If it wasn’t for the wind, most of her brains would have splattered all over my face and chest. I watched, pretty stunned, as her body slumped to its knees and leaned forward, pouring out the rest of her head onto the blisteringly hot soil. I stared at the corpse, at the meat and the blood and spat bitter saliva. Actress vomited and cursed, but I was more focused on the girl behind her. Through the gore and the wet scarlet trickling down her glasses, she stared at me with the same wide-eyed, shocked expression she’d been wearing for hours. Glasses shakily stepped backward, her entire arm smothered in blood. She stared at her fingers, at the loose fist she was still holding out toward me.

  Glasses screamed. Shrieked so loud it blew dust into the air and had my ears ringing for a minute straight even after he stopped and fell to her hands and knees. I held my hands to either side of my head, trying to get my balance back, shaking my head and watching her fruitlessly scrape the blood off her arm. But all she was doing was making muck. A bloody, grainy mud that stuck to her hands and only got thicker and thicker the more she tried.

  Only when my ears stopped ringing did I ask her a simple question: “How the fuck did you do that?”

  Actress shoved me aside and screamed, “Now how are we supposed to get home, you nerdy fuck?!”

  “I didn’t mean to!” Glasses wailed, scampering backward, tripping over her own two feet and falling back down onto the dirt. I grabbed Actress’ shoulder and held her in place. “I-I thought I could help! I saw the rest of you get hit, and all I could do was fly away.” She swallowed hard. So hard I could hear it. “All I wanted to do was help!”

  Hell of a way to win the game, tell you what.

  “Fuck me,” I muttered, massaging my eyes. I glanced at the body again, taking in the sight of seeing my own corpse without half its head screwed on tight. Bones, flesh and a throat that spat blood until her heart finally stopped beating. I tensed my jaw and looked at Glasses, because now we had a problem. A very big problem in the shape of a girl who was scrawnier, thinner, more cowardly than the rest of us combined. I hadn’t even heard her get here, or even felt her appear, either, and yet she’d caught Olympia off guard. She’d stuck her fist through her head like it was made out of paper mache, and…that wasn’t good for us, because Supes without control are asking for it.

  Actress shrugged off my hand and grabbed Glasses by her t-shirt with both hands. “You,” she snarled, her lipstick now a jagged smear across her lips. She pointed a finger at the body. “What the hell do we do now, huh?!”

  “I said I was sorry!” she wailed again, even louder this time. Tears and sand crusted her reddening cheeks as Actress pulled them that much closer. Should I intervene? Probably, yeah, but alarm bells were going off inside me, because suddenly this was very, very bad. Olympia knew things that we simply didn’t. She would have known how to get out of this place if we managed to win. She would have told me, for a fact, what she actually was and what her reality was like and what the hell actually killed her reality’s real me. She knew almost everything. She would have known where Bianca was. And that thought struck a nerve. That thought alone had my blood going in rushing waves past my ears, nearly drowning out Glasses and Actress one screamed and the other wailed her sorry.

  All I could do was stare numbly at the necklace hanging from Olympia’s jagged throat, dangling in front of her lightning bolt symbol, drenched in so much blood that it dripped down her chest and onto the hot grainy sands.

  I pulled it off her body and held it in my palm, staring at the tiny bolt of lightning and the ring right beside it. I shut my eyes and held it, wrapping my fingers around it. I crouched and put her body on the ground, and if what Rhea had taught me was right, Arkathians didn’t bury their dead normally. The sum of their body was put into one central place, and that’s what I did, however messy, until the two idiots standing a few feet away from me were silent as they watched me tuck the necklace underneath her rigid fingers. Then I muttered something under my breath. Not a prayer, but a curse, because her body stank, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen someone just…die. The Kaiju had been my last massive fight. A monster that I could barely remember, like everything that happened was a fever dream. Like it wasn’t really me in control at that point. Then Cadaver and the state I’d left him in, and yet all I can really remember from that time in the sewers was sitting there in that room in complete silence, listening to the sound of blood tapping onto the floor and the squelch of organs splattering onto cold metal tiles.

  All of a sudden I felt like I was back in that labyrinth with Circe, doing the same thing to the bodies. She’d nearly called it barbaric, doing what I’d done, and I figured to a normal person, it was. But it just had to be done.

  I might not have liked her or trusted her, but that was just a plain old execution. No resolution to her life, nothing to tell me she was legit or trustworthy. She died having an argument with me, and now she’s just a corpse.

  Staring at my own body parts sent a shiver down my spine. There was no face to differentiate us.

  And her fingers held a death grip on her necklace, the ring glinting in the harsh sunlight.

  I sighed and stood, putting my hands on my hips and staring at the vast, empty desert. I turned my back to the two of them and walked several steps, breathing in some more, trying very hard not to resort to my older self.

  Because anger was a word that couldn’t even come close to what I was feeling right now.

  The people I need end up dying or disappearing. The ones I don’t need all keep on living.

  I looked up at the sky and thought, What the fuck did I ever do to you?

  Fucking. Pointless. The lot of it. First the labyrinth and all that time I wasted getting a cure to something that was already in production, making a billionaire even richer. Adam goes and saves the city all by himself, and a couple of people are wondering, Where the hell was the Golden Girl when we actually needed her? And I didn’t have an answer for that, because it just didn’t matter. Even this whole mess was just one big clusterfuck of events that I thought would actually give me something, even if that something was just training and leave me with a lot more questions than answers. I just didn’t get it. What was I doing wrong? I was trying to help people the way I knew how, which was learning to rely on other people for help, but I guess that method works just as well as relying on myself for all the answers, too. I laughed dryly and pinched my nose, shaking my head slowly and tensing my jaw until I thought I might crack a tooth. I don’t get it, I thought. I just don’t freaking get it. What am I meant to do?

  Funnily enough, Lucas once said, It’s never about being easy, it’s about keeping on going, and I’d found it so damned stupid and corny at the time that I’d blown a raspberry and given him a thumbs down for even saying it.

  Looking back on it now, a small part of me almost thought that maybe…

  Listening to his orders might’ve just been the easy way. Letting someone else tell me where to go and how to get there and what to do as soon as I get there almost worked out for me better than it the moment I decided I should start following my own orders and relying on the wind to take me to wherever it is that I really wanted to go.

  Adam must have one hell of a life, having the world at his feet, the city in his debt, and the support of an entire organization and government behind him. The guy sucks, don’t get me wrong, but that kind of stability…

  “Rylee?” Actress said quietly.

  “Glasses, come ‘ere for a sec,” I muttered, not turning around. The sound of crunching sand came in odd intervals, staggering and wobbly until she was in front of me. I looked at her, put a hand on her shoulder and smiled.

  Then I put my fist in her gut. Not hard enough to kill her. But more than hard enough to drop her.

  She puked at my feet and clutched her stomach, kicking around in the dirt in agony. I watched her froth at the mouth as she silently screamed, trying to gasp for air as she coughed and spluttered and started coughing blood. I kicked her in the head like a soccer ball, just like I used to on the team. Her head snapped backward. Her nose smashed against my sneaker, spitting blood all over the blistering sands. She wailed again, because of course she would, crying like some fucking child, writhing around on the soil like a pest, trying to scamper away from me, but I wasn’t going to chase after her. She was going to lie there in a pool of her own vomit and blood and saliva until she could stand up again, and I was going to watch her, and she better get up, because if she didn’t, I’d kick her again and again until her face caved in and her brains spilled out from the fractures I’d leave around her skull.

  “Jesus,” Actress whispered from a few feet away. She moved to get to her. I glanced at her.

  She stopped.

  “Do me a favor,” I said, walking past Glasses, “and tell Suits and Quarterback I’ll see ‘em around.”

  “What?” she asked, flying after me and stopping in front of me. “You’re just gonna leave?”

  “Move or I’m gonna move you, Hollywood.”

  Her brow furrowed as she neared. “I asked you a question, and I’m not afraid of you.”

  I stared into her eyes, and that’s what gave it away—she was terrified, and good.

  I would be too, if the person in front of me wasn’t kidding. It took about ten seconds before her resolve melted and she looked away, moving aside. Then I was in the air, a bullet in the sky arcing through the few clouds in the pale blue. Didn’t know where I was going, but I had a rough idea. Going home was now my priority, and getting to the humans was as good of a chance as any, unless this reality’s version of myself killed Thirteen, putting a full stop in a plan that was materializing just as fast as I was flying. Or…Witchling, right? She could probably do the whole Fracture thing, too. She was powerful, smart, and would probably also be dead, considering she’s also a massive threat to the Empire. Fuck. Fuck! I yelled a curse that got snatched up by the wind as I landed hard into the Earth, for once because I didn’t fall or get hit, but because I was so pissed off that I needed something to destroy.

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  Which just so happened to be a small concrete shell of a building, maybe a house, that came apart like Lego bricks the moment I went straight through it. I stood in the rubble as wind whipped the gray dust into the air around me, and look, I know it was childish, I know that I was meant to be better than this, above my emotions now and a smarter hero and whatever but I was tired. Just so freaking tired. I sat on a fallen slab of stone and hung my head, then dug my fingernails into my scalp, still trying to come up with some kind of way to fix all of this mess.

  “Bear witness, all, to the faltering of the Goddess of War.”

  When I looked up at the voice, I was in that same gray-scale landscape I was in months ago when I sold my soul. Oh, fuck me, not this Thing again. It was in front of me, shimmering and flickering like always on this eternal landscape of gray sand and lasting dunes. This time, though, I was still myself, and not just an outline with white cracks where my scars are. Same clothes, same smears of dirt and the grime under my fingernails. I cupped my face and shook my head, not wanting in the slightest to get into it again right now with this freaking Thing. Not when it felt like I was losing my mind. Not when it felt like my heart was climbing up my throat and trying to suffocate me of oxygen.

  “Nice to see you too,” I muttered, not looking at It. “Make this quick, will you? What do you want?”

  “A fraction of your time,” It said. The sands shimmered as It spoke, rubbing against the soles of my feet in an odd pattern, making my skin crawl. “Your life to this current day has been tumultuous and tiresome to watch.”

  “Just imagine living it,” I muttered.

  “Oh, yes, but I have,” It said. I looked up, finding It still in the same place. “I’ve never left your side, not until the day your body is deceased and your soul can fully be mine. I’ve warded imminent death several times over for you, God Butcher. The fates of the universe are unhappy with your survival, or as you homosapiens tend to call it, a roach which continues to cling to life. Some say arrogance. Most say defiance.” It got closer. “I whisper a will to live. A stubbornness to claim what you wish so badly to gather in your arms and make your own one day soon.”

  “Bianca,” I whispered, straightening up. “You’re talking about her?”

  “A great sacrifice,” It said, circling me. “A trade for your dearest.”

  I paused, then frowned. “You’re bartering for her safety?”

  “Well—

  I was in It’s face in a heartbeat. The sands surrounding us didn’t move, and neither did It. “I think I need a second to process this, but you’re saying you can influence the shit that’s been happening to me this whole time?”

  “Child,” It said. “I live beyond the boundaries of your capabilities. Though your path is rigid, it is not set in stone. Malleable and ever-changing, though the outcome, the final outcome, continues to remain the same since our first encounter. What I want so badly from you, child, is nothing more than a simple wager for your beloved.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “So this whole time, you’ve sat here and watched my life fall apart, and you could—”

  “No,” It said. “I do not work in that manner, and quite frankly, what I am doing here with you is rather wrong in the eyes of the universe, and considering the many instances I have saved your life without even your knowledge might be the cause for the slew of, what you might deem, bad luck that you’re experiencing. I was next due to see you once you perish for your final time, Goddess of War, but I have since taken a quaint enjoyment in your persistence against forces acting against you. I have shadowed countless lives. Seen trillions born and trillions die in microsecond bursts of flickering embers. My existence is outside your realm of understanding, and yet you entertain me, Andira.” It flickers again, appearing behind me, making me spin around. “In short, I find you rather pleasing to watch. My previous thoughts of you remain. Your hands will always remain dripping in the blood of the generations which will come after you, but you have kept your word and even continue to battle against your fate.”

  I had several thoughts running through my mind this second. I landed on one. “When did you save me?”

  “One does not need to look further than just a moment ago, when you watched Olympia perish. A moment too soon and an inch to the right, and it would have been your head obliterated,” It said. “What I do might seem like a chance to you, but trust me, child, the universe wishes to wipe its hands clean of you every moment it gets.”

  “Then…then why was I born in the first place, if it wants me dead so badly?” I asked.

  “Because you are pivotal, irregardless of what your life ultimately means to it.”

  “Right back to square one, talking about how I’m just so freaking special,” I muttered. “Just cut the crap for once and get to the freaking point. Seeing you is the last thing I need right now. What do you actually want?”

  “A wager, child, is what I want most,” It said, getting closer, so close that my skin felt like hundreds of tiny ants were marching up my veins and circling around my joints. “I offer you a possibility of shifting your chances.”

  “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “One life for another, both equal, both in the balance.” It nears again, close enough for me to hear the hum that resonated from Its body—not a hum, no, but the voices of countless. “Your struggles here are temporary, but they will quake the universe and its folding realities in ways you will soon learn, but as of now, your Earthly desires are what drive you most: your love and your compassion, and oh, Goddess, what a might emotion for what is to be such a terrible machine that’ll grind the bones of nations between its two hands without a second thought.” It stops, goes silent, and then quietly says, “Your mother and your beloved are both not meant to live beyond this year.”

  The sands underneath me stilled, and so did my heartbeat.

  “What?” I whispered, partially in a daze.

  “My gift to you is foresight, child, at the expense of your life and its goodwill. The fates do not take rather kindly to mortals taking lead in their lives through action, but I find it quite the game toying with them, Ry’ee.”

  “Be quiet for a moment and tell me something,” I said quietly. “They’re both meant to die?”

  This year?

  It was December back home, wasn’t it? Fuck, was it? November? Gods, Ry, what the hell? What the hell?

  “One,” It said. “The other lives, to a capacity.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” I asked, nearly grabbing It.

  It vanished, then reappeared behind me, spinning me around again, but I was more panicked this time, my throat a lot drier and my tongue sitting fat and thick in my throat, choking me silent. “What it means is what it rather unfortunately means. In truth, both will perish in just a handful of days, possibly more, possibly even less than that, but I offer a wager: a soul for a soul. One will live and the other will not, and the decision you will make falls upon you and you alone. My assistance comes in taking you to whichever you choose. From there, your fight is on those same hands that will raze planets. Be quick deciding, God Butcher, time stands still for nobody at all.”

  “Why?” I asked It, spreading my arms. “Why the hell would you make me choose? Why not both?”

  “Because it’s rather entertaining watching you, and that’s really all there is to it.”

  “No.” I said weakly, taking a step back, shaking my head—heart in my throat, stomach in a terrible knot trying to make me sick. “No, that’s just not how it works. I don’t choose either, and you wouldn’t help me, and both of them end up dying? But if I choose one of them, then the other ends up living? What the fuck is that? What the fuck are you playing at? You think this is funny? You think this shit is freaking entertaining? This is my life that you’re ruining, just because you can sit back and have a good old time watching me lose people I fucking love?”

  “Let me make something clear,” It said, voice resonating through my bones. “I tolerate your existence despite your arrogance because of the adversity you face. Your death can happen in the next few moments. It may happen in the next hundred years. Regardless, your soul now belongs to me. Your fate belongs to me. What I am is neither a god or a force of nature. I belong outside those words and outside your feeble human mind. My desires come from a place of intrigue, because for whatever reason, I fancy understanding why exactly it is that you turn out how you always do, no matter your life paths, no matter how they differ: a vengeful, hateful, being of untapped and uncontrollable power which always falters.” It stayed silent for a moment, leaving my breaths, panting and heavy, to fill the silence. “I, for one, believe it is your human spirit. You are incapable of becoming your true self.”

  I remained quiet, swallowing nothing but air. “That’s it? You just don’t understand humans?”

  “Do you, child, understand the tumultuous life of the insects beneath your boots?”

  “No, but—”

  “Do you ever ponder their strife, their pain and agony and their loss?”

  “They don’t have those fucking emotions. But I’m a person.”

  “And yet to me,” It said, “you are nothing but an insect, and to you, the humans were once nothing more than a primitive, hairless species barely capable of thought and urgency.” It circled me again, as if it wanted to take in every single emotion bleeding from my pores. “You should be grateful I have chosen to take an interest in you. I personally think losing both your mother and your beloved in one breath without a warning would be quite the devastating loss, would you not agree? Because one day, Goddess of War, I will be your saving grace, and you will appear at your lowest, scraping at the grains at your feet, begging for my aid. What you do now will determine if I aid you or even answer your call to begin with, Ry’ee.” It stopped in front of me. “Now, make your decision, child.”

  I’m being held hostage by a flickering piece of shit.

  And I’ve never wanted to kill something so badly.

  “And yet you cannot,” It said to me. “You never do get the chance. So, your choice?”

  “Neither, you fucking grease stain,” I snarled.

  “So you choose both of their deaths, then? Rather unfortunate, but quite interest—”

  “Shut up, I’m not done talking.” I pointed my finger at It. “If you want to learn something about humans, then here’s something you should remember: out of all the planets in the universe, out of all the races and the species that haven’t even stood a chance against the Empire, Earth is the single planet that made them pause. Yeah, sure, I first thought they were pretty useless, but now I’m figuring that they might all be pretty useless, but I like a lot of them, and hate even more of them, but without them, I’ve got no home. I’ve got nothing. At the end of the day, the humans tolerate me. They use me, and they try to kill me, but some of them at least want me on this wet blue rock, so here’s what you’re gonna do: you’ll send me back home, and I’m gonna save them both, and when all of this is said and done, you’ll get your entertainment. If I fail, then…at least that’ll make you happy. If I win, then I want a free favor from you at any point in time.” It almost spoke, then I added: “That’s what we call a real wager.”

  “But child,” it Said. “Their deaths are certain. At least one of them. My deal ensures one will live.”

  “I don’t want your grubby hands fucking up my life,” I spat. “Butt off and watch me work.”

  “There are no realities where you succeed, Daughter of Zeus.”

  “Then you must not be great at seeing the future, because I’ll just have to make one.”

  “Your arrogance, for a while, seemed to vanish and falter.”

  “I needed a reminder that I can do this shit myself.”

  Then It laughed, making the ground shimmer and my muscles tense. “As you wish, child. Though once you fail, the one who perishes becomes mine, traded for your soul. I will no longer influence your life from then.”

  Saving yourself from having to grant me anything I want, sneaky fuck.

  And putting my life squarely back in my hands if it all goes to hell.

  But it meant no more interference, right? No more bullshit.

  “Deal,” I said.

  “Best of luck, God Butcher,” It said. “Your shriek of failure will be heard across the universe.”