She smiled. “Yes. I think that will do nicely.”
Never see Kai again? Intellectually, I knew I had to say yes. What was our love against the fate of the world?
But emotionally? My throat had closed up. A cold sweat beaded my brow and icy fingers of panic clawed at me. I couldn’t say the words.
Kai had gone pale.
Kiki tsked again. “Demeter,” she said, disapproving, “You of all people should not force this.”
Something unspoken passed between them before Felicia relented. “Theo then.”
My heart stuttered again. That was just as bad. Its furious pounding echoed in my ears.
“Done.”
I swung to face Theo, who regarded me evenly. “This is bigger than us, Magoo.”
“No!” I turned to Felicia, pleading. “Not Kai. Not my friends. Anything else.” Hot tears pooled in my eyes. “I’ll be your slave. Whatever you want.”
“You can’t give me what I want,” she said. Felicia turned to Theo. “You’ll stay away from Sophie?”
“For the rest of my life,” he mocked.
She grimaced, not finding him funny. “Excellent. We have a deal. Swear?”
Theo nodded. “I swear on the Styx that I’ll stay away from her.”
I was crying outright now, trying to make her take it back, arguing that I hadn’t agreed to it. But neither she nor Theo paid me any attention.
Kiki ground out her cigarette and gave my arm a sympathetic pat. “It is done, Sophinchka.” She rose from the sofa and crossed to the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing at some far point.
I buried my face in my hands. Tears coursed down my cheeks. I felt Kai sit beside me and take me in his arms. He stroked my hair. “It’ll be okay.”
But it was never going to be okay again.
“Soph,” Theo said. I realized he had moved to sit beside me, too.
I raised wet eyes to his, wanting to ask him how he could have done this. Wanting to know if he could really just walk away from me? I saw that it was killing him, and he was doing it anyway.
Once I’d become a goddess, there had been a lot of points that I’d figured were tests. Big tests, small tests, it was the nature of the hero game. All of them were totally insignificant beside this one. With shockingly cold clarity, I knew that when Zeus had kidnapped me, when Demeter had almost ruined my relationship with Kai, even when I’d been bleeding out on the ground, I’d had one massively important thing that I didn’t have now.
Hope.
I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes. Then I pulled Theo into the fiercest, tightest hug I’d even given him.
He didn’t even resist. All he did was echo Kai. “It’ll be okay.”
“Can we talk details now?” At the sound of Felicia’s voice, I released Theo from the hug, but kept his hand in mine.
I knew my father was a psychopath. And while I had lots of colorful names for Felicia, that wasn’t one of them. Yes, Persephone had screwed her over and taken away her chance to rule Olympus, but still, watching her recline in her chair with an expression of mild boredom, waiting while my heart broke—I revised my opinion.
“Start talking.” Kai had a take-no-prisoners tone. He slung an arm around me and hauled me against him, his body practically humming with tension, his eyes never wavering from her.
“Your little ritual ground borders my temple in Eleusis. Where are the boundaries of the ward you created? Is there overlap?”
“Yes,” Theo replied. “On the southwest side.”
“Good.” Felicia nodded. “Beside the remains of the Lesser Propylaea,” she said, using the Greek word for the monumental gateway, “there is a cave. Inside is an entrance to the Underworld. Or, conversely, an exit to Earth.”
“You want us to go through Hades.” Kai’s disbelief was palpable.
“There is no other way for me to grant you inside access. Descend to the Underworld and make your way to the portal on that side.”
“Hades will kill us,” I piped up. My arms burned. I had to give up Theo and Felicia couldn’t even find a non-lethal solution for us?
“Then you’ll have to stay one step ahead. You’ve been quite successful thus far.” The look she shot me was almost proud.
“I’ll deal with my father,” Kai said.
“Do you know where to find the portal on the Underworld side?” Theo asked Kai.
Kai thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Leave it to me.”
“Then we time this as close to the equinox as possible.” Theo stroked his chin. “We want to get through and take down Zeus’ ward. Then we let Festos take down ours and cleanse the site in as little time as possible before you two say the ritual.” He looked at Felicia.
“I’ll open it early Thursday,” she said. “It won’t alert Hades or Zeus one way or the other. I will ensure that the way between the two realms is open, and that your passage through is safe. At which point you will be inside their ward and can proceed.” She raised an eyebrow. “Are we done?”
“Swear on the Styx,” I said, barely audible.
My body ached with the knowledge that my time with Theo was counting down, in a gut wrenching, marrow-of-my-bones kind of way. If I was going to have to endure this blinding heartache, and a future without my best friend, then I could bind Felicia to her word.
“I beg your pardon?” She sounded insulted.
“Swear. On. The. Styx.”
“Such a petulant child,” she protested.
“Swear, Demeter.” I startled at Kiki’s voice. Still standing by the windows, she had been so quiet that I’d forgotten she was still there.
Felicia looked like she couldn’t wait to have this over with. “I swear on the Styx that it shall be as I decreed,” she said, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Now you. I want you bound to give me power this time.”
Whatever. Not like I had a choice. “Fine. I swear on—” A knifelike pain slashed across my left wrist. With a gasp I stared down, but it was unmarked.
“It’s the oath,” Theo explained. “The binding hurts. Just say it.” He got up and rocked on his heels as if stretching out his back.
“I swear on the—” Pain flared across my right wrist.
“What’d I miss?” I knew that voice. Behind me.
Words failed me as my personal tormentor and classmate, Bethany Russo-Hill sauntered into Felicia’s living room, in her usual ridiculously pricy yoga gear, all streaming dark red hair and deceptively innocent blue eyes. She gave Kai, Theo, and me a dismissive glance, and then plopped into a chair like she lived there. Which given Bethany’s god groupie tendencies and Felicia’s desire to inflict maximum emotional damage on me, may actually have been the case.
Felicia turned a doting smile on Bethany. “Sophie was just swearing to put me in power in Olympus and never see her little friend Theo again.”
“Oh. Cool.”
I waved my throbbing right hand between her and Felicia. “Are you kidding me?” I exploded.
Bethany rolled her eyes. “God, Demeter, you sure she’s really yours? Such a drama queen.”
Viney light shot out of my palms, snaked around Bethany, and began to squeeze.
“Sophie!” Kiki hurried over to me and smacked my arm. My light flew back into my palms.
Bethany rubbed her sides, giving that “poor wounded me” look that she’d pulled so many times before, back at Hope Park.
Take her out. Another moment of me and my Persephone voice in absolute agreement.
“I’m going to kill you,” I said to Bethany.
She laughed. “Try it. I’m under D’s protection.”
I wanted to claw her eyes out. She was on such familiar terms with my mother that she’d given her a nickname. Whereas, I wasn’t even invited to call her Demeter. I couldn’t even look at Bethany because my hands literally shook with the desire to annihilate her. My Persephone voice screamed at me to do it.
My right wrist still burned. I hadn’t finished the oath. My si
ght wavered. My body vibrated with rage.
“Calm down, Goddess.”
I ignored Kai.
“Sophie, the rims of your eyes are turning black,” he said, grasping my shoulders.
I shook him free. I didn’t care.
“Finish the oath, daughter,” Felicia said. “Then Bethany and I can chat.”
There was a loud crraaaack from outside. Loud enough to be heard twenty-three floors up.
Everyone except me turned to the window. I kept my sights on Bethany and Felicia.
“Magoo,” Theo said, his worry evident, “you just broke the branches on all the trees in a two block radius.”
I barely registered him. My entire world had shrunk down to the two people before me. My body was rigid with the will power it took to use my words and not my fury. “The night of the Winter Formal you claimed to love me, Felicia. Was it all a lie?”
“No,” she said slowly.
“Then how can you align yourself with someone who stabbed me? Murdering Persephone wasn’t enough for you? You had to team up with likeminded others?”
Bethany chortled her amusement.
Later for you, I vowed.
Felicia uncrossed her legs and leaned back in the chair. “Well, darling, you do have that affect on people. Maybe you need to take a hard look at yourself and figure out why you prompt that reaction in so many. Now, the oath?”
I kept silent, my eyes hard and unwavering.
Felicia could tell I’d say nothing until she answered my question. “I wanted power, you refused to help me get it. Bethany is my Plan B. I help her achieve her goals—”
“Told you I’d be famous.” Bethany didn’t even bother to look over as she spoke. She was too busy braiding a thick strand of hair.
“And in return,” Felicia continued, “with the world at Bethany’s feet, she helps me rebuild the adoration I knew before.”
“Your building your power,” Theo cut in.
Felicia acknowledged him with a one-shouldered shrug. She picked up her glass.
“For what?” I demanded.
Felicia’s grip on the booze tightened. “I answered your question. Now say the damn oath.”
Ordinarily, the pain in my wrist might have been enough to make me say it. But I was so far into my own hurt and anger that I could absorb the fire I felt, and add it to my own hot indignation.
I could feel the pain sliding away. Out of my wrist, through my arm, and into my fiery core. My wrist stopped hurting. Flush with the triumph of that, I shook my head. “My end of the deal is off.”
Everyone in the room looked horrified. “But you swore,” Theo said. “You can’t go back on that.”
“Technically, I never finished.”
“Yeah, but the spirit of the thing,” he began.
“Can kiss my ass.”
“Think this through, Goddess,” Kai urged.
I funneled every ounce of rage and destruction into a megawatt smile, and turned it on Felicia. “I will die before I hand power over to you.”
“That can and will be arranged,” she said.
“Happy to take another shot at it,” Bethany offered, starting a matching braid.
I ignored her and delivered the best part. “Here’s the thing though, mom, you did swear. So I’ll be taking that safe passage on the equinox.”
Felicia was super ticked off now. She knew I had her. “Last chance, Sophie. Finish the oath or you’ll be sorry.”
The room was thick with tension.
“Bite me.” My voice was steady, but inside I seethed.
“Then you leave me no choice.” She looked at Kiki. “Make it hurt.”
Ten
I didn’t feel any pain but it did get exceedingly dark. Heavy, all-encompassing, like light was an alien concept here. Dark. Did Felicia make Kiki blind me? I tried to touch my face and realized I couldn’t move. I lay on my back, my hands pinned to my sides and my legs clamped together.
I. Freaked.
Light blasted out of my eyes and palms in my panic, and I felt something fall away from me. But between the blinding flash of my powers, and the return to Situation Normal blackness, I couldn’t actually see what it was.
Free from my bindings, I groped around until I found them. Cool, thin cloth had wrapped me like a mummy. Not strips of bandage though, one solid strip. That twigged something. I lay there, trying to grab hold of the elusive fact dancing just out of memory.
A shroud. That was it! But my satisfaction at remembering quickly turned to dread as the implications of that thought hit me. Shrouds were used for one thing. Burial.
My hand flew up and hit a heavy earth barrier above my head. I started to pant. Had Felicia buried me alive? Awkwardly, I contorted myself so I was on all fours, since there wasn’t enough room to sit up straight. My legs got tangled in the flowing long dress that I now wore. Trust Felicia to ensure a wardrobe change.
Face tilted upward, I scrabbled furiously at the dirt, my blood icy with fear as I felt my oxygen draining away. My palms sweated, my breath managed to both hitch and hyperventilate. Loamy earth clogged my fingernails as I clawed at the earth to get out. But it was hopeless. I was trapped.
From my position on all fours, I collapsed face down, acking out the taste of soil. I inhaled a nose full of musty air, with an undertone of deep rot. That smell, more than anything, hammered home the finality of my predicament. This was it. Just like in my vision, buried alive. I felt hollow. The futility of it all, the stupidity and surreality of coming so close only to lose overwhelmed me in spikes of equal measures: fear and despair.
I lay there, a boneless heap, listening to my racing heart and every precious remaining breath. I thought about how I’d left things with Hannah. About how I’d been cheated out of what little time I’d have with Theo. And Kai …
Maybe it was better if I didn’t think anymore.
I didn’t want to lie there until I starved, or suffocated, or whatever. If I was buried alive, maybe there was a rock or something to knock myself unconscious with. In this situation, patience wouldn’t be a virtue. Just scary.
My arms were bent up against my sides, my elbows hovering around my ears. I stretched out one arm, fully expecting to encounter more dirt. There was nothing but empty air. I stretched my arm out a little further, my fingertips exploring the absolute blackness. More air.
I pulled myself back up onto all fours and carefully examined my space. My back fit snug against the dirt ceiling. The sides were close in on me. I couldn’t turn around to check behind me, because I was Alice-in-Wonderland huge here. I crawled forward then backward for a bit. Nothing stopped me. Not buried alive then. In a tunnel.
Just as I started to wonder where I was, and why I was there, I felt something skitter over my foot.Wonder later, get out now. I began my world record speed crawl to freedom.
“Kai? Theo?” Were they nearby? It was so dark, they could have been right in front of me and I’d never have known. But no one answered me. Which begged the question of where they were. Back at Felicia’s?
It was crampy joint-stiffening work inching along like this. The tunnel was uncomfortably hot and stuffy. Every few minutes, I had to wipe the salty sweat from my eyes and stretch my neck as best I could, so as not to solidify into pretzel form. I felt like I’d been crawling for hours, the tunnel spiraling downward in long loops all the while. All this quality time alone in my head allowed me to progress through the five stages of dealing with my mother.
Stage one: Denial. The panic, the utter cluelessness about where I was—it couldn’t be because Felicia had sent me tunneling to the Underworld, could it? Felicia had said we needed to cross through it to get to her exit. And a lot of the myths talked about how people descended to Hades. Was she really sending me there on my own?
That led to stage two: Disbelief. Seriously? Again? She’d screwed me over again? Showed not disinterest, but active desire to do harm. The more I thought about it, the more I felt certain that Hades was precisely where
she was sending me. If the Underworld was like Manhattan, I was a single occupant driver in the Holland tunnel from Jersey.
Hopefully, there wouldn’t be a toll booth. Because I’d paid enough.
Stage three: Rage. Lots of name calling. Lots of threats.
Finally, I swear it felt like I could have graduated and gone to college by this point, I saw a pinprick of light up ahead. I blinked to be sure that it wasn’t some weird trick. Like my brain trying to fool me into seeing it. Wishful thinking made manifest.
But no. The light grew brighter and brighter until I could see a grate. And grateful I was as I made my way to it. Daylight filtered in from up ahead, which meant that I was reaching the end of this stupid non-scenic route.
I shoved my weight against the grate. Nada. It wouldn’t budge. Waa waa waa waaaa.
Stage four: Laughter. Perhaps a tad unhinged. Because of course Felicia wasn’t going to make any of it easy on me. Foolish girl for thinking otherwise.
The grate was made of crisscrossing metal bars, which were too narrow for me to get through, with the bars themselves unbreakable. And unshootable. My light did nothing except slip off of them.
I mentally shook myself and progressed into stage five: Determination. All right, I had to get through a grate. Could be worse.
The ground rumbled with low, deep menace.
And hello, worse.
Cerberus stepped in front of the grate, blocking out pretty much all the light. He reminded me of one of the Wild Things. Roaring his terrible roar and gnashing his terrible teeth.
“Nice boy,” I said, soothingly.
Rumbling growls became ear-splitting barks. This was, however, a step up from the first time that I’d met Cerberus in my Sophie form. Back then he’d tried to snap me in two. I felt about as cuddly toward him.
I flapped one hand at him from the safety of my side of the barrier. “Quiet,” I hissed.
He stepped closer to me and sniffed with two of his three heads. Then, amazingly, he shut up. He turned six black-as-pitch eyes on me and waited, heads bobbing expectantly.
Awwww. He was kind of cute in a stinky, knobby, death beast way.
I wasn’t sure what he wanted. But I did know he was my best shot at help right now. Did I dare trust him to leave me intact? I had very limited options. I could either try and crawl my way back up and out of the Underworld with no guarantee that there was a way out on the other end or I could risk trying to get Cerberus’ help and hope that he didn’t tear me apart like a chew toy this time.
My Life From Hell Page 12