When the music dropped, the crowd in front screamed for more. I looked backstage to see Amy beaming at me. She may be a cheap knock off, but she looked so happy. I owed it to her. I owed it to Atë. I owed it to myself to make the past the past.
I cut off her sentence as I form right in front of her. Raising a single hand, I gently cup her face and bring a single finger up to my lips, silencing her. “Shh, shh, all you do is talk, that’s all I heard downstairs. I would prefer the screams of the damned over your voice. Please, just stop talking. You see, the problem is that you are all in the way of unfinished business. It’s just that simple.”
I pick up my bed and throw it into the large living room area. It crashes and breaks, just like my heart. A dating show. After everything. I am angry, hurt, and disgusted. I am a fool, beyond a fool. I feel dirty.
I silently curse Eros because he knows what he is doing. He is playing with me, like a cat plays with a mouse. He says something to pull more information from another, and back and forth they go. Only I am not a house cat, much less a mouse.
Is Hera alive? Safe? Did my bargaining work? Did Zeus set me free? Am I imagining all of this? Another nightmare? Did I really escape or just trade one prison for another? I have so many questions and no answers.
My grandfather’s eyes crackle with life for the first time since I entered the office, then they narrow. “You’re not suggesting you’re planning to break her out, are you? I’m still dealing with the fallout from the last prison break.”
“That after everything you did, after everything she did, I watched them take her away, and I actually felt guilty.” I stop, raising my head to look at him. It is the first time I admitted that to anyone. Let alone myself. “So yeah, guess my crimes have earned me eternity.”
His back is towards me as he stares out at the night sky. It makes my heart drop. My father is usually confident and happy. It is hard to see him anything but that.
The hands were still spinning in lazy, counter-clockwise circles. I looked down at the watch. My eyes glowed in the reflection in the glass, but…nothing. I could feel no power surging through me, no pull into the watch.
“Please, Hades. I’ll do anything,” I begged, my voice straining. “I’ll leave, and I’ll never come back. They won’t even know I am gone. I swear it.”
My eyes stung once more at the memory. The hollow ache in my chest that had formed was still present.
My chest tightened at the very thought of her. My hands immediately loosened their grip on the winged creature. This thing in front of me missed her too. “Yeah, sorry little guy. I can’t help you. She’s gone.”
Clio nodded, taking the seat opposite me. I could barely look her in the eye; it was only a few hours ago we were playing that ridiculous game. I absentmindedly rubbed my lips on my sleeve.
turned back, facing Erebus, an ache forming once more in my chest. This wasn’t the same feeling I had carried all those years with the hatred for my father. No, this one felt different. It was longing for something, I now realized, I wanted more than revenge.
I’m a fool for thinking I can come here and what—admit my feelings to her? I must be crazy.
