Page 126 of The Games Gods Play
The man is the right age to be my dad. Tall with broad shoulders and an equally broad belly, he has the same black hair as me…I guess. Brown eyes, though. And the shape of his face is different than mine. He beams straight into the camera. I don’t remember my dad’s face, but I don’t remember beaming smiles, either.
The woman is petite in the same way Meike is. Her brown hair is graying at the roots, but she does have green eyes. Like mine? Is there gold at the center? She’s too far from the camera to tell.
Do I even recognize her? I mean, my family’s faces are blurry in my head after all this time. I was only three when they dropped me in Felix’s lap. My memories of them include eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and a hazy recollection of my mother singing to me, but otherwise I just have the vague knowledge that I had parents once.
“They never called me Lyra,” I say. More to myself than Hades.
Lyra wasn’t my name before I joined the Order. I don’t remember what my name was, but that wasn’t it.
“We understand Lyra is working off a debt for your family as part of the Order of Thieves,” the newscaster says. “It is also said that the Order is getting threats. It seems many do not want Hades to become King of the Gods. What do you think of that?”
I shoot Hades a frowning look. “Is that true?”
“Are you surprised?”
No. Not really.
I missed my parents’ answer, but I catch the next question when I turn back to the TV. “Did Lyra volunteer to pay your debts? From the little we’ve managed to learn about her background, she doesn’t seem like the type who would.”
I scowl. The world thinks they know me, huh?
The man who is supposed to be my father lets his expression droop from suitably sad to remorseful, and I curl my hands into fists, not buying one scrap of it. “She asked us to let her go,” he says.
When I was fucking three years old?
“She’s always been brave and selfless that way. We are allowed no contact with her, of course. Those are the rules of the Order.” He wipes at his eyes. “They don’t want their pledges distracted by outside influences while they work.”
“Bullshit,” I mutter under my breath.
That man is spewing so many lies that I can’t even keep count.
“But the Order has kept in touch over the years,” he continues, “and we know that our debt is almost paid and soon our Lyra can come back to us.”
“Call me Lyra one more time, asshole.” It’s a good thing he’s on the other side of the screen, or I don’t know what I’d do.
There’s a dinging in the background—one of the medical instruments hooked up to me. But I’m not paying that any attention.
“What age was she when she went to the order?” is the next question.
“Lyra, you need to calm down.” Hades’ free hand cups my face, but his voice is coming from a tunnel a long way off. All I can see and hear are my supposed parents.
My mother opens her mouth, but my father squeezes her waist, and she closes it again.
“We signed something that does not allow us to disclose,” he says, “but old enough to make up her own mind.”
“Liar!” My axe has somehow made it into my hands, and I hurl it at the TV. It hits dead-on, lodging in the center. The screen splinters out from the blade, and the image disappears.
Hades sits on the bed beside me, and all I can see is his face. His gray eyes are darker…with what?
Anger?
At me? He should take it out on those two people—
He uses the pad of his thumb and wipes away tears I didn’t even realize had leaked out of my foolish, betraying eyes. Those people aren’t worth crying over. Period. End of sentence.
After what I just saw, I’m not even sure they ever had a debt in the first place. The clothes they were wearing, the generally well-fed look of them, the latest-gen iPhone in my father’s hand—it doesn’t seem like they’ve been suffering.
Hades says my name.
