Ian crouched down beside her, making sure she was all right, even though he was hurt just as badly as she was. His shirt was torn, and blood oozed out of the deep gash that Drake had sliced all the way across his arm, shoulder, and back.
Takeda looked them over, making sure they were okay for now, then pulled his phone out of his pants pocket, hit some buttons, and started talking to someone. I yanked out my earbud and stuffed it into my jeans pocket so I wouldn’t have to listen to his conversation. Mateo did the same, and the two of us headed over to the others.
“Are you guys all right?” Mateo asked, his face creasing with worry.
“Just fine and dandy,” Zoe said, her words slurring a bit.
Ian grimaced and slowly straightened up. Every movement made more blood trickle out of his wound, and he swayed on his feet again, as though he might pass out from the pain. “We’ll live,” he rasped. “That’s what matters, right?”
Mateo helped Zoe to her feet, while I went over and put my arm under Ian’s good shoulder. He stepped forward, trying to shrug me off, and almost fell on his face, but I grabbed him around the waist and steadied him.
“You need to lean on me, Viking,” I said. “Whether you like it or not.”
Ian opened his mouth like he was going to argue, but he clamped his lips shut. That alone told me how much he was hurting.
“Tell me that you got them,” he rasped again.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. We lost them in the woods.”
Ian’s gaze locked onto the black and red Reaper mask that Drake had left behind on the desk. Fresh pain glimmered in his gray eyes, and I knew it wasn’t caused by his wounds. Once again, my heart ached for him and this new, shocking betrayal he’d suffered.
“C’mon,” I said in a gentle voice. “There’s nothing else we can do tonight. Let’s get out of here.”
Ian stared at the Reaper mask a second longer. Then he nodded and let me guide him out of the ruined office.
Chapter Seventeen
Two hours later, we were back in the Bunker.
Takeda had used his magic to heal everyone’s wounds, including my bumps and bruises, and we had all showered and put on clean, blood-free clothes. Now we were gathered around the briefing table, along with Aunt Rachel.
Thanks to the security cameras and our earbuds, Takeda had seen and heard most of what had happened in the mansion, but Ian, Zoe, and I still recapped everything for him, including Lance trying to get me to become a Reaper and join him, Drake, and the mysterious Sisyphus.
“And you have no idea who Sisyphus could be?” Takeda asked. “Or what he wants with you?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of anyone by that name before, except for the guy in the classic myth.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” he asked again. “No one comes to mind? Not even someone your parents might have mentioned to you?”
“Rory said she didn’t know anything,” Aunt Rachel said. “She would tell you if she did.”
“I know she would,” Takeda replied.
Aunt Rachel crossed her arms over her chest, annoyed by his ever-calm tone.
Takeda eyed her a moment, then looked at the rest of us again. “So we don’t know who Sisyphus is, and we still don’t know what the Reapers are planning. Lance Fuller was our best lead—our only lead. Now he’s gone, and we have no idea where the Reapers might be. Or more important, where they might strike next.” Takeda rubbed his forehead, as though he had a migraine, in a rare sign of frustration.
We all slumped in our chairs as the cold, hard reality of the situation set in. My first mission with Team Midgard had not been a rousing success. More like a complete and utter failure. The others looked as sick and exhausted as I felt, and a sense of defeat hung over the room like a dark cloud.
“What about Drake?” Ian asked.
Takeda quit massaging his forehead. “What about Drake?”
“You haven’t said anything about Drake. I told you that he was alive. That he had survived the warehouse explosion. My brother. I told you that he was alive and here in Colorado, and you haven’t said one word about him. Not one single word.”
Takeda shrugged, but an emotion flared in his eyes, ruining his calm fa?ade. It almost looked like…guilt.
Ian picked up on it too, and he leaned forward. “Wait a second. You’re not surprised that Drake is alive. Not at all. Did you—did you know that he was alive?”
Takeda paused a moment before answering. “I had my suspicions.”
Ian shot to his feet, making his chair topple to the floor with a loud bang. “Your suspicions? What does that mean?”
“You know as well as I do that the Protectorate never found Drake’s body in the rubble. Officially, he was declared dead, but the possibility always existed that he had somehow survived.”
Ian’s hands clenched into fists. “You never told me that.”
Takeda’s face softened. “You were having a hard enough time coming to terms with the fact that Drake was a Reaper. I didn’t want to say anything about him possibly being alive. Not until I knew for certain that he was.”
“And when did you know?” Ian snapped. “Because I’m guessing it was before tonight.”
Takeda sighed, the soft sound laced with heavy regret. “I always suspected that Drake might still be alive, but it seemed far more likely when we put the Midgard together and discovered that a Reaper student was planning to steal an artifact. Once we realized that student was Lance, I grew even more suspicious. I knew that Lance’s dad and Drake had worked together at the New York warehouse, and it seemed likely that Drake was the one who’d recruited Lance to become a Reaper.”
“But I signed up for the Midgard weeks ago…” Ian’s voice trailed off, and fresh anger sparked in his eyes as a new thought occurred to him. “The Midgard. This whole mission. It’s all been about finding Drake, hasn’t it?”
Takeda nodded. “Part of it, yes. I knew that Drake was Sisyphus’s top lieutenant. I thought that if we could find Drake, then he would lead us to Sisyphus and all the artifacts the Reapers have stolen.”
Instead of appeasing him, Takeda’s confession only made Ian angrier. “All this time, you knew that my brother was alive, and you let me think that he was dead—that I had killed him,” Ian snarled in a loud, angry voice. “How could you do that to me?”
“Because I didn’t have any way of actually proving it, and I didn’t want to get your hopes up in case I was wrong.” Takeda shook his head. “Drake’s betrayal hurt you so much. I didn’t want you to get hurt again by realizing that your brother was still alive. That Drake could be cruel enough to let you think you’d killed him. You had done enough already—sacrificed enough already. I didn’t want to ruin whatever love you might have left for your brother on top of everything else.”