Page 34 of Spiders in the Grove

“Nah”—I shake my head, purse my lips—"definitely not me. I’ve already figured out she can handle herself; that’s why I’m not going to Mexico.”

I turn and head for the rooftop door. “Coming, or not?”

They follow me out.

Victor

I grit my teeth, and toss the cell phone on the chair behind me I have yet to sit down on. The gun feels heavy in my other hand; I want to use it, but I cannot, though the longer I hold it, the more I feel like the other part of me will take over and pull the trigger.

I set the gun aside, too, next to a stack of old magazines, not trusting myself with it. Apollo will die for what he and Artemis did to Izabel, but I need him alive to lure his twin, so she can die with him. Osiris and Hestia may be close-by, and on Artemis’ trail, but the best way to catch her is with bait. And in Dina Gregory’s house, where Izabel is most-likely to be is the best place to bait her. Izabel knew this—that is why she kept Apollo down here—but I also get the feeling it was not the only reason.

“You should tell my brother and sister I said hi, and that I miss them,” Apollo says, with sarcasm.

When I do not respond, he tries something else:

“I actually prefer this wheelchair,” he says, “to the hospital bed that psycho had me on—I appreciate it, man. I got real tired of staring at the ceiling.” He looks across at me. “But this back and forth shit,” he continues to ramble, “is getting a little tiring. You people are crazy, you know that, right? I mean, shit, I’ve never seen so much drama, and I come from a big fuckin’ family; and you know my family, Victor, so that’s sayin’ a lot.” He pauses. “Hey, you want to know something?”

“No, Apollo, I do not.”

“Your girl,” he says anyway, “she seems pissed—like at you, I mean. What’d you do to her? It don’t take a genius to figure out she never told you she had me down here. And that other guy, Big Fred, whatever, when she talks to him, she’s got that twinkle in her eye, if y’know what I mean. Heard her with him on the phone one day. You should teach your girl not to have private conversations in front of prisoners.”

He will say anything to get under my skin—I was falling for it until his insinuation about Izabel and Fredrik. That is entirely false. About her being angry with me—that is more than plausible.

Still, I offer no response. I focus on the sounds of the house, listening for signs of Artemis. I think about Izabel keeping this from me, having Apollo the whole time and not telling me about it—something I have thought about before Apollo brought it to my attention. But as much as it disappoints me, it does not compare to Fredrik knowing and not telling me. He conspired against me with Izabel, and it is something I cannot forgive. The trust I had in Fredrik is gone.

“I’d be mad as hell, bro,” he says, “if my woman did some shit like this to me; left me in the dark—look at you down here, doing the work of a newbie agent—Ha! Ha! Ha!”

My chest and shoulders rise and fall; finally, he gets my attention. I break away from my thoughts to acknowledge him.

“But maybe it’s where you’d rather be anyway,” he goes on. “Why aren’t you there, Victor? In Mexico?”—he laughs under his breath—“I mean, it’s just funny to me, how you claim to love that woman so much—more than you ever loved my sister—but here you are, with me in this dusty-ass basement”—his eyes scan the area—“instead of being in Mexico, where your woman is in way over her pretty red head.”

“It is complicated,” I say. It frustrates me that Apollo is baiting me with conversation, and that I am falling for it.

He smirks. “Complicated is an understatement. What the hell happened to you, Faust? Well, I know what happened—you lost your shit!—but how did you let it happen? Seriously, man, I want to know; y’know, so I can make sure it never happens to me.” He grins.

“It will not happen to you, Apollo.”

He arches a brow. “Oh? How can you be so sure?”

“You will not live long enough to meet another woman to fall in love with.”

“I see.” He nods, always unaffected by verbal threats.

I sit down on the chair, prop an ankle on a knee, and fold my hands loosely within my lap.

“Oh, come on, Victor; you know you want to be there, watching over her yourself.”

“I have it under control.”

“Do you?” he taunts me. “Or, are you just trying to make yourself believe that?”

“You talk too much, Apollo.”

He smiles, showing his teeth.

“Yeah, it’s kinda my thing; I like a good conversation.”

“Then you must be terribly disappointed,” I taunt him in return, “so, perhaps you should shut your mouth.”

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