Lena - Chapter 16

"Because," Mr. Quinn said softly, "you're beginning to remember."

His voice echoed faintly in the stillness of the shed. Not loud, not threatening, but heavy. Heavy with meaning. With truth.

Zach and I both stared at him, frozen. The only sound was the rhythmic clack of his hooves against the dirt-covered concrete as he stepped closer, his form framed by the sunlight bleeding in from the doorway.

I glanced sideways at Zach, hoping for any kind of confirmation that I wasn't hallucinating. That I wasn't the only one seeing a teacher with actual fucking hooves walking toward us like this was normal.

He looked back at me, just as lost, just as stunned.

"What do you mean, remember?" Zach managed to ask, his voice rough and shaky.

I didn't wait for an answer. My eyes darted to the edge of the room where a discarded metal bat lay among broken sports equipment. Without making a sound, I leaned down and gripped it. My fingers wrapped tightly around the handle, slick with sweat.

"There's no need for violence," Mr. Quinn said, not even flinching. "I'm not your enemy."

I scoffed. Loudly. "Yeah? Then why have you been pretending to be some average history teacher for years? Why the hell have you been hiding this?" I jabbed the end of the bat toward his hooves, my arm tense.

Mr. Quinn's golden eyes glowed faintly, soft but inhuman. He raised his hands slightly in a gesture of peace and slowly removed his glasses, cleaning them with a corner of his button-up shirt like this was just another conversation. Like this wasn't the unravelling of our reality.

"I haven't been hiding," he said calmly. "I've been watching. All of you. Waiting. And the veil, well..." he exhaled slowly, "it's broken."

Zach shot me a wide-eyed glance. I didn't have anything to give back but a helpless shrug. Whatever was going on, we were clearly in it together.

"You were both born with memories hidden deep," Mr. Quinn continued, walking toward the back wall.

His fingertips brushed over a faded mural, ancient symbols and swirling shapes painted long before we'd ever set foot in this town. "Sealed away for your own safety. You were meant to live your lives peacefully, unaware of what you once were. But the world is changing. The locks are weakening. And the past is starting to bleed through."

"What veil?" Zach asked hoarsely. "What does that even mean? Why now?"

Mr. Quinn turned to face us fully, the light catching the edges of his irises. They gleamed unnaturally, like they weren't meant to belong to a mortal man.

"Because the Titans are moving again," he said.

The word hit me in the chest like a blast of wind. Titans. It shouldn't have meant anything. It should've sounded like fantasy bullshit, like something out of a mythology textbook.

But it didn't.

It rang in my bones like an echo. Ancient. Familiar.

"This is insane," I muttered. "This is like... a weird prank, right? Some teacher prank? You're trying to mess with us."

"I don't play games," Mr. Quinn said. His voice was low now. Almost reverent. "Especially not with you… Queen Hera."

I blinked.

"What did you just say?" My grip tightened on the bat.

"I said," he repeated slowly, deliberately, "Hera."

My mind blanked. For a second, the name didn't just ring; it resonated. Like it belonged somewhere inside me. Like it had always been there, just buried.

I shook my head hard, trying to ground myself in reality. Trying to remind myself I was just Lena. Helena fucking Kosta. Year 10. Mortal. Normal. This wasn't happening.

"That's not my name," I snapped, but my voice cracked halfway through. Even as I said it, the words didn't feel right. They felt fragile. Temporary. A placeholder over something deeper, something older.

I felt Zach's eyes on me, like he wanted to say something but didn't know how. Like he was trying to process everything just as much as I was.

But I couldn't look at him. I couldn't look at anything but that mural on the wall, the painted lightning bolts, the swirling skies and watchful eyes. My chest felt tight, like I couldn't get enough air.

"I'm not her," I whispered. "I'm not some goddess."

Mr. Quinn stepped forward, slowly, with the patience of someone who had waited centuries for this moment.

"You may not believe it yet," he said gently, "but soon... You won't be able to deny it."

Behind me, Zach let out a shaky breath. I could feel the energy between us shift, like something ancient had just stirred, and nothing would be the same again.

And deep down, a part of me already knew… he was right.

~~~

We sat across from Andrew (Mr Quinn) at a tiny corner table inside the bakery, the scent of pastries and burnt espresso thick in the air. Outside, buses rumbled by, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the tiled floor. School was officially out for the day, and inside the bakery, students filtered in and out with their uniforms half-untucked, laughter echoing behind us as we sat stiff and silent.

Our coffees sat untouched and growing cold in front of us. Meanwhile, Andrew took an obnoxiously loud sip of his long black like he didn't just drop a mythology nuke on our lives an hour ago.

I kept staring, waiting for him to say something, while Zach sat beside me, arms crossed, tapping his foot hard enough to shake the table.

Finally, Andrew looked up, clearly amused.

"Yes?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "Can't I enjoy a cup of coffee in peace before we talk about the end of the world?"

Zach leaned forward, his voice a low hiss. "Okay, enough about your damn coffee. So you're saying the world's going to end… and we're supposed to stop it?" His tone cracked halfway through, like he didn't know whether to be terrified or just laugh.

Andrew set his cup down with a gentle clink, gold eyes watching us calmly over the rim of his glasses.

"Not just the two of you, King Zeus," he said, far too casually. "There are twelve others. The rest of the gods, reborn like you."

I felt Zach tense beside me. I could almost hear the snap of that name, Zeus, in his head again. He hated it. I didn't blame him.

But something else struck me harder.

"Wait," I said slowly, sitting up straighter. "If I'm Hera… and he's Zeus… aren't we like… biologically related?" My stomach turned just thinking about it. "Oh my god, I dated my brother?"

Andrew blinked, then chuckled like I'd just asked whether unicorns fart glitter.

"Not biologically, no. As deities, yes, your souls were once bonded by divine lineage and power, but here? On Earth? You're not related by blood. You're just two human teenagers born into mortal families. Human DNA, human lives. Nothing incestuous going on, I promise."

"Still disgusting," Zach muttered, picking up his coffee just to have something to do with his hands. "You could've, I don't know, warned us before year 8?"

"I didn't know it was you two until recently," Andrew said with a little shrug, leaning back in his chair. "Besides, you were fourteen. What was I supposed to do, chase you around with a sign that said 'NO DATING, YOU'RE DIVINE SIBLINGS IN ANOTHER LIFE'?"

Zach groaned and covered his face.

I tried to ignore how red my ears were getting.

"So," I said, trying to pull the conversation back to what actually mattered. "When you say the other twelve gods, you mean… they're here? Alive? Walking around like we are?"

Andrew nodded, his hooves tapping gently on the marble floor beneath the table, muffled by the dull bakery music and hum of chatter. He looked almost proud, which creeped me out more than I'd like to admit.

"You're correct, Queen Hera-"

"For the love of god, stop calling me that." I rubbed my temples. "Lena is fine. Lena has been just fine for the past sixteen years. She does not need a crown or a title or to be dragged into some apocalyptic divine war."

Zach turned to me, eyes wide. "Apocalyptic what?"

Andrew, unbothered as always, took another sip of coffee.

"You've all been scattered, born across different places. Most of you won't remember anything for a while. But as the veil between our worlds continues to unravel, more signs will come. Powers. Memories. Nightmares. And when the Titans rise, you'll all be drawn together… one way or another."

I stared at him, trying not to panic. My fingers clenched around my paper cup like it might ground me. Like it might stop the swirling in my chest.

A party. A fight. A storm. A teacher with hooves. And now this?

"So what now?" I said, my voice hoarse. "You expect us to just… what? Accept this? Suit up and become gods again?"

Andrew looked at both of us, something solemn settling over his expression now. "No. I expect you to survive. And I expect you to find the others, because if you don't…"

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.

Zach leaned forward, eyebrows drawn together, frustration simmering beneath his words. "Why do we need to find them? You obviously know where they are, so why can't you help us?"

The clink of cutlery on ceramic and the hum of conversation filled the pause that followed. For the first time, Andrew's calm façade flickered. He shifted in his chair, a small twitch tugging at the corner of his mouth.

His golden eyes glanced around the café, then up at the ceiling, like he could see straight through it into some invisible watchtower above.

"I'm... not allowed," he said carefully, each word weighed and slow. "Certain information is... forbidden. If I tell you too much, there are consequences."

"Consequences?" I echoed, narrowing my eyes. "From who?"

Andrew exhaled through his nose, not quite a sigh but close. "Let's just say… There are Titans who are very interested in making sure you don't succeed. I'm not exactly high on their list of allies as it is."

Zach sat back in his chair, folding his arms, jaw tight. "So you're basically telling us the world might end, and you're letting teenagers handle it because you're scared of getting your head ripped off?"

Andrew didn't answer. But the way his mouth thinned, how he wouldn't quite meet our eyes, told me everything.

He stood up slowly, the legs of his chair scraping across the tile floor with a screech that made a few other patrons glance our way. He reached for the worn coat draped over the back of his chair and slipped it on, the hem swaying around his hooves as they clacked softly against the marble floor.

As he buttoned the top of his coat, he hesitated, then looked at us with something deeper in his gaze. Not just caution, but... something like regret.

"They're closer than you think," he said, voice low and quiet. "Some of them are already beside you. Others... you'll find when the time is right."

He adjusted the collar of his coat and stepped toward the door, casting one final glance back at us.

"Farewell, Zeus. Hera," he said with a slight tilt of his head. "Don't take too long."

Then, without another word, he pushed open the door. The sound of the bell above it jingled, and a gust of summer wind swept through the bakery as he disappeared into the late afternoon crowd.

Zach stared after him for a moment before finally muttering, "Did he just Jedi mind-trick us into being okay with this?"

I didn't answer. I was too busy staring at my coffee, at my reflection in the dark liquid. I didn't see Hera. I just saw a girl with a headache and a thousand questions burning a hole in her chest.