"They don't usually wave you through, and my luck has been bad for a while," Niko replied.

"If you're a criminal, wouldn't they be more interested in you than someone without a chip?" I asked.

"I have my ways of avoiding detection."

I had a feeling they were just as illegal as everything else he did. Too tired and interested in DC to speak, I focused on the buildings we were approaching. Signs and banners telling citizens to report terrorists spouting anti-G.o.ds and anti-government activity and beliefs to the SISA were everywhere: squeezed between parking meters, scrawled over fast food restaurant ads and plastered on the sides of buildings.

Graffiti was everywhere, too, and I noticed a theme among the colorful tags as we pa.s.sed. They all started with Mama says ...

... don't trust the gov't.

... destroy the SISA!

... go home G.o.ds!

... bring back the Old Ways.

"Mama is popular," I said.

"She's outfoxed SISA for ten years."

"She must be really smart."

"Probably. No one's ever met her. I sometimes think she's a figurehead that doesn't exist. Even us criminals want to know we have someone to take care of us, I suppose."

"Why are you a merc?" I asked. "Doesn't being a gladiator pay enough?"

He laughed. "You know nothing about the real world, kid. I don't know any gladiator who isn't involved in the Merc Guild or some other criminal enterprise."

"I had no idea," I said softly, somewhat disappointed to learn the fighters we watched on Wednesday nights on the Gladiator Guild channel were criminals. "What made you choose that instead of becoming a normal citizen?"

Niko gave me a weird look. "You mean a slave to the G.o.ds and their human underlings? Why would I want that? If you don't want to live a life of fear, you end up like me on the streets and make a living where you can."

I frowned.

"Normal people are afraid to speak their minds, to live their lives the way they want, to follow their dreams. They are oppressed, Alessandra, by the G.o.ds, by SISA, by the Supreme Magistrate. People disappear every day and are never heard from again. No trials, no justification, no real reason. Heresy is the biggest excuse given, and there's no one to tell that the SISA can't do what they're doing. And that mess is ideal compared to what's been going on outside the wall since the Holy Wars erupted five years ago."

"Holy Wars? What wall?"

He eyed me. "G.o.ds d.a.m.n the priests! It's not my job to school you in the ways of the world. You're lucky I got you a biotag, you little s.h.i.t! That came out of my salary."

"You stole the money back!" My G.o.ds. This guy had issues. Why was he helping me for free when he clearly didn't like me? "We should return to the Old Ways," I said, hoping for a topic that didn't make him yell quite so much.

"Exactly. You're not as stupid as you seem sometimes. You know what the Old Ways are?"

"Of course. I learned in school. A time where humans governed themselves without the influence of the G.o.ds. Life, liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness," I recited from cla.s.s.

"They don't teach that s.h.i.t in school. The knowledge has been lost, or would have been, if not for Mama. It's what she wants to return to the Old Ways." He smiled faintly.

"Strange. Our priests taught us the Old Ways are supposed to return soon."

"I'm liking your priests more and more. They're clearly academics out of touch with the real world, though. It's impossible for the Old Ways to exist alongside the G.o.ds."

Unless the G.o.ds are gone. Puzzled, I rolled his words and those of the priests around in my head. I was beginning to understand that my world of twelve years wasn't the same as this one. The idea the Old Ways were almost lost when I'd lived every day reciting life, liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness was odd. If the priests were right, if they hadn't been messing with me about being the Oracle, I was beginning to see why they wanted me hidden until the old Oracle died. The Old Ways could emerge only after she was gone. But why not get rid of me instead of imprisoning me?

Not a lot made sense to me yet. I had much to learn about the real world and a ton more to think about.

Niko stayed off the bigger streets through DC and angled us to the side of the city closer to Maryland, finally stopping in a rundown section of town that shouldn't have surprised me but did. The buildings were blocky with barred windows, and vehicles that appeared to be abandoned lined one side of the street. The thump of ba.s.s came from a house squeezed between block apartment buildings. Masked SISA police patrolled the neighborhoods on foot.

"SISA's everywhere inside the wall and the military everywhere outside it." Niko glared at the police.

"You prefer it otherwise?"

"The military is secular and has a justice system. They answer to the people and don't make people disappear for saying the G.o.ds are nuts."

We weren't completely different. Aside from Artemis and Lelantos, I was raised to be able to identify the other G.o.ds and t.i.tans but not to worship them.

He parked out front. We got out and went to the door. There was no mistaking the round c.h.i.n.ks in the concrete walls on either side of the door for anything but bullet holes.

Thus far, I wasn't impressed by the outside world or those who inhabited it.

"Are we visiting more of your friends?" I asked.

"No. This is one of my safehouses." He unlocked the door and walked in.

I trailed. He locked the door behind us and went to the stairs on the far side of a lobby with scuffed floors and sagging ceilings. He led me to an apartment on the second floor. It was clean, neat and practically decorated. Grateful not to be stuck in a place like the trailer, I put my backpack on the floor.

"Bathroom through there. There's only one, so lock the d.a.m.n door if you're in there," he said grouchily and pointed. He walked into his bedroom and flipped on the lights.

The apartment had a small kitchen and dining area along with a balcony overlooking the street behind where we parked. The balcony doors, however, were barred, preventing anyone from using the outside s.p.a.ce.

"Hey, Niko?" I dropped the curtain and moved towards the couch, peeking into the cracked bedroom door.

He was on the phone, his back to me. My instincts stirred once more, and I had the same urge I did at his redneck friends' to leave him sooner rather than later, even if I had nowhere else to go.

Chapter Six.

Tomorrow I'll figure it out. I was too beat to take a shower and slung myself down on the couch. I had spent two nights a week sleeping on the ground; the lumpy couch was good enough for me. As busy as my mind was, I was soon asleep.

Arguing voices pulled me out of a deep slumber. I struggled to rouse my resistant body, lost the battle then forced myself into a sit. I blinked rapidly and sighed. The noises were coming from Niko's room, probably from the television, except ...

Instincts. The ones that made me worry about bears during fall and great cats during wildfire season. I rolled off the couch and orientated myself quickly before rising and going to the door to his bedroom cracked open.

"Niko?" I called.

Silence.

I pushed the door open to see him on the floor, bare chested in sweatpants. The hooded figure I had seen earlier stood over him, gun in hand.

"Stay where you are," hissed the person in the hood.

Niko motioned towards my left, and I looked. The top drawer of his dresser yawned open, and I caught the faint gleam of a gun b.u.t.t. I moved towards it.

"If you try it, I'll shoot him," the hooded form threatened.

"You'd be doing the world a favor," I replied. "He's kind of an a.s.shole." s.n.a.t.c.hing the gun, I flipped off the safety and walked towards them. "But I need him for now and I do know how to use a gun."

The person was still for a long moment. The tip of the gun lowered, and Niko knocked it away, snagging the hooded person's arm and shoving him into the wall. The hood fell away, and I started to smile.

The figure who bested Niko was a pretty woman with cocoa skin and a tattoo on her forehead.

"You couldn't stay away, could you, Dosy?" Niko growled and searched her roughly.

"I'm not here for you, you arrogant pig!" came the saucy response.

I switched on the lights. The tattoo was the same symbol on the Temple of Artemis: a bow. The woman wore a robe of gray beneath the hood. "Wait, did a priestess just kick your a.s.s?" I asked Niko. I put the gun on the dresser.

"I was sleeping!" he retorted. "No one knows where this place is." He released the woman, angered and tense, and stepped back.

"She probably followed us from Marty's," I guessed.

"I was in the trunk." Dosy turned to face Niko. With a glance at me, her cool gaze fell to him, and her chin went up a notch in what I knew from experience was defiance. "Not the first time I was relegated to a cold, dark place at Niko's hands."

"I had nothing to do with that," he replied.

"Except abandoning me."

"That was ten years ago, Dosy, and you walked away!"

"You can't walk away from someone if he's already gone."

"You must be the smart woman he hates," I said with an uncomfortable laugh, uncertain how else to react to their violent reactions to one another.

The two of them glared at each other. Niko's jaw was ticking, and he appeared ready to pounce. Dosy's unfaltering gaze was cold. The tension between them was so thick, my cheeks grew warm. Whatever their history was, I was guessing it was pretty personal.

"I'm just gonna go back to my couch," I murmured and stepped back.

Dosy started towards me, and Niko grabbed her.

"I'm here to protect you from him! Niko will sell "

"Holly knows you're full of s.h.i.t!" He had her arms, and she pushed at him. "I should put a bullet in you and leave you for your G.o.ddess to take care of. Oh wait the G.o.ds haven't helped us in five years! They abandoned us the way you did me ten years ago!"

"It was twelve years, idiot!"

My brow furrowed. Before I could pursue, Niko reached over to grab the priestess's weapon. "Wait!" I cried. "You can't just kill a priestess in your apartment!"

"Oh, I can."

"He can't hurt me," Dosy said calmly. "And since I know that ... Holly, I came to give you a message about your birthright."

"Shut up, Dosy." Niko made a show of putting the gun to her head. "You have no idea what I've become."

"Wait, wait, wait!" I scrambled forward and pushed Niko to keep him from hurting her. He pushed me back. "I don't know who I am or what I'm supposed to do! If she does then " I grunted and shoved him far enough away to squeeze between them. " then I need to know. We need to know."

With me in the way, Niko lowered his gun arm without releasing his grip on Dosy.

"He's already sold you out twice by now," Dosy said, smooshed between me and the wall.

"Stop stirring the pot!" I snapped. "Just think about this for a minute. Both of you. You both want something from me and if you're fighting, I'm walking out that door without either of you."

"I wouldn't let you," Dosy responded.

"Not happening," Niko said at the same time.

"Oh, good. You're agreeing with each other. Niko, go over there. Now!" I ordered him.

He gave me a look that said he wished he'd left me with Marty but reluctantly moved to the other side of the bedroom, near the door. I stepped away from Dosy.

"Glad to see someone here has sense." Dosy straightened out her clothing. "For the record, Holly, he wouldn't have hurt me. He's always talked big, acted small when it came to me."

"In any case!" I shouted over Niko's objection. "Why are you here?" I asked Dosy.

She relaxed some, her focus shifting to me instead of the man she had a history with. "I'd like a gla.s.s of water."

"Oh, let's. We must be civilized." Niko strode angrily into the living room, the muscles of his thick frame rippling beneath the colorful tattoos covering his back, shoulders and chest.

I shook my head and followed, as did Dosy. When I reached my couch and sat down, I realized they were both staring at me.

"Um, what?" I asked, unsettled by Niko's fiery look and the odd expression on Dosy's face.

"You aren't what I expected," Dosy replied first.

I sighed and held my face in my hands. Irritated at the latest person who wanted to belittle or insult me, I rose and lifted my pack. "I'm out. You people have issues I can't fix."

Dosy laughed softly. "You took that wrong. I meant it as a compliment. I was expecting a scared, silly teen with no sense. You can use a gun and hold your own with Niko. That's impressive."

I lowered the pack, my ruffled feathers smoothing out.

"Herakles was rumored to be with you. He taught you to have a backbone?"