Page 61 of Dark Restraint
We sit on the couch in perfect silence except for our soft inhales and exhales, listening with everything we have. I don’t tell my brother that he’s being paranoid. It’s impossible to be paranoid when multiple parties are out to get you. No one should know we’re here, but that’s a fool’s hope. We’re in the middle of the city. There are cameras everywhere, and we took a cab ride to this address.
It still should’ve taken Phaedra longer to find us. They aren’t some magical tracker, and my father doesn’t have access to the network cameras in the city. Even as the thought crosses my mind, I curse myself for my shortsightedness. Of course they have access to the network. They have Mars. It still should’ve taken longer, though.
Except that’s not the truth, is it? I could track someone within a few hours, and it’s been at least that since I escaped Dionysus’s penthouse. I hold perfectly still and listen intently, waiting to hear whatever put the fear in my brother’s eyes.
Just when I’m on the verge of telling Icarus that he must’ve imagined it, I catch the sound, too. A faint whisper of movement. The footsteps of someone trying to walk silently.
I share a look with my brother. Fight or flight? He shrugs. If there’s only one person, technically we outnumber them, but neither of us is a fighter. We don’t have the training for it—something our father insisted was completely unnecessary—and we don’t even have a weapon to our name.
Flight it is.
My legs feel like wet noodles as I push to my feet. I’d like to sleep for twelve more hours, to wake up and have this all be a bad dream, but that’s not how life works. Asterion won’t show up to save me. I have to save myself—and Icarus, too.
The only thing in our favor currently is that this house isn’t an open concept. It’s a warren of rooms connected to each other with only a small hallway here and there to break up the confusion. The sound came from somewhere close to the front door. We could try to avoid them as they move through the house and then escape out that door, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. I doubt whoever it is came alone. If I were trying to trap or kill us, I would send several people into the house and leave the rest of the team to block the exits.
“Is there a back door?” I whisper. I was distracted when we arrived, and all the rooms started to look the same after a short period of time.
“Yeah, but there’s no exit back there.” My brother matches my tone, the volume barely more than a whisper.
Fuck. “Then we have to hide.” And hope that they assume we’ve left. It’s a shitty plan, but it’s the best I have with those footsteps creeping closer.
For a moment, it looks like Icarus is about to start arguing, but then he gives a jerky nod and grabs my hand. There’s no need to speak anymore. Without meaning to, I fall back into the habit we created during our late-night wandering in my father’s house as children. Being caught meant a lecture if we were lucky and the belt if we weren’t. We were almost never caught. We’d slip out of the house and go to our spot on the roof where no one else visited.
When did we stop doing that? I don’t know. Only that our nightly escapes happened less and less as we got older. Until they stopped altogether.
My body still remembers, though.
My brother leads the way through room after room. Several times, I almost question if he actually knows where he’s going or if he’s about to lead us directly into whoever is pursuing us. I manage to swallow down the question every time. The desire to run, to sprint, to put as much distance between us and danger, is almost overwhelming. Only habit keeps me moving slow and steady.
But I can’t hold on to my silence as Icarus leads us through a door and into the cool night air. I look around in a panic and hiss. “You said there was no exit back here.”
“They don’t know that.” He tugs on my hand, pulling me out onto a patio. Where the entrance of this house reeks of abandonment with dead plants and cracked flagstones, the back is a completely different story. There’s more light back here, and even in the growing darkness, I can see full trees and hedges and bushes that fill the space with their scent. It’s lovely enough that I almost pause, but Icarus keeps me moving.
He guides me to a particularly large plant that’s part bush and part tree. “It’s not going to be comfortable, but hide back here.”
“What are you—” I bite off the question as he darts away. He has a plan, and I have to trust that he knows what he’s doing. I wedge myself between the brick wall of the building bordering this courtyard and the scratchy branches of the plant. It’s not quite late enough in the year for them to have shed their leaves fully, but there are a few sparse spots that I can see the back door through. I crouch down and battle the urge to pray.
A rattling sound snaps my head around. I watch in horror as my brother rips vines from the iron fence that closes the backyard off from a short alley that leads to the street on the other side of the block. He yanks down several more handfuls, enough that I can clearly see through the iron fence. Not an exit, no, but it could be for someone who is desperate enough.
I have the horrifying thought that my brother intends to leave me, but he ducks to the side and takes up a position almost opposite me behind a similar-looking bush. Understanding dawns as my heart races so hard, it creates a rushing sound in my ears.
He wants them to think we climbed the fence and escaped out the back.
It’s a desperate play, but it’s the only one we have. I open my mouth to say something, but the creak of the back door stops me short. I turn slowly to see the outline of a person standing in the doorway. It didn’t seem that dark a few minutes ago, but now it feels like midnight. They step out into the courtyard and look around slowly.
Instinctively, I close my eyes and duck my head, letting my hair fall over my face. Willing myself to melt with the shadows behind the bush. Without my eyesight, every sound feels amplified. Their soft footsteps over the cobblestones are as loud as gunshots.
They stop less than five feet from me and curse softly under their breath. A few seconds later, they speak in a normal tone. “Atalanta here. I searched the whole place. They were definitely here just like you saw, but they must have escaped out the back at some point.” She moves to the fence and rattles it a little. “I can see two side entrances from here and not a single damn camera. If they got into one of the apartment buildings, they could be anywhere now.”
I press my lips together and hold my breath, willing Icarus to stay just as silent. Atalanta. That means she’s here at Athena’s behest. And that’s bad news for us. With Ares, we might have a chance at a public trial or just be tossed into a cell somewhere. If Athena is sending her people after us, then she wants us to disappear. Permanently.
Atalanta listens for several beats. “We’ll keep eyes on both entrances going forward. I doubt they’ll come back here, but there’s no reason to be foolish about it. Yeah, I’ll meet you up front.” She turns and stalks silently back to the door.
Even so, I don’t move. I barely breathe as the seconds tick into minutes. I finally gather the courage to lift my head and look out through the space between branches. The courtyard is empty. She obviously did exactly as she said and went back through the front door. There’s still a part of me that’s certain this is a trap. That as soon as we come out of our hiding places, we’ll be killed.
Eventually, Icarus makes the choice for me. He slips out of his hiding spot and crosses silently to me. “Well, we’re fucked.”
“Probably.”