‘Course I quickly realized that spending five seconds in a relationship with Nysa would drive me to nymphicide, so it was probably for the best.
I wanted answers, but first I wanted to find my friends. And get out of these wet clothes. Was there even anything clean for me to change into? This goddess trip had been brutal on my wardrobe and it’s not like I’d had a chance to do laundry in the past couple of weeks since my life had turned upside down.
Ten minutes later, I was pushing through the crowded hallways en route to my room. I had no idea what time it was. Given that I’d gone into Delphyne’s maze this morning and the number of students milling about now, it could have been lunch or after school. I’d have to check.
I received more than one odd look at my soaking wet, filthy, and scorched self. Sadly, mass gratitude was not part of the package. Only a cemented weirdo status.
It wouldn’t bode well if I’d missed yet another day of class. Not like I could give Principal Doucette a note reading “Please excuse Sophie. She was battling dragons in order to save your students. Signed, her mother.”
To access the stairwell up to the girls’ dorm, I had to pass by the counselor’s office. Or the faker formerly known as Ms. Keeper. I paused as I reached her door. I had to look inside and see if anything had changed as a result of us killing her.
I think I was still hoping that maybe everything had reset itself with Delphyne’s death. That I’d open the door and find Mrs. Rivers, smiling as she attempted to locate a specific piece of paper among all her general clutter.
I brushed the dampness from my eyes and turned the knob. As I stepped into the room, I was tackled in a huge hug from behind.
“Don’t ever do that again, you big stupid!”
I disentangled myself from Hannah and spun to face her. “Okay. That’s nothing like ‘thanks for getting me through the portal Oh Great and Glorious One.’”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Me too,” I grimaced, hating what she must have felt.
“Are you okay? Your head?”
She grinned. “Hamata pumped me full of migraine pills. Bliss.”
“How long were we dealing with Delphyne? It must have been hours.”
“About five minutes.”
Curious and curiouser. I glanced over at the portal which looked like a normal window again. “Why is the window back to its regular self?”
“No clue. What happened after we got separated?”
How to answer that question? “I’ll fill you in while I change.”
Finally, I was dry and Hannah and I had reviewed everything that had just happened. She explained how the moment Delphyne died, she could remember everyone clearly. Which was great except it also meant she understood what she’d lost with Mrs. Rivers. We both shed more than a few tears over her.
Hannah was unsurprised at Kai’s behavior. “What did you expect?” she chastised. “He’s a god.”
“You sound like you’re excusing him,” I protested.
“I’m not. But I think we all assumed he would act like a human. That was our fault. It’s like expecting a tiger to act like a house cat just because there’s a furry resemblance. The tiger will tear your throat out when you pet it and it’s your fault for thinking otherwise.”
Intellectually, it made a certain amount of sense. Emotionally, I wanted a rally cry to cut off his balls. I had to console myself with putting on grey leggings and a cute tunic and stuffing my feet into extremely warm, comfy suede boots. Fortified, I took a last glimpse in the mirror.
“Ready?” Hannah wanted to go find Theo and Cassie.
I nodded, then grabbed her in a huge hug.
“What’s that for?”
I released her. “If it hadn’t been for our friendship and all our silly rituals, I would never have broken Delphyne’s hold on my mind.”
“Yeah, well. I’d hate to have to break in another best friend. Took me years to train you properly.”
I grinned at her. She grinned back. “Okay. Moment over,” I said. “Move your butt, Swedeling, and let’s find the Rock.”
That took a while. We searched his room, Cassie’s room, the sick bay, the front office and the library. We couldn’t figure out where they might have gone.
“Cafeteria?” Hannah suggested.
“The place of food? Why yes, we should look for him there.”
Theo and Cassie were seated over hot drinks and a plate of freshly baked muffins.
“Muffin!” I squealed, realizing how ravenous I was.
Cassie looked up, pale but happy at my approach. She pushed her chair back as if to get up, but I motioned for her to stay where she was. “Sit. You need to get your energy back.”
She thanked me profusely.
“Do you know exactly what happened?” Part of me was curious to find out if she remembered my real identity.
“Some of it. Some Theo told me.”
Cassie filled us in. My suspicions about the truth exercise were correct. Ms. Keeper had only assigned it to see what Cassie came up with. It turned out that I had popped up on Delphyne’s radar and brought attention to this place, and Cassie with it.
I apologized, but Cassie waved me off saying it wasn’t my fault. She explained that when she said those “truths” about me, Ms. Keeper had started to press her on other things. When Cassie had gotten freaked out by her intensity, Ms. Keeper drugged her.
After that, Cassie had been kept in a zoned out state. Everything was dreamy until she found herself gagging on a potion Theo made her drink that cleared her mind.
“Do you remember all the truths you’d said to me? The prophecy?”
Cassie nodded. “I do.”
I leaned forward eagerly. “What did it all mean? Am I really an ‘instrument of destruction?’ And the other stuff in the ravine? Something about the dark and overthrowing?”
She must have heard something of the bleakness I felt in my voice, because she squeezed my hand in a reassuring manner. “Not everything is literal. These things I see, that I say, they’re fragments of truth.”
“Not the whole picture?”
“More like maybe the whole picture but you have to know how to interpret it.”
“You need the key,” Hannah said.
We turned and looked at her. “Cassie,” she continued, “when you were zonked on Chlorpromazine, you said something about a key.”
“OneaboveonebelowakeyawakeitisnomoreITISNOMORE,” I chanted. They looked at me, bemused. “It stuck in my brain.”
“Anyway,” Hannah shook her head at me, “could the key be a metaphorical key, rather than Sophie being a literal key to something?”
“Sure.”
Not much of an answer. I’d hoped maybe Cassie could clear up a few things, not make them more convoluted.
“Sorry, Soph. Guess I don’t fully get how to use my own power.”
“Can’t fault you for that. I’m in the same boat.” Not to mention all the questions I couldn’t answer. Like why had I been in Tartarus? Why had Demeter wanted to come to Hades that fateful night? What, if anything did my pendant do? What did all of Cassie’s predictions mean? Who had wanted me dead? And how could I get my memories back in order to figure out the way to save humanity?
I was broken out of my reverie by Theo asking Cassie a question.
“What about the blood that you saw?”
“That one was clear. Wish it hadn’t been. It was Mrs. Rivers.” Cassie turned haunted eyes to us. “She died in a pool of blood, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Hannah replied.
“I thought as much.” She gazed down and plucked at her sleeve. “I never saw her. Not physically. But I did ‘see’ her death. It was because of me.”
“No,” I i
nsisted. “It was because of Delphyne. You were both victims.”
“Is Delphyne going to stay dead?” Cassie asked anxiously. “Since you left the box back there and all?”
“Even if someone did find the box and manage to open it without invoking its self-destruction properties, there’s no way to reattach her head and bring her back to life. She’s gone.” Theo sounded certain. I decided to believe him and have one less thing to worry about.
“Besides, the entire dimension is gone.” I caught them up on what had happened. Then I hugged Theo. “Thank you. For everything, but most especially Nysa. You both saved me.”
Theo shrugged. “Just sent out the bat signal, is all.”
Dragon dead? Check. Cassie rescued? Check. “What are we going to do about Bethany?”
“She wasn’t a victim,” Theo said.
“Bethany was just herself,” Cassie agreed. Even through the fog of the drugs and the water from the springs, Cassie had thought Bethany’s behavior reprehensible. “She was getting off on it.”
Speaking of Bethany … “Hannah, I know you think Bethany is this fabulous—”
“I’m over it.”
“Really? Is she back to normal levels of toxicity?”
“Not exactly,” Hannah replied. “Whatever Delphyne did to her in terms of her looks has stuck.”
“She’s supermodel amazing,” Theo clarified.
“Yes. Thank you,” I snapped.
“And she still gives off this charm. Or something that makes people look twice, want to get to know her. But it’s not like it was back at the ravine. I don’t feel like I’ll die if she won’t be my friend,” Hannah said.
“That’s good.” I was relieved. I had no idea what I would have done if Hannah had crossed to the dark side.
“Yes and no,” Theo said. “The fact that the enhancements that Delphyne gave Bethany remained means that the line between mortals and gods is blurring. We don’t want humanity to be aware of us. Hannah excepted. And we definitely don’t want humanity messing around with gifts they don’t know how to control.”
“So we keep a closer eye on Bethany.”
“If Bethany knows who you really are,” Hannah fretted, “it could be a problem.”
“Eh. I’ll kill her if she talks.”
“Subdue her,” Hannah corrected. “Still ixnay on the killing of humans.”
Cassie paled. I patted her hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Cassie. You and I are freak sisters. We have to stick together.”
She nodded her head thoughtfully. “We do.”
“If you really want someone to kill, my vote is Kyrillos.” Apparently, Theo was still very very angry over the loss of his chain.
“Explain something to me,” I said to him. “I get that it’s wrong to steal and he absolutely should not have taken what was yours. But you acted as if it was a big manipulation.”
For a second Theo looked as if he wanted to rip me a new one for even asking the question, then he sighed. “I keep forgetting. You really don’t remember. It’s like this—”
“That’s my cue to go,” Cassie said, rising. “I want to put this all behind me, not learn more.”
“Don’t think you can,” Theo said gently. “It’s not going to turn off.”
She shrugged. “A well deserved rest then. I’m going upstairs to see if my roommate Jessica remembers me again. My life is going to take a bit of straightening out.” With a final thank you, she left.
“Back to the chain—” Theo began.
“It was personal to you. Because of what Zeus did with it,” Hannah offered.
“Yes, but—”
“And the fact that you’re still here, using it instead of it using you, is proof that you won that battle,” I finished proudly.
“Whose story is this?” he asked.
We gave him meek looks begging forgiveness. It worked not at all, but he did explain what he meant.
“It’s like this. Everything you said may be true, but this isn’t about me. It’s about what that asshole is using my chain for. You know Hades was poisoned, right?”
We nodded.
“He’s vulnerable right now. More so than ever before. Now, think about it. If you were Kai and you hated your dad and you came across a magic chain that could bind him up, allowing you to say, stuff him in a magically enclosed cave, what would you do?”
“Steal it,” Hannah groaned.
“Right,” Theo continued. “And his accomplice would appear to be … ?”
“Ah,” Hannah replied.
Theo gave a tight smile.
Despite the fairly conclusive evidence, I really didn’t want it to be true. Was everything Kai told me a lie? “But why stick around? Why not just steal the chain beforehand?”
“He couldn’t take it from me. The chain and I are, pardon the pun, bound to each other. My willingly turning it over to the dragon changed that.”
“And of course, Kai would know.” Hannah shot me a sympathetic look. “Sorry, honey, but it looks like he really did betray you.”
“He left me to die.” I couldn’t get my head around that. “I mean, even if I did sort of understand why he took the chain, he still needs me for his grand plan.”
“But he doesn’t,” Theo pointed out gently. “Kai gets rid of Hades, he’s in charge. He doesn’t want world domination. Earth doesn’t matter. It’s like I told you, he was raised to care about the Underworld. And once he rules it, with all its minions, he’ll either take on Zeus himself or just be happy with what he’s got.”
“He never cared much about Zeus,” I murmured. “That was me.” I stood up jerkily. “I’vegottago,” I mumbled, fleeing in a rush.
Drama queening, I know. But be fair. Kai and Persephone had had this grand romance. They (we?) defied everything to be together; I’m not talking feuding families, but all-out war. For whatever reason, I still felt remnants of Persephone’s feelings for him, coupled with my own. Whatever those were.
And if that didn’t convince you, then give me a break. I was sixteen and the dude had done me wrong. Big time.
All I wanted at that moment was to bury myself under the covers and eat chocolate until I passed out.
An arm slammed me into the wall. “Oops.” Bethany stood there, oozing malice.
Despite the fact that both students and teachers were in the hallway, no one noticed what she’d done. Or they didn’t care. Maybe they were so used to her bullying me that it failed to register.
So while no one was coming to my aid, they’d sure notice if I eviscerated her skinny ass. I was going to start wearing a T-shirt that read “highly unfair.”
Bethany leaned in toward me. “I know your little secret, Persephone.”
Great. That answered that question. “Like you don’t have any. I wasn’t the one who went along with Delphyne’s plan to keep Cassie hostage. Not to mention, she killed Mrs. Rivers. Or did that not matter so long as you got what you wanted?”
Shockingly, Bethany showed a moment of remorse at the news about Mrs. Rivers. “I didn’t know about that,” she said. “And I didn’t go willingly. I didn’t know what had happened.” Her gaze turned flinty. “But am I sorry for what I got? Not. At. All. I’m going to make your life a living hell.”
“Did you not see what I was capable of?”
Bethany smiled coyly at a group of guys who practically ran into the wall in their desire to ogle her. “Yeah, but we’re on my turf now.”
“Because I don’t go here?”
A group of girls ranging from much younger than us to a couple of seniors, sidled over. One shyly waved at Bethany as the rest hung around waiting for her to notice them.
She held her finger up imperiously in a “one minute” gesture. “All these students? They
love me. And they’ll do anything I want them to. Every single day. What are you going to do? Kill them all?”
She leaned in close. “Popular trumps everything. Even goddess. And I’m eternally popular now.” Her expression hardened. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten your lame attempts to get my boyfriend,” she tossed out. “Hands off.”
If she found him, she could keep him. They deserved each other. His betrayal knifed through me again, the pain fresh.
It fueled my supreme pissed-offness.
I smiled at her with a menacing glitter. “You’re forgetting one thing. I don’t have to kill everyone. I don’t even have to kill you.” Calmly, I moved a lock of her hair out of her face.
“Mess with me and I’ll scar your face so badly you’ll be begging hobos for affection.” I shot my gaze down to her tattooed arm. “Especially if I also rip your magicked up arm from its socket and blast it into dust. No charm, no looks.”
I flicked the tip of her nose. “Nothing.”
With that, I spun on my heel and walked off.
“Ms. Bloom.”
Jeez, was I never going to get upstairs to my self-pity party? I braced myself, plastered a smile on my face, and turned to face Principal Doucette. “Yes?”
“Your mother is here. I saw her outside as I drove up.”
For a second, I thought he meant Demeter. “What?”
“Felicia. She’s out front.”
This could not be happening. I’d battled a dragon, saved lives, and been royally backstabbed. Hadn’t I suffered enough?
I guess those thoughts showed because Doucette arched an eyebrow. “Manners, Sophie.”
“Yes, Principal Doucette,” I sighed. I backtracked to the front door, located in the foyer beside the offices.
It wasn’t a particularly grand foyer or anything. Red and white tiles were supposed to convey a cheerful first impression. There was a large board cluttered with announcements and posters and a couple of armchairs. I longed to just sink into one of them and rest.
My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy) Page 21
