In which Saskia Martinez met Eros, the god of love himself, and got her heart entangled in a major love disaster. Except nobody told her the supposed mythical being was a teenage boy wearing a ripped varsity shirt, who dangled men in the air-by the...
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"WHERE ONEARTH is he going?" Saskia whispered to herself, tilting her head down to hide her face more.
She narrowed her eyes and assessed the scene before her, and then stealthily pressed her back against a nearby tree in remarkable speed when the guy she was following suddenly stopped in his tracks.
She stood still and held her breath, as if stopping her lungs' activity would make her thinner and make her an impromptu part of the tree trunk.
It was another Friday afternoon. Saskia thought it was rather sunny, perfect for her newly found part-time, undercover job.
After dropping the sidekick proposition to Eros Parker in the library a week ago—and after being outright rejected by a scowl and a straight out, "No."—Saskia had been forced to resort to desperate methods. Strangely, she found the strongest desire to make it her mission and accomplish it no matter what.
Despite the circumstances of their first encounter, somehow, she no longer felt scream (and er, bile) inducing fear toward him, just utter awe and persistent determination to tag along like an overjoyed girl, giddy for an adventure of a lifetime. No one was getting strangled or burned—she could probably take the cold glares and the rudeness and the terrible attitude. Just not the part where his hands were attached to her neck and to anyone's neck, for that matter, doing some extracting business.
And so, for the whole week she had tried her best to convince him about the wonderful, wonderful benefits that would come out of her brilliant suggestion. Most were beneficial to her really, but, well, everything was pretty harmless, right?
On Monday, she approached him and reinforced her fantastic plan, complete with charming details of her being as docile as a wall, of not uttering a single word in his company unless, of course, it was extremely necessary. But his answer was still a scathing no.
On Tuesday, she found him pretending to stack books in his locker, and Saskia had greeted him with a cavity-worthy smile and appealed her sidekick proposition with oozing positivity.
But Eros just regarded her flatly and said, "Are you willing to give up school?"
Saskia was jolted with surprise, partly because it was the first time he'd said something other than the monosyllabic word she was starting to dislike, and because the question was simply shocking down to the very last word.
"Give up school?" she echoed, blinking at him. "Why do I need to give up school?"
"Because I shoot arrows every day, and being my sidekick means being with me whenever and wherever I do my job," he said, a brow arched. "Are you up to it?"
Her body had gone cold at that. She had almost forgotten what she had to sacrifice that one time when he allowed her to tag along. Realizing the gravity of his words and the consequences of her supposed-to-be brilliant idea, Saskia could only stare helplessly at him, and then swallowed hard because give up school? He might as well ask her to give up life, and that she could not do.
