Page 134 of The Games Gods Play
Oh.
I close my eyes and sigh. So very, very much worse. Without opening them, I say, “I had to find the person who…” I can’t believe I’m going to admit this. “Who I love most in the world and tell them. It’s the only way to wake you up.”
Except he’s not awake. Did I get the wrong person? But no. He’s here. So obviously, right person.
More silence.
I crack one eye open, then the other, and my heart slowly drifts to the soles of my feet like an autumn leaf dropping from a tree.
Because Boone’s scruffy face is all things regret and exactly what I feared…embarrassment. He won’t look at me.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I…” He shakes his head. “I don’t feel the same.”
I swallow around a heart that should be slowly cracking. Except… “I know. It’s okay.”
“I mean…I’m flattered, Lyra-Loo-Hoo, but—”
“Stop.” Oh hells. I drop my head in my hands. “Seriously, you don’t have to. I had to tell you. It’s how this Labor is played. We can forget about it now.”
Please let’s forget all about this. Forever.
“Labor?” he asks.
A tiny tapping noise has us both turning to the window, where I can see the outline of my tarantula waving her legs.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Boone mutters behind me.
Spiders. He hates them. Not many know about that. I only do because it’s in his file and I’m his clerk.
The tarantula taps again, and I hear the fox give his high-pitched yip outside. And that’s when realization strikes me between the eyes and my lungs seize. Evening is falling, the purpling shadows in the trees growing longer by the second.
How?
We started this in the afternoon. I had hours before sunset. And it didn’t take that long for us to fly…
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Because if it took that long to get to Boone, the one-way journey is longer than it felt. What if I don’t have enough time to get him back to Olympus?
I’m getting really tired of night as a deadline. Or deadlines at all. That word has taken on a whole new meaning for me.
I reach for one of the pearls tucked into my vest and realize that while things feel real here, they’re not. The tattoos are part of me, but the pearls, the real ones, are back in Olympus.
And Boone is still a ghost.
Why? I confessed my very embarrassing feelings. He should have woken up.
“We don’t have time,” I say, hurrying across the room.
I grab his hand and tug him to the door, which I fling open, but the two giant arachnids scuttle out from the trees to crowd into the doorway. Boone reaches over my head and slams the door, having to put his shoulder into it. The door surges and rattles as the spiders try to push their way inside. He’s breathing hard by the time he gets it shut.
“This is bad,” I say.
“You think?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I mean I think your dream turns into a nightmare that won’t let you leave while you’re still asleep.”
He glances at the window and startles. Probably because a bunch of eyeballs are now pressed up against it, watching us. “So wake me up,” he demands, slowly backing away.
“I tried. I told you what I was supposed to tell you.”
