, Apollo said, "You can quit the act, kid."

Conny sputtered. "Don't call me kid—"

"A week ago when I was here visiting my sister? I knew you guys were there, you know," said Apollo, and now he met Conny's eyes, flashing a smile that glinted pearly white beneath the overheads. "I mean, come on. I'm the God of the literal Sun? I see everything."

June snorted, cutting Apollo a vicious side glance. "I thought that was Helios."

"Helios is old and wrinkled and about as skillful as my left pinky toe," Apollo huffed. "I'm much better."

"Fuck this," Conny said, shucking off his trench coat and tossing it over the barstool beside June. "So you're right. We know who you are. What I don't know is why you're here. And where—where's Artemis, anyway?"

Apollo blinked at him in silence for a moment, straightening up. He was towering, Conny thought, tall enough to block out all the light from the ceiling fixtures. Conny swallowed back his discomfort.

"Oh? She didn't bother telling you?" Apollo scoffed, crossing his arms. "She's on Mount Olympus. Urgent business."

June snapped to attention. "Wait. If you—"

"Like I'd snitch on my own sister?" Apollo's golden gaze zipped towards June, his voice suddenly glacial. "I may not be human, but I'm not a monster."