Killing Olympia

"It's Olympia," Adam whispered. The superheroes in the briefing room stilled all at once, and for just a moment, barely anyone breathed. Heartbeats echoed and fidgeting ceased. A storm lashed against the windows so violently, so loudly, so aggressively, that it almost seemed to want to break inside the Olympiad and tear apart any bodies it could grasp onto. Lightning flashed. Thunder tore through the sky. She's coming, he thought, pushing away from the solid metal table. The chair he sat on squeaked. His body ached as he stood. Twenty Capes stared at him, their faces bathed in the same harsh flashes of lightning that turned the entire room ghostly pale in split second frames.

Adam slowly turned around and stared at the clouds, the sky, the lashing rainfall and the rolling black clouds that thrashed and roared and raged. He could feel it, feel her—she had always been so aggravating to his flesh, like shrapnel burrowing through skin. He flexed his aching fist and swallowed, his mouth bitter and dry, his heartbeat only getting faster. But I left her dead on the floor. She didn't even have a heartbeat. Adam stepped back from the window when thunder exploded outside again. He stumbled into the chair, then used the table for balance.

His fingers dented the thick grey steel as he clung onto it. Velocity, sitting beside him, stared at his hand, then looked up at him, shifting that little bit further away. "Adam?" she said quietly. Her words echoed. "Are y—"

"Sweat," a voice said. He would've snapped around if he didn't know any better, but it was just the other Olympia—the younger, more annoying one who hadn't chosen to take a seat with the rest of them, and instead had enough gaull to play games on her phone as she floated above the table. Now she slowly drifted over computers and screens and flickering news reports being broadcasted onto the walls. Reports of the chaos in Lower Olympus. News articles asking where Olympia was, and how Adam had gone and stopped a beast in its tracks. Snippets that rolled on and on, but ultimately meant nothing—not to him, because his senses were burning and so was the sky. None of them knew it, no, not a single fucking person in this room knew it, but she was close, and she was angry, and she felt so raw to his skin, to his bones and soul, that he wanted nothing more than to leave. "He's sweating."

Cassie rested her chin on steepled fingers, tilting her head slightly to look at him. "Adam," she said, and when she spoke that way, it meant he had to listen, like a dog being told what to do. But he couldn't take his eyes off the windows. This was…different than before. She'd always felt like this inferno, this hellish explosion of so much power concentrated in a point too small to be safe around. A bomb just waiting to go off. "You told me—"

Poseidon, sitting across Cassie on the far side of the room, said, "Thank God."

They all turned to look at him. The silence lasted just long enough for him to smile thinly.

"Please," Cassie said, waving her hand. "By all means, you're right. Thank God she's alive. In fact, I'm so happy that the world's biggest liability hasn't been neutralized that I can just about give everyone their bonuses."

Dominion leaned forward. "Seriously? Would we, you know, still get our Christmas bonuses, too?"

"She's coming," Adam whispered. He forced his fingers through his hair, then looked at Poseidon, at Ares sitting beside him with his shield, one so large and heavy it bent the table where it leaned against it. But Ares hadn't said a word in nearly an hour. He'd brewed in his silence, staring at the articles, his thick blonde hair and greying beard toyed with by his calloused fingers. Now he looked at Adam, albeit with his eyes, not even a turn of his head, like he wasn't even worth the time. "You two can tell, can't you? You can feel her coming, tell me you—"

"You said she wouldn't be a problem anymore," Cassie said flatly. "That she was 'dealt with.'"

Dominion slowly sat back in his chair and whistled. "You actually killed Zeus' kid?"

The younger Olympia snorted. "Not a shot in hell that a waste of genes like Adam can do that."

"The acquisition of Zeus' body, his blood and his bone samples," Poseidon said, his voice a baritone that echoed just loud enough to shake the pitchers of water on the table. "It was all voluntary? Veronica let it happen?"

Adam glanced at Cassie, who was staring at him. He looked back. "Of course it was."

Ares stood. The room watched as he made his way toward Adam, stopping a foot away from him, but still close enough for the man's shadow to drape over him. His shirt sleeves were rolled and his tie was loose, a man who wasn't used to wearing suits and ties and badges but forced into one by the contract he'd written his name on. Now he looked tired. Bothered. His blue eyes looked Adam up and down, just like they'd done so, so many times before.

"You reek of the devil," Ares said quietly.

Adam steeled his jaw. "Wasn't it your generation that made a deal with him in the first place?"

The room, already silent, became deafeningly quiet.

"Cassie," Ares said, not taking his eyes off Adam. "What did you do?"

She shrugged and leaned back in her high-backed leather seat. "I made a very well-thought out business decisionthat nobody in this room is privy to because nobody here owns shares where it matters to me. In short, it doesn't really concern you. We're only really here to get our stories straight and to figure out what we're going to do as soon as the sun comes up. It's all about imagery people. Bright new day, New Year's Eve warmth, and a group of superheroes who don't have to wear suits anymore. Isn't that amazing?" That was the first thing she'd said the moment Adam had returned. Not a thank you, not a good job—she'd told him to sit down so she can break the big news: as of next year, superheroes were going back to costumes, not suits. They were ditching the black and white for some color, and no—they weren't going to pick for themselves. That was already done by the marketing firm she'd bought a few months ago. Cassie stretched her arms over her head, then said, "Now settle, boys. We still—"

"You worked with Lucian?" Bellatrix asked quietly. "Is that what I'm understanding?"

"It was a business decision I made to keep my business afloat," Cassie said. Nobody spoke as she spread her arms. "And I'm the only reason the government didn't totally knee cap you people in the first place. Hey, I got you this fancy building that cost a-fucking-lot, thank you for asking, so how about some appreciation over here?"

Ares, staring into Adam's soul, said, "And you, following her so blindly—what kind of man are you?"

"He's a clone, so technically not much of one," Younger Olympia muttered.

Adam swallowed, then said, "I did what I had to, for the sake of this city."

He grunted. "And what do you know about this city? About fighting for it?"

"I know that you've got to do what you have to so that people are safe."

Poseidon scoffed. "You sound just as pathetic."

"You've got the guts to call Zeus pathetic?" Adam asked, venom on his tongue.

"Boys, boys," Cassie said. She stood up and snapped her fingers so everyone had their attention. She then snapped her fingers, and each and every single one of them blinked—not Adam and the other Olympia, though. They watched as the others stared blankly at her, shook their heads, then quietly muttered amongst themselves. It was the fifth time in the last few minutes Cassie had done that. The first time she broke the news, she did it directly, almost callously, like she was making a spectacle out of it—but then Bellatrix had almost killed her, and that had meant everyone's minds got wiped in a heartbeat. It was always her eyes, green like jade stones, that gave it away. Look into any superhuman's eyes, and something was just a little…off. They didn't shine more, they didn't look a lot more alert or active—they were paler. A lot less hollow. Cassie's had barely glimmered—they only ever did when she had a room, a group, eating out of the palm of her hand. The broadcast during her announcement was the same, her board meetings, her shareholder dinners—all the same act, all the same scene, just with new set pieces, new actors, new goals, and new ways of making sure she got what she wanted. It didn't work on Adam or the Younger Olympia. It didn't work on Lucian. That was purely her. "So, as I was saying, tomorrow is a brand new—"

Golden lightning split the Earth. The windows shattered, and time held its breath. Adam shot forward, shards of shattered crystal flicking off his skin as he shielded Cassie. The rush of air and sound nearly knocked his brain against the side of his skull. He swore as wind violently whipped through the room. The storm surged inside, lashing rainfall beating against raised arms and winced faces. The room full of superheroes braced and stood up. An alarm began blaring, drenching the room in washed red light. Adam slowly turned around, shielding his eyes from the storm as he looked outside. It was her light that made him wince first. It was the lightning crackling around her body that turned the raging rainfall into billowing bands of steam. Adam, on his knees, stared at Olympia. Her eyes.

Golden. Pure. Bright. Whole.

Golden.

Just like in the lab. Just like the moment she'd torn off his arm and he hadn't even realized it.

She was breathing heavily from her mouth, panting so hard that her breaths gushed out through her lips and then her clenched teeth he could almost hear the strain in her lungs. Her body was hurting, aching, trying to keep this surge of power going. She winced, a split second moment when her face tensed, then it was gone. She flew closer, and closer, until her boots scraped over the piles of glass and twisted metal window frames on the floor. Some still steamed. Most had been charred to molten slag heaps. She glowed so brightly the shadows burnt a deep gold.

Bellatrix lifted her warhammer onto her shoulder. Ares mounted his golden shield onto his forearm and white knuckled his sledgehammer. Poseidon stood but didn't stir, his trident flat on the floor. The other Capes stood and stared, their heart beating so fast it was like listening to a wasp of hornets trying to tear through each of their chests. They stank of fear, of urine from a handful and of dry saliva deep in their throats. Dominion slicked his hair back in the rain and shakily loosened his tie. A woman who could make copies of herself dug her fingernails into the carpet so hard her fingernails came loose and blood seeped from the wounds. But Olympia didn't care about them. She was staring at Adam. And Adam stared at her. His eyes wide. Body electric. And heartbeat racing.

"You crossed a line," she said. Thunder shook the sky again. Her fists tightened, sounding like she was clenching hard onto raw leather. "You hurt my mother. You nearly got my people killed." She walked forward. Her boots steamed against the floor. Bellatrix moved. Poseidon grabbed her shoulder. And Adam's heart slowly sank, watching the resignation in the other Capes' eyes bleed into their faces. He slowly stood, meeting her eyes when she stopped walking. "And then you just had to make a deal with the devil, and where's that gotten you, Adam?"

Cassie spoke before he even had the chance. "You don't know half the problems you just caused for yourself," she said quietly, grabbing hold of Adam's forearm to pick herself up off the ground. Her cheeks bled and so did her hand, both cut open my shards of glass that had flown through the air. She shouldered past Adam and stared at Olympia, half a smile on her lips as her eyes pulsed. "You've just attacked a federal building. The gov—"

Adam was through one wall after another by the time he realized my fist had reshaped his jaw. He tore through concrete and steel and insulation, not stopping until he exploded through the Olympiad's more-than-bulletproof windows on the other side of the complex. I watched him spiral through the air, blood flinging from his loosely hanging jaw as he battled flickering unconsciousness. Then he slammed into the parking lot so hard the foundation shook and a shockwave ruptured the wet, greasy asphalt. I landed directly on him. Not delicately. Feet first, his ribs bent, warped, then broken. He gasped a goblet of blood. I got down onto my knees, straddling his chest. I slammed his fist into his face once, hard, cracking his skull to the left, then the right, spilling enough of his blood to make it shine whenever lightning tore through the sky. The sounds were gristly. Deafening. Sickening. Wet and meaty. It got on me. Under my suit. Seeped through the spandex and flew into my eyes, my mouth, lined my bared teeth.

I only stopped because he wasn't moving anymore. He wasn't going to get the message unconscious, because he hadn't learnt the first time we fought, nor the second, so I slammed my palm onto his chest and sent electricity through his body, so much of it that he jerked awake screaming and gasping and steaming so much that the rain and his blood evaporated from his skin, lifted up by the lashing wind that made my hair snap against my cheeks. I spat. Got up. Grabbed a fistful of his hair and dragged him up the side of the crater until we were on level ground again. People were rushing out of the Olympiad in droves through emergency exits as an alarm blared and a building-wide lockdown slowly took place. I could hear metal doors locking, deadbolts sliding, hatches opening and closing and vents shut down entirely. I watched them run to their cars, some directly for the gates. I stared at a man in army fatigues, rifle clutched in his shaking hands, from across the parking lot. Him and several others stood in a loose line. More behind me. More around the perimeter. Heartbeats so fast a few would probably pass out soon.

Adam grabbed my wrist with both his hands. I looked down at him, my lips curled with anger, disgust—so many emotions I could barely grab a hold of them, and threw him across the parking lot and through the pillars near the entrance to the Olympiad. A grand white staircase led into the building. And I walked each one of them, passing civilians in suits and ties and skirts trip over themselves running, panicking and screaming their way to safety. I didn't touch any of them. They weren't my focus tonight. The boy trying to pick himself up off the ground was.

He'd smashed through the large glass doors and skidded along the lobby into a bloody heap. He groaned. His arm buckled as he tried to get up. I put my boot to the back of his head and slammed his face into the marble floor hard enough to make it crack. I didn't stop until my leg was straight. I didn't stop until he passed out again.

Mom said he had some kind of fail-safe inside him, and that was fine by me.

But that was if he died—giving him lasting brain damage was another thing entirely.

"STOP!" a voice barked. I looked over my shoulder. Great, I thought. Damage Control. They levelled their sleek white rifles, their hum of golden light like a drill directly into the side of my head. One of them stepped forward, gun level, knees bent and hands steady. "What you're doing now is considered an act of terrorism. You've breached laws on American soil, and you're going to be dealt with like any other criminal would be in this case."

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I stared at them, all roughly fifty that were flooding the lobby, and shook my head. "Look," I said quietly. "I've had a really, really bad couple of months. Go home. Hug your kids. The Christmas bonus isn't even worth it."

"I said stand down!" the one taking point snapped. "That is a direct order. Now!"

Adam groaned. I kept my foot planted.

My body felt like it was on fire. Like every single cell was being torn apart. I wanted to buckle, to pass out, to wave the white flag and call it quits—but no matter how much my ears rang, no matter how much my vision slowly faded around the edges, I wasn't going to let this go. I was going to make sure people remembered tonight.

"Shoot me," I said quietly, "and you're just gonna end up missing. I won't kill you. Just. Leave."

"You have five seconds to walk away from Adam and get on the ground!" another shouted.

Velocity appeared in front of them a second later in a gust of furious wind. She was panting hard enough to leave her chest quaking with each breath. She stared at the smear of blood Adam left on the floor, at his blood on my suit and freckling my cheeks, then narrowed her eyes at me and lowered. "Get away from him, or I'll kill you."

I picked Adam up by the throat and held him out in front of me so she could see him. "Catch."

A fist to his spine, and he rocketed toward Velocity and the fleet of Damage Control operatives. Something cracked in his back. He spun weightlessly through the air. She moved, following his momentum to catch him. I was there beside her before she'd even planted her feet. Her eyes widened. I swung my fist. She ducked, then rolled away, leaving Adam careening through a line of operatives and turning them into a gaggle of broken bodies that led all the way back outside. I followed, grabbing his throat again and using him to carve the parking lot in two. Then we were in the air, high, high above the city, wind shrieking in my ears until I suddenly stopped. He was gasping. Gagging on his own tongue and blood. He grabbed his t-shirt and pulled him closer, so close his swollen eyes widened and his mangled set of teeth bit down together to swallow the pain. The world screamed in both our ears. My body shook with its own kind of agony, making my thoughts dumb, slow—stick to the goal: make him hurt.

"You're not even half of what I am," I whispered. Adam breathed through his teeth in quick, rapid breaths that left him shaking and his hands grasping and feet kicking wildly. "And I'm still more than you'll ever be."

Then Adam spat blood onto my face.

I made sure he went head-first through the concrete foundation of dad's statue.

Nobody was here this time of night. Silence. Rainfall. A storm that raged in the skies above and slews of rainfall that bit my cheeks. The sound of him hitting the stone was deafening, almost spellbindingly loud. I breathed through my mouth and shook the cloudiness out of my head. Dad's statue didn't shake. His golden body remained still, stoic, and looking off into the distance, paying no attention whatsoever when I threw Adam against dad's boot, leaving a bloody smear along the wet metal. I smashed my knuckles into the side of his head. He stumbled. An uppercut clamped his jaw together, chewing off a piece of his tongue that splattered onto the ground. I kicked him in the ribs. Swiped his feet out from underneath him, grabbed his ankle, and slammed his body back into the ground. Each blow a thunderclap. Each blast of electricity that erupted from my knuckles meeting his flesh an echo through the sky. He kept trying to stand up. He kept trying to run. He'd stagger, he'd jump, he'd fly and he'd fall, rolling and grovelling and gagging on his own blood until I would slam my foot into his ribs and make him buckle. Dad's shadow kept us in the dark. It was my eyes, the tiny arcs of gold leaping from my fingers, that made the blood, the wounds, the broken jaw and crushed cheekbone, all shine—all reflect so loudly into the night.

I stood over Adam, panting, as I ran my bloody fingers through my hair and looked up at the sky. I shut my eyes. Licked my lips. I swayed, caught myself, and shook my head. Then I looked down at him again. He'd started crawling, using the one arm of his that he hadn't landed on and snapped in the process. He winced. And groaned. Grunted and dug his fingers into the bricks around Olympus Hill, leaving his blood to seep through the cracks and bleed into the stone. I followed him. My head pounding. My own blood slowly filling my mouth. I spat. Knuckled it away. Adam's body gave up on him. And then he lay there, his face flat to the ground, his shoulders shaking.

I paused, and heard something coming from his…

He's crying.

The bastard was crying.

I stood in the rain and watched him ball his broken fingers into a fist. I stood and watched him choke on his ruined tongue and cry from swollen eyes. His face was unrecognizable. His body twisted. One of his legs was bent the wrong way so badly the bones from his thigh had torn through the skin and come out with bits of his kneecap. I looked at my fingers, the grit underneath them, then made fists out of them and looked back at Adam.

"Not so fun, is it?" I said. He sobbed. He sobbed and he sobbed and he didn't stop. "It hurts doing the wrong thing, doesn't it?" I got down on one knee and grabbed the side of his swelling head, his skull, for sure, fractured, his jaw so misshapen, so out of place, it was stuck jutting to the right. You don't look like him anymore. Who woulda thought all I needed to do was do it myself? "If you were anything more than a cheap copy, you would be able to pick yourself up right now, maybe give me half a fight—but you were a shitty remaster of an already shitty original that should've never happened. You were never gonna replace me. You were never gonna replace him." Lightning turned the darkness into Zeus' silhouette, and for just a moment, I saw Adam's bloodshot eyes staring at me through his torn, swollen purple eyelids. "You let them fill your head with all kinds of bullshit to the point you actually believed it. You're not special because you look like him. I'm not special because I have his powers." I picked Adam up by the throat and stared at him. "I'm special because I'm Rylee Addams. I know who I am and I know what I mean to other people. I'm more than just his legacy. You? You're a cheap copy of it with just one name. Nothing special about you, Adam. Humans say their flaws make them special, but I don't think so."

I threw him, and his back cracked against the stairs leading toward the statue. He lay there gasping for air, sprawled over the cobbles as his blood ran down each step. I stood on the foundation, my boots barely touching the first step. Dad loomed over both of us. Adam stared at the sky, his fingers twitching, chest heaving with agony.

"It's what we believe in that makes us special," I said, looking upward. Looking at the man whose face was bathed in shadows, whose face only shone when the sky tore itself apart with lightning. "It's who we know we are that makes us someone. You get up and fight because that's who you are. Not because that's what the world wants from you. You've got a heart, you've got a brain—use the fucking things to figure out that you deserve to be at least something to the world that's more than just the script you're given." I steeled my jaw, then looked down at Adam. "You're gonna die soon, Adam, and not because I'm gonna kill you, but because they'll take you to a hospital, and you'll lie in that bed, staring at the ceiling, surgery after surgery as they fight to keep you alive, and you won't even have an ounce of fight inside of you, because you don't even know who you're trying to keep alive in the first place. You'll die not knowing what name they'll even put on your gravestone. Adam's a label. You're a product. After tonight, you're finished. Expired. Useless. And I want you to remember my face when you finally give up and stop fighting, because when you do, just know that my life isn't going to change one bit. You mean nothing to me. You look like someone I hate. But you're empty. Worthless." I turned my back to him. "Good luck trying to find the will to live in a body that doesn't have a soul. I don't even know if you understand me right now, but I don't care."

You're a dead man, anyway—watching, silent, and useless to me now.

Because I can be so, so much more. Powers be damned, because I didn't pick myself off the ground after every fight for a dead man's approval. I stood up because that's who Rylee is—that's who Olympia is. That's who I am. I shut my eyes, tilted my head toward the sky, and let the rain wash over me until my body was cold and my costume was soaked. The heat dissipated slowly. The crackling flare of electricity vanished. Adam's blood washed off my body, draining into the bedrock of Olympus Hill. I stood there until Adam stopped gasping and gagging. I stood there until police sirens echoed through the city, getting closer and closer. I stood until the rain stopped.

Then I opened my eyes and stared at the sky, the clouds still so dark the entire city was underneath its shadow. The cobbles glistened. My hair stuck to my scalp and my neck as I ran my fingers through it. I checked over my shoulder. Adam's chest was still rising. But his bones hadn't healed. None of him had. His stomach had been cut open and so had his throat, my fingernails like tiny crescent moons in the side of his face from where I had grabbed a hold of him. I forced myself to look at him, from his shattered foot held together by bits of skin, to his mangled arm and crooked spine and head that was crushed and swollen and broken so badly most of his skull peaked through the bone and muscle underneath his skin. I looked down at the ground again, a sickness bubbling in my gut. I pinched the bridge of my nose, then massaged my eyes. I shakily breathed out, catching a scent.

The stench of meat and hot blood that leaked from my suit struck me in the nose so hard I gagged. It clung to my skin, bled from my pores, and stuck under my fingernails. I swallowed nothing but bitter saliva, then spat on the ground. So that's what I can really do, I thought, staring at Adam. And that's when I don't even want to kill.

I slowly looked up at dad. At his jaw, his hooded eyes and his tight smile.

"Fucker," I whispered. "And here I thought you dying would make my life easier."

"I've got to say," a voice said. My skin crawled as the stench of ash and hot flesh trickled down my spine. I glanced over my shoulder. Lucian stood, hands in his pockets, over Adam. "This is all one hell of a performance." I took a step forward. He took one back and put up his hand. "Relax, I'm just here to talk to you, that's all, Olympia."

"I've got a policy," I said. "I don't make deals with supervillains anymore."

Lucian glanced down at Adam. "You're calling me a villain after what you've left of him?"

"You'll be calling me a butcher after I'm finished with you." I cracked my knuckles. "If you can talk."

He looked at me, a smile teasing his lips. "There's still a chance you and I become allies one day."

"Zeus made that mistake. I won't."

"I'm a soul broker," he said. "Do you know how many superheroes are alive because of me? Olympia, let me make this clear—you kill me, and you kill a lot of other superheroes, and right now…" Police cars screeched to a stop near the edge of the park area. Feet stamped against the ground, dogs barked and radio calls were shouted. I could even smell Velocity getting closer, as well as hear Damage Control's trucks roaring through the city. "Right now, you're more public enemy number one than the Golden Girl a lot of people wanted you to be. I mean, holy hell, look at the state you've left him in. That's not a sign of someone who wants to save the world. That's the mark of someone who's here to make sure the world does what she says, when she says it, and how she says it." Lucian smiled. "But how can we trust you to lead us into a new Golden Age if there's never been a moment when the city has looked at you for hope and you've been there to provide it? Adam saved them from the Kaiju. Adam was the face they'd been forced to love, and after this display of raw violence, everyone's just going to see you as a—"

"I really, really don't give a fuck," I said. Lucian paused. "Nothing's stopping me from crippling you."

He stared me down, his red pupils sharp and glowing. "They'll hunt you. Try to hurt you."

"If I wanted applause and a pat on the back, I'd make everyone on the planet do it. I'm here to make things right, whether or not people like how I do it is really up to them. Time to choose: shattered spine or a life spent in a box that I stuff you inside and keep you under my bed for the next hundred or so years I end up living, Lucian."

Lucian slowly shook his head. "It's your family they'll target. Your friends. Even that little girl, Bia—"

My fist went through his gut like a cold knife through steak. The flesh was tough, his organs solid, his bones like steel and his blood like molasses. My hand ruptured his spine, coming clean out the other side. Well, clean enough, if you don't mind the guts that spilled out of his back and the blood that spilled down his trousers.

Lucian gagged, blood gushing out of his mouth. I could feel him healing. Feel him tensing.

"You ever say her name," I whispered, looking into the devil's eyes. "And I will kill you."

He smiled, teeth sharp, face wolfish. "And what's stopping me from hunting her down? I've killed one Ross, what's another to make you do what I want?" He grabbed my wrist, then threw me backward. I flew into the air and watched as the hole in his gut closed. He looked up at me and said, "Even the demigods have their prices." I flew closer. He put up a finger. "Remember," he said, teeth bloody. "You kill me, superheroes in the thousands die. You think Zeus was the only one who sold his soul to me for even a chance of being able to live again some day? Oh, Olympia, that's nowhere near true. The Golden Age survived for as long as it did because of me. I am the fucking Golden Age. And it wasn't just the heroes—it was the politicians, the billionaires, the people who run the world, the people desperate enough to cling onto their lives, however pitiful, just for a smidgen of hope of maybe living long enough to become something they've always wanted. The very people who skulk around Lower Olympus. The people who live in suburbia—your own neighbors could have done it, and you'll never know. And I own all of them." He pointed at me. "And someday soon, I'll own you, too. So no, you might not kill Adam, and you might think you're above human law, but to kill billions of people?" Lucian slowly shook his head. "You're a lot of things, Olympia, but a genocidal craftsman you are not. Stick to wearing tights—I'll be fixing my city."

I stared at him. Really, really stared at him. "You're taking over Lower Olympus again."

"I never lost control, and with someone as inept as my coddled daughter trying to fix it, then…" He let the words hang as he pocketed his hands. "Superheroes are nothing without their supervillains. So as you're painting the sky with capes again, I'll be keeping them all entertained. Let's make this fun. Let's make it golden." Lucian smiled at me, even wider, his face inhuman, eyes hollow and teeth sharper. What the hell is he? "I'll hand over a few wins, some so spectacular the public is just going to have to love you, and you don't interfere with my business. You get your acclaim, your awards—your friends become legends and your stories get written into the foundation of this city, and I don't get fucked with. Everyone goes home happy." He shrugged. "This isn't a negotiation by the way, this is what's going to happen. It's what's been happening. You can get that pat on the back you deserve, too."

The cops slowly surrounded us, all of them in heavy riot gear. Damage Control was here next, arriving in droves. I didn't turn to look at any of them—I was staring at Lucifer and he was staring directly back at me, too.

"You killed Ben," I said. The police shouted. Damage Control were louder with their warnings and their rifles. The clouds were rolling over. Sunrise was trying to breach the storm clouds sitting on the horizon. "You made this city as terrible as it is, and you expect me, the person who would risk a lifetime of peace just so I can keep being the one thing I love most, to help prance around in your fairy tail?" I lowered, then landed in front of him. I spat on the devil's shoes, then grabbed his collar and pulled him close. "Do yourself a favor and vanish again. Lower Olympus is under new management, and your kind isn't welcome anymore. You try to hide, and I'll gut the shadows looking for you. I'm not Zeus—the difference between me and him is that I know I'm gonna die one day, and you know what, you bastard?" I threw him against Zeus' boot hard enough to drop him to his knees. He grunted, then held his broken ribs. Lucian had left a dent in the statue. "The day I die is the day I give up this costume, and the day that happens is the day people like you don't exist anymore. Death can wait. I'm not done being a superhero."

Lucian slowly got to his feet. The police advanced, then froze. They whispered his name. A camera flashed from behind me, shattering the darkness of the clouds sliding through the sky above. He'd flinched the moment the light broke the shadows, and just like that, he was gone, his scent so faint my nose couldn't even hold onto it, too.

I finally breathed out a handful of seconds after the clouds broke and early morning sunlight poured through the sky. It smothered my face, making my skin prickle. I landed on the ground, my back to the police, to the Damage Control units and the Capes that landed on the concrete. I was surrounded. Completely and totally surrounded. Exhausted, too. Barely enough left in the tank to keep standing up. Zeus had his back to the sun, leaving them all in the dark, and for just a moment since the first time in…in…Gods, Ry, you can't even remember, I let the sun wash over my entire body. A warning was shouted through a megaphone. Several Capes crept closer.

The world didn't seem to want to move—it inched, it crawled, it barely made a single sound.

My body, after six months, finally caved in. For once, I was going to let it.

And I would've passed out right there under Zeus' statue in his shadow.

If it wasn't for the shower of warm golden light that wrapped its arms around me, that stepped close enough for my head to sink against its chest and its smell of wheat and sickly sweet oranges to trickle down my throat. I stood for a while, held in an embrace strong enough to keep me from collapsing. A hand ran through my hair. Lips brushed my forehead with words I could barely hear. But when an Olympian was making sure you wouldn't fall to the ground in a heap, it was pretty impossible not to know what it felt like. And Cleopatra had only ever felt warm.

Despite the metal-warping heat my body could create, despite the sky-shattering electricity I could make, the strength in my muscles that could lift buildings, the speed in my nerves that could slip me between seconds. For all the power, for all the legacy.

I still kinda liked that someone finally hugged me.