Page 13 of The Games Gods Play
Right. Normally, I’d shoot some chipper sarcasm his way. I just don’t have it in me. So I try a different tack and tell him the truth. “I’m going back to the den.”
“You’re going back now?” Doubt laces his voice as he looks over at the crowd we’re leaving behind. “What about the festival? The gods are choosing.”
“I’ll see the highlight reel later.” As long as Zeus isn’t king again, I really don’t care about the results. Hermes would be nice for the Order, though.
I gesture back toward the temple. “Felix won’t like both of us missing this. The upper bosses said we all had to be present to honor Hermes.”
He turns serious. “Chance isn’t easy to hide from for long. I’ll walk you back.”
I should have known he’d figure it out. “Don’t you want to watch?”
That cocky grin gets me every time. He holds up a cell phone. “Got that covered. The view from where we were sucked anyway.”
Sticking to me like a burr, Boone keeps one eye on me and one on the phone, reporting the gods’ selections as we make our way through near-empty city streets. The way we go, the fastest way, takes us past Atlas Tower.
Lifestyles of the uber wealthy and questionably powerful. Despite all the riches the condos in that skyscraper contain, it’s off-limits to all pledges. The inhabitants have enough time, money, and spite to make sure intruders meet grisly ends if they get caught. Also, everyone knows Hades owns the penthouse.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I wonder if he’s there.
Why am I thinking about him right now? He’s the least of my worries. I live with an asshole named Chance, and as much as I’m ducking him tonight, I know it’s only a matter of time before he takes a wrecking ball to my life.
I toss another quick glance at Boone and let out a long sigh. As awful as it was before, I’m certain having a secret crush on a guy will feel infinitely less painful than one your nemesis can taunt you with.
When we get to a chain-link fence blocking off the entrance to tunnels that lead under the city streets, Boone unlocks the gate, locking it again behind us. Just inside the tunnel entrance, hidden behind stacks of garbage, we pull out rubber boots. It’s the pledges’ jobs to make sure the various entry points to our underground den stay stocked with these and flashlights.
I straighten from putting on a pair when Boone says, “Looks like another is about to go. I think it’s Artemis.”
I wrinkle my nose. If they stay true to pecking order, they’ve already selected the first ten mortals. That went fast. After Artemis, only one god will be left who still needs to select. I sigh again. I thought I’d get more time before everyone returned.
I grab a flashlight and start walking down into the graffiti-covered cement passageway.
Boone holds the phone out as we keep going so we can both see.
With no flourish or fanfare, one of Artemis’ famous golden arrows shoots out of nowhere to jam into the ground on the screen, and a mortal appears in a poof of smoke.
There’s a stir among the crowd, and Boone murmurs, “Well, would you look at that. Artemis picked a man.”
“Huh,” I say and keep sloshing through ankle-deep water, tossing only a quick glance at the screen to see a leanly athletic guy with light-beige skin and dark hair blink back at the camera.
Historically, the goddess favors women exclusively.
Boone just shrugs without breaking stride.
With practiced ease, we reach our destination—a solid-looking wall covered in a heroic depiction of Hermes, with his helm tucked under one arm and the Talaria, his winged sandals, on his feet. Graffiti, of course, to blend in with all the other art down here.
I pause to swing my flashlight both ways, checking that we weren’t followed but only catching the glow of a rat’s eyes before I douse the light. Boone switches off the phone, too. In the pitch-black darkness, I press my palm to the cement wall, feeling for the crypticodes I know are there—small, hidden, raised bumps, a system of letters that are imperceptible to the mortal eye, but we thieves know how to find them and can read them by touch. A way to leave directions for one another—which buildings to avoid, where there are holes in surveillance camera coverage, and so forth.
I don’t bother to read this one, since I know what it says. But at the end of the letters is the button, also hidden from sight, that I depress, triggering a thick cement door to swing open on a gust of breeze. We swiftly step inside before it closes just as fast. Every year or two, a new pledge doesn’t move quick enough, and it’s a bloody mess—one that is my lot to clean up—and a true shame.
As soon as the door seals shut behind us, the secret, god-made chambers that make up our den are immediately illuminated by lanterns blazing with a blue fire that never dies. Fire, it is said, that Hermes gifted the Order to light our dens all over the world.
Boone turns the phone back on.
“You get a signal down here?” I ask.
“I stole Felix’s wifi password.” He sets it on the floor as we both stop to take off the boots.
When I’m done, I put mine and the flashlight on the shelves available for all the pledges to use as we come and go. Boone’s still struggling with his, and I study his downbent head. He didn’t have to help me play keep-away with Chance.
