“Come on in, Adrian,” she said, cheerily. “You’re just in time. Hugh just brought up another six pack.”
She tossed a glass bottle my way and I reacted to catch it, slipping past Darius who still stood in the doorway, gaze firmly on me. I looked back at him awkwardly before using my enhanced strength to flip off the bottle cap unassisted. From where he sat on the arm of the couch, the big man, Kane, whistled. Hugh, on the floor, and Roxy, now settled in the armchair, just smiled over at me. I turned hesitantly back to Darius who was still watching me warily, even as he closed the door and allowed me inside.
“Can’t believe you’re a Fallen,” Kane breathed in wonder as I strode awkwardly into the living area to join them. “I mean, passing all ten Trials. What’s that like?”
“Kane,” Darius spoke his name once, warning underlying every letter.
His eyes meet mine and I saw the meaning there, the offer. I didn't have to talk about it if I didn't want to. He would change the subject on my behalf if I needed him to. But I didn't need Darius to save me. I didn't need anyone to save me.
“Um, it’s very…intense,” I said after a moment of thought.
“Intense,” Kane repeated, mischievous smirk spreading upon his lips. “I imagine you could have said as much evenwiththe Oath. Come on. Tiberius won’t say a word and all the other administrators rarely venture out of their little glass castles. Tell us what it was like. Tell us what you did.”
“Kane,” Roxy warned, her usual cheery voice much graver than usual as her gaze flicked from Darius to her brother and back.
“No, it’s okay,” I said quickly. I didn’t need her to defend me either. Then I cleared my throat and sat up a little straighter, preparing myself, wondering how to best speak of any of this when I’d never been able to before. “The First Trial was all about finding our partners. We were already bonded by the time we entered the tunnels, I suppose, or shortly after. It was a maze and I had to find my way to him by…feeling where he was pulling me. That was the first time we met, in the dark center of the maze. After that, we were bonded, mentally and physically. We were branded with the first ring and could speak to one another in our minds from then on.”
I raised my arm to indicate the ring in question and Kane swore.
“For real?” he gasped, amazed. “I mean, we knew you guys got special abilities from succeeding in Trials but damn.Brain to brain talkis crazy.”
“I could only talk to him like that,” I answered, ignoring the fresh wave of pain the memory brought upon me. “And hecould only speak to me. I think it was meant to make us more dependent on one another. And it did.”
Kane, Hugh, and Roxy all leaned toward me in rapt attention. Only Darius’ face remained impassive, a calm, stoic mask waiting to hear what else I would divulge.
“The Second Trial was a sort of sensory deprivation and overload. We were in this dark, soundless chamber, and then we heard voices of people we loved, people we’d lost,” I said, my gaze flicking to Darius. His jaw hardened but he didn’t interrupt. “We were tempted to go to them. But it wasn’t real and we held firm. For that, we were granted the gift of enhanced senses.”
I went on from there, explaining each of the Trials, what we'd gone through and what we'd gained. The Third and Fourth seemed to build excitement but the Fifth only brought reactions of horror when I explained to them how I'd been forced to chop Dante’s arm off with an ancient, serrated blade. After that, they seemed to grow only more and more stunned. When I finished, the culmination of my tale being Dante’s ultimate betrayal, they were silent, looking down at their beers or at the ground as if unwilling to meet my eyes.
I’d known this would happen.You’re not like them,I scolded myself.You never will be.
No one would ever understand my story, the suffering I’d gone through at the hands of the gods themselves, I knew that. But I’d wanted to tell it all the same. I’dneededto tell it, to say it all out loud to another person so I could hear it as well. Hear it and know it was the truth, my truth, and that nothing I could do now could erase the past I’d lived. Speaking it was believing it, acknowledging it, facing it head on when all I really wanted to do was run and hide from it forever, to pretend it hadn't happened and that Dante was nothing and no one to me and never had been.
But that wasn’t the truth. And Tiberius was right. Denial wasn’t an indulgence I could lose myself in. Not when I had a friend here, not when someone I loved was still alive, still close enough to touch, to talk to. Because, as unbearable as it had been to lay my soul bare to veritable strangers, I knew that living the rest of my immortal life without having Darius in it for even a moment would have proven even more so.
“Damn,” Kane finally said, blowing out a breath.
Roxy and Hugh nodded their agreement, still wide eyed as they stared at nothing in particular. But Darius just rose from his seat, practically pushing Roxy off of him in a desperate attempt to flee.
“I’m getting more beer,” he muttered, already heading for the kitchen. “Anybody want some?”
No one replied but I stood and followed after him anyway. I paused in the threshold, watching as he bent to retrieve another bottle from the refrigerator, opening it with a metal contraption on the counter nearby, one of Roxy’s creations, most likely.
“Don’t do this,” I said, crossing my arms as I watched him.
“What?” he asked, feigning ignorance. But I saw the way his shoulders tightened, his muscles tensed. He knew exactly what I meant.
“Ignore me,” I snapped. “Or worse, tiptoe around me like I’m some kind of wounded animal.”
“Gods,” he muttered, turning to face me. “I don’t know what to say to you, Adrian.”
“Since when? Since when doyounot know what to say tome?”
“I can’t just…what you went through up there and what I’ve gone through down here…we’re different people than we were. And hearing all that shit they put you through, knowing you only did it because I asked you to, how am I supposed to respond to that? Do you want an apology? Because I’ll give it. I’m sorry, Adrian. I truly am. If I'd known half of that bullshit before, Inever would have asked you to join up. I was such a stupid boy back then, so ignorant of the world and the truth. And knowing that my ignorance caused you pain—”
“It didn’t. Darius, you can’t blame yourself for what happened to me. I made those choices. I did those things. Not you. And I can’t imagine what you went through here, adjusting after the Culling, learning the truth about the Underground, realizing you were going to spend the rest of your life here without your friends, your family. We’ve both suffered, Darius. We’ve both gone through far more than either one of us should have ever had to.”
He nodded, face solemn.
