The plastic bag gave the impression of burning in her pocket, as if it harbored a scorching ember or some sort of charm signaling misfortune.

Leta found herself monitored the deep shadows cast by the setting sun as they drove past shops and restaurants towards the more historic center of Athens as if she fully expected something to jump out at them.

The fact that the note existed was disturbing.

How and when did it end with her?

She’d had her hands in her pockets just before they’d started the attack on the second den. It must have appeared sometime between then and when she had been pulled from the water.

But again, how?

She doubted the nixie had thought of slipping it on her person as it had tried to drown her.

The name on the note, however, was a telling clue.

Oletta.

She could count on one hand the number of people who called her that. One was missing. Another individual was unconscious in the Sect infirmary.

The third individual happened to be a dark-haired werewolf with a tendency to render ride-share drivers unconscious.

Tariq.

The Asshole, as Vigo referred to him.

Who else would call her that or figure out a way to magically get a note into her pocket?

She contemplated incinerating the note, disregarding whatever it was that he wanted to tell her.

‘He orchestrated the whole attack and kidnapped mom.’ Leta glowered out the window. The heat of her anger radiated from her core, as if her very skin burned with the intensity of her emotions.

She felt her cheeks flush with rage at the touch of the note in her pocket.

Similar to a hot needle in her gut, the thing acted as a constant reminder of every broken bone, every drop of blood that she had shed since she first woke up in the Santorini Hospital.

‘Audacity must have been on-fucking-sale’. Leta ground her teeth, her thumbs running over her long nails with a need to tear the letter to pieces.

“I’ve seen that look before.” Allister eyed her baleful expression in the rearview. “Last time, you punched the living daylights out of that manticore. What has you so angered, lass?”

She considered right then letting out everything she’d been holding in.

About the note.

About the nanites.

About her frustration that stemmed from her inability to go out and find her mom right now.

About the gut-wrenching anguish that twisted inside her at the thought of her dad turning into a cannibalistic monster.

About how she herself was more alien than human by now, the nanites in her body effectively scrubbing away bit by bit what remained of who she once was.

The memory of Ismene describing how even the Priests were unable to discuss the Atlantian technology among themselves for fear of their nanites self destructing kept her quiet.

Gada advised her to keep quiet about the nanites to the Chosen, and now Leta understood why.

The Arisen were protected from accidentally causing harm to themselves in her presence. She had inadvertently become a safe zone, but did that safety extend outside her realm of influence?

If she told them about the nanites and then went on patrol, would they suddenly explode because they talked about the machines amongst themselves so far from her mantle of security?

Leta refused to take that chance.

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It proved more prudent to hold back information until she understood her own limits.

“I’m fine.” She answered, taking a deep breath to get her emotions in check.

Allister chuckled, “I may not understand the lingo you kids use nowadays, but when a woman says ‘I’m fine’, it never means she’s fine.”

“Agreed.” Both Hayato and Atreus said together.

Leta snorted at the absurdity of his statement, but she understood how the giant always used good-natured humor to break tension.

“Are you nervous?” Atreus’s tone took on a passive quality as he posed the question as though he were inquiring about her school day.

“You probably should have asked me that before the manticore.” Leta chuckled, pulling her hand out of her pocket and reminding her to focus on the fight ahead of her.

“Aye,” Allister nodded sagely in agreement, “Sometimes I forget that you’re only three or so days into this world.”

Leta pointed out, “Four, really, if you count that first day I woke up. I’d say about seventy-two hours since that nixie in the hospital. To be fair, I was either incapacitated or unconscious for a good part of that.”

Watching the world pass, she reminisced about life before she’d accidentally triggered the system. Her memories of that morning’s briefing or the boat ride out to the site were blurry recollections by now.

What she did remember was the sun coming up over the Med and how her heart skipped a beat as she dove beneath the waves and the outline of underwater ruins came into sight.

Those moments felt like a lifetime ago now.

A life where she’d known the order of things and everything went according to plan.

Her parents should be waking up now for another day of research and lectures.

She should be close to wrapping up the last full week at the dig site before heading back home to university.

Allister’s keen eyes deciphered the subtle shifts in her facial expression. “For what it’s worth, lass, I’m sorry. This life we’ve been given ain’t easy, and it always starts in the cruelest of ways.”

Leta sighed. “I appreciate the sentiment, but words aren’t going to find my mom or fix my dad.”

His lips curved upwards, forming a gentle and regretful smile. “Well, it’s there all the same.”

“Could be worse.” Atreus added, his eyes watching the people they passed on the street, “My mother and father were forced to give me up to an occupying regime that made me a child soldier.”

The car was quiet as Leta looked at Atreus in shock.

“Jezzus.” She finally spoke after some time. “Where the hell did that come from?”

Atreus’s lips twitched, hinting at a hidden smile that danced in his eyes. “I thought we were going to be measuring who had the worst Rising.”

Allister chuckled darkly, his eyes full of mischief. “Oh, not me. I’m proud of how I went, never you doubt that. Did I ever tell you Leta of how I first died?”

“Here we go again.” Leta heard Hayato mutter under his breath.

Before she could get a word in otherwise, Allister was already talking, going onto a long-winded explanation of how he’d died.

“I was one of nine children, and of course my mother had so many bairns to tend to that I naturally found myself gravitating to the wilds for some peace and quiet. I’d come upon an abandoned thief’s hollow one day and told my Da about it. Turns out, the law had finally caught up to the thief, and he’d been hung not long before I’d found his bed. Da sold what goods he didn’t need from the hollow, but I kept the bow and quiver. Practiced in the woods every chance I got and took to it. By the time I was ten, I was the finest shot in the hamlet and was actively helping put food and money on the table for my family as a hunter.

“I got older my mother was pressing for me to wed a wife, but I was more interested in the wild places than settling down. There was a comely lass in the hamlet named Joanna who fancied me, and I wasn’t apposed to her company-”

“Uh, Al,” Leta scrunched her nose up, “No offense, but I don’t need to hear about your teenage escapades in the Medieval Ages.”

“I’m not that old,” He retorted with a dramatic hand to his heart.

“It’s not a far off assumption.” Atreus raised an eyebrow at his second feigned indignation.

“Criminal, both of you.” The giant wagged a finger at them. “Anyway, around the time I was seventeen, the first English Civil War was brewing. Of course, my mother was against it, but many in my Hamlet had been called to service, including me, and my religious upbringing had me believing it was my divine duty to answer the call. Mother tried to get me married quick to keep me from the battlefield, but she had no power against the Convenantists. So I made a promise to my mother and Joanna’s kin: Once the war is over and I return with a proper salary from my service, we’d wed and I’d start working on giving my mother more grandchildren to bounce on her knee.”

Remembering the Bishop’s War in the early 1600s, Leta was astounded by the firsthand history witnessed by these people.

“Well,” she raised an eyebrow, “I take it since you’re here and not dust in a grave that didn’t exactly go as plan.”

“Only promise I ever broke to my mother.” Allister shook his head, a bitter smile on his face as if the memory of his pain was still there, even though the sting had faded. “Lucky Royalist got me good with a spear when they managed to get around our outer line. Ran me straight through gut and out the other end. I remember my vision going dark but thinking to myself that I needed to get back home to my family. Suddenly my eyes were filled with a vision of a hunter in the woods stalking prey. When my eyes opened, the sun was just starting to slip beneath the hills and the spear was still in me. Training told me not to take it out, but every movement had burning pain shooting up through me. My shouting got the attention of the soldiers that were tending to the dead.

“They got me to the healers who removed the spear, stitched me up, and plied me with herbs. By the next day, the bleeding had stopped, and it looked like I’d taken the wound months ago instead of hours. It was there in that blisteringly hot tent that one of the cavalry knights approached my cot. He was himself a Chosen who suspected I had just Risen and brought me into the fold. Made up some excuse to get me out of that tent and eventually got me to the Sect in London. As they say, the rest is history.”