Something True (20 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Darla

Take it all in, Darla,
I said to myself as I stood next to the white, old-school Chevy convertible Orion and I were supposed to ride in during halftime.
This is it. This is your homecoming.

I breathed in and out, kneading my hands in their elbow-length black gloves. The cars were parked along the visitor’s side of the track, the elderly drivers standing in a klatch nearby, talking and occasionally laughing as one. Usually the stands emptied out at halftime, but the bleachers across the field were jammed with students and parents and teachers. We were waiting for the guys from the football team who were also on homecoming court to get cleaned up and come back out. Once they got here, we’d have the processional around the track, after which each of us would be presented with our prince and princess crowns—the ones we’d wear to the dance tomorrow night, hoping to have them replaced by the king or queen crown. My smile was so wide my lips hurt. I still couldn’t believe I was here. It was actually happening. The whole scene was like something out of a movie, and I was one of the stars.

Yes, it would have been nice if I hadn’t just broken up with the guy I was going to be riding the track with, but it had to be done. My heart wasn’t in it, and I was pretty sure his wasn’t either. A few weeks ago all that mattered to me was having the hot guy at my side, showing that image of me to the world. But things had changed. I couldn’t just be with a guy because he was going to look good in my homecoming pictures. I refused to be that shallow. It wasn’t me. Not anymore.

“Hey there.”

Wallace walked up behind me so silently, I didn’t hear him until his finger came down on my bare shoulder. I whirled around, hand to heart. He was wearing a blue LCHS T-shirt with a black vest over it, along with a pair of rolled jeans and black lace-up shoes. His arms were held behind his back in a way that made it blatantly obvious he was hiding something back there. Knowing him, it was his iPad with some new poll numbers on it. There was fresh writing on his left arm, but I couldn’t tell what it said.

“You scared the crap out of me!”

“I thought you were going to wear the blue dress,” he said, looking me up and down in a neutral way. “Wasn’t there a whole be-true-to-yourself theme to your speech?”

“Yes, but I realized that part of being true to myself was being a good friend.” I smoothed the front of the green dress and smiled. “Let Veronica wear the blue and have her moment. I’m good.”

Wallace smiled in a lopsided way. “You really are an original.”

“Thanks,” I said, grinning. “And don’t you think the accessories sort of draw your eye away from the color?”

I raised one gloved arm, then the other, and touched the massive rhinestone-and-pearl necklace I’d borrowed from my mother’s collection.

Wallace laughed. “Absolutely. So listen, there’s a rumor going around that you broke up with Orion.”

“I did,” I said. “It just wasn’t working anymore. Also, I kind of kissed this other guy.”

“Did you?” Wallace played along. “Was he a cool guy?”

“Beyond cool,” I said with a laugh.

“So . . . what would you say if this beyond-cool guy asked you to homecoming?” Wallace drew his arms out from behind his back and presented me with a gorgeous bouquet of white roses. My breath caught at the sight of them. His iPad was nowhere in sight.

“Wallace, I—”

“Her answer is no.”

Veronica stood near the front grille of my homecoming car, wearing the red bombshell dress she had originally picked out. Her hair was slicked back from her face into a severe bun, and her lipstick matched the shade of her dress perfectly. No male in a fifty-mile radius was going to be capable of looking at anything other than her.

“I thought you were wearing the blue,” I said.

Veronica sauntered around the car and came to stand next to me, swinging her little black bag on its rhinestone strap.

“Like I was going to take the chance we’d look like twins up there.” Veronica sniffed. “You know me better than that.”

Wallace and I exchanged a look. When it came to sabotage, the girl really was brilliant.

“As for your question, Wall-E,” Veronica said, turning to him. “The answer is no. Darla will be going to homecoming with Orion. But kudos to you for shooting so high on the food chain.”

“God, Veronica! Do you have to be so rude?” I blurted. It just came out of me, and I wasn’t even scared. While she was momentarily stunned into silence, I smiled at Wallace. “I would love to go to homecoming with you.”

“Have you completely lost your mind?” Veronica demanded. “You can’t do that! Don’t you get it? Whatever minuscule chance you had of winning this thing will be obliterated with him as your date.”

“So? What do you care?” I said, arching one eyebrow. “You’ll have a better chance of winning.”

Veronica laughed a wry, nasty laugh. “Okay, fine. I didn’t want to say this, but you leave me no choice.”

At that moment, the homecoming princes from the football team crested the hill. They wore their uniforms but had taken out the padding, and none of them looked very happy. Orion was staring at the ground. He hadn’t played that well in the first half. In fact, he’d lost yards four times and fumbled the ball away once. Josh saw us and whacked Orion with the back of his hand.

“I forgave your little breakdown at the mall the other day as some kind of PMS glitch, but this is not going to happen.” She waggled her finger between me and Wallace. “You think you’re so brilliant? Then do the math. If you go out with a dork, that makes
you
a dork.”

My teeth clenched. “I think you need to check your work on that one, Veronica, because I’ve been hanging out with you for the last four years, but somehow, I haven’t morphed into a total bitch.”

Wallace laughed. Veronica’s jaw dropped. Orion, who had just arrived with Josh, covered his mouth with his fist, but I saw the smile he was trying to hide.

“Veronica,” Josh said, coming up behind her. “What the hell is going on?”

But Veronica was still focused on me. “How dare you—”

“You want to know how I dare?” I asked, my heart pounding like I was about to drive myself off a cliff. And maybe I was, but at the moment I didn’t care. “I dare because I couldn’t care less whether you want to be friends with me anymore. I’ve spent the last four years of my life doing everything you wanted, wearing what you told me to wear, liking what you liked, being where you wanted to be. And lately all you’ve done is treat me like crap. But you want to know who’s never treated me like crap? Him!”

I pointed behind me at Wallace.

“So yes, I’m going to choose him over you,” I told her, looking her up and down. I reached up under my mother’s big necklace and yanked at the diamond D she’d given me last year. The thin chain broke easily, and I handed it back to her. The tiny diamonds sparkled under the field lights.

“What? What are you—” Veronica sputtered.

I pointed at the necklace in her palm with my gloved index finger. “It’s a
D
,” I said. “For dumped.”

Wallace turned away, trying not to laugh in her face. Even after everything she’d done to him, and to me, and to half the student population, he managed to be discreet. Orion, however, didn’t have such control. He was still chuckling when he came around the car to open the door for me.

“Your chariot, princess,” he said.

“Thank you.”

As Orion popped the door closed, I settled in atop the backseat like so many homecoming princesses had done before me, shaking with relief and glee and adrenaline. I only hoped that some of those princesses had felt as good as I felt right then. Wallace walked over and handed me my roses, which I cradled in the crook of my arm.

“Meet up at the Snack Shack for a milkshake later?” I asked.

Wallace pushed his hands into his pockets, and I could see what was written up his arm.
Darla Shayne
in big curly letters. He smiled when he saw I’d noticed.

“I am so there.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Orion

Sitting in the back of that car, I did everything I was supposed to do. I waved at the crowd, I tried to look happy. But when the slow-moving vehicles passed under the blindingly lit scoreboard, I felt like total crap. We were losing 17–10, and it was partially my fault. No. Totally my fault. I had fumbled away the ball that the Orchard Hill High cornerback had picked up, which had eventually led to the touchdown that had put them ahead. I was a complete loser.

If only I had slept last night. If only I had been able to nap this afternoon. But like that was ever going to happen after that freak friend of True’s had practically accosted me for the second time. To be honest, though, when I’d gone into my room and downed the blinds and lain on my bed, it wasn’t her and her crazytown delusional comments that were playing in my mind. The only thing I could think about was True.

She liked me. I was sure of it. Forget everything she’d said in the last few days. When I thought about that kiss, I knew how she felt about me. The way she’d clung to me so tightly, the way her lips had searched mine, the way she’d said my name.

Orion. My Orion.

She liked me. Maybe even more than liked. So why did she keep pushing me away?

The caravan inched past the home stands. The crowd was going crazy for us, like we’d just come home from a war or something. The sustained cheering was honestly kind of hard to believe. Who the hell was I? I’d just moved here. I was losing the game for them. So why were they shouting my name? It made no sense. Maybe everything that I thought mattered was totally stupid. Maybe high school was totally stupid.

And then I saw her. I saw True. She was standing in the middle of the booster section on the bottom bleacher, and she wasn’t cheering. She had her hands clasped under her chin, and she was watching me. Only me. When her eyes caught mine, she looked away for half a second, but then she looked back. We were moving by her, but I kept staring at her. I craned my neck so I could keep staring at her. And then, when it became impossible for me to twist any farther, I heard a voice in my mind. Not True’s or Darla’s or even my own. It was, weirdly, Artemis’s.

You will be asked to make a choice,
she said.

And just like that, I did. I flung my legs over the side of the car and jumped down. A few people gasped, but the driver kept on driving.

“Orion!” Darla shouted. “What’re you doing?”

I jogged for the stands. My heart throbbed inside me, growing bigger with each beat. This was nuts. I knew it was. But it had to be done. It had to be. I would never stop thinking about her until I knew for sure.

Up the stairs I went, taking them two at a time. A few stunned people stood in my way and I turned sideways, sliding past them, taking a pom-pom to the face and almost tripping over someone’s megaphone. As I got closer to True, she looked over her shoulder in a gesture I was starting to expect—True searching for a way out. But this time, I wasn’t going to give her one.

I stepped right up to her, put one arm around her waist and the other hand around her neck, and kissed her.

“What the hell?” some guy said.

“Aw! That’s so romantic!” a girl cooed.

For a second True went stiff, and I had this awful, sinking feeling that I was about to be kicked to the curb. But then, out of nowhere, she relaxed. She relaxed and her hands traveled up my sides and around my back. Thank God we’d taken our pads off to ride in the processional or she never would have been able to hold me as close as she did.

This was it. This was where I was supposed to be. As much fun as Darla and I had, I hated myself for wasting so much time with her. Time I could have spent here, with True, where I belonged.

Then, a voice called out over the loudspeaker.

“And now, your homecoming court will step up to receive their crowns!”

True pulled away from me. “You’d better go.”

“I don’t care,” I said, breathless.

“No. You should go. Get your crown, Mr. Popular Homecoming Prince.”

I laughed. “I’ll go, but only if you say you’ll go to the dance with me.”

“Say yes!” Lauren Codry prompted from behind True. “Say yes!”

True glanced around uncertainly. Then her eyes trailed up to meet mine, and she smiled. “Oh, what the hell?”

Smiling from ear to ear, I kissed her one more time, then jogged across the field to the makeshift stage to receive my crown. On my way, I glanced one more time at the scoreboard, but now the numbers didn’t bother me.

I had a feeling the second half was going to be a whole new ball game.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

True

It was past midnight when I snuck out the back door of the house with my bow and arrows, the night so eerily still I could have been at the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Ducking as best I could while loaded down with weaponry, I shoved through the back gate and raced toward the thickly wooded park at the far south end of town, keeping close to the hedges that lined the streets and crouching behind parked cars to avoid the few headlights that passed by. Once inside the tree line, I finally dared to look around. The jogging path was still, the park deserted. I was completely alone.

I walked until I found a clearing with a nice, fat oak tree near its perimeter. Then I took twenty paces back and loaded an arrow onto the bridge of my bow. A giddy bubble burbled up inside my throat as I pulled back and aimed. Holding my bow—the bow I’d wielded for countless millennia—I felt like a mother being reunited with a long-lost child. I couldn’t have been more at peace, more content, more fulfilled. But then I remembered the reason I needed this weapon in the first place, and the giddiness died.

I let the arrow fly. It pierced the tree at the very center of its trunk. My aim was still true.

Taking a deep breath, I unsheathed another arrow. I had less than twenty-four hours until we reached Artemis’s arbitrary deadline. Tonight Wallace had asked Darla to homecoming, and hopefully tomorrow, under the twinkling lights at the dance, they would seal their love. And the second Orion woke up from his Zeus-induced stupor and chose me, I was going to be ready.

Because there was no way I was going to let him go. That kiss tonight, the way he’d thrown himself out of that car for me, put his heart on the line in front of the entire school, it meant something to me. Wherever we were, whoever we were—whether goddess or human, mortal or immortal—we were meant to be together. Artemis could not win.

I lifted my bow, stared down the sight line, and imagined Artemis standing before me. I let fly. Another direct hit.

As I reached for the third arrow, someone very nearby clapped their hands. The noise was so loud in the thick of the night, it startled a few sleeping birds from their nest. I whirled around just as Artemis emerged from the trees. She wore skintight black pants and a black-and-gunmetal jacket, zipped to her chin, elongating her neck. Her brown hair was piled messily atop her head in a thick, haphazard bun.

“Well, well, well. You’ve still got it.”

I flung my quiver to the center of my back and inched toward the tree, keeping my bow behind me.

“How did you find me?” I demanded, trying to keep her from getting a better look at the arrows still caught by the thick bark.

“You think Goddess is the only place for me to keep an eye on you?” Artemis tilted her head. “I’ve been watching your house. I saw you sneak out. The stalker lifestyle seems to suit me.”

She advanced on me slowly, a challenge and a question in her eyes. I knew she was wondering why I hadn’t drawn on her, and I tried to come up with some way, any way, to keep her from seeing the truth. If she knew I had these arrows, she’d know I’d gained an unfair advantage—that I could end her with one shot whether she were mortal or made Goddess again by Hera or anyone else. She’d know someone on the Mount was helping me. And worst of all, she’d know what to expect tomorrow night.

I forced myself to stop my backpedaling and took a wide-legged stance between her and my oak tree. “I thought I had another day. You should know that, considering what a diligent timekeeper you’ve become.”

Artemis lifted her slim but strong shoulders. “Just figured I’d check up on you. See how your latest match is coming along. It must be going well if you feel able to take time out to come here for target practice.”

“It’s going very well,” I replied. “By tomorrow night, Orion will be back to his old self and able to make his choice.”

Of course, the current Orion had already made his. Remembering tonight’s kiss again brought a blush to my cheeks. I hoped it was too dark for her to notice.

“And then we fight,” Artemis said, the glee in her voice unmistakable.

Quick as lightning, she darted to my right—my weaker side. I reached out to stop her, but my ribs clenched in pain and I caught only the fabric on the elbow of her jacket. Artemis grabbed one of the arrows from the tree trunk and held it up, clutched in one black-gloved hand. Her face went gray as ash.

“This is a leaden arrow.” Her eyes flicked to my face. “One of
your
leaden arrows.”

I said nothing. My body quaked as I quickly considered my options. Did I try to kill her now where she stood, or make a run for it? If I could only avoid her, only hold her off until Darla and Wallace sealed the deal, then there was still the possibility that Zeus would squire me and Orion home. That he would overrule Hera and save the day. There was still a flicker of hope.

Artemis raised her fist to my face, the ends of the arrow seeming to waver in the dim moonlight. “How did you get these?” she roared, her spittle dotting my cheeks. “How?”

Suddenly lights flicked across her face, and I heard a shout.

“Stop right there!”

A pair of flashlights bobbed toward us through the trees. I saw a flash of something, a gold badge, and heard the static of a radio.

“It’s the police!” I hissed. “We have to run.”

“I’m not afraid of them,” she spat back.

“You should be. They’ve been looking for you two all week. If they lock you up, you’re going to miss the fun tomorrow night.”

Artemis gave me one last livid look before dropping the arrow and taking off into the trees. I ran in the opposite direction, hoping to confuse the police, knowing I could probably outrun them. At first I heard at least one of them crashing through the underbrush after me, but then he cursed under his breath and the light went dead. I could only imagine he’d fallen, but I refused to look back. I sprinted until I reached a sidewalk, then lifted my cotton hood over my head and turned my steps toward home.

It wasn’t until I reached our front porch that I bothered to breathe. Artemis now knew that I had a weapon that could take her and her brother out, even if they somehow regained their powers before our fight. The element of surprise was gone. She was going to come to our battle prepared.

Suddenly the overhead light on the porch flicked on. The door opened, and there were my mother and Hephaestus.

“What is it?” my mother asked. “What’s happened?”

I sighed and trudged past them into the house. “We’re going to need a new plan.”