“How long have we been here?”
“Not long. An hour or so. You both slept like the dead the whole time. At first, I thought they did accidentally kill you bringing you in here, but being drugged makes sense.”
“An hour here, but we don’t know what happened or how long it was from the time they moved us.”
Yemi’s comment has the blood draining from my face and my breath laboring. Between my thighs clenches instinctively, searching for any foreign or usual pain and my hands run up and down my body.
I turn to her and start doing the same. “Thayla, what—”
“Do you feel normal?Everythingas it should be?” My voice cracks.
“What…” Her mouth drops open, as her hands join mine. “Yeah, yeah, everything feels normal. That means it is, right? Gods, I didn’t even consider that.”
Tears instantly swell in her eyes, and my nose burns from the restraint it’s taking me to keep mine from doing the same. “Yeah, we’re fine. Everything’s okay. They just kidnapped us and brought us to Hell. Nothing crazy.”
She nods repeatedly and I exhale through the panic.
The fury written across Sevryn’s face has me doing a double take. He’s stopped shoveling food into his mouth, but his chains still rattle. His fork shakes in his fist from the vibrations pulsing through him.
“Did they literally drop us in here? And why are we chained, but he wasn’t?” I nod toward Dimitri’s cell.
He takes a deep breath. “Yeah, they did. Usually, the new fighters are conscious, though. This isn’t an involuntary thing. You have to ask the God of Judgment to come here. Everyone who comes wants the opportunity to fight for their freedom, and they’re typically the ones with eternity punishments.
“The thing is, once you decide this is what you want, you don’t get to leave. At the end of the day, everyone here is still a criminal. I’m chained because I don’t want to be here. I shouldn’t be here. I’ve long since stopped fighting the guards after a few fights and they refused to remove them, but I suppose the trust isn’t there yet. They’re taking those precautions with you two as well.”
I shake my head in disgust. “So the God of Judgment decided the best course of action wasn’t for gods to actually redeem themselves but to fight to the death? That’s fucked up.”
“It wasn’t always like this. This is the God of Judgment’s way of giving a big fuck you to the God of Death. When he actually came down here regularly and did his damn job, this place wasn’t as bad. I mean, it’s horrible no matter how you look at it, but at least before the God of Death said to hell with Hellveilious, there was at least some order.”
“Hold on, there’s a God of Death? I guess that makes sense actually. And you’re saying he’s supposed to be here running things but isn’t? He said fuck it and left this place to run itself?”
“Not exactly. He left three gods in charge. The God of Judgment, God of Treachery, and God of Redemption. They’re supposed to oversee it together, but they do a shit job at it. The God of Death rarely comes to check, and he doesn’t give a fuck when he does. If he did, I wouldn’t be stuck here. He’s too worried about living the luxurious life in Godsden.”
My disdain for the God of Death is instant. “What kind of god just leaves a place like this, and no offense, but beings like this to do whatever they want? Pathetic god.”
“Don’t say that, Thay.”
The use of my nickname that very few beings in this realm call me has me startling and turning to Yemi in shock.
“What?”
“Don’t say those things about the God of Death.”
“What? Why? It’s not like he can hear me, and I have zero intentions of ever being in his presence.”
Her bottom lip trembles and she gives me a very uncomfortable, small smile.
“You’re in his presence every day.”
Thayla
15
My head shakes repeatedly as denial floods every last one of my senses.
“No, no, I am not. What are you talking about?”
She reaches out for me, but I jerk back and jump to my feet. She moves her tray from her lap and slowly stands, holding her hands out, palms facing me as though she’s trying to calm me.
