Blade's Edge || Deception Book II ||

Chapter 32: Fracturing Secrets Pt.2

I took a deep breath, feeling a numbing sense of calm sweep over me, and nodded. "Okay."

Silence fell, broken only by the faint chirping of birds in the trees around us, and I glanced at him again. "Well?" I prompted, as Luke stared silently at a patch of moss at the base of a tree. "What is it?"

Luke swallowed, finally meeting my gaze. "H-he has plans for me."

"And?" I asked. I didn't know how my voice was so calm because inside, I was an utter mess. The wave was cresting, moments away from swallowing me up in their depths, yet all I felt was the crawling numbness that came when someone's world was about to be flipped over. I knew what was coming, even as the word, the phrase, remained a cobweb in the back of my mind.

"And He . . ." the words died in his throat as if it pained him to even speak it out. That same pain was currently splitting my heart into shreds, leaving behind splinters of cracking glass that was spider-webbing into my very core.

Slowly, I walked over to him and tilted his chin so our eyes met. "What?"

Luke swallowed again, his hand reaching up to grip mine like a lifeline tying him to shore in a sea that was threatening to pull him under. "He plans to use me as a host."

I blinked, the words not quite registering.

And then blinked again as the wave roared over me, pulling me down into their depths. All energy flooded out of my body, and I dropped to the grassy ground heavily, feeling a physical sensation of ripping between the two souls standing in this clearing. I stared blankly at the water flowing over the pebbles in the river, not registering anything except a soundless noise buzzing through the air.

"Ri, say something," Luke said after a few minutes of silence. "Say something, please."

"What do you want me to say?" I whispered, my voice still uncannily calm. I wanted to scream, to rage, to cry, to do anything, but all I felt was numbing quiet.

"I don't know!" Luke said, dropping to his knees in front of me, his blond hair shining in the light as he bowed his head. "Just say something. Anything."

I shook my head. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Did you realize," I continued before he could speak, "how I felt the last months? Ever since the end of this summer, you've been off. Different. I thought it was just because Percy got a year older, the prophecy a year closer. I thought it was because of stress, duty, training, the usual. I told myself it was nothing. I was more stressed. You were more stressed. But I couldn't help feeling there was more. And yet, I didn't say anything, because I thought you would tell me. If it was important enough, you'd tell me. And then we arrived in San Francisco," I plowed on, ignoring Luke as he opened his mouth. "We got to Othrys, and the first thing Atlas says is how you're so important to him, a king's ransom." I had no idea what was going on, none at all. Nothing, except whatever it was, was something so bad it was bad."

"I'm sorry-" Luke started, but I shook my head.

"Let me finish. The clues kept on coming. But it wasn't until after my return from Maine when I realized something was wrong. In the span of three days, something happened to you. That you didn't tell me. And then Atlas said before I went to get Artemis, how you were too critical to Kronos to risk carrying the sky. And then it clicked for me."

"Y-you knew," Luke breathed as he raised his head to look at me.

I shook my head again. "No. I didn't know what it was. I just knew you were hiding something from me. That's what it was, wasn't it? When you asked me to promise you to never leave your side."