Page 36 of Whiskey, Thieves, and Bastards
“You don’t sound too sure, cupcake.”
“If I may?” Athena said, stepping out of the shadows.
I let out a little growl. I could have learned this ages ago if she’d justtoldme the truth. Alecto put a hand on my arm.
“Athena has always been a friend to the furies. Hear her out.”
“Listen, I know you’re mad I didn’t tell you. Part of it was that I didn’t know how to face you and the other was intuition. It never felt like the right time until recently. I’ve been watching your lessons. The Fates aren’t always fair. Some of the other religions think their god doesn’t give them more than they can bear, but that’s not exactly true. Some of the things we go through are awful.
“I think I understand why it just never felt like the right time. Heroes are my thing, you know? They all have some kind of motivation for their quest. If you’d learned this ages ago, the Coalition wouldn’t have taken you. Dionysus would have had no reason to seek out your other mates, and none of you would be here about to take them down.”
She did not.
“I’m going to hit her,” I said.
“Don’t. I’m pretty sure she’s right,” Tisiphone said.
“It sucks so much ass. We get it. But we know about the Fates, too. You wouldn’t be standing here right now, fully mated, and a total badass if it weren’t for them meddling. I’m pretty sure you getting taken and finding out now was just as fated as your mates are. It’s your origin story before you take out the bad guy,” Alecto said.
“Thanks, I hate it.”
“You can hate it all you want,” Athena said. “But if you want to fully learn how to be a fury, you have toacceptthat all this shit in your life led you to this point so that you can be a fury andavenge everyone the Coalition hurt and save future generations from them.”
Fuck
Me.
Athenanevercursed unless there was no other appropriate word to use. She was so smart, she was practically a walking thesaurus, so she generally had another word. Athena used to tell us that sometimes, swear words were going to be the best choice for what we needed to say, but to make totally sure there wasn’t a better word before we uttered one.
But in this case, ‘shit’ was the appropriate word. And asking me to accept the shitshow because it was preparing me for the future was honestly just as big a shitshow. Was there something wrong with justaskingme? Because after Poseidon, I was pretty big on consent. If someone had said hey, want to bring down the Coalition with help from your mates and a super squad? I would have said hell yes without the whole torture thing.
I needed to get out of here. I needed five minutes alone just to scream into the abyss without anyone judging me or needing to kill something because I was upset.
I closed my eyes thinking about how I was going be alone with so many people around. But then, I felt the tug of my green witch magic and the smell of trees and flowers. I opened my eyes and smiled.
I guess I figured out this portalling thing. I just needed to want it enough.
Now that I was alone, I threw back my head and just screamed.
Iwanted to be touching Medusa, but I had time for that later. Toppling the Coalition had been something I’d wanted to do for a long time. I was just eighteen when the angels started appearing to humans. I didn’t think it was going to be that serious, but it was. They arrested everyone at first and got it wrong a lot. They were torturing humans, too, but they’d never admit that.
They learned and adapted. They knew they couldn’t tell us apart unless they caught us using our magic. They actually fucked themselves over because we’d been using those abilities to help and protect them. So, we stopped and got blamed for all kinds of things we normally would have saved them from.
They went out of their way to provoke us so we’d use our magic in front of them. It was how theykeptcatching us. If it wasn’t law enforcement, it was civilians. And sometimes, it was just us being stupid.
We didn’t just need to stop the Coalition. We needed to discredit themandthe angels. Having met the man running the Coalition, I had a feeling that part was going to be easy. The angels were going to be a different story. They were self-actualized as beings of goodness and we didn’t actually know their motive for any of this.
We were all working while Medusa was learning with the furies. I had Father Nathan and Orion up on video chat while we all worked to bounce around ideas. One of Benji’s followers was some high-level genius who managed to get us into Saul and Hannibal’s phones and the webcam on their computers so we could listen.
Jezebel and Kat insisted she get a better name than one associated with being one of Benji’s followers, but she refused. She said it was for everyone’s safety and she couldn’t reveal her identity, but she was in a place she could get us information.
I didn’t know who the mystery woman was, but she was a treasure trove of information about what was going on behind closed doors when Saul and Hannibal were away from each other and had their phones off.
“Shit, should I send her a topless selfie?” Benji asked. “I’m pretty sure she’s earned it. Whoisthis magical mystery woman and how did she get a video in the senate chambers?”
I’m pretty sure weallhad that question. Because this mystery woman had sent us a cell phone video of Saul on the senate floor giving a fire and brimstone speech about supernaturals killing everyone at New Eden Asylum and how congress needed to pass a law deploying armed forces to round us up.
She was also able to film the other senators’ reactions. No one was on his side, even the people who usually were. Because he’d talked up the press conference with Hannibal to his friends and his enemies had apparently watched it, too.
