Page 125 of The Games Gods Play
Hades glances toward the door. “He’s fine.”
“Yeah, well, be nicer next time. He’s helping.”
Hades sits back down and runs the gloved hand over his face. “There better not be a next time.”
When he catches me staring at the glove, he tucks it in his lap.
“I want to see,” I say.
He shifts in his chair. “There’s no point. It’s almost healed.”
“I get you not wanting to upset me while I was healing, but I’m better now.” I hold my palm out. “Please. I’ll just imagine worse things.”
One eyebrow raises, but he puts his hand in mine. Carefully, I peel his glove off, then suck in sharply at the multitude of slashes across his palm. Not open wounds. Not anymore, at least. Actually, they look a lot like my arm does now. But still angry and red, and still healing. It’s been days.
My throat grows thick, and I clear it. “Merciful Olympus,” I whisper.
He tries to tug out of my hold. “It doesn’t matter, Lyra.”
“It damn well matters to me.” He took punishment in my place. No one has ever done anything like that for me. Blinking rapidly, I run a finger softly over the smooth scars.
Hades gives a low growl, and I look up into eyes that have turned from heavy storm clouds into swirling silver.
“Why?” he asks.
I can’t look away. “What do you mean, why?”
“I dragged you into the Crucible. Why would you bother to cry over me?”
I have no answer to that question. I’m sure psychologists would give it some kind of label. A syndrome of some sort. I hate labels like that—putting me into neat and tidy boxes. Life, emotions, humanity—none of that is remotely neat and tidy. We are, all of us, just trying to do the best we can, and fuck anyone who says otherwise.
I just never realized until now that that might include the gods.
“I could ask you the same thing. Why do you care? Actually…” I shake my head. “How are you able to care? Because you shouldn’t feel a damned thing for me.”
His jaw goes so impossibly hard, I’m surprised his teeth don’t crack.
The TV breaks the silence between us. “I am here with Brad and Jessica Keres, the parents of Lyra Keres.” I whip my gaze around to stare at the screen, my heart pounding in my ears so loud I’m not sure I’ll be able to hear a word they say.
A young reporter shoves a mic into the faces of two people I’ve never seen before in my life.
At least…I don’t think so.
“What do you think about your daughter being chosen by Hades this Crucible?” he asks them.
63
You Can’t Choose Your Family
I narrow my eyes, trying to make the faces on the television connect to a memory. Any memory.
“We are so worried about our little Lyra,” the man says.
I sit straight up in bed, tightening my grip on Hades.
The man has an arm wrapped around the woman’s waist. Her smile seems wooden.
“What in the—?”
