Before I Fell

by Brandy Greeley

  He gazed down at me, expression was torn, and I knew. He didn’t have to say anything, but I could see the gears working in his mind, trying to spin this one around so he didn’t hurt my feelings further, but if we couldn’t have an open, honest discussion when things were falling apart around us, how could we hope to be okay the rest of the time?

  “I’m just going to…find somewhere else to be…” Poseidon said behind me, sneaking out the door, and I almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, save for Hades, who glared at me, nostrils flared.

  “You don’t think that I value your ideas? Your opinions?” He asked, voice low and brooding.

  “I know you don’t, not fully, and I also think that you knew the dock expansion wouldn’t work and didn’t say anything to me about it at the time, which is just as bad as if you’d pushed them off the dock yourself.”

  He eyed me for a few seconds, eyebrows lifted in challenge. “Are you, by any chance, insinuating that I’m ineffectual at my job? That I’m slacking off in my duties?”

  “I’m saying,” I said, stepping closer to him as he watched me, expression wary. “That you let your feelings for me overshadow your expertise and because of it, those souls are now Furies.”

  “You shoulder no blame for this, of course,” he said accusingly. “You wanted to be my equal, and I’ll continue to treat you as such if you’ll do the same for me.”

  “Bullshit, Hades. Questioning my leadership abilities and letting me make a complete ass of myself is not treating me like an equal.”

  “You sent me away!” He snarled back, face inches from mine. “You didn’t give me the chance to help you with the soul load and do you know why I stayed away? Because it’s what you wanted. You said you could handle it, and I allowed it, though it killed me to be parted from you. That won’t happen again.”

  I regarded him coolly, though I knew what he was really saying.

  I can’t trust you alone with the souls anymore.

  He may as well have shouted that at me, too.

  “So, me flying solo…”

  He shook his head. “This is the only way. We’re better together, and especially now that so many vengeful, angry spirits are roaming the Underworld, if I hope to have even the slightest chance of protecting you, I need to be here. End of discussion.”

  And there it was-protecting me-same as he’d done nearly every minute since I first arrived in the Underworld. Problem was, it was exhausting having to constantly be protected at all like I was a fragile package.

  “Well, since you clearly don’t need me,” I said, gathering my laptop and notebook together, “I’ll be in the library.”

  “Love…” He moved to grab me, but I stepped just out of reach.

  “No, Hades. You’ve made your point, and now I make mine. You don’t get to decide things for me because you’re scared my ideas will get me killed. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe I’ve been living on borrowed time, anyway? That Kronos’ death blow should’ve been the final end of me, and both you and Hera interfered in the Fates’ plan?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it, though? Think about it for a second. If I were just another random soul, would you have brought me back to life, or sent me onwards to Elysium? The only reason you didn’t was that I’m your damned soulmate, but that’s not good enough.”

  He stood, pacing the length of the room.

  “This whole time, I thought being in the Underworld, writing your story and letting you train me with the souls was your way of helping me, but I realize now that it was always about you and what you wanted, never mind the fact that I would’ve been just fine living the life I had before I met you.”

  “Stop.” He was angry now, running a hand through his hair.

  “I was happy with you when Persephone was cursed. I could see myself spending the rest of my mortal life here, and thought that maybe, just maybe, you felt the same way about me, too. Then she came back, and things became a complicated balancing act between how you felt about me and your duty towards her. The worst part of this is that you’re too stubborn and stupid to acknowledge it, so we’re always right back where we started.”

  “I said stop!” He whirled on me, grabbing my shoulders roughly as I winced and bit back a cry of pain. “I asked Hera to bring you back because I can’t lose you. I broke the rules in not relinquishing your soul, and I’d do it all again. Do you understand?”

  I did but said nothing, even as he shook me once and held me close.

  It was sad, really-this duty and sense of obligation he felt towards me, and there was only one way I could see to stop him from having to save my life over and over again, but it made the blood pound through my veins.

  So risky, Emma. You don’t know that it’ll work.

  If it didn’t, though, I was trapped here, repeating the same cycle I’d been on for the past four years, and I’d never truly be happy anywhere.

  If the Furies find you before you’re able to finish it…

  I wouldn’t let them.

  I slid out of his arms, giving him a tight-lipped smile as I moved towards the door. “I’m going to go do some work-don’t wait up for me,” I said, and he frowned, ever alert.

  “Be wary and watchful for now,” he said, and I nodded again and stepped out into the hallway, glancing over my shoulder now and then to make sure he wasn’t following me. I wouldn’t put it past him, but for what I had planned, I needed to be alone.

  He’s going to kill me.

  This was what he wanted for you, remember?

  When I reached the throne room, I checked my surroundings one last time like a thief in the night, telling myself it would be alright in the end as I raced down the staircase to the lower levels. I passed servants and staff, their penetrating gazes making me flinch as I thought about the possibility of Hades setting spies on my movement through the castle, just like he had in Portland. I’d tried to seem nonchalant in my dismissal of him, but he was smart and cunning and knew me too well. Had he suspected?

  Just make it to the docks. It won’t matter after that.

  I’d prided myself on my ability to stay mortal on my terms, and common sense screamed a warning at me now, but I wouldn’t survive another Fury attack, and I wanted to live, dammit. More than anything.

  I stepped through the double doors onto the bank of the River Styx, removing my shoes and socks as I squidged my toes in the sand, gazing out across the endless waters. I hadn’t been in the ocean since I almost drowned and, truth be told, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to doing it again, this time by choice. But there was only one way I was going to save my life, and this was it.

  It's just like taking a cold bath or going for a frigid swim.

  Approaching the waters’ edge, I gazed down at the swirling luminescence, entranced by bits of opal that tumbled together in the waves. If I did this, it was forever. I could never go back to the person I was before but wasn’t it worth it? Sacrificing a part of myself that I’d so stubbornly clung to in the hope of finding a new life for myself-one which wasn’t dictated by the gods? I chose to keep coming back to the Underworld month after month-Hades gave up ordering me around a long time ago, when he realized that I wasn’t returning because I was tied to his home but to him-to the couple I’d hoped we might be if we gave it a chance…which, of course, was now shattered by his refusal to let go of the past.

  One step, that's all it would take to permanently alter the course of my life, and I hesitated, thoughts tumbling over themselves like clothes in a dryer.

  “’Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light’.”

  I jumped and spun around as Poseidon joined me. “I didn’t take you for a poet.”

  He smiled. “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Emma dear, but I didn’t write it. Some silly mortal a long time ago with a receding hairline. Taking a midnight swim?” He gestured out across the water,
and I felt my cheeks flush crimson.

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “If you’d bothered to ask my opinion on the subject-”

  “You would’ve told me it was a bad idea and then reported me to Hades.”

  “No,” he said slowly, picking up a smooth, flat pebble “I would’ve escorted you here myself.” He chucked it over the surface where it skipped six times and sank. I rubbed my hands over my arms as a light breeze lifted tendrils of hair from my face.

  “Oh right, you’re on the ‘let’s-make-Emma-immortal’ boat. Forgot about that.”

  “I want the same thing you do. For you to have the freedom to choose how you spend the next one hundred years of your life, though I’ve never kept it a secret which direction I personally leaned on that front,” he said, folding his arms over his chest as he appraised me. “If you decided, after all, that an immortal life, with all the perks and drawbacks it brings, wasn’t what you really wanted, I’d drop the subject forever.”

  “This is the only way to stop the Furies from killing me-all three hundred of them.”

  “I know.”

  “And it means I’d have eternity to explore my relationship with Hades, whatever that looks like.”

  “Sounds like you’ve given this a fair bit of thought.”

  “I just don’t know that it’s the best option-what if I’m overlooking something?”

  “The best choices aren’t always the most straight-forward. Sometimes you’ve got to trust your gut and quiet the voices inside your head.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for that, Yoda. What if I do this, and then later regret it? It’s a massive decision to make on a whim.”

  He looked back at me like I was crazy. “Every choice taken boils down to a moment. You may call it a whim, but the decision is the culmination of all that came before. You’ll never regret choosing to not die, Emma. Because that’s the only alternative. Inaction means the Furies find you, and then you die. Taking a little dip in that,” he pointed to the River Styx, “is the answer, and you know it. Now, time to get wet.” He pushed me towards the water and I dug my heels in, but he was so much stronger than I ever would be, and I lost my balance, cartwheeling forward before landing hard on my hands and knees…smack dab in the icy waves. “Don’t you dare crawl back out,” Poseidon warned behind me and I gasped as saltwater lashed my face and hair, the sand and water mixture beneath me sucking me out further. “If you do, you’ll become like Achilles, and we both know how that ended. Under, Emma, go under.”

  I surged forward, arms and legs kicking away from the shore as I took a deep breath, diving deep, and felt a sort of pressure in my chest, like heartburn only more intense, bubbling to the surface, and I jerked and fought the sensation, even as my limbs grew taut…rigid…immortality zipping through my whole body like a lightning bolt and I writhed and thrashed as my heart galloped through my chest.

  Muffled voices, a splash, and I was yanked to my feet again, a single, frustrated growl slicing the air.

  “What did you do?”

  Hades.

  A sickening crunch, a yowl of pain and I thrust my body between the two men as Poseidon stumbled away, blood dripping from his nose.

  “It’s not his fault, it’s mine!” I said as Hades grabbed ahold of me, pressing my body to his, another guttural grumble starting low in his chest before bursting out into the crisp sea air and he pulled away long enough to cup my face in one hand, tilting it to his.

  “What did you do?”

  I licked my lips-tasted saltwater and brine-and looked down at my now slightly-glowing body like there was a light trapped just beneath my skin.

  “I made a choice. So, if you want to punish someone, punish me, not him, because he was just trying to help.”

  He held me close again as he tried to calm his breathing. “Just tell me why.”

  “Because I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for those new Furies to pick me off.”

  “I told you before, and I’ll say it again, love, I can protect-”

  I shook him off like rain on a pissed-off cat. “No, you can’t. One or two, maybe, but three hundred? I can’t run away from the mess I made, so I found another option. Are you honestly going to stand here and tell me that you’re upset that I’m immortal now? After all your pestering on the subject?”

  “I wanted it to happen in your own time, not because you felt pressured to do so.”

  “Was there ever going to be a right time to suddenly decide I wanted to be immortal? I took the only road I could see clearly.”

  “There were other ways,” he gritted through his teeth, eyes flicking from me to Poseidon and back again. “You should’ve come to me for help, instead of trying to do this yourself. If the Furies found you before I did…”

  “First of all, they didn’t and secondly, when are you going to realize that I can handle myself? That I’m actually capable of having a thought without you telling me what to do? I wasn’t going to hide out in my rooms like a scared little schoolgirl forever, waiting for the Furies to come for me, or for you to get killed trying to save me, and the sooner you realize this, the better.”

  His mouth turned downwards, pressed into a paper-thin line. “This will have consequences.”

  “Fuck the consequences,” I snarled. “This was my choice.”

  “So you keep saying,” he said, stepping towards me, “but I think you’ll care when you hear the opinions of the Fates. They may not be so kind about this seemingly reckless and ill-thought out plan.”

  I frowned, confused. “Free will doesn’t apply?”

  “Not when you take matters into your own hands, Emma.”

  “Taking matters into my own hands is the whole idea of free will! So it’s okay for a god or goddess to make me immortal, but the second I do it myself, it’s against the rules?”

  “You’ve messed with the balance of human nature. Despite what Poseidon, or even Hera, will tell you, no god can make you immortal without getting permission from the Fates first. What you did was unheard of.”

  “Trying to save me from the Furies would mess with the balance of nature, too, you know. Or does that not count?”

  “Preserving life and changing its form are two entirely separate things. Something I could’ve told you, had you sought me out. But once again, you neglected to involve me in matters which directly impacts both of our lives. I convinced myself that would stop once you were here on a more permanent basis, and it saddens me that I was wrong.”

  “This wasn’t done to spite you, brother,” Poseidon said, laying a hand on Hades’ arm. “Even if you’re right about the Fates, she’s more or less safe now from anything that wants to hurt or kill her. We’ll deal with the rest as it comes.”

  I shivered violently, rubbing my hands up and down my arms as Hades wrapped me in his embrace, abandoning the fierce scowl.

  “Let’s get you inside and cleaned up. Poseidon, I’d make myself scarce for a while if I were you.”

  Please stop picking on him, Hades. He had good intentions.

  He shouldn't have been here in the first place. Maybe you would’ve changed your mind had he not pushed you in and-

  Are you really that thick-headed? You’re just sore that he was here, and you weren’t. Get over it, okay? I regret nothing.

  You might, depending on what the Fates say.

  I’m not afraid of them.

  You should be because I don’t know how this will end.

  Poseidon smiled. “One of us had to have the balls to do it, too bad that wasn’t you.”

  Hades rushed him, fire in his eyes, but I slapped a palm to his chest, leveling my gaze with his.

  “He’s baiting you. Let it go.”

  “Track me down sometime, Emma, if you ever grow tired of this whole macho He-Man act. It’s already grating, and I’m not around him all the time like you are,” Poseidon drawled, flicking a piece of lint off his shirt, and I rounded on him.

  “You’re not making this
situation any better by being an absolute git,” I said, a little bit of bite entering my voice. “I appreciate what you did for me today, but if you don’t disappear, now, Hades will try to kill you, and I don’t want him to have to live with the guilt.”

  He smiled, bowing gracefully as he twirled around and strode from sight, and I shivered again, this time feeling the exhaustion deep in my bones like I had a cold and severe jet lag all at the same time.

  Hades bent over me, scooping me up in his arms as he turned us towards the castle again.

  “You’ll feel strange for a few days, but it should subside,” he said, carrying me up the marble staircase. “Of course, you’d know this if you bothered to come find me in the first place.”

  “We’re not doing this again,” I said, twisting until he set me on my feet. “I don’t owe you an apology, Hades. Not when this is exactly what you wanted for me.”

  “What I wanted was for us to be a team, for you to trust me enough to confide in me, and instead you let Poseidon help you.”

  “Let? I let him help me?” I rounded on him, teeth clenched. “He poofed out of nowhere to push me into the waves, but I made the decision to do it long before he ever showed up. Now, can we please drop the subject? I’m freezing, slightly on the hungry side, and I have some Furies to beat to a pulp,” I said as I strode to the bathroom, stripping as I went. Hades paused in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, piercing me with eyes which glowed in the dim light. “I’m kidding. About the Furies, that is.”

  “Forgive me if I had a hard time believing that.”

  I glanced at him around the shower curtain. “Welcome to Emma, 2.0.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “I don’t think you realize the severity of this meeting,” Hades said, holding my hair back as I puked into the toilet. I grimaced and reached a shaky hand up to flush, leaning my head against the wall.

  “I’m in the Underworld with the stomach flu,” I said, drawing my knees to my chest. “Whatever they want to do with me now, let them.”

  I moaned and jerked forward, retching again and again as my fingernails hissed against the porcelain, clutching the bowl like a lifeline.