In Plain Sight by Hope Anika

Chapter Eighteen

“Lena.”

She kept going. Along the line of food trucks and around the flowering onion stand; through the assorted kiddie rides: the carousel, the electric train, the bright blue and red bouncy house. Past the ride jocks setting up the trailer-mounted octopus; behind the long funhouse trailer.

“Lena!”

It was Ares following her, not Max. Still, she didn’t stop. Her heart was beating so hard, she could hardly breathe. The pressure inside her was immense, as if she’d swallowed a balloon that had suddenly begun to inflate, growing bigger and bigger, pressing against her bones until she knew she would burst.

That’s why she was running. It was coming. She couldn’t stop it—not this time.

And Ares was the last person she wanted to—

A hard, strong hand caught her arm and yanked her to an abrupt halt. She stumbled back and tried to pull away, to run, but he was too strong, and all she could do was look away and gasp for breath.

“Stop it, Lena.” He squeezed her arm and ducked his head toward her, but she just turned away, circling in an effort to not look at him, to not meet that blue gaze, to not think or feel or be. “Just stop. It’s okay. You don’t have to keep running.”

A jagged laugh tore from her; it hurt. Words bubbled to her lips and she tried to bite them back, tried to cling to the mantle of silence that was her protection, tried to pretend it would all be fine—

“Yes, I do!” she cried and turned to smash her fists against his chest, a futile, horrifying act she could only watch from afar as if someone else—something else—inhabited her body. She hit him once, twice, and then he grabbed her wrists and stopped her, and that only made it worse.

Made what was inside of her furious. She lifted her knee and—

“Just calm the hell down!” Ares snarled, sidestepping her aim.

“I saw him,” she yelled and tried to knee him again, desperate to be free. “He knows I saw him, and he’s coming for me. He killed them because of me. He knows, and he’s coming. He’s coming!”

Raw sounds she couldn’t halt tore from her. The world blurred, and time rewound, and sound exploded in her head—voices raised in alarm, children crying, a woman screaming and pop! pop! pop!—small sounds, not even loud, barely more than a whisper, but she heard them, and then she was climbing down from the roof to the second-floor balcony and looking through the window of her father’s study and they were lined up like prisoners: her father, her mother, Austin and Alex, even tall, strong Adam on his knees, fear in his eyes. And then more pops, and one by one, they fell. Her father, who begged for his life.Her mother, screaming and defiant. Austin and Alex while they wept. Adam as he leaped to his feet and charged the man with the gun...

It played like a slow-motion movie in her head, again and again. The cold glass pressed against her face as she watched them die; the soft pops within the darkness; the crickets and the cars; soft, chilling laughter.

And then…silence.

Cold, hollow, empty silence.

Dazed with disbelief, staring through the glass at their fallen bodies; the man with the gun walking past the door; terror punching through her like a hard fist. A rush down the stairwell to the first-floor balcony; thorns stabbing her palms as she climbed down her mother’s wrought-iron rose trellis; the dizzying rush of her blood; the deafening beat of her heart; the hard ground as she fell. Pushing to her feet and running—run! run! run!—to Mr. Bellamy’s house next door, crashing into his living room, his surprised face, begging him to help them, to save them—

Sirens and flashing lights and police. The safe house, and the strangers, and the whispering FBI agents… And then the gunfire, like bombs exploding. Glass shattering. Blood and screams; brains on her shirt. Max dragging her through the city, tossing her onto a train, throwing her into a car.

And then…here, now. This.

“I’m sorry. Jesus Christ, Lena. I’m so sorry.” Hard arms wrapped around her and squeezed tight, and for a moment she fought, and then she realized—Ares. It was Ares. Smelling like sunlight and apples and fresh mint.

They were on the ground behind the funhouse. The sun was bright, the air clean, and the grass was cool and damp beneath her. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her throat hurt; her eyes burned.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated and squeezed her. “I didn’t know.”

And then she realized that she’d told him. Everything.

Horror shot through her. “Oh, no!” She tried to pull away, but he held on, and she could only wiggle against him. “I shouldn’t have told you. Now he’ll come for you, too. Please, Ares, let me go. You have to let me go. Oh, God. I’m sorry!”

But he refused to release her, tucking her against him and rocking her instead, and for a moment she almost rested there against him. Safe. Just for a heartbeat. But what she’d told Max was the truth: there was no such thing as safe. Leland Dolan had proven that to her for all eternity.

“Let me go,” she said again, more forcefully, but Ares only laughed, a harsh bark of sound that made her go still.

“Not happening,” he said. “I knew something messed up happened to you, but I never thought… Jesus, Lena. You’ve got some serious stones, you know that?”

She tried again to escape him and failed. “Girls don’t have stones.”

“You do. You absolutely do.” Another fierce squeeze. “No wonder Max had a meltdown. He looked like his head was going to explode.”

Yes, he had. She hadn’t even realized it was him until he’d yelled at Fiona. A disguise, she realized. And if he was disguised, that meant he was hiding, too. Which made her remember the conversation he’d had with his boss, how he’d refused to take her back and gotten into trouble.

You can go to hell.

Heat flooded her cheeks. She’d never said such a thing to anyone before. It had been quite liberating…but Max hadn’t really deserved it. He was only trying to protect her. Even if he was wrong. And she’d told him she hated him, which wasn’t true. And she’d yelled at Fiona, too. And then she’d lost her shit—as Mona would say—and told Ares everything.

Way to go.Part of her was ashamed and horrified and wanted to crawl into a deep, dark hole. But another part of her was relieved. She felt…empty. As if she’d been purged, at least for a little while.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” she said.

“Well, you clearly needed to.” Ares laughed again, a little. “That dickhead. You should have seen his face when you took off.”

“You don’t like Max.”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

For a long moment, he said nothing, and Selena tried once more to pull away. His hold only tightened. “I used to want to be him,” he said finally. “Until I found out who he was.”

Selena wasn’t sure who Max was. So she just said, “I’m sorry.”

A snort. “I’m not. It was a valuable lesson.”

“You’ve known him for a long time?”

“Since I could walk.”

She pondered that. She hadn’t understood Max’s connection to the show, other than Fiona, and they were so different it was hard to believe they were related. Max was tucked in and slicked back, and as hard as stone; Fiona was relaxed, and funny, and, sometimes, fierce. But… “Max used to work here?”

“When he was a kid. He and Thea were together.” Ares shrugged, but his voice was tight, and Selena stopped trying to pull away. “We were like our own little family, him and Thea, and me and Fi. And then one day, he left.” Another shrug. “End of story.”

Not likely.There was plenty more to it than that. But she didn’t push. “Thea is nice.”

“She’s the best.”

Athena the All-Knowing.Selena had seen the sign. She wasn’t sure what she thought about the idea of someone knowing the future, but when she’d met Thea, something foreign had flickered in her pale, wintery gaze, something old and powerful. If Selena were braver, she might have asked for a reading.

But she didn’t want to know the future.

“You told him you didn’t want to testify,” Ares said. “Is that true?”

She looked away from the dark, jewel-blue eyes that watched her so closely. His body was hard and wiry against her, his strength both comforting and intimidating. She’d never been held by anyone the way he was holding her, and there was no awkwardness, no embarrassment or fear. But she was aware of him in every fiber of her being, aware in a way that was new, and unnerving, and far too exciting.

Her mother would not approve.

“It’s true,” she muttered.

“You know he’ll get away with it then, right?”

She didn’t respond. She didn’t want to talk about testifying, or Leland Dolan, or Max. About what she’d seen, or what it had done to her; about being hunted, or the unknown future, or being alone. Those thoughts stalked her on a daily basis; for this one, brief moment in time, she just wanted to be.

“Lena.”

She ignored him, his chiding tone, the slight squeeze of his arms around her.

Coward.

But she didn’t care. Just a few more minutes. That’s all she wanted, and that was little enough, wasn’t it? To just exist here, with this boy, for one moment in time.

“You survived,” he said softly. “But you aren’t done. Not yet.”

Incensed, she reared back. “That’s easy for you to say!”

“It’s not easy at all. But it’s the truth, and you know it. You can’t let him get away with it. He took them from you; he needs to pay for that.”

“Do I look like Wonder Woman to you?” she demanded furiously. She glared at him. “He’s going to kill me.”

“No.” Ares shook his head. “Rye won’t let him.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. That man might smile and do his best to look harmless, but he’s the real deal. And Max, too. He might be a son of a bitch, but he’s a mean and tough son of a bitch. I’ve seen him kick the crap out of men two feet taller, a hundred pounds heavier, and ten years older. You couldn’t ask for better in your corner.”

“I don’t have a corner.”

“That’s bullshit—and it’s an insult to everyone on the show.” Ares shook his head, his mouth an angry line. “We took you in and gave you a place; you belong to us now. We’re not going to let anyone hurt you.”

And just like that, her eyes were burning again. She wanted to argue, but that felt selfish. He was offended and mad, and that hadn’t been her intent.

He was right, too. Rye took time every day to ask how she was, to show her that she wasn’t alone. He didn’t treat her like a responsibility, he treated her like her brothers had. Like family. So did Fiona. And that meant something. It wasn’t right to deny that, no matter her fear.

Still…

“You can’t stop it,” she whispered, and terror lifted its head within her. The memories hovered at the edge of her vision, blood-soaked, inescapable.

Inevitable.

“So we shouldn’t try?” he demanded. “You shouldn’t try? Don’t you want to live?”

Yes.So badly.

“Then fight for it.”

Flat, hard words that made her want to look away. But, again, he was right. Hide in the darkness or stand in the light…and if she stood, at least she wouldn’t stand alone.

He took them from you; he needs to pay for that.

Fire flickered to life in her belly. Fear and terror; fury and hope. Such an impossible mix. But it was fuel.

She just had to decide what to do with it.

“You have a think about that,” Ares said. He pushed to his feet suddenly and pulled her along with him. “Meanwhile, I want to show you something.”

“We should go back,” she protested.

“We will when we’re ready. But first, it’s time for an adventure.”

Her heart fluttered painfully at the thought. She was pretty sure she’d never had anything that would qualify as an adventure. “An adventure?”

“You got paid today, right?”

Her hand went to the bills in the pocket of her jeans. Fiona had given her five crisp fifty-dollar bills that morning; it was more money than Selena had ever had. She was determined to save it, because she didn’t plan on going into foster care, and while she hadn’t yet worked out how she was going to avoid it, she knew money would be a necessity.

“Yes,” she said. “But—”

“But nothing. I’ve got just the thing to mark the day.”

“You do?”

“Follow me.”