Lucienne Diver - Rise of the Blood

Dammit.

I made my way back to Nick, who was staring intently at the curtain through which I’d disappeared. He breathed a huge sigh of relief as I came back into view. But there was something else in his eyes…pain, maybe. The pilot came over the loudspeaker, talking about the plane being damaged by the storm and an emergency landing. The passengers set up a subdued cheer at that. I wondered how many would be brave enough to continue on to their final destinations.

I dropped into the seat next to Nick, and he looked like he couldn’t decide whether to hug me or throttle me. I made the decision for him, launching myself at him and holding him as tightly as I could. After a moment, he held me back and stroked my hair. I put Apollo behind me in the reality of Nick’s strong arms and feelings I knew to be all mine with nothing ever done “for my own good” without my consent. I breathed Nick in—his spicy, woodsy scent, as if he’d just been for a run in the woods instead of a near-death experience. His body was radiating heat, and for a second, I wanted to drag him back to the bathroom, tear off all his clothes and celebrate our survival…only I’d been in there earlier and was fairly certain it wasn’t remotely possible. Not unless I was some kind of contortionist and his shoulders were a lot less broad. But since I wasn’t and they weren’t, I just held him and held him and held him.

“Don’t you dare ever do that again,” he said finally, his breath warm, almost hot, on my ear.

I almost asked, “Do what?” but really I knew. Regardless of why I’d done it, I’d run out on Nick in the face of almost-certain death. I’d chosen to spend what could have been our final moments with another man. But it hadn’t been like that. I hadn’t picked Apollo over Nick. I’d chosen to DO something rather than huddle up when the storm struck. The fact that I hadn’t made a bit of difference shouldn’t matter. I’d had the best of intentions. Still, I’d have felt a helluva lot less guilty if I’d had anything to show for leaving him alone. The fact that we were all still alive was nothing short of miraculous. I should have been there for him.

“I’m sorry,” I said, looking away. “I thought…I thought maybe I could do something.”

“And did you?” The hand stroking my hair had stilled.

“No,” I admitted. “It was all the pilot’s skill and maybe the gods running out of steam.”

Nick let out a heated breath. “So then we have no way to fight them if they come at us again?”

“They’d have finished us off if they could,” I answered. It wasn’t nearly as comforting as I’d meant it to be.

“Great.”

When Nick would have pulled back, I held his hand and refused to let it go. He didn’t fight me, but it was an awkward silence that fell between us, full of a million and one things we didn’t know how to express.

The emergency landing was a rough one. Really rough. But the passengers cheered again, with more fervor this time, as we touched down and slowed to a stop. Some even kissed the tarmac when the ground crew brought stairs to get us all out rather than taxi us to a gate. Others held up the line by picking a fight with the flight crew and threatening lawsuits. I felt terrible for them, especially since I knew there was nothing they could have done.

We waited for Jesus on the tarmac, since he was even farther back on the plane than we were. The lights of the runway lit his face quite clearly. All the color had fled, and the usual swing had gone straight out of his step.

“I think I found God,” he said as he approached us, eyes as big as peanut butter cups, which sounded incredibly good right then. Or, just pure chocolate, hold any pollutants like nuts or caramel.

“Which one?” I asked.

Jesus didn’t turn back for home, though he complained loudly that he would talk to Apollo about hazard pay. We didn’t turn back either. It wasn’t so much bravery as stubbornness—on my part, at least. Zeus and Poseidon were not going to ruin the first reunion I’d had with my family since the Rialto Brothers Circus had given me the heave ho. They weren’t going to ruin my cousin Tina’s wedding with a funeral. I felt pretty strongly about that, since the funeral would likely be mine.

I could be flippant or I could be afraid. I’d found it was pretty difficult to be both at once.

The airline whisked us all off to a private lounge as soon as we hit the terminal, presumably so we couldn’t frighten other flyers with the horror story of our ordeal. Jesus helped himself to a good bit of the complimentary booze they supplied to help us drown out the horror and blunt our memory.

Finally, though, we were rebooked on a flight from our emergency landing airport to New York, where we’d catch the next leg of our flight. Jesus grabbed some of the free booze in their tiny travel sized bottles and brought them along for fortification. Nick and I didn’t risk it, both determined to stay sharp for no good reason I could tell. It wasn’t like we’d be any better in the face of a new attack than the last, but still, I wanted my wits about me, such as they were. Plus, I wasn’t so sure how ambrosia and booze would mix. Would the whole super-healing thing allow me to get drunk or would the ambrosia treat booze as some kind of poison to be fought? I didn’t really need my body becoming a battleground.

That thought lasted until takeoff. At the first bump on the runway, I shrieked and grabbed at the bottle of vodka Jesus had tucked into the seatback pocket in front of him. I downed it like a shot as Jesus eyed me sourly. “By all means, chica, help yourself.”

“Got more?” I asked.

He toed open the shoulder bag at his feet to reveal enough booze to open a fairy bar. Not that fairies existed…that I knew of.

I reached for two more bottles but was stopped by my seatbelt. Then we were lifting off, being bounced around by stray air currents, and my heart nearly stopped in panic. I grabbed Nick’s hand and he grabbed mine right back. Jesus gripped my other hand, and we sat there like a ring-around-the-rosie of fear.

Nick smiled at me, and those incredible midnight blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “It’s going to be okay,” he lied.

“How can you be so calm?” I asked.

He brought my hand to his chest, and I could feel that his heart had picked up all the beats mine had dropped. It was going double time.

“I’m not calm. I’m confident. The way your luck runs, you will not die before I get to see you in a puke-green bridesmaid’s gown. And take pictures. And hang them up around the precinct.”

That surprised a laugh out of me, and I felt the vice grip around my heart begin to ease.

“You’re right,” I answered.

His smile got even bigger. “Can I get that in writing?”

“Now that really would be the end of the world.”

This kind of moment, this banter, was exactly why I’d fallen for him to begin with.

“You still want that vodka?” Jesus asked, watching Nick and I have our moment.

“No, I’m good,” I heard myself answer.

“More for me.”

Nick and I smiled like fond parents half an hour later when Jesus fell fast asleep like a child who’d tuckered himself out. He snored softly, and his head lolled onto my shoulder. If there was drool, I’d never let him live it down.

I didn’t sleep. By the fifth hour, it was glaringly apparent that wouldn’t change any time soon. I didn’t know if it was the ambrosia heightening all my senses or my new oversensitivity that made every single air current feel like a death sentence. I’d become the princess and the pea, only with the outside air my mattress and the deceptively fluffy clouds pillows waiting to smother me. Paranoia was a symptom of ambrosia withdrawal . It wasn’t supposed to happen when I was dosed, which I’d made sure of before leaving the apartment. Maybe all that fear-fueled adrenaline had rushed it through my body faster than normal. If so, it was a terrifying thought. I’d need to find a new supply when we landed in Greece. I only had one contact there who could get me what I needed…and I hadn’t seen him since our crash landing when he and Serena had been whisked away to, I presumed, some kind of VIP lounge where they were pampered and placated. I had his number, but he’d pointed out recently and rightly that I only used it when I needed something—when it was convenient for me—and then I pushed him away again. I’d never been a user…before ambrosia. I didn’t want to become one now. I needed to quit it, regardless of the possibility of deadly withdrawal, but there was always a reason it was a bad time. I was in the middle of a case; my uncle had been taken by a killer cult; my cousin was getting married…