“Leave me.”
“Stop saying that,” I growl. “We’re getting out of this together.” Earlier, I accidentally found the door out of the maze, so I’ve got the path back memorized. We just need to find the fucking center, get the keys, and get the fuck out of here. I gingerly adjust my grip around Patroclus’s waist. “Did he get your ribs?”
“No.” He’s leaning too heavily on me, and I can’t tell if he’s lying or if Hector just knocked him for a loop to the point where he’s woozy. He’s got a split lip and I’m pretty sure his ankle is royally fucked. There’s also a bruise darkening one of his cheekbones, and his glasses were shattered on the ground when I found him and Hector fighting.
Best not to think about that too closely.
I could tell at a glance that Patroclus would lose. And then Hector hit him with an uppercut that snapped his head back and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. After that, I stopped thinking entirely. My only goal was to knock Hector the fuck out and protect the man I love. I don’t give a fuck that Hector has his reasons for being here.
He doesn’t want Ares. He just wants to pave the way for his shit stain of a little brother to be Ares, and he’s willing to step on Patroclus to get there. If Helen hadn’t been on the walls and able to guide me… I don’t like to think what might have happened. “Fuck that.”
Overhead, the screens change and the crowd goes wild. I look up in time to see Paris walk out of the maze. The asshole looks regal as fuck in royal blue. He doesn’t appear to have even worked up a sweat. Bastard.
Right on his heels comes Helen.
She’s limping and smiling, but I can tell she’s furious. It’s carefully hidden in her amber eyes as she turns and gives a wave to the crowd. Part of me had hoped she’d be eliminated in this trial for simplicity’s sake, but I can’t stop the flare of pure pride. She made it through, and she did it in a clever way, too. “That’s our girl.”
“Achilles.” Patroclus’s words are a little slurred, and I can’t tell if it’s because he hit his head or his busted lip. “I’m slowing you down. There are only three keys left. Leave me.”
“Shut up.” I haul him around another corner and another. We’re close to the center. I’m sure of it. This maze isn’t so bad when you’re navigating from the entrance to the center. Sure enough, the next right turn opens up into the center of the maze. There’s a weird metal tree-like structure in the middle of it and two keys hanging from branches. “Only two left.”
The center also hold Theseus. I saw a glimpse of his fight with Helen. She kicked his ass. Or, rather, his knee. He leans against a wall with his eyes closed and his skin gone waxy with pain. Below the bottom of his black shorts, his knee is grotesquely swollen and turning an ugly shade of purple. At best, she dislocated it. At worst, she shattered something important.
Good girl.
He’s out of the tournament with an injury like that even if he’d somehow managed to get a key. Still, I guide us away from him. No reason to tempt the bastard into attempting to attack. I look up. There’s thirty minutes left in the trial. Plenty of time as long as we don’t run into trouble. But only if we don’t linger. I grab one of the keys and drape the lanyard over Patroclus’s neck. The second one goes around mine.
“Achilles.” Patroclus grips my shirt and gives me a weak shake. “Stop being stubborn.”
“I’m not the one being stubborn. Stop telling me to leave you.”
He glares, some of the strength coming back into his body. “You’re being ridiculous. I’m not going to be Ares. I was never going to be Ares. I was only ever here for support, and you didn’t even need me.” He shakes his head and winces. “Leave me behind. It’s what’s best for you.”
True fear flickers to life. I know he’s talking about this trial specifically, but I don’t give a fuck. I can’t shake the potential future where he tells me that for real. He acts like I’m some shooting star and he’s just along for the ride, that I’m the ambitious one dragging him along at my side. As if he’s not a full partner. As if eventually I’ll leave him behind for good. As if choosing to stop striving alongside me isn’t a fucking choice on its own.
I grab his shoulders. Too hard. I’m holding him too fucking harshly. “Listen to me, Patroclus. I am never leaving you behind. Not in this fucking trial. Not in life. Stop acting like a fucking martyr.”
He flinches. “It’s not being a martyr if it’s the truth.”
We’re talking about the trial and not talking about the trial at the same time. I glare. “Are you done with me?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Are you done with me?” I can’t help holding my breath, even as adrenaline floods my system.
He blinks and then blinks again. “No. I can’t… I won’t be the one to walk away.”
Relief makes me a little light-headed, but we don’t have time to get into it properly. Not here. Not like this. “Then shut the fuck up and hold on.” I dip down and yank him over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He curses and sputters, but it’s more out of outrage than pain.
I keep an eye out as I retrace my path toward the entrance. Atalanta and the Minotaur are still in the maze somewhere. There are no keys left, which means one of them have the final key…assuming they can reach the exit.
Patroclus curses me the whole time, but at least he stops telling me to leave him. I’m breathing hard by the time I turn the corner and see the door. The clock overhead reads ten minutes. Cutting it too close, but we did it.
I carefully set Patroclus on his feet. “You go first.”
He doesn’t argue. He weaves his way to the door and inserts the key. The crowd goes wild as he stumbles through. I follow quickly. The moment I step out of the maze, it feels like setting down a massive weight I’ve been carrying for the last two hours. I knew we’d get through. I knew it.
But there were moments when I doubted.
Patroclus and I head for the bench and I see Helen. A furrow of concern appears between her brows as she watches Patroclus limp toward her. She tenses like she’s going to leap to her feet, but I duck under Patroclus’s arm and keep him moving. “I got it, princess.”
“Are you okay?” she murmurs. For a second, I think she’s talking to him, but when I look down, her amber eyes are on me. “I didn’t see you on the screens most of the time I was in there.”
“Just call it anticlimactic. I didn’t see anyone until Hector.” My stomach twists at the memory. I’m not one to linger on things, but I won’t get the image of that last hit out of my head anytime soon. Even though I knew it would take more than a nasty uppercut to take Patroclus out in any permanent way, seeing him fall to the ground was the stuff of nightmares. I swallow hard. “I’m…I’m good.”
I guide Patroclus to the spot next to her, and my chest warms at the way she immediately takes his hand. Patroclus shakes his head. “Stop staring at me like that. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, well, you look like shit.” She says it almost fondly, though her expression is worried.
I sink onto the bench on the other side of Patroclus and he leans on me. Worry eats away at me. We can’t get Patroclus looked at until the trial is over. The last minutes seem to take decades.
With five minutes to spare, the Minotaur comes around the corner toward the exit. The last key is on its lanyard around his thick neck, and he’s got his head down as he charges forward. It’s the only reason he doesn’t see Atalanta until she’s on top of him.
I hold my breath as I watch her sweep his legs out from beneath him. She’s good, really good, but she’s not quite steady on her feet despite her obvious training. That has to be why she’s not able to dance back fast enough when the Minotaur lashes out and yanks her off her feet.
“Paris knocked her out,” Helen murmurs. She watches the screen with worried eyes. “If she gets hit in the head again…”
Nothing good.
On the screens, Atalanta perches on the Minotaur’s broad chest and hammers him with elbow strikes. I wince. That shit has to hurt, but he’s got his arms over his head and he seems to be waiting her out. His opportunity comes when she shifts to reach for the key.
The Minotaur slams his elbow into her side. The force of the blow knocks her off him and she lands against the far wall and clutches her stomach. He broke a rib there. Maybe more than one.
I tense as he climbs to his feet. If he goes after her now, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. For a long, pregnant pause, I can almost see him considering hurting her seriously. Then he turns and lumbers to the exit.
Seconds later, he throws open the door and stalks out. One of his eyes is almost entirely swollen shut from where Atalanta punched him, but he seems otherwise fine. I suppose it was too much to ask for him to have some more injuries to fuck him up for the next trial.
The crowd goes quiet as the spotlight aims at Athena. “The second trial is over.” She gives a slow smile. “Congratulations to our champions who are moving on to the third and final trial. Achilles, Patroclus, the Minotaur, Helen, and Paris.”
The arena goes wild. I can feel the cheering though the soles of my shoes, vibrating right down to my bones. Even though I want nothing more than to get the fuck out of here and get a doctor to look at Patroclus, I grin and wave. On the other side of him, Helen is doing the same.
I hate myself a little bit in that moment.
Why the fuck am I playing the game when one of the people I care most about in the world is so injured, he can’t sit up entirely on his own? It says something about me and my goals, and it’s a pretty shitty statement.
But with how far we’ve come, how hard we’ve fought to be here…
I can’t give it up. It’s not in my nature. I will fight to the bitter end, and the only thing I can do is hope that the cost isn’t higher than I can pay. It never occurred to me that that was even an option before this point. Now? Now I’m not so sure.
Things move quickly after that.
Bellerophon and their people usher us out of the arena. There are few enough champions that we all fit in one van. I keep Patroclus between me and Helen. I don’t like the way the other two men keep looking at him—at us.
Paris leans back against his seat and smirks. “Cute little thing you three have going. Don’t you get tired, Achilles?” I stare stonily at him, but apparently he doesn’t need a response. “You know, from carrying both Helen and Patroclus on your back?”
I sense Helen going tense, but I don’t look over as I respond. “It must be exhausting for you, Paris.”
He narrows his eyes. “What must be?”
“The mental gymnastics you go through to pretend like you’re better than everyone.” I shake my head. “You’re a sneaky little shit and that’s the only reason you made it through this trial. Don’t think I didn’t see the way you attacked Atalanta from behind. It’s the only chance you had to beat her, because you sure as fuck wouldn’t have done it in a fair fight. Anyone in this van could take you, including Patroclus with his current injuries. So shut the fuck up.”
Paris’s skin goes a mottled red but his tone is still full of that same infuriating charm when he speaks. “It’s cute how you’re sucking up to Helen like this.” He leans forward a little, cruelty alighting in his eyes. “You don’t have to work so hard. Just call her a dirty little slut and she’ll be on her back with her legs spread for you.”
Fury has me lurching forward, but Patroclus’s hand on my chest stops me. His voice is low but vicious. “Spoken like a man who had something priceless and fucked it up.”
I glance over at Helen, but she’s staring out the window. I would have thought she’d go for Paris’s throat for a comment like that. It’s not as if she’s subtle when she’s furious, and she slapped me for less. Instead, her shoulders are curled in on herself and her body language is tense and brittle.
This isn’t the first time he’s said shit like this to her.
I don’t really give a fuck what people think of me outside of a select few, but I’ve seen how Patroclus will sometimes let comments ping around inside his big brain until they muddle the truth and eat him up from the inside. It doesn’t happen as often now as it did in our teens and early twenties, but this has the feel of that.
Helen loved Paris. I don’t understand it, but I’m sure of it now. She loved him and let him in, and she might as well have cuddled up with a cobra, because he used that closeness against her.
I turn back to him. I’m no longer in danger of attacking him, but my anger is no less. I smile slowly. “I’m going to enjoy beating your face in during the next challenge. No Hector to protect you this time, Paris.”
He shrugs. “We’ll see, won’t we?”
“Yes. We will.”
The Minotaur snorts. “You four with your petty little squabbles. It exhausts me.”
“Then stop listening,” I snap. “No one was talking to you.”
The van slows to a stop. Paris barely waits for the door to open before he’s charging out of the vehicle. The Minotaur follows, but at a more reasonable pace. I half expect Helen to leave, too, but she turns to us. Her expression is locked down in a way I don’t like. “I’ll help you with Patroclus.”
Neither of us comment that I can carry him without much trouble. She obviously needs something to occupy her after Paris being such a shit, and if Patroclus is fine with it, so am I. We carefully ease him out of the van, and Helen tucks herself under his arm. She’s short enough that he doesn’t have to raise his arm overmuch, and she doesn’t so much as weave at his weight. She’s deceptively strong for her size, but that’s nothing new.
Bellerophon meets us there. They sweep a look over our trio. “The doctor will meet you in Patroclus’s rooms.”
“Perfect.” Helen starts for the door.
Bellerophon and I watch for a moment. They speak softly. “He would have seen a doctor even if you didn’t carry him out of the maze on your back. He probably would have seen one sooner.”
“I know.” I do. But I couldn’t leave him behind, even if it means he’s eliminated first in the next trial. I don’t have it in me.
Bellerophon claps me on the shoulder. “Well, congrats on making it to the third trial. You all but have it in the bag.”
I manage a slight smile, though I’m still tracking Helen and Patroclus as they reach the door. She’s limping a little, and I don’t think it’s because he’s leaning on her. Damn the woman. She should have said something if she was injured, too. I start for the front door. “Congratulate me when I’m named Ares.”
“I never get over how confident you are. I’ll do that.” They chuckle. “Next trial is in two days. Be ready.”
“I will,” I call over my shoulder. I catch up to my pair quickly and duck under Patroclus’s other arm. “I’ve got him.”
“We were doing just fine without you.” There’s no snap to her tone. Helen just sounds exhausted.
“What happened to your leg, Helen?”
She sputters. “I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. The doctor will look you over when we get to the room, too.” She seems otherwise okay, but if she’s anything like Patroclus, she wouldn’t tell me even if she was bleeding out. The thought sends ice skittering down my spine.
These two might be some of the smartest people I’ve ever encountered, but they don’t have the self-preservation the gods give children. If left to their own devices, they will ignore their bodies and end up seriously hurt.
That’s okay. If you won’t look out for yourself, then I’ll look out for you.
I spare a quick glance, taking in their profiles. Something soft and tender stirs in my chest. Both of you.
