Page 135 of The Games Gods Play
The front door shudders.
“Tell me again, then,” Boone urges. “Maybe I was too shocked to really hear it. Or tell that me.” He points at his body on the bed.
Again? I have to say it again? Fuck me.
Crossing the room, I kneel beside him and take his hand. I have to clear my throat twice. I’d better do this right. “I love—”
My heart pinches, and I swallow the rest of the words. That still doesn’t feel right. Not the way I was going to say it.
So I change it. Just a little. Still the truth. Maybe more of the truth than I’ve been willing to admit, even to myself, until now.
“I’ve had a crush on you since I was fifteen,” I say, my words tumbling over themselves. “You’re the only person who has ever shown me a lick of kindness. It’s pathetic. I’m well aware. And you don’t have to feel anything for me.” I know he won’t. He shouldn’t have to deal with guilt for it. “Just know that I’ll always love you a little, for making my time in the den even the tiniest bit easier.”
Boone’s body doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, nothing.
I look over my shoulder, but…he’s gone.
Gone. Gone. Not just that I don’t see him. It’s a single room. He’d be hard to miss.
“Boone?”
I whirl to face his body. Does he look paler? I glance at the window, where the outside world looks dark, but we’re in a forest. Did I take too long?
“Oh my gods!” The whisper rips through my throat as my hands fly up to cover my mouth. “Oh my gods, it’s too late. I’ve killed you.”
67
Hera’s Blessing
I squeeze my eyes shut, unable to make myself face what I’ve done. My hands, still over my mouth, start shaking, and the quiver travels down my limbs and into the rest of my body.
I killed Boone. I killed him. I took too long. Oh my gods, I—
“Open your eyes, mortal.”
I know that voice. My eyes fly open to find Morpheus standing beside me. And on the bed, lying next to Boone’s body, is mine. No longer chained to the bed in Olympus.
The spiders are still pounding to get into the house.
“Come.” Morpheus takes me by the hand and helps me lie back into my body. Like when he pulled me out, there’s no sensation to it. You would think that it would feel like drawing in or out of something or sinking into quicksand, maybe. But it feels like…nothing. I lie down. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, I’m mortal and Morpheus is gone. So are the spiders.
“Hey.” A hand lands on my shoulder, and I yelp as I jackknife up in bed.
Only to stare into laughing warm brown eyes.
Solid, no longer translucent.
My own go wide as I take him in from head to toe—sitting next to me, living, breathing, not-dead Boone.
“But you were—” My gaze shoots back to him. “Gone. You were dead. I took too long—”
Boone must hear the hysteria rising in my voice because he suddenly swoops me up in a bear hug. “I’m here. I’m here, and you didn’t kill me.”
I didn’t kill him.
The reality of that is starting to penetrate the bone-deep horror of what I’d thought happened. “You’re okay?” I whisper.
He shakes against me like he’s laughing and is keeping it silent to not hurt my feelings. “I’m really okay.”
