“How is it that she’s up there and you’re both here? Wait, you’re both her parents? But she said her mom died.”
“My time above had come to an end.” Persephone answers, her lips thinning into a harsh line while Hades gives her hand a reassuring squeeze. More secrets. I wonder just how many more there are.
I shake my head, not understanding how they could keep all of this from us. “What does that even mean?”
“You will come to understand our ways in time, but for now let us enjoy your party.” Hades says.
I can feel my simmering anger coming to a raging boil. He thinks I can just forget all this and party like I didn’t have a bomb dropped on my life. I never in a million years, expected to hear that Skye is my sister. My stomach churns as I try to gather my anger back in and ask one last question before I wear out my welcome. I can already feel Hades’ attention waning.
“And what of Pierce?”
Hades doesn’t hide his sneer. “He’s being kept in the dungeons.”
The dungeons. My skin crawls wondering what he’s been forced to endure this whole time. I reign in my rampant imagination, knowing it will do me no good to panic. “Take me to him… please.” I tack on the please at the end, hoping that will appease my father. He seems to be someone who appreciates manners.
“Fine.” Hades waves his arm his regal robes sweeping with the motion. Several guards surround us in an instant, their gleaming horns and armor flicker in the candlelight. “Take them to see Prisoner 666.”
CHAPTER13
Chapter Thirteen
PIERCE
SONG: LET ME DOWN SLOWLY BY ALEC BENJAMIN
I’ve spent so much time in this godforsaken cell with nothing but my memories and occasional meals that have kept me strong enough to merely exist. I sink inside my head, filtering through moments I wish I could change. I pluck one that I’ve gone over a million times, seeing the hurt cross Salem’s face as my father called her a whore. And I just sat there, too afraid of his ire to punch the motherfucker in his smug face. In that moment, I’d shrunk back, falling back on a lifetime of staying in line. I’d lived my life trying to fit into his box that he constructed for me. Never measuring up completely, but still trying to fit into what was expected of me- for the chance of a future I didn’t plan for myself. At least Lukas had his art, but what did I have except football. And that would only last me as long as college, which was quickly coming to an end as it was. If I ever got out of here, would I even want to go back to it? It’d always been a source of joy, a source of pride to have something of my own, but I find myself not giving a shit about anything I once did.
It’s hard to hold onto hope, when there’s nothing but a vague idea that things might get better one day. And that future is looking dimmer and out of reach by the minute.
My eyes are closed for so long, shutting out the reality I’m shackled to, that I drift into sleep.
A familiar voice wakes me, an echo of one that I’ve kept tucked away with me to get me through each agonizing day. The mirror’s been eerily dark. Not even a whisper of a vision. I don’t know how much time has passed since I last saw anything through there. Maybe Pride has tired of tormenting me with it or maybe it’s finally starting again.
“Pierce?” The voice calls again. My eyes pry open feeling like they’ve been superglued together. When they finally open, I take in my dark surroundings instinctively looking to where the mirror is located, but my vision is blocked by a curvy figure wearing a long, elegant dress. My mind tries to grasp onto what is happening, failing to understand.
“Open this door right now.”
“We can’t do that.”
“You can, and you will.”
A moment passes as I adjust to the darkness. I can make out several figures now, one of which is opening the door to my cell. The iron creaks, metal scrapes along the concrete floor as she runs to me. She sinks down to where I’m shackled and cradles my face in her warm hands. Her dress kicks up the dirt surrounding us.
“Pierce?” her lips that I’ve dreamed of every night, quiver as she brings our foreheads together.
“Salem?” My voice cracks with emotion. “You found me.”
“Now who’s the princess in distress?” She asks, and I manage to snort out a laugh. The first I’ve cracked since I’ve been here.
“What have they done to you?” Her green eyes search fervently over my broken body. I can’t hide the scars from her, even though I desperately want to curl up inside myself so she can’t see me like this. Her soft fingers stroke my scraggly beard and find the start of the wounds that wrap down my chest in a thin line. “Who did this to you?” Her voice is low and full of rage.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s an open wound that’s bound to get infected in these conditions. Why are you being kept here?”
I cough. It sounds wet and labored. Salem’s eyes fill with worry as she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth. “I don’t like that.”
“Me either.”
