Drag Me Up

by RM Virtues

  She blurts it out without fully committing to it, but once she does, she knows it’s time. Turning in her chair to face him, she sets down her glass on the tray. He seems to sense the seriousness of it, setting his glass down as well and mirroring her position in his own chair.

  “It’s about… Well, I- I don’t really know how to explain it,” she goes on, pushing a hand through her hair.

  “Take your time,” he encourages although she can see the confusion in his eyes.

  Still, she accepts his encouragement. She gives herself a minute to gather her thoughts, but even when she starts again, she doesn’t know if she’s saying what she means to. “I went to Terpsichore’s School, four years ago. I mean, I started there, before I signed with Calliope’s company. Or - well, Calliope, she… oh, for Fates’ sake.”

  “Hey.” She looks up at him as he turns completely towards her. “It’s alright. Whatever it is, just tell me.”

  She nods, clearing her throat and taking a deep breath. “It’s Zeus.”

  It’s not entirely what she means to say, but she feels that if she doesn’t get that out of the way first, she’ll implode before she can explain anything else. Hades sits up straighter, ears perked as he stares at her. She can’t read his expression, but she imagines a million things are going through his mind, and she simply cannot find the words to explain fast enough.

  “What about him?” he finally urges.

  “Well, when I - when I wanted to go to school, my mother cut me off. She was set on it, not letting me go. Even with my savings, I couldn’t afford to pay the tuition on my own, and I didn’t have anyone I could go to for help then.” She looks down at her hands, clasping them in her lap. “He came to me, Zeus. We’d met at the community theatre, and I thought he was my friend. He owned the school, and he said he could put me on a full scholarship. I - I should have known there was a catch, that he-”

  “No.” Hades’ voice is so firm that it stops her in her tracks. “Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself. Tell me what he did.”

  She only realizes then how close she is to breaking, whether from anger or shame or both. She looks down at her knees, her chest tightening. “Now he won’t leave me alone. The whole time I was away with Calliope, ever since I got back, he just - he’s everywhere. And - if he isn’t there, he has someone watching me. That’s what he did these last two weeks, and…”

  She takes a moment to breathe before continuing. He waits.

  “He showed up to my - apartment, after you left today. I don’t even know how he found me there, but - he heard about us having drinks, and -” She swallows hard. “I was supposed to meet him at a restaurant in Olympus at 8. Obviously I came here, but - he said he would make sure I never forget that he can bring it all crashing down on me if he wanted. And - I’m not worried about that, what he can do to my career or anything, but - I don’t want him to ruin this, and - I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t want you finding out from him or anyone else, and I don’t want to start trouble between you and your brother. If you want me to go, I will, but I can’t - I...”

  She looks up at him now, unsure of what else to say, uncertain of what he might do. He doesn’t speak, not immediately, and she realizes then that she isn’t sure she wants him to. She also realizes that she means what she’d just said. Although she knows she needs help, she doesn’t want him to get involved if it brings trouble for him. She doesn’t need saving at the expense of his safety. She just wants to be honest with him, and she wants to be honest with herself about the fact that she doesn’t want to lose him.

  And right now, everything about his body language tells her that he’s fighting not to flip the table between them right over the balcony railing.

  13

  Hades

  Hades is livid. He lets nothing show on his face, but his palms press into the arms of his chair with unnecessary pressure. He feels it buzzing beneath his skin, an unmatched anger that he refuses to act on. He does not act out of anger, certainly not for Zeus, but his brother is crossing a line that Hades never thought he would.

  Except...that’s not true at all, is it? Because Hades knows his brother, and he has enabled his brother for as long as they have known one another. Every tryst and encounter and extramarital affair, Hades had known about. He had never spoken a word about them to anyone, and even when the fruits of such engagements had literally shown up on Zeus’s doorstep, Hades had been more willing to take those children into his own home than to force Zeus to own up to his mistakes and take responsibility for his actions. Hades may have never known Zeus to outright harass anyone, each of those affairs consensual as far as he knew, but the younger brother’s devolution had been evident from the start. Was it not simply a matter of time before it came to this?

  It’s a shame really. He’d just told Persephone not to blame herself, and here he is. Although he can say for certain he had far more to do with this chain of events than she ever could. He is his brother’s keeper, after all.

  “I’ll talk to him,” he says at last, but she’s immediately shaking her head.

  “I don’t need you to talk to him.” Her voice is stern, so much so that his gaze is drawn to her. “I don’t need you to get involved, Hades. I can handle this myself.”

  “You shouldn’t have to.”

  “You’re right, I shouldn’t, but I am, and I can handle it.”

  “It’s not about whether or not you can handle it.” His voice is calm as the Aegean despite every nerve ending in his body sparked with electricity. “Zeus is a monster of my making, and-”

  “Hades, you can’t do that!” He’s shocked as she stands up, her fists bawled at her sides, brows knitted in frustration. “He isn’t your anything! You are not responsible for him. You did not make him do anything. You may have given him everything he has, or at least protected it, but what he does with it is not up to you. The man he is now is the man he chose to be. Just like you’re the man you choose to be, and are you really gonna choose to be his whipping boy?”

  He opens his mouth but closes it again. It’s not like these aren’t things he doesn’t know, or at least they aren’t things he hasn’t already been told.Though not even Hecate had ever put it so bluntly. The desire to protect Persephone doesn’t go away, but there is now some hesitation. He chooses his words more carefully.

  “You can say all that to me, and you’re correct, but that doesn’t negate the fact that you shouldn’t have to handle it, by yourself or otherwise.” His voice is steady, some of the anger having subsided. “And if I’m being honest, I don’t think you can handle it, which has nothing to do with you. Whether he’s my doing or not, his actions are not to be tolerated. The fact of the matter is that he won’t listen. You told him no, and he refused. Now it’s a matter of persecution.”

  “And that’s your job?” she grunts, but she does sit back down.

  He nods. “I made it my job the day I started protecting him from said persecution.”

  “What’s talking to him going to do, Hades?” She shakes her head again. “It’s only going to look like I ran crying to you, like I can’t handle myself. Everyone will know, and I’ll look like the girl who used the leader of the Underworld as a shield. I won’t.”

  “Who in Gaia is going to know, Persephone? You think if Zeus wanted anyone to know, I wouldn’t by now? No one has to know anything, and even so, you’re not going to look like the girl who used me as a shield. You and I have a-”

  He realizes then that he doesn’t know what they have. Two dates and great sex hardly constitute as a relationship, but what else could it be? What else would he want it to be? He supposes it would be up to her. Nonetheless, he exhales and continues.

  “You came to me because you wanted to be honest with me. What I do with that information is my choice, as you said.”

  “And then Zeus goes and throws a tantrum, no doubt painting me as some harlot. All he has to do is tell the truth, Hades. I took that money.”

  “The truste
e of your school offered you a scholarship, Persephone. It’s not like he handed you cash in a bag in a back alley, and even if he did, you don’t owe him anything!”

  It’s the first time he’s ever raised his voice in her presence, and he can see it on her face that she realizes it too. She looks taken aback, not quite afraid but not entirely comfortable. He sighs, letting his face fall into his hands for a moment as he composes himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “You should be,” she returns curtly. “But in all of this, raising your voice is the only thing you should be sorry for, Hades.”

  So much passes between them in that singular moment of silence. They are arguing over barren ground, each attempting to take possession when both of them should simply let it be. However, he of all people knows how difficult that can be. Ignoring Zeus is literally like ignoring the big, white elephant in the room. At the moment, it feels like listening to the ticking of a time bomb and doing nothing about it.

  “No.” The word sounds like law when it falls from his lips, and she straightens. “I said I wouldn’t let him take this from me, and I meant it. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. I don’t care where or how he tries to take it, he won’t.”

  “So then what? We just - continue seeing each other at secret locations? Or holing up in here? Dodging him until he gets bored? I don’t even think I can go back to my apartment after tonight.”

  “I want to be with you. I want us to be together.”

  She stares at him, her eyes expectant as she opens her hands in confusion.

  “Do you want to be with me?” he asks instead. “I mean truly. Do you want a relationship with me?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  “Then be with me. Without hiding.”

  She snorts. “So you want me to publicly use you as a shield.”

  “You’re not using me.”

  “See, Hades, you say that, but the fact of the matter is you don’t know when you’re being used. Zeus has been using you.”

  “You assume I don’t know that, but the fact is that I do. I just didn’t care to stop it before.”

  “And now?”

  “If I have to choose, I choose you. And I choose me. Because I know he wouldn’t choose me and my happiness, but - in this way, I can be sure.”

  “So it’s a test?”

  He chuckles, picking up his glass and draining it. He hadn’t prepared for all of this tonight, and he hates to be unprepared. It garners unnecessary stress.

  Setting down his glass again, he fixes his gaze on hers. “Look, you either trust me or you don’t. You’re going to find fault anywhere you look because this is not an orthodox plan. Yes, it could make us both look bad. It could backfire. A lot of things can go wrong, not least of all where your mother’s concerned, but I’m willing to take that risk. And truly, I want this. I want to go to your shows without worrying about people wondering why. I want you to be able to walk through the front doors of the casino as you please even when you don’t have a show. I want to be with you, and that has nothing to do with my brother, but if it gets him to take the hint, that’s a welcome bonus. If it doesn’t, I’ll handle him some other way.”

  “So you don’t want to hide away in your fortress anymore?” She’s smirking.

  He matches it. “At least not full time, and even if I do, I want this to be as much your fortress as it is mine.” He gestures towards the penthouse through the balcony doors. “And - if you wanted to stay here instead of that apartment, I would feel much better about your safety. Because whether we should have to deal with it or not, we are.”

  The smirk falls slightly, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of her. He knows that what he offers is a huge step in this very new relationship, but if Zeus has resorted to entering his territory unannounced and harassing her at home, Hades is not willing to put anything else past him. Of course, there are also more personal benefits to the arrangement if she agrees to it, and he does want to live his own life, free of his brother’s ill will. It will be a learning experience above all, but if he can take it on with her at his side, he has nothing to fear. He gathers all of that and somehow manages to convey it in a few small words.

  “I choose you.”

  14

  Persephone

  I choose you. His words hold so much conviction that she loses her breath. He’s so - sure. She’s never heard anyone say something with such certainty, and certainly not in regard to her, not even her mother. In a world full of trap doors and false bottoms, stability is a lighthouse in the dark she always feared running towards because it often took the shape of a tower to be locked away in. The idea of planting her feet firm on the ground scares her more than the act of falling in the first place, but right now, looking at him with all that certainty in those sharp eyes? She finds no fear to afford it.

  Nonetheless, she still isn’t certain herself about the proposed arrangement as it stands.

  It isn’t that she wants to hide their relationship. Even the prospect of moving into his home doesn’t sound as far fetched as it might to someone else. She lives in his district, and he lives in the casino, right upstairs from her workplace. Not to mention, this place is huge, and she doubts he would object to allowing her a space all her own. It’s convenient for a vast number of reasons, not least of all being closer to him. They have so little time together as is. Stealing a few extra hours each evening is nothing to turn her nose up at, and while her own desire to be near him as often as possible makes her uneasy to an extent, that’s only because she’s never felt this way about someone before. She’d had very few relationships, but all of them had felt ephemeral and aimless in the end except one. Her relationship with Adonis had turned out to be no more than an extension of her relationship with her mother, a gilded cage that both had been so sure she would submit to. Both had been disappointed, and both had tainted her idea of love in irrevocable ways. Yet, it doesn’t feel that way with Hades, no matter how hard she looks for the warning signs. For a man chained to the whims of others, he is very protective of her freedom.

  The problem is that she feels as though she’s simply being thrown around from one keeper to the next, at the mercy of every rogue wave her mother and Zeus throw at her in the treacherous sea that is Khaos Falls. Persephone knows Hades does not seek to own her or cage her, to chain her to a wall, but his intentions can never suit his image. He is known to be ruthless, every bit inanimate in the tales they tell of him. Zeus’s shield, his personal daimon, the wraith of Khaos Falls. Even if they both know of the sincerity of their bond, no one else will. It could be more harmful to her career than Zeus’s attempts to bring it all crashing down, and while she wants to be with Hades, she won’t pay the steep price of everything she has worked for.

  Zeus can say what he wants, but his money did not make her. With or without Terpsichore’s school, she would have wound up here. It may have taken her longer, but she would have found a way to claw out from beneath her mother’s thumb and into the air. She just wishes she would have waited now and found that alternative rather than hand the reins to Zeus. Now, in order to claim them back, it feels like she must hand over the reins to Hades, and she’s simply trying to decide whether this perception is correct or if she’s making excuses.

  “I’m choosing you,” he says again, his voice soft. “And I’m not saying that we can’t still be together if you decide against this. If you don’t want to make it public, I have no qualms about that.”

  “I just don’t want to feel like I’m leaving his chains for yours.” The guilt threads through her the moment she says the words, and she looks down at her hands. “The same way I felt like I left my mother’s chains for his.”

  “That’s the last thing I want to do, Persephone. I don’t want to tie you down to anything.”

  “But I want to be tied down to you.”

  The words come so naturally that she almost questions if she’d said them at all. It’s the truth nonetheless. She wa
nts to do this with him, to have a real relationship. Casual sex is fine, but it’s never really been her thing, and she’s curious to know what real stability feels like. Wanting Hades and being with Hades may be two different things, but only one of them offers that stability she seeks. The thing is that it’s because of him she wants that stability at all. Looking at him right now, there is no doubt in her mind that if she’s with him, she won’t have to worry about what comes next. He’ll be there no matter what. She realizes then that she is as sure of him as he is of her.

  “I mean, you know, not in a physically restraining way,” she at last clears up with a sheepish smile.

  “Oh, really because you sounded really enthusiastic about the idea of using my tie to-”

  “Shut up.”

  He chuckles, and the tension seems to disintegrate between them. She laughs too, but her cheeks are no doubt flushed red beneath her skin.

  He holds out his hand. “Come here.”

  She eyes him for a long moment before standing, taking his hand and allowing him to guide her into his lap. Her legs hang limp between his, toes barely touching the ground as he winds an arm around her waist. Her body’s reaction to his touch is instantaneous, muscles unraveling and pupils dilating. There will never be a time when she can be this close to him and remain unscathed. She knows this, and the reality is that - she doesn’t want to.

  One of the most beautifully bizarre things about being with Hades is that although it feels dangerous being so close to him, it is probably the safest place she could ever be. The danger is thrilling, the security is soothing, and everything in between is an addiction waiting to happen.

  His dark skin glows in the moonlight, not unlike hers, and she basks in the sheer artistry of it. She doesn’t know why he would call her closer now when they are attempting to have a serious conversation. It’s damn near impossible to think with him so close, infiltrating every single one of her senses and seeping into her bloodstream. Of all the things her mother and aunt had warned her of in this world, they had never warned her of this. They had warned her of Hades, yes, but they had never warned her about the sheer power of passion. Even Aphrodite had flitted over such intense emotion and fervent feeling. They never warned her to be wary of just how ready she would be to burn for someone. Then again, she doubts anyone but Hades could possibly have an effect such as this. Perhaps that is the real reason he is to be admired from a distance.