Took Me Yesterday (book 2 of The Tomo Trilogy)

The Three Fates

The back alley bar was called The Golden Threads, completely missing the point of the poorly reconstructed graffiti covering the tavern's walls. The threads—although the same golden color as tomo's reflective eyes—were beside the point. The true faces were The Fates, the women who dictated entire wars, even when Zeus himself wished to save soldiers. But, sure, golden thread. Repaint that and let the faces succumb to erosion and illiteracy. Who cared about three powerful women anyway? It was always the soldiers—the now-dead legends—that retained attention.

My ankle burned at the thought.

I had never wanted my copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey so badly before, but they were safely tucked into my backpack in my room—as long as Bruce and Tame didn't take advantage of my first night off by going through my stuff. I doubted Argos would let them anyway. He'd been on high alert since last week's news stirred me.

Noah's going to die.

Once Broden's confession settled in, I couldn't blame him for defying Noah's wishes and telling me the truth. Tomo showed the future, but there was one exception. If the user were about to die, they'd see nothing. An empty, senseless afterlife. No light. No visions. No women cutting golden threads. Nothing. Just simple darkness, remote emptiness. A lack of existence.

If Noah stopped seeing the future—especially considering how much he consumed tomo—then Broden was right.

Noah would be dead within days.

Once Broden had told me, he stood back, satisfied, and I couldn't blame him. When I found out, I understood exactly why he was angry. If Noah was going to die—and I could defy tomo—it would make sense for Noah to be around me. He could change his fate and live. Noah could be using me. But I didn't feel that in my gut. Noah hadn't known about his impending death when he learned about my defying tomo, and he had stayed around for other reasons. The revelation also cleared up why Noah wanted to keep my tomo secret between us. If he died, it would be my secret alone. But now it wouldn't. Now, everything was different.

"It doesn't matter?" Broden had repeated my response like he couldn't believe me. When he realized I meant it, he stormed out and Miles had followed him. Noah stared at the wall opposite of me as he spit blood out of his mouth, from Broden's punch. After a full minute of silence, he whispered it was true. Nothing else. No acknowledgement of his death, nor an explanation as to why he didn't tell me, or why Broden and him kept secrets, or why Lily and I kept ours. But Lily cried. As much as she acted like she hated Noah, he was still her childhood friend. He was on her team.

"And now they have your blood." Noah had added, like my blood was more important than his death, like all he wanted to do before he died was guarantee I wouldn't die either. He left before I could argue, and I hadn't seen him since. Not once. Lily hadn't either. Every night when we finished our work in the barracks, we crawled into our bunk beds, weary and then wearier. She never spotted the boys, and I tried not to look up from my runt work. If they wanted to talk, they'd make themselves available.

Our team was broken, but I wasn't. Neither was Lily.

In the middle of the night last night, she had grabbed my hand and squeezed it. "Guess it's up to us, then."

I didn't have to strength to tell her I believed it had always been up to us. Lyn had taught us that much. The boys discounted us, but we always came through.

Lily, Lyn, and I—The Three Fates.

But where did Rinley fit in? Or my mother? Or were all my interpretations just as mistranslated as the desolate bar's mismatched art?