Excerpt From Chapter 3

I could still remember that day. I still had nightmares about it. And I had let someone else die. We stayed in the waiting room for 7 hours before we got a final decision. She had lost too much blood. This time, there were no final words. No one looked at me as I stood up and started to leave. Romulus was in tears. Emily was staring at the wall, but I could tell she was crying. And James/ James hadn't looked at me since. He had been completely quite, keeping his head down. I went outside. Vladimir was waiting for me, smoking a cigar. “Do you know what happened,” he asked me, calmly. “I screwed up, big time. But I still don't know how we were tricked. Everything had been perfectly planned. But everything had gone wrong. Alex wasn't even there,” I screamed that last bit. I was more than mad. I was furious at myself for letting this happen. “Alex was there,” Vladimir stated, looking into my eyes, “Alex played us all. He had been a double agent working for Tartarus. I was at a loss of words. Had I just heard him right? Alexander was a double agent. Alexander, the boy who gave up his own last name, was a double agent? His codename had been Arachne. But not because of his talents with art. No, it was because of his mind. Alexander was and is a prodigy. He had been in The Pantheon his whole life. His ability to plan everything with such detail, it was as if he was weaving. His skills as a tactician and strategist were matched by only two, My brother and I. I was still dumbfounded. Alex had been the first to make us feel at home when we became part of The Pantheon. It was clear in my memory.