The Struggle

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  let me help you.”

  He wanted to help me and there was nothing wrong with that. Right? My gaze dropped to my hand. A frown pulled at my lips. My fingers were covered with dirt, stained with blood. My arm was the same. Only patches of skin were clean, and that was really stretching the definition of clean. And those bracelets. Those damn bracelets were still secured firmly around my wrists.

  “I . . . I need to shower.” The moment I said those words, I knew how ridiculous they sounded, because even fresh and clean, I didn’t look like that and a shower wasn’t going to fix a damn thing that had gone wrong right now, but I still wanted to wash the dirt and the blood off.

  His brows snapped together. “Let me take you back to bed. Have you eaten?”

  Running a hand along the clammy skin of my arm, I shook my head when my fingers reached one of the bracelets. “I don’t . . . remember the last time.”

  The empty stare disappeared. Something akin to grief twisted his striking features. “Then please, please let me get something for you to eat first.”

  Swallowing against the lump in my throat, I thought food would go a long way in easing the hollowed feeling in my stomach, but I needed a shower. “I just need to . . . to get clean first.”

  His eyes widened as his body jolted once more, and he opened his mouth to speak but seemed at a loss of what to say. Then his chest rose sharply. “Okay. I’ll help you.”

  I pushed away from the wall. “I can do it. I just need to . . . know where a bathroom is.”

  “Josie, stop. You can barely stand up.” He reached out again, and this time he didn’t stop. He carefully wrapped his hands around my upper arms. I winced and wasn’t sure if it was because his touch hurt or because he was touching me. “Please let me help you.”

  We stood nearly toe-to-toe in silence. I was staring at his throat this time, and it was . . . was like we were suddenly two strangers. Two people who had split in life and gone in two very different directions, unexpectedly brought back together.

  “I’m going to help you,” Seth said after a moment. “There is no way that’s not going to happen.”

  Too weak to really fight him on this, I nodded, and Seth moved so fast, I had no idea how I ended up in his arms, cradled to his chest, my cheek resting on his shoulder, and my heart went through the juice grinder again. There were so many times while I was held by Hyperion that I’d feared I’d never be in Seth’s arms again, and now I was.

  And he’d been holding someone else minutes ago.

  Tears pricked the lids of my eyes. There was so much to worry about and so many things to cry and stress over, and now . . . now this.

  He was striding down the hall and we were back in the bedroom within a blink of an eye.

  Seth walked to a set of double doors across from the bed and nudged them open with his booted foot. He was quiet as he set me down on the rim of a tub that was the size of a small swimming pool. “Shower or bath?” he asked quietly.

  Looking around the opulent bathroom, I felt sorely out of place among the white marble and lush, hanging bath towels. “This . . . this is your home now?”

  “It’s where I grew up.” Seth knelt in front of me, drawing my attention. There was no missing the fact he didn’t refer to it as his home. “This used to be one of the guest bedrooms and baths.”

  Holy crap, what did the master bedroom look like then?

  “Do you want me to draw a bath or a shower?” he repeated gently.

  Soaking in a bath sounded wonderful, but the water would be so gross after a second of me being in there. “Shower.”

  Seth held my gaze for a moment and then rose swiftly. Turning, he walked over to an enclosed, step-down shower. There was no curtain, but with the high wall around it, there was no need. Well, for most people. I would most likely flood the bathroom.

  As he turned on the water and the overhead rainfall shower came to life, it really began to sink in that I was free. That I wasn’t going to wake up and find Hyperion looming over me. I wasn’t going to be forced into another room. I didn’t have to fight back every waking second. A shudder worked its way through me, and a small moan escaped.

  “You okay?” Seth was immediately kneeling in front of me again, his hands on my knees. “Josie?”

  “Yeah,” I whispered, clearing my throat. “I’m just . . .” I was a lot of things. Scared. Sore. Confused. Relieved. Hurting. Exhausted. My heart felt like it had broken a thousand times in a span of a few days.

  “That’s not true. It was a stupid question for me to ask.” Seth placed the tips of his fingers on my cheek. “I wish I could take the pain away. I would do anything to do that for you.”

  My breath caught. He sounded so genuine, but what was he doing out there? This whole time? How did I get here? Did he fight the Titans and free me? I had so many questions, but I didn’t have the will to ask them at the moment.

  I could only say, “You left me.”

  Seth’s eyes slammed shut and he dropped his hand. Steam filled up the bathroom. He lowered his head until his chin almost touched my knee. “I know. Saying I’m sorry is never going to change that or what happened to you, but I am.” His lashes lifted and he peered up at me through them, and his eyes looked oddly moist. “I have never been more sorry about anything in my life.”

  The twisting motion in my chest increased as I croaked out, “I need to shower.”

  Seth went as still as one of the statues out in the hall and then he exhaled unevenly. “Can you stand in there?”

  It wasn’t going to be easy, but I wasn’t sure I could handle Seth helping me. Yeah, he’d seen all of this before, but I . . . I just couldn’t. “I can.”

  He didn’t look like he believed me, but he touched me again. Just the tips of his fingers against my cheek, and I fought the urge to press against his touch. “You’re safe here. You will be safe from here on out.”

  There was the word again. Safe. That word rang as a falsehood, because if I had learned anything about my time with the Titans, no one was safe anywhere, but I nodded anyway.

  Seth stared at me for a few more seconds. “I’ll be waiting outside. If you need anything, call for me.”

  He lingered and then dropped his hand. He rose and left the bathroom, leaving the door cracked open so he could obviously hear me if I busted my ass, which was entirely possible.

  I sat on the bathtub for a couple of minutes and then I got down to the painful process of stripping out of my disgusting clothes. I left them on the floor, never wanting to see them again as I walked toward the shower, moving like I was ninety years old and passing a fogged mirror on the way.

  I couldn’t make out much of how I looked, but I could see enough to know I was an utter mess.

  Clutching the half-wall of the shower, I stepped in and under the warm stream of water. I gasped as the water hit my skin. My body simultaneously rejoiced and recoiled. Raw areas stung and burned like a thousand fire ants were gnawing on my skin, but I stayed under the stream, lifting my face up. The water washed away days of grime and dried blood as my knees wobbled.

  It could be worse.

  Those were the words I repeated over and over as I looked down and grabbed a bottle of shampoo. Pink and brown-tinted water swirled along the basin, cycling down the drain. It took two shampoos, one round of conditioner, and a complete, achy body scrub down for the water to run clear.

  And I still stood under the shower, picking at the dirt under my fingernails, and when my nails were clean I washed myself once more. I soaped up my wrists and tried to work the bracelets off until my skin was red and hurt, and only then did I give up. The bathroom smelled like a botanical garden by that point.

  I didn’t allow myself to think through the whole process. Not until I was reaching for the faucets did the first real thought break through the haze and the simple joy of being clean again.

  My mom was dead.

  She was truly gone.

  Through the whole time I was with Hyperion, I could
n’t let myself think too much about, but now that I was here, I could see her face, the almost always distant glaze to her eyes, the sweet smile on her lips.

  There would be no saving her.

  No more looking forward to seeing her.

  My father had lied and he had left me to rot with Hyperion, and I had rotted, from the inside out. The pain. The darkness. The constant fear. I’d lived in that for days and days, and it was still inside me, still haunting every breath.

  And now I was here. I was with Seth. I was where I’d planned to be before I learned about my mother and before Hyperion had taken me, and it was all wrong. That had not been the reunion I’d anticipated, the one that had helped me keep my sanity in the long, dark hours trapped underground. It had just been wrong.

  Clapping my hands over my face, I stepped back until I hit the cool tile wall. I slid down and curled into myself, drawing my knees to my chest. The position hurt. Tugged on raw skin. Pressed on bruised areas, but the tears started and it was like a floodgate opening up as I buried my face between my knees.

  I don’t know how long I sat in the corner of the shower. It could’ve been minutes or hours, but the tears didn’t stop, and I couldn’t move—couldn’t force myself past all the pain and fear that festered inside me, the all-consuming, sucktastic realization that I was weak. I wasn’t like Alex.

  If I were stronger, I wouldn’t be sitting here, in the shower, sobbing like a kid who didn’t have anyone show up for their birthday party. If I had my shit together, I would already be out of this shower, ready to talk about what I saw, what I knew.

  But I couldn’t move.

  Couldn’t get my brain past any of this.

  I was broken, truly, utterly broken inside, and the panic building in the back of my throat told me there was possibly no chance of fixing that, because I knew only I could repair this, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do so.

  Or maybe I did.

  Maybe once I got all this messy emotion out of me, I could piece myself back together, because I had to. I knew I did, but right now, right this very second, I couldn’t.

  So caught up in my own head, I hadn’t heard the door open or Seth call my name, but I suddenly heard his curse rip through the air. A few seconds later, the water turned off and then he was climbing in the shower, fully clothed, wrapping a fluffy, warm towel over my shoulders.

  I lifted my head, barely able to see him through the tears. “My mom is dead.”

  He said something too low for me to make out, and then he was pulling me toward him. I was half in his lap, my legs between his, and water dripped off me, soaking through his jeans and shirt.

  Seth didn’t seem to notice. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me as tight as he could without squeezing me as I buried my face against his chest. One of his hands delved deep in the wet mess of my hair.

  “It’ll be okay,” Seth said, his lips moved against my forehead, and he kept saying it, over and over, but the last time he’d held me and said that, it had been a lie.

  Chapter 17

  Seth

  When the tears ebbed and then stopped, all of the tension seemed to fade from Josie. Her body went limp in my arms. She was asleep, completely out of it.

  Concern spiked when I lifted her and rose, and she made no sound or movement. She’d been unconscious when I brought her here and had only been awake for about an hour. Then again, unconsciousness was not the same as restful sleep, and I still had no idea what she’d gone through.

  And why wasn’t she healing?

  Those damn bracelets drew my attention as I stepped out of the shower, my jeans now wet and clinging to my skin.

  I shifted her in my arms, and the towel parted. Because I was the worst kind of asshole at the moment, I didn’t look away quick enough to not catch a glimpse of the soft swell of her breast and a rosy peak. Lust punched straight through me, and the walk to the bed was not a comfortable one.

  Using the element of air, I willed the blanket back and then laid her down, resting her head on the soft pillow. As I started to pull away, her hand fisted the front of my shirt. My gaze flew to her face. She was still asleep, but obviously, even dead to the world, she didn’t want to be alone.

  I couldn’t refuse her.

  Gently prying her fingers off my shirt, I stepped back from the bed and stripped off the wet shirt. The jeans went next. I grabbed a pair of loose sweats and pulled them on and then climbed into bed beside her. Josie was shivering from head to toe. I didn’t think about what I was doing. I circled an arm around her waist and as carefully as possible, I drew her against my chest. She made a soft little sound, her lips brushed my chest, and that was all.

  Josie slept.

  And I held her.

  I held her as I thought about everything Alex and I had talked about. I held her as I replayed the moment I’d turned around and seen Josie, my beautiful Josie standing on the balcony with a look of horror and confusion in her sea-colored eyes. I held her as I saw her curled up in the corner of the shower, her entire body shaking with her sobs, and it killed me. Sliced right through, cutting me wide open, to know I wasn’t there for her when she learned her mother had died or that I hadn’t been able to protect her from Hyperion. I’d made so many mistakes, countless ones. I did not do right by her.

  But I was going to be here for her now.

  Smoothing a hand over her wet hair, I brushed the strands back from her face. The bruises stood out starkly against her pale skin. Rage caused my hand to tremble as I tugged the comforter up to her shoulders.

  Alex was probably going to cut off my balls the next time I saw her. Well, that was only if she got to me before Josie was back to . . . to herself.

  Gods.

  Of all the moments for Josie to wake up and find her way outside, it had to be right then. First, I needed to explain to her what she saw outside. Then I’d explain it to Alex, but I wasn’t sure how Josie could accept this—accept this new reality.

  ~

  Josie

  When I opened my eyes, I didn’t know where I was.

  The room was dark and I was lying on something soft, which didn’t make any sense to me, and—oh my gods, I was naked under a sheet. I was on a bed and I was naked. A hundred horrible fears poisoned my brain. Had Hyperion—? I couldn’t even finish the thought. My heart leapt into my throat as I realized my arm was resting against a hard, warm surface that felt an awful lot like a chest.

  Panic exploded like buckshot racing through every cell. My body moved before I could slow down and process anything. Jackknifing off the bed, pain flared all across my body as I threw my legs off the bed. I toppled forward, my knees cracking off the stone floor. Eyes wide, I scanned the dark room as my heart thundered in my chest. Where am I? What is happening? The form on the bed—the body on the bed—moved, sitting up.

  I scuttled across the floor, my palms slipping off the smooth stone. A scream built in my throat, but I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs.

  “Josie?”

  Stilling at the sound of the voice, I drew my knees up. I knew that voice. Seth. It was his—that deep voice that was musical in quality, slightly accented. But that didn’t make sense, because how could I be here with Seth? Unless everything had been a nightmare—no, no what had happened wasn’t a nightmare. It had been real.

  The shape on the bed suddenly moved closer. Feet landed on the floor and took a step toward me. A strangled sound left me as fear overrode my senses. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do—

  The shape froze. “It’s okay, Josie. You’re here with me. You’re safe.”

  That voice—it had to be Seth, and I’d heard that word before. Safe. Alex had told me that when I . . . when I woke up earlier. I struggled to push the cobwebs of sleep and confusion aside.

  “Seth?” I whispered.

  “Yes. It’s me. It’s just me and you in here. I’m going to turn on the light. Okay?” he asked, and when I didn’t respond, he turned. I heard a click a few seconds later,
and buttery soft light flooded the room. No longer in the darkness, the events of the last couple of hours rushed to the surface.

  Seth stood in front of the bed, his arms at his sides. He was bare-chested and was wearing a pair of loose sweats. Blond hair fell in a mess of waves over his forehead and curled over the tips of his ears.

  I remembered.

  He’d found me in the shower and he held me while I cried. I wasn’t in that horrible room anymore. I wasn’t being dragged from the dank cellar to serve as a battery pack for Hyperion or Cronus. I was here with Seth. I remembered seeing him outside on a balcony, embracing another woman.