Текст книги "Apollyon"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Ares turned his wrist and the man’s head twisted to the side. The crack of bone echoed through the room.

Aiden started around me and true terror stole my breath. In a flash of horror, I saw him taking the place of Dominic, as would Marcus. Ares wouldkill them. Everything was happening too fast, but there was no way I could allow this.

I did the only thing I could do.

Throwing my arm toward the door, I summoned the element of air and I used it against Aiden and Marcus. The gust of wind was so strong there was nothing they could do but submit to it.

There was a second when my eyes met Aiden’s, before he was pushed through the door along with Marcus, when I saw the stark horror in his silver eyes. When I knew there was a good chance he’d never forgive me for this.

The heavy doors swung shut and locked from the inside.

“Aren’t you a killjoy,” Ares said, chuckling softly. “I was really looking forward to ripping the heart out of St. Delphi in front of you. But there’s always later.”

I turned around slowly, my breath catching in my throat.

Ares winked. “Now it’s just you and me.”

“Well, that’s not freaky or anything.”

“Ah, that’s so like you. To joke when you’re afraid.” His large boots thumped as he took a step forward. “Or what do they call it? You’re ‘snarky’?”

My chest rose sharply as fists pounded on the door behind me. The thick titanium muted their voices. “That’s what some people say.”

“Hmm…” Ares tilted his head to the side, brows raised. “You know what I think about this snarky thing you have going on? It’s a poor attempt to mask how affected you are by things. What?” He grinned. “You look so surprised. Do you think I don’t know you? That I haven’t watched you just as long as Apollo has? See, I’m just smarter than him. After all, I am a great strategist.”

“The god of war has been stalking me? Wow, I feel all kinds of special. Usually the other gods are known for such creep things, but you? Wow.”

He laughed again, the sound deep but flat. “You are amusing. Very pretty, too. I see why Seth is quite fond of you.”

“I’m guessing, since you’re here, Seth won’t be too far behind.”

Ares just smiled, and the fists on the door continued.

“How did you find me, by the way?” I asked, buying time—time for what, I wasn’t sure.

“Oh, I have comrades everywhere, little girl. Ways to get around stupid talismans.” One more step and he was only two feet away from me. “You’re shaking,” he whispered.

I was?

“You went to the Underworld recently. Pray tell, what for?”

My throat felt like it was closing up. “Well, I guess you don’t have comrades everywhereif you don’t know.”

Ares smirked. “Charming. You will tell me what you were doing there, or this will end with you not being able to talk. It’s your choice.”

I refused to back up even though every instinct screamed that I do so. “I thought I was going to end this begging for death. How can I do that when I can’t talk?”

He laughed again. “You are so simple, little girl. There are other ways to beg for death than with words.”

“Are there?” My voice cracked a little and I winced.

His all-white eyes gleamed. “I’ve seen it all in battle. There is the way the body curls into itself when it wants death. There is the silent scream for release. There are the eyes, and they speak even when the tongue no longer works. And then there is the soul that rots so poorly when death is wanted but withheld that it carries a certain stench.”

Ice shot through my veins, turning my blood to slush. At that moment I knew, no matter how much I fought, this… this was going to suck.

“So unless you want to experience these things firsthand, you will tell me why you were in the Underworld, and then you will submit.”

I swallowed, wincing as fists hit the door behind me again. “I’m not big on the whole submission thing.”

“You may want to rethink that.” He sounded civil as he suggested it. “Look at this rationally, little girl. All that I ask is that you connect with Seth. Allow him to do what he was made to. That is all. He will take care of you. You know that. How is that so bad?”

“He will strip me of who I am.”

“So what? You’ll be happy and alive. You will want for nothing.” He tipped his chin down almost playfully. “I’ll even let the ones you love live. It’s a win/win situation.”

“Except for the gods you want taken out, and the thousands, if not millions, of people who will die.”

He shrugged. “Consequences of war.”

“Sickening,” I said.

“It is the truth.”

My stomach churned. “Why… why are you doing this?”

“Why not?” He tapped a long finger off my chin. “For too long the Olympians have sat on their thrones doing nothing. Letting the entire world be overrun with the children of demigods and mortals while we are sequestered on Mount Olympus. The world should be ours.”

I shook my head. “The world belongs to humankind.”

“The world belongs to the gods!” he roared, eyes crackling. “To me and any other god who sees the truth. That is who the world belongs to.”

My fingers curled helplessly. “Why don’t you just take me to Seth? Why try to convince me?”

“Well, I can’t really just pop you there, now can I?”

“You didn’t think this through, did you?” I forced out a laugh. “You could just knock me out and stuff me in a car. Why go through this?”

His brows slammed down and a muscle ticked in his jaw.

“There’s something. You can’tforce me to go with you.” My pulse sped up. “Can you?”

The god was seething. “You are the Apollyon. Therefore I cannot force you, but keep in mind, little girl, I can and will hurt you.”

“This ‘little girl’ is having a hard time believing that.” Courage fed my bravado, which usually was never a good combination. “Unless you’re like every villain who wants to give a long, unnecessarily boring speech, I’d figured you were a more-action-and-less-words kind of god.”

Ares’ lips parted. “You have no idea. The rules that protect the Apollyon are like all things in nature—balanced. While you cannot be forced with compulsion or by hand, you can be persuaded by certain other means.”

“You suck as a salesman, so you aren’t persuading crap.”

He let out a low, deep growl. “Submit, or so be it.”

I met the eerie all-white eyes. “Go to hell.”

For a moment, he almost looked disappointed, like the kind of disapproval parents feel when their kid is too stupid to figure something out, but then he smiled broadly. “I don’t think Seth will like this, but oh, well.”

“What do—?”

Ares shot forth, in my face in half a second. All thoughts of Seth fled, and instinct kicked in. I summoned forth akasha, knowing it wouldn’t kill but hoping it would send him back to Olympus with his tail between his legs, but that wasn’t what happened.

He caught my arm by the wrist and squeezed with what was probably the slightest pressure, but the spike of pain caused me to lose my concentration. “You will not like my persuasion, little girl.”

Then he pushed, and I hit the door with enough force to knock the air out of me. Unfortunately, his Dr. Evil speech hadn’t been all pomp. But if he could hurt me, I could take it. I wasn’t submitting. Too much was at stake. Too many lives. I could deal with this, and all I could hope was that he forgot about Aiden and Marcus when he was through, or they got with the program and got the hell out of Dodge.

I can deal with this.

Pushing off the wall, I spun to the right and extended my arm, but where his chest had been was empty space, and I stumbled into it.

“Missed me.”

I whirled around, finding him behind me. Dropping down, I swept my leg at his… but hit nothing but air.

“You can keep this up if you want.”

Looking up, he was leaning against the door, arms crossed. Now I was starting to get pissed off. Launching to my feet, I gained momentum and pushed into the air, twisting into the perfect butterfly kick that—

Arms snagged me out of the air from behind and I let out a surprised gasp.

He held me like I was nothing more than a sack of rice. “I am the god of war, little girl. There is no move that you know, no method of battle or maneuver that I do not.”

Crap.

“I will always be one step ahead. I will always outthink you. You cannot fight me.”

Throwing my head back, I hit his broad, hard shoulder. Then I swung my legs, but Ares dropped me. Stumbling to my feet, I saw he wasn’t in front of me.

Double crap.

Whirling around, I kicked out into nothing. I spun back and suddenly– dear gods—his hand was on my throat, lifting me off the ground as I kicked and clawed at his hand, too panicked and distracted to try to summon akasha again.

“You will wish for death by the time I am through.” His fingers dug in deep, cutting off my air supply. “You will beg for it in all the ways I listed. You had your choice. You had your fun. Game over.”

For a terrifying second, I thought he’d crush my windpipe, and I told myself again that I could deal with this. But then I was suddenly flying backward through the air. I crashed through the aquarium. Sharp glass sliced through my back as water and fish poured out around me.

I hit the floor on my side. Vibrantly striped pink-and-blue fish flopped on the marble floors. Sucking in a sharp inhale against the pain, I put my hand down and pushed up. I grunted as glass sliced open my palm. Blood mixed with water.

I can deal with this.

I stood up, breathing raggedly as I lifted my head.

Ares stood in front of me. Without a single word, his backhand hit the side of my face. Starbursts flooded my vision like a dozen firecrackers going off at once. I smacked into the leather chair behind the desk. Blood pooled in my mouth as I caught myself on the edge of the desk. Something had split. My cheek? Entire face? I had no idea. And over the pounding pain, I could hear them at the door.

I can deal with this.

Grabbing the keyboard, I ripped it free and swung around, aiming for his head. Ares caught the keyboard, yanked it free and then snapped it in two like it was a twig.

I stumbled back, reaching blindly for something. Daggers and swords hung from the wall, but he was on me before I could go for them.

Ares picked me up like I was nothing more than a helpless kitten. Before I could wiggle free, before I could taste the raw fear building in the back of my throat, he flipped me over, slamming my back into the corner of the upturned desk.

There was a crack I heardand felt. Sharp pain came in a flash of light, and then every nerve ending fired at once. My senses overloaded as I slipped to the ground, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Something had come unhinged inside me. I could feel it. A searing hurt roared through me like a gunshot blast. I was wet and warm on the inside and if I hadn’t been the Apollyon—if I had been only a half-blood or a mortal—I knew whatever Ares had done would’ve been fatal.

But I wouldn’t die and I couldn’t move. Something bad was broken. The tips of my fingers were numb, and I couldn’t feel my toes, but I felt everythingelse. And I figured that, if anyone knew the right place to snap the spine to immobilize someone but ensure they could still feel everything, it would be Ares.

I can deal with this—oh gods, I can deal with this.

He loomed over me, smiling, eyes all-white. “This can all end now, little one. Just say the words.”

My throat worked, and my tongue felt way too heavy. It took everything to get the words out. “Fuck… you…”

The smile slipped from his face and then he moved lightning fast. Pain… it was everywhere. Another bone cracked—maybe my leg, or a kneecap, but I couldn’t be sure. My mouth opened to scream, but a wet, warm whimper came out instead.

I… I can deal with this. I had to… I had to.

When he snapped my other leg and then each rib, one at a time, the pain became my world. There was no escaping it—no breathing around it or hiding. Consciousness was slipping away from me and I fought the fog, because when he was done with me, if he’d ever be done with me, he would move on to Aiden and Marcus, to the whole University. He was the god of war and he would lay waste to everything.

But that pain… it rotted me from the inside. It reached down into the tiny part where I was still a person, where I was still Alex, and the pain took over. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t deal with it. My shields crashed down and the cord roared, but the growing hum was overshadowed by the terrible pain, and the growing hopelessness dug in deep with razor-sharp claws and pulled away my entire sense of being.

I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was, or maybe I’d just hit my limit, because I wanted out—I wanted to die. There was no pride in this. There was no purpose. My soul fragmented and I broke wide open.

Ares grabbed hold of my broken arm, dragging me to the center of the room, over broken glass and dead fish and the blood of those who’d already died in here. That fresh burst of pain seemed like nothing in comparison to everything else, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ares pick up a dagger.

He knelt over me, lips curled back. There was a blade in his hand, and this was about to get much, much worse. “Say the words.”

I was shattered and I was weak. He had won, and I wanted to die, but I couldn’t, and there was no way—I screamed as the first strike of the blade sank deep.

With another sharp slice, my vision flashed amber momentarily and then reverted, but something…something was different. A foreign sensation wiggled around the broken bones and severed muscles. It wasn’t from me, but it was a part of me. It was cold and it felt like steel and it was fury, dark and endless.

It wasn’t from me, because what little part of me that was left had curled up in a ball and was waiting and praying for this to be over. It had given up, cowering away from more pain like an abused dog. It wanted this to be over. It wanted to taste the peacefulness of death.

But that fury built and, as Ares bent over me holding the red-tipped dagger, I knew that the anger was filtering through the connection between me and the First.

It was Seth.

Was he angry that I hadn’t gone with Ares? Or was it because I was so weak that I wished for death? Or was it something else, something deeper than which side we stood on, because Seth… Seth had to feel this now. He had to know, and that last little shred of my being refused to believe that he would condone this. I suffered, and so he suffered.

The god laughed coldly. “I wonder, if you cut the head off the Apollyon, does it grow back? Guess we could find out, huh? You’d like that.”

Part of me died right then, maybe not a physical death, but on some mental, some emotional level I was good as dead. When all of this was over, I wouldn’t be the same.

Wood and metal splintered, and I knew the door had finally been breached. As the god brought the dagger down, a body crashed into him. The blade impaled the floor harmlessly beside my neck. Before I could take my next painful breath, the three of them moved above me, engaging in a sick, macabre dance of sorts. Ares. Aiden. Marcus. They moved too fast for me to track. The three of them were too close together.

Light exploded, casting the room in white light as bright as the sun. The presence of another god filled the room, and I was blinded. I tried to take my next breath and wheezed. Wet warmth spread along the left side of my body, pooling across the floor like red rain. My blood? Someone else’s? Gods… gods didn’t bleed like us.

There was an inhuman roar and Ares spun around, his attention on whatever was behind me. In an instant, the god of war threw out his arms. A shockwave rolled through the destroyed room. Shattered wood and broken furniture flew into the air, along with prone, lifeless bodies… and Marcus and Aiden.

Red rain seemed to pour from the ceiling now.

My name was called, but it sounded so far away. I struggled to sit up, to see Aiden and Marcus, to know that they were okay, but I couldn’t move and I couldn’t breathe. Hands landed on me, but my skin felt detached. There was screaming in the background, and I wanted them to shut up– to just shut up. My entire body felt slippery as I was lifted, my head flopping loosely to the side.

Where were they—where were Aiden and Marcus?

The mounting horror took over the pain and it mixed with Seth’s rage. The marks spread across my skin and the cord hummed violently. There were voices, so many voices, and one came through so clear, and I didn’t know if it was spoken out loud or in my thoughts.

“Let go, Alex.”

Then there was nothing.

CHAPTER 37

There was nothing, and then the pain came back, starting with the cracked bones in my toes and then crawling up my shattered calves and knees, licking over my pulverized pelvis in waves of white-hot, fiery pain. When the fire reached my head, I tried to scream, but my jaw wouldn’t unhinge. The scream tore through me still, silent but full of rage that tasted of the blood that pooled in my mouth.

Death… oh gods, I begged for death over and over in my mind. A relentless, steady stream to whatever god was listening to take this away, because the pain was splitting the seams of my sanity.

But the pain didn’t lessen. It burned. It remained. It continued to rot me from the inside until I willed my eyes open.

My vision didn’t focus as first. What I saw was a hazy blur of blue, but when my sight cleared, I didn’t understand what I was seeing.

Maybe I’d already gone insane.

I was staring at a sky—the brightest blue I’d ever seen. Like the deepest ocean water, untouched and pure. No sky was that color. And I’d been in the Dean’s office, where Ares… where he…

I couldn’t think of that. I couldn’t think of anything.

The air smelled of jasmine, like… like the pool in the Underworld, when I’d been with Aiden.

Aiden…

Oh gods, I didn’t know what’d happened to him, if Ares had hurt him or Marcus. I didn’t know where I was, or how I had gotten here. All I knew was pain. It was in every fiber of muscle, every splintered bone and burst vessel, but that… that wasn’t true. There was one thing that I did know.

The cord—the connection between Seth and me—it was gone.

There was no humming. No rage. No outside presence mingling with mine. Oh gods, I was nothing now but pain.

“Alexandria.”

I didn’t realize my eyes were closed again until I forced them to reopen at the sound of the vaguely familiar voice. At first, I didn’t see him, or anything other than that beautiful, unreal sky.

A shadow fell over me and then a form appeared, blocking out the sky. Seconds later, the man pieced together. Tall and broad and a head full of honey-colored hair, the man had the face of an angel.

Oh for the love of gods, I couldn’t catch a freaking break.

Thanatos.

The god’s lips tipped up a little on one side, as if he knew what I was thinking, and I wondered then if I was actually dead, if someone had lied about the whole Apollyon-death thing, because I was staring at the god of peaceful death.

Then again, my death, if that was what this really was, had been anything but peaceful. Had he come to answer my prayers? To take this pain away?

Easing down, Thanatos tipped his head to the side as he leaned over me. “Can you hear me?”

I tried to open my mouth but couldn’t.

“Blink if you can,” he said with surprising gentleness.

I blinked.

“We may have been foes in the past, but I am not here to harm you now. I’m watching over you until Apollo can return with his son, Asclepius.”

Apollo? His son? Confusion swamped me and I dragged in a deeper breath I immediately regretted. Pain arced across my chest.

Thanatos moved to place his hand on my forehead, but stopped short. “It’s okay. You’re in Olympus.”

Olympus?How in the world was thatokay?

“Well, just outside of Olympus, if you want to get technical.” He glanced over his shoulder, sighing softly. “What you did by standing up to Ares? Not many would—no mortal, demigod and surely not even the Apollyon. You could’ve submitted to him. You would’ve saved yourself so much pain.”

Thanatos leaned in close, focusing on me with white eyes that held no pupils or irises. “You held your ground, and I can respect that. I can also admire that.”

Maybe, if it didn’t feel like my body had been shattered into a million pieces, I could really appreciate that statement. The jasmine-scented air stirred, and two more shadows fell over the spot where I lay… in the grass, I realized dumbly. My entire back felt wet and I wasn’t hopeful enough to think that it was dew instead of my own blood… or someone else’s. No. It couldn’t be someone else’s, because that would mean that Aiden or Marcus…

Apollo came into focus, and instead of showing off those creepy god peepers, he stared down at me with eyes that matched the sky over his shoulder. A small, almost-sad smile tugged at his lips, which I found so strange since it was rare that Apollo showed any real emotion.

“There was no way I could heal you in the mortal realm. The damage is too extensive,” he said, and for the first time, he cut right to the chase. “I had to bring you here, as close to Olympus as possible. All the aether surrounding my home will help Asclepius.”

I wanted to ask about Aiden and Marcus, but when I finally managed to open my mouth, only the smallest whimper leaked out.

“Don’t try to talk,” Apollo said. He leaned back, making room for another god. “My son is going to heal you.” A wry grin twisted his lips. “And I know if you could, you’d say something like ‘how many kids do you have?’ and my answer would be ‘many’.”

Yeah, I was kind of curious, and I also wondered if it meant that Asclepius was related to me, but what I really wanted to know was what had happened to Aiden and Marcus.

Asclepius took the place of Thanatos. This god barely resembled Apollo. A full beard covered his face, making it difficult to gauge his age, but the fine lines spreading out from the corners of his white eyes made him look much older than his father. My eyes moved to Apollo, and I was comforted to find that he was still there. He hadn’t left me with Thanatos and a stranger.

Finally, Apollo took pity on me. “The last I saw of Aiden and Marcus, they were fine. But I haven’t been back since I brought you here.”

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. It wasn’t a hundred percent confirmation that they were okay, but it was something that I could hold onto.

“Do you know the story of my son?” Apollo asked.

When I did nothing, Asclepius laughed. “He loves to tell this story.”

“His mortal mother died during childbirth, and while she was on the funeral pyre, I cut him from the womb.” As Apollo spoke, his son eyed the numerous injuries with a mixed look of disgust and challenge. “I gave him to the centaur Chiron, who raised him in the art of medicine. Of course, having my genes, he already had a knack for healing.”

Of course.

“But my sister had asked Asclepius to bring Hippolytus back to life, and between Hades being pissed off about that, and Aphrodite’s whining, Zeus killed my son with a thunderbolt.” A muscle popped out in Apollo’s jaw. “So I killed Cyclopes, ensuring that Zeus would have no more thunderbolts.”

Oookay…

“I ended up banned from Olympus for a year,” Apollo continued blithely, “but in the end, Zeus resurrected my son to ensure there would be no future feuds with me.” He paused. “You’re wondering what the moral of this story is? I alwaysfind a way to take care of my own.”

Before I could process what that meant, his son placed his hands on my chest. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been thrilled with the idea of being felt up, but incredible warmth swept through me. From the tips of my aching toes to the top of my fractured skull, dizzying, wonderful warmth invaded every pore.

The god closed his eyes. “This may sting.”

What? No, I wanted to scream, because I couldn’t take anymore, but then the warmth blistered my skin and I didscream.

Fire raged through me, spreading out of control and searing every cell. My broken body reared off the ground.

Asclepius’ face blurred into a severe frown. “There’s something else here….”

For the second time in however many minutes, I was pulled into the void, lost in a black sea of nothingness.

When I opened my eyes, my vision was clear and I’d been moved into a circular chamber with marble walls. Birds shrilled in a soft, lyrical verse from somewhere outside the room. Atable sat in the middle of a raised dais. Resting atop the table was a pitcher full of honey-colored liquid. Heavy, scented air flowed through a small opening in the wall, stirring the white canopy hanging from the posts at the foot of the bed I rested in.

Abed? Obviously it was a step up from lying in grass, but confusion pinged at me. I pushed up onto my elbows and winced as an ache rolled through my entire body.

I’d been healed, but…

Memories pieced back together, of Thanatos, Apollo and his son.

Holy crap, I was in—or near—Olympus.

Never in my life did I think I’d breathe the aether-enriched air of the gods, but here I was. A low hum of excitement trilled in my veins. I wanted to race off the bed and investigate. Olympus was rumored to be the most beautiful place in existence, even more so than the Elysian Fields. Creatures of myths roamed freely here, and plants that no longer flourished in the mortal realm grew to staggering heights in Olympus. This was a once-in-a-life…

The excitement gave way to unrest. I wasn’t here for sightseeing. It wasn’t like I was on vacation and Apollo would pop in and give me a tour along with keepsake mouse ears. This wasn’t Disney World, and I was here because Ares…

In the back of my mind, and in the center of my very being, there was a dark and ugly thing that had been born and taken root, a distinct coldness that no amount of warm air could quell. My thoughts swung to Ares and my heart turned heavy. Raw terror formed in the back of my throat, tasting like bile.

But, oh gods, it wasn’t just Ares, or the thought of facing him again. It was the pain that had festered and rotted me, the pain that had shattered me into pieces and caused me to beg for release—for death. Even though I had never spoken the words aloud, I knew that Ares had felt it. It had been in my eyes; my very soul had been laid bare.

Ares knew.

Seth knew.

Shame and something dark rose inside me, twisting and choking like a vile weed.

I’d begged for death.

Me. Alex. The all-powerful Apollyon. The girl who got knocked down only to jump back up and ask for more. I’d been training to be a Sentinel, a warrior bred to disregard fear. I’d known pain before this, both physically and mentally. I’d even come to expect it.

But Ares had broken me wide open.

A raw vulnerability inched through me. Feeling sick, I tugged the soft blanket up to my chest. Gods, I felt… I felt like a poser in my own skin. What would Aiden think if he found out? He would never have begged or given up like I had—oh gods, what if Aiden really wasn’t okay? What if Apollo had lied?

I started to throw the blanket off, but stopped. Indecision smacked into me. What was I doing? Where was I going to go to demand answers? My hand tightened around the blanket until I thought I was going to undo Asclepius’ hard work.

I couldn’t move.

I was frozen by… by what? Fear. Distress. Shame. Confusion. Anxiety. A hundred or so emotions whirled through me like an F-5 tornado. My breath sawed in and out painfully. Pressure blossomed out of nowhere, clamping down on my still-tender chest. This was worse than how I’d felt after Gatlinburg, magnified by a million.

I couldn’t breathe.

Images of the fight in the dean’s office flipped through my head like a twisted photo album. The maneuvers that always had been too late. The kicks and punches that’d never landed. Being picked up and thrown like I was nothing more than a sack of rice. The breaking of my spine and every bone thereafter and then the knife…

The sound of Aiden and Marcus banging on the doors, desperately trying to get in, haunted me. So many memories of Ares owning my ass kept on coming in a continuous onslaught of how-not-impressive-I-really-was. How could I’ve thought I could stand against Ares—the god of war? How could any of us?

And I’d begged for death.

I couldn’t breathe.

The pressure constricted my chest again and I let go of the blanket, pressing my hand to my clammy skin. I stumbled out of the bed, falling on the chilled granite knees-first, and then I pressed my forehead to it. The cool floor seemed to help, like the night I’d been slipped the Brew.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that—minutes or hours—but the floor had this wonderful grounding ability. A bone-deep exhaustion set in, the kind a warrior felt at the end of the final battle, when he was ready to turn in his sword and fade into eternity.

Somewhere in the room, a door opened, scraping against marble. I didn’t lift my head or try to sit up, and I knew how I looked to whomever was in the room—like a dog cowering in the corner. That was me.

“Lexie?”

My heart stopped.

“Lexie? Oh my gods, baby.”

I was frozen again, too afraid to look and discover that the voice didn’t really belong to my mom, that it was some kind of messed-up illusion. A different kind of pressure fisted in my chest. Fragile hope swelled.

Warm arms surrounded me in a gentle, painfully familiar embrace. Inhaling a ragged breath, I caught her scent– her scent. Vanilla.

Lifting my head, I peered through the strands of hair and lost my breath, along with any ability to form a coherent thought.

“Mom?”

She smiled, sliding her hands up to my cheeks. It was her—the oval face and complexion slightly darker than mine, lips spread in a wide smile and eyes the color of the brightest green. She looked like she had the last time I’d seen her in Miami, the night before the daimon attack that had changed her into an aether-addicted monster, before I had killed her.

That fist squeezed down until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and couldn’t see anything other than her.

“Baby, it’s me, it’s really me.” Her voice was as I remembered—soft and melodious. “I’m here.”

I stared at her until her beautiful face began to swim. Part of me couldn’t allow myself to accept this– this gift—because, if it wasn’t real, it would be too cruel. The spirits guarding the gates to the Underworld had almost fooled me.