I thought about my dorm back in Radford. “And this is actually bigger than—”
“This is not big,” Herc cut me off, and then lifted his arm, flexing his bicep. “This is big.”
I opened my mouth, but yeah, I had no words.
“But why do you all have a better room than me?” he asked, looking around with a critical eye. He gazed at Aiden. “I mean, who are you, anyway?”
“Well.” Alex popped up from the ottoman. “I’m hungry. You want to go get some food with me?”
Several seconds passed before I realized she was talking to me. I stood slowly as she walked over to the door, sending me a look that warned I better hurry. I did.
Once out in the hall, she lifted her arms and shook her fists at the ceiling as she stomped her feet. Full tantrum mode.
I grinned.
“Oh gods, I can’t even deal with that guy,” she said. “It’s only been a couple of hours and I want to gouge his eyeballs out with my toenails.”
“Toenails?”
“Yes,” she seethed. “Because they are blunt and it would hurt more, after I delivered a kick to his stupid face.”
I laughed as the image formed in my mind. “He’s definitely a jerk.”
“I’m not even surprised that Apollo managed to find the most annoying demigod,” she said as we walked down the hall. “Besides the fact that he has impeccable timing, he has a superpower when it comes to finding douchebags.”
The fact that Alex was aware of how bad Apollo’s timing was made me think of how she’d discovered that. We reached the crowded lobby. Several students standing near the furies gawked openly at her as she strode toward the door. Night had fallen.
“Wait.” I caught up to her, keeping my voice low. “Isn’t there a curfew?”
Alex snorted as she opened the door. “Yeah, but it doesn’t apply to us.”
My brows flew up as we walked out of the door and, sure as hell, walked right past the Guards enforcing curfew. They said nothing. Not even when Alex wiggled her fingers at them.
Alrighty then.
“I hope there’s still something to eat in the cafeteria,” she said, glancing over at me. “By the way, I’m almost always starving.”
“Same here.” I wished I’d had my hoodie with me. The wind was still cool, even in June. “They will probably have some cold food out. They normally do overnight. Someone keeps it stocked throughout the night.”
“Cool.” We walked a few moments in silence and then she said, “Are you good with everything? Leaving for Cali and what we might face out there?”
I nodded and immediately stopped myself from reading more into what was definitely a harmless question. “I am. I mean, I don’t know what exactly we might come across, but I’ve . . . I’ve faced a Titan before.”
Her lips pursed. “I’d heard. You took Hyperion out.”
“Kind of,” I said as we followed the walkway, eerily alone on the quad. “I just put him out of commission.”
“After being . . . alone with him,” she added quietly.
I glanced at her sharply. She was staring straight ahead. I didn’t respond.
“You know I fought Ares, right?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She wet her lip and then stopped walking, facing me. “Ares didn’t just kick my ass and he didn’t do it quietly. He . . . he broke me for a long time, in a way that I wasn’t sure I’d ever really recover from.” Each word she spoke was painfully blunt and obviously wasn’t easy for her to speak. “I don’t know what happened when you were with him. No one has said anything, but I know how . . . I know how evil works.”
Closing my eyes, I looked away and swallowed. There’d been no nightmares the last couple of days. I was hoping they’d stay away. Total textbook avoidance, but I really didn’t have the time for a mental breakdown.
“Anyway,” she said. “I’m just putting this out there. If you want to talk about any of that stuff with Hyperion, I’m here.”
“Okay.” I cleared my throat as I flipped my ponytail over my shoulder.
Alex smiled a little, a small one that kind of made me feel bad for being upset earlier about her and Apollo.
As we stared at each other, realizing that we had yet another thing in common, a very tenuous bond formed between us. It was frail, brand spanking new, but we’d both looked into the eyes of . . . evil and were standing here despite it.
“Sooooo,” she drew the word out as we started walking again. “You and Seth . . . ?”
Oh my, that was going from one awkward conversation to another.
“Looks like things have changed since the last time we talked.” Alex laughed then, and the earlier somberness washed away, as if she had practice moving on quickly from terrible, horrific things. “Which was what, just a day ago?”
“Yeah.” I laughed along with her. “Feels like weeks, right?”
“That’s how it always is when stuff is going on.” She hopped up on a low wall and walked on the edge. All right, I was back to not liking her, because I would’ve fallen right off that like a three-legged llama. “So, it seems like you guys have worked things out.”
Part of me didn’t want to talk about this, but my tongue started moving as always. “I think so. Yes,” I corrected myself. “We’ve worked things out.”
At least I thought we had. We hadn’t had a chance to really talk. We were together, but sitting down and actually having a conversation about the state of things was probably a good idea.