21/365

  She knew something was wrong the second she got onto the porch.

  Their house had never been anything special. A two-story townhouse, just like all the others this side of New Olympus and the Upper West. Massive front lawns. Pools in the back of the house. Big stupid dogs that would yip and bark at any squirrel that would dare get close to their homes. And then there was the Ross house, usually with extra cameras outside, a few even in the apple tree and hidden inside the lawn itself. Her dad was paranoid about safety, which, sure, fine, Bianca figured after Ben kept disappearing for days on end, she would be too if she were his dad. Sneaking out? Virtually impossible. Sneaking someone in? Suicide.

  Except the front door was slightly open, and her mom’s big white SUV wasn’t parked in the driveway, and neither was her dad’s old muscle car. Great. Just great, Bianca thought. She almost considered calling Harper so she could stay over at her place for the night, just so she could avoid whatever was lurking inside her house. She’d had enough for one day. Just…enough. Of everything. Her head hurt and so did her body, and if she got into another fight right now, she’d probably scurry up the apple tree like one of the squirrels and choose to stay up there until her mom came home. Her phone was dead, though, so calling Harper wasn’t an option. She also wasn’t too keen on dragging the neighbors into her business right now, so… Bianca tensed her jaw and carefully took a step forward.

  The things inside of her didn’t scream or lurch or dance under her skin.

  For once, it was still.

  Which almost made her even more terrified than if it was screaming at her to run.

  “Mom?” she called, quietly stepping into the foyer. She strained for a response. The light in the kitchen was on, but that was about it. Shadows filled the house, almost pressing against the windows and clogging the hallways. “Dad?” Nothing. He’d usually echo right back, or say, I’m in the kitchen, BB. Not this time.

  All she heard from the kitchen was the frothing bubble of something cooking.

  And humming.

  The song was quiet, mumbled and muttered, interrupted by silence, and then continued. The sound echoed through the house. The stairs loomed over her at the end of the hallway, fat with darkness, loud with quietness that made her ears whine. The house stank. Reeked of sewage and blood and whatever was quietly frothing.

  A part of her grimly realized her house now reeked like Lower Olympus.

  Bianca glanced at the floor. Mud streaked across the formerly white carpet, speckled the walls and was smeared across shelves and vases and books that had fallen off a shelf. Then she saw the tiny shards of glass sparkling in the carpet, followed by the musty stench of garbage that nearly made her eyes water. What the—

  An assault rifle leaned against the wall, right there to the kitchen’s wide entrance. Its muzzle was hot, hot enough to smell tangy, warm enough to scar the wall. Smeared, bloody handprints coated the gun’s black barrel.

  Instinct told her to turn around and get the fuck out of there.

  Her legs decided otherwise, because if she’d gotten her parents involved with this mess, or one of Ben’s old enemies was trying to pick a fight with her, or…or…fuck, what if it was him? Lucian. Lucifer. Whatever the hell he called himself, lurking around inside her house, or maybe this was someone he’d sent to kill her, and that cooking, frothing echo coming from the kitchen could be her paren—

  Bianca stopped the thought before it could settle into her skull. She shook her head. Swallowed. Inched closer to the kitchen, keeping on her toes, then looked at the gun.

  Looked at it, but didn’t touch it. But…

  “If you’re thinking of shooting me in the back of the head, Bianca, I’d at least expect you to look me in the eyes first.” She froze. That voice, was it…? She slowly looked around the corner, and there, sitting on the counter, a wine bottle in her hand, a cigarette smoldering quietly in a cereal bowl beside her, was Rebecca. And she looked like death. Her short hair was wet, black, matted with old blood and filth. Grime streaked across her cheek, and for some reason, she was wearing an eyepatch over her left eye. She drank slowly from the bottle as a pot of something foul cooked beside her. She stared at Bianca. Bianca stared at her. Rebecca set the wine bottle onto the counter with a thunk, then leaned back on her palms. She was in black military fatigues, the kind her dad wore in the grainy photos he sometimes showed her. Except she wasn’t wearing any patches or insignias. Where they were meant to be, black squares stared at Bianca. And her face was…

  God, what happened to her face?

  Half her cheek was scar tissue.

  Like someone had tried to tear her head open from the corner of her lips right to her ear.

  “Aunt Becky?” she whispered, holding onto the wall. “What… Where are my parents?”

  “Carly is in Washington.” Becca flicked a sticky note at her. It spiralled, then landed on the floor. “She left a note. Your dad must be drinking in some dive bar with his old army buddies, trying to figure out where his daughter went.” Bianca tried not to flinch. Becca took the cigarette out of the cereal bowl, pulled smoke from it and made it glow. Nothing was said. Neither moved. Foul gray smoke spilled from her lips and turned the kitchen’s air light blue. Bianca nodded, pursed her lips, and tried to ignore the blood-covered cutting board on the counter, or the cleaver wedged into a chunk of meat beside the sink. Becca kept staring, her single eye training her like a dog that’s just caught onto the scent of something mouth-watering. Then, quietly, she said, “Are you still hungry, B?”

  Bianca shook her head. Her voice came out scratchy and tight. “No. I, um, ate on my way home.”

  “And where was that?” Becca asked. The pot beside her frothed more, spilled over its edge. The flames licking the bottom of it turned it black and sooty. She must’ve been here for a while, and judging by the rips in her fatigues, the chunks of missing fabric that exposed her thighs and abs and parts of her arms, looked loose and filthy, like she’d spent the past several hours clawing her way out of hell, tooth and fucking nail, until she wandered in here. “What did you eat?”

  “I drank, mostly,” Bianca said quietly, halfway hidden by the wall the rifle leaned against. “Cocoa.”

  “Cocoa,” Becca quietly repeated. More smoke in the air. She killed the cigarette in the bowl full of them, and then got off the counter. “Did you enjoy your cocoa, Bianca? Did you like how it tasted? Must’ve been really nice, wasn’t it? You’ve always had a sweet tooth, you’ve just been pretty good at hiding it. That’s what you do, hide things from people.” Becca took a swig from the wine bottle, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, then set it down again. She turned off the stove and jerked her chin at the marble island in the center of the kitchen. “Sit down, let’s eat.”

  “But—”

  Becca pulled her sidearm from her waistline and set it down beside the slab of meat with a thunk. Bianca stared at the large black thing, engraved with silver writing she couldn’t make out. Not under the blood smeared all over it. One of Becca’s hands was wrapped in a bandage already dark with blood. Her knuckles bled through the old cloth. The garish, meaty scars along her abs and thighs stank of infection. But Bianca got the message, loud and clear. Sit down. Shut up. Do what I’m telling you to do before I make you. Except…come on, Aunt Becky wouldn’t actually shoot her. That was nuts. The gun must be empty, probably with its safety on, because she wouldn’t ever—

  Becca put the boiling pot on the kitchen island with a thunk. Greasy brown water sloshed over the side of the pot and splattered onto the marble and trickled onto the floor. Bianca swallowed. Her nose shriveled as the foul smell of whatever she’d been boiling punched its way down her throat. Becca, though, kept staring hard at Bianca.

  Bianca swallowed. Finally found her tongue. “What’s in the pot?” A whisper, barely escaping her lips.

  “Bianca,” Rebecca said quietly, hands still holding onto the pot’s edge. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  “Is this some kind of weird punishment my mom is making you give me? Because it’s totally working. It’s working so well that I’m gonna go upstairs, take a bath, get ready for bed, and stay in my room until tomorrow.” She smiled. Becca didn’t. The fleshy scar on the side of her cheek, crawling all the way to her jaw, shined brighter as she stood underneath the kitchen island’s lights. Bianca cleared her throat and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I—”

  Becca let go of the pot, grabbed her sidearm and swiftly crossed the kitchen. Bianca backed up until her spine pressed against the corridor’s wall. Becca didn’t ease up, getting so close Bianca could smell the cigarettes and the wine and the grime on her tongue as she forced the gun into Bianca’s jaw. Her heart raced. Raced so hard it nearly got into her throat. She angled her head away. The gun bit harder into her skin as Becca used it to make Bianca flinch and breathe quickly and try not to look at the gun stabbing into her neck. Becky, so close that the stench coming off her dried Bianca’s tongue, stared into Bianca’s eyes, hand perfectly still, jaw very, very set and hard.

  For an eternity, they stood there, the gun jammed into her skin, so deep the artery in her neck pulsed hard against the cold iron. Bianca’s fingers pressed into the wall. And Becca, thumb caressing the side of the gun, tilted her head, stared at Bianca, hardly blinked and barely even moved. The clock in the hallway ticked. The oven, still hot, quietly smoldered as the pot on the island steamed and bloomed and filled the entire house with its stench.

  But her stomach snarled. She wasn’t hungry. The thing was. Again. Fucking again.

  “C-c’mon,” Bianca said, then swallowed when Becca forced the gun harder into her throat. “Cut it out.”

  Becky cocked the gun. The sound was so violently loud it shattered the silence in the house. She said nothing. Not when Bianca’s chest started rising and falling and her heart slammed against her ribs. Becky narrowed her eye.

  “What did I just tell you to do?” she whispered. “It’s that thing inside of you, crawling through your skull, sliding just underneath your skin. I could hold you down and scalp it off your bones, Bianca.” Her free hand pulled a hunting knife off her belt, big enough to nearly sing as Becky put the blade’s icy cold edge against her cheek. Now her entire body was tense. Now she wanted to scream and tell her to stop. But the gun stopped her jaw from moving and the knife licked up whatever sweat trickled down her face. “Save you, that’s what I’d be doing. Turning you into the kind of daughter your parents wouldn’t dread having.” Bianca shut her eyes. Tried to breathe when Becky slid the knife close to her ear, down her jaw, almost to her lips. “I can see them,” she whispered. “Moving just under your flesh. They’re afraid, just like you.” Becky was suddenly closer, lips to Bianca’s ear. “Kill me, Bianca.”

  “What?” she stammered, tense, silent. “Becky, you’re scaring me. Becky—”

  “Gut me, bitch,” Becca snarled into her ear, the knife now pressing against Bianca’s gut.

  “I don’t—”

  “Remember?” she whispered. “Is that it? Wanna get let off the hook just because you can’t remember what you did to me? Do you wanna know how it feels to have your eye pulled out of its socket, Bianca? Do you wanna feel how fun it is to have your back broken and get left for dead in a cellar?” Closer. So close her entire body nearly pressed against Bianca’s, the gun pressing deep into her throat, the knife breaking through her hoodie. “You think you’re any special because you’re Carly’s little girl? I don’t give a fuck what you are. I’ve killed soldiers I fell in love with for less than half a can of soup and a rusty spoon. How long until you kill your mother? How long until you rip out your dad’s heart and chew on it like meat?” Becky grabbed her jaw and yanked her head around. “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” she whispered, voice like steel. “But you wouldn’t remember a thing, right? You’d kill them, eat them, bury them, set your fucking house on fire, and not remember a goddamned thing, would you?”

  Tears. They sprung into her eyes suddenly and violently, spilling down her cheeks. Bianca tried to speak. Her tongue, fat and sloppy, couldn’t mold words out of the choking sobs she was trying her damndest to swallow.

  Becky, though, only narrowed her eye. “What’s the matter, scared you’ll remember getting shot?”

  “I’m sorry,” she cried, nearly choking on the words. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to— I can’t—”

  “I’ll rip your tongue out of your mouth, Bianca. Keep talking and you’ll learn how hard that is to do with only a hunting knife.”

  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, shuddering, tears wetting her cheeks. “You’re hurting me. It hurts, Becky. It—”

  Becky pulled away. Bianca collapsed onto the carpet, choking and spluttering and sobbing so hard her entire body shook. She felt like curling up and holding herself. Her head felt like it was trying to rip itself apart. And Becca stood over her, gun in one hand, knife in the other, barely blinking as she watched Bianca grow more and more quiet with each passing minute, until the entire house was silent, and she was nothing except a weeping mess at Becky’s feet. She dug her fingernails into her scalp, bit her tongue and stayed there, hating how frantic, how itchy and violent, the worms suddenly felt. They wanted to retaliate. They fed on her emotions, trying to make her angry, trying to make her ferociously hungry. She groaned as her stomach flipped and ached. She felt the worms push through the flesh on her back, slither and prod along the filthy red bandages wrapped around her stomach.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Becca crouched, then forced the gun to the back of her head. “Control it, or I’ll put one through you.”

  “I—” She gritted her teeth, feeling like she was going crazy as the worms screamed in her skull and made mush out of her thoughts. The house tilted underneath her. She wanted to puke and scream and grab Rebecca by—

  Harder. Becca pushed the gun harder against her head, until her face was firmly against the carpet. “Try.”

  “I—” She choked on her own tongue, on the worms that slithered up her throat and sat in her mouth. She swallowed, winced, hated the itchiness and the heat boiling inside her skin. Bianca squeezed her eyes shut, forcing tears to soak into the rough carpet, forcing them to streak down her cheeks as she gritted her teeth and rode the wave of pain until it made her violently nauseous. She swallowed vomit. Gulped air. Her body shook as the worms frantically ran up and down her arms and legs, made her muscles twitch and her fingers grow sharp edges of bone that clawed into her scalp and drew blood from her skin. It matted her hair. Trickled down her hands and soaked into her sleeves. Becca pressed harder. Her finger stiffened around the trigger. Her single eye was sharp, hand steady.

  She wasn’t joking. There wasn’t an ounce of humor in Becca’s face.

  She’d executed people just like this before. Bianca didn’t know it, didn’t want to believe it, but the worms were inside her head, telling her everything and nothing, terrified they’d die right alongside her because she didn’t want to lash out against her own aunt. They wanted to. They wanted to. She repeated it until it was a mantra that circled her mind and made her sick. She thought it over again, and again, until that was all she could think about.

  The worms weren’t her, and she wasn’t the worms—and she was in control.

  She had to be in control.

  Or she’d put an appendage through Becca’s heart and pin her to the ceiling.

  Or her aunt would pull the trigger and blow her brains out through her forehead.

  It took an hour. Maybe more. Becca didn’t move. Neither did Bianca. Not until she could breathe, not until she could pull her hands away from her head and her fingernails out of her scalp. She decided to lie there on the floor, catching her breath, eyes still shut as the worms and their aching heat slowly withered away into quiet rage.

  But it wasn’t her rage, it wasn’t her bloodlust. All Bianca felt was… Exhausted. Bianca felt exhausted.

  And scared. So, so fucking scared, because Becca still hadn’t moved.

  “I… I, um, think I’m OK now,” she whispered, throat achingly dry. “You don’t have to shoot me.”

  Becky, though, didn’t move. “I’d be doing you a favor.”

  “You’d be killing Rylee, too,” Bianca said, dragging her eyes open. Shadows clung to the walls around them. The kitchen’s pale lights barely reached this deep into the hallway. “She’d never forgive you if you kill me.”

  “Where’s the value for your own life? Your girlfriend won’t always be here to act like your shield.”

  “Rylee’s not my…” Bianca clenched her jaw. “Rylee isn’t a shield. All I’m saying—”

  “Right answer, Bianca, or you’re gonna say hi to Ben for me.”

  That struck a nerve. Struck it so violently her fingernails tore open and claws of bone sprung out, spitting blood onto the carpet. She breathed hard. Becca didn’t move. Bianca shut her eyes, then her mouth. In. Out. Relax.

  That was her anger. Very much her anger. The worms were just happy to feed on it.

  Slowly, painfully, the bone pulled back underneath her skin. Bianca clutched onto the carpet, soaking it with her blood, then pushed her face off the floor until she was on her knees, with Becca’s gun jammed against her forehead. She stared at her aunt. Her aunt stared back, one eye blind behind the gun’s large black muzzle. Bianca slowly moved her jaw, used her sleeve to wipe down her cheeks, then cleared her throat, swallowed hot saliva, and nodded at her.

  “Since you’re so freaking tough,” Bianca said, “shoot me, do the world a favor and save it from me.”

  Becky slammed the gun against her jaw. The world spun. She found herself back on the floor again, blood in her mouth and a loose tooth swimming in hot iron pooling on her tongue. Bianca spat, grunted, and got back up.

  Becca was standing now, gun still pointing down at her, like she was planning to put down a mutt.

  Bianca licked the blood off her lips, narrowed her eyes, and stood up. The gun tracked her. She held Becca’s eyes and forced her racing heart to calm down. The gun pressed against her chest, now just above her heart.

  “I’m sorry for hurting you,” Bianca said. Becca’s face didn’t change. Flat. Emotionless. Distant.

  “You only proved me right,” she said quietly. “I figured that thing inside of you was getting stronger, and it was only a matter of time when it released all kinds of pheromones to make Rylee want to get closer to you. That thing is a predator. It’s smart. You might think it’s just violence, that it’s just hatred and rage, but it hasn’t lived this long, jumping from one host to the next, off of nothing except emotions. It hunts. It plans. It kills. And it consumes. Arkathians are its favorite. Kaiju meat is the next best thing. Turns out Rylee is even better, because just thinking about her fills you up with all kinds of emotions, doesn’t it? You want her more. You miss her more. Because that thing wants you to get so desperate that you hunt her down and cozy up to her and trick her into loving you.” Bianca stared at Becca, eyes hard, fists balled tight either side of her. “You aren’t good for her. You’ve never been. Maybe you never were. As far as I’m concerned, that thing has only ever been after one thing, and that’s Rylee.”

  “You’re saying what I feel for her is fake?” Bianca whispered. “You think I’m lying about all of this?”

  “I’m saying it’s made you love her. It knows humans. It’s learnt us and our behaviors for thousands of years. You’re not any special. It kills. And it loves to kill. That’s all it’ll ever amount to being—a machine of extinction.”

  “I’ve only ever wanted Rylee,” Bianca said quietly. “I know what I feel, I know what my emotions are.”

  “You almost got her killed that day.”

  She blinked. The house, dead silent, grew quieter.

  “The day of the attack, you two were together, weren’t you?” Bianca didn’t nod. Becca, gun still forced against Bianca’s forehead, tilted her head. “It doesn’t even have to touch Rylee to hurt her. It’s radiation to her. She breathes it, she touches it, she’s around it, and all that’s gonna happen is her cells degrade. She could’ve stood a chance if you hadn't—”

  Bianca punched her.

  Tried to punch her.

  Her fist swung, connected with air as Becca stepped back, ducked, grabbed Bianca’s arm and twisted it so hard she collapsed onto her knees. She tried not to scream as Becky bent her arm behind her back and jammed the gun into the back of her head again. Bianca panted through the pain, sweaty, filthy strands of brown hair hung over her face, down her forehead and over her eyes. She grinded her teeth hard against one another, making her jaw ache.

  “Don’t,” Bianca snapped. “I wasn’t the reason any of that happened. I didn’t fucking do anything!”

  “That parasite is pretty good at making you forget what you did, so how sure are you of that?” Becky forced her arm upward. Pain lanced down her spine. The living flesh underneath her own nearly ripped right through her skin and impaled Rebecca. But she forced them to froth and rage inside her veins, tearing through her muscles, cutting through the bandages, making blood soak into her hoodie. “Rylee was weaker that day, slower, and you think that fight would’ve turned out so bad if she hadn’t been with you? Do you think she would’ve hurt her shoulder so badly that it’s still fucking with her right now, nearly a month later, if you hadn’t lured her in?” Becky jammed her knee into Bianca’s spine, slamming her onto the floor. Air exploded out of her lungs. Bianca gasped and wheezed, kicked her feet, struggled and cursed, but Becca didn’t move. Her fingersnails sank into Bianca’s wrist. Her knee dug into her back. The gun, steady, chewed into the meat of her neck. “Without you being around, Rylee finally got stronger. She saw you in school, and not once did she develop. Not until she was away from you. Not until her body could finally breathe. She was better off without you. Stronger. And then you just had to live.”

  “You’re—!” Bianca screamed, then bit down on her tongue, cutting it off. “You’re the one who saved me!”

  “You’re the one who insisted on being with her again,” Becca whispered. She shifted her weight. Bianca’s ribs ached and bent against the blood-smeared carpet. “And no, Bianca. I didn’t save you. I stopped you from doing what you were already doing. You crippled the Talon. Nearly decimated the Order. You hunted them down like dogs, and you can’t remember a fucking thing.” Becca pressed down on her. Bianca’s chest ached. Her head pulsed as her heart slammed against her temples. Mouth close to her ear, Becca’s hair brushing the side of her face. Bianca stared up at her, wheezing into the carpet. “You’re the devil Lucas always wanted. Complicit to the rage inside of you, unquestioning of its conquest for blood and revenge. Ben controlled it. Poor, poor Ben, who probably always knew his sister couldn’t cut it. And now here you are, damn near the reason Rylee might never be the same again.” Closer. So close that Becca’s hot, nasty, tobacco-smelling breath filled her ear. “And you still want to be hers?”

  “Keep pissing me off, Becca, and—”

  “And what?” she asked. “Gonna prove me right?”

  Silence. Heavy breathing. Bianca’s shoulders dropped, her body relaxed. She shut her eyes, breathed in the carpet and tasted its cocktail of stenches. Her heart hammered against the floor. Blood from the wounds she’d cut into her scalp slid down her cheeks and into her eyes. That’s not true. That’s not fucking true. She wasn’t the reason Rylee was never as strong or as fast as Zeus. She wasn’t the goddamned reason Rylee had gotten so powerful it made the Olympiad release an alert on the news the day after she nearly killed Adam, telling the world how dangerous she was, telling America not to so much as look at her. She tore Adam apart like he was nothing. Zeus’ clone, the heir to his golden statue, the strongest there would ever be—and he’d lied there, bleeding into the stone on Olympus Hill, as Rylee stood over him, barely a scratch on her body. She always knew Rylee was powerful. Always knew Rylee was strong enough to snap her arm without even trying, or crush her hand if she ever held them. But Bianca never thought she was the reason Rylee couldn’t do any of those things, not when they were together. At some point in the night, that quiet, perfect night when they had slept together, Rylee had started nosebleeding right on her chest.

  There was a reason she’d gotten up early, showered, and forced that t-shirt deep inside of her laundry hamper.

  She hadn’t wanted Rylee to see it, because it would mean Rylee would distance herself again.

  Bianca didn’t want that. She couldn’t let go of her again after being away for so long.

  Or maybe that had been the virus, telling her to cling onto Rylee, telling her to kill her slowly.

  “She’s alive, isn’t she?” Bianca whispered, prying open her eyes.

  Becky said nothing, face streaked with shadows and filth.

  “How bad is her shoulder?” she asked quietly. “Can she move her arm?”

  Silence. Becky continued staring down at her, gun perfectly placed to tear a chunk out of her skull.

  “Why…” Bianca swallowed, tasting blood still bubbling in her mouth. “Why can’t I see her?”

  The answer crawled under her skin. She felt them in her mouth, pulling her tooth back in place, knitting together her split lip, swallowing the blood sitting in the back of her throat. Bianca shut her eyes and stayed still.

  Her entire body hurt. Hurt so badly the pain raked through every single one of her bones.

  Not physical pain. No. Something deeper. Something inside her chest and her gut.

  Nearly making her want to cry again.

  A silent voice deep inside of her mind asked, What if?

  What if Becca was right? What if she was right about everything?

  But she couldn’t let go of the one thing that still made sense. The one goal that she could actually believe in for once. Her and Rylee, together somewhere, her getting old, Rylee stuck looking twenty even as Bianca went gray. They’d travel and they’d have fun, they’d be happy and forget ever being in pain and feeling hurt and hating so many things. Rylee would write comics. Bianca would work in a coffee shop. They’d never have enough money, but they’d have more than enough to sit beside each other, not wanting more. Saving the world. Saving Lower Olympus. None of that was what she wanted. It was what she was convincing herself that she wanted, because Ru wanted it, because the people there needed help—and maybe it was selfish, but…she’d needed help for years.

  Nobody had come to save her, not until she’d kissed Olympia on prom night and figured it out.

  If it meant doing this, then…

  Lower Olympus had to be clean for Rylee not to always have to fight, to struggle, to always be in pain.

  And whilst she was away, Bianca would do that. For her. For them. And maybe…

  Fuck, she didn’t expect much from life anymore, but maybe they’d be happy if they both saved the day.

  What a load of bullshit, she bitterly thought. And I need to believe every last fucking bit of it.

  “I love her,” Bianca whispered. “I’ve always loved her.”

  “Would you die for her?” Bacca asked.

  “Yes,” Bianca said.

  “Would the parasite let you?”

  “It doesn’t fucking matter what it would do.” Bianca looked up at her. “I’m the one that loves her. Me. Not the parasite. Not whatever it wants to do to her. I don’t know how long it’s been inside of me, or if anything you’re saying is true, but I haven’t cried myself to sleep over Rylee because some goddamned alien Kaiju virus makes me want to fall in love with her. Maybe…sure, maybe you’re right, and maybe none of this is real, Becca, but my life is so damn miserable, so fucking shitty most of the time, that I can barely get out of bed on my own. But Rylee makes me want to keep trying, because if she’s trying, then I can try, and even if we’re both miserable, at least we’ll be miserable together, with or without this stupid virus. If you’re gonna shoot me, then do it. Make Rylee hate you, but just know that if you do decide to kill me, I’m dying hating you, too, and that’s not the virus talking right now.”

  Becca stayed silent. Didn’t move. The gun barely shook in her hand.

  For a second, her finger tightened on the trigger, and Bianca tensed her jaw and swallowed her heart.

  She could almost see it, the bang, the flash, then her brains exploding out through the side of her skull.

  Instead, slowly, Becca lowered the handgun, flicked its safety, and wedged it into her belt.

  They stared at one another. Bianca finally felt like she could breathe.

  She got off Bianca. Air filled her lungs so fast she choked, coughed, and sluggishly got up again.

  “Good thing you already ate,” her aunt said, walking past her and slinging the bloody rifle onto her shoulder. “Because we’re going out tonight, and won’t be back until your dad calls. You’re atoning for your sins.”

  “What sins?” Bianca asked, stiffly getting off the floor.

  “The kind you carry for having that thing inside of you,” Becca said, killing the kitchen’s lights. Now, in full darkness, Becca’s eye almost seemed to glow—maybe with spite, maybe something else entirely. She lit another cigarette, blew smoke out from the corner of her mouth, and said, “It’s what good people do, making up for the bad shit they did. Ben spent most of his life doing the same thing, but only because my brother convinced him. I’m not going to convince you of anything tonight. Run away at any time you want, you’re pretty good at doing that and then forgetting all about it. So I’m telling you this right now, B—this good-guy, bad-guy shit? It’s not black and white, nothing is. But tonight, you are going to be good. You are going to be just, and righteous, and necessary.”

  “Necessary?” she asked quietly.

  “Like what Rylee is.” Becca headed for the front door. “We’re going villain hunting.” She stopped, then looked over her shoulder, moonlight making the new flesh on her face shine. “Wanna prove yourself? Prove it.”

  She wants me to kill. I can see it in her eye. She wants me to prove she’s right about the virus.

  She wants to prove it made her love Rylee, even when she shouldn’t have. When Bianca ignored the bodies Rylee left behind on sidewalks, or the gore she’d smear across an alleyway, killing a purse snatcher. The dozens of videos Bianca had uncomfortably sat through, trying to justify the corpses Rylee would split in half with ease, almost with a smile on her face. Grainy security footage leaked online. Camera phones getting busted before she stomped on someone’s skull and popped it open like a gory zit. She’d desensitized herself to Rylee’s murders, to Rylee’s bloody crusades. She’d gotten angry with people online, argued with them for hours on end, defending Rylee so hard people would ask her if Olympia was paying her to write that shit. And all that time, it could’ve been the virus inside of her, whispering in her ear, coaxing her to click another video, another picture, swallow bile and text Rylee, I hope you had a good day! Did you see Olympia stop those thieves yesterday? She is so cool, right?

  She’d never get a reply. Why bother? Rylee had been right there to see what happened to the thieves.

  She didn’t need a link to a video of it, almost like Bianca was rubbing it in her face.

  Bianca pushed her fingers through her hair. Blood flattened it to her scalp.

  “Well?” Rebecca asked her.

  “I want to save people,” she said quietly. “But…not like how Rylee does it.”

  She stared at Bianca, then nodded, just barely.

  Rebecca said nothing else as she left the house, the door wide open behind her.

  Bianca walked toward it, put her hand on the door, and thought about shutting it and turning the lock.

  Instead, she found herself standing outside on the porch, smelling a storm brewing in the distance. Just that time of year, Bianca thought, listening to thunder roar through the sky. Cold. Windy. Terribly, painfully dark.

  In the distance, Zeus’ statue shone golden in the bay, looming over the pitch-black underbelly of New Olympus.