Page 194 of The Games Gods Play
The emotion burns me, scouring me from the inside like acid and poison, turning me rancid. So much that I’m thrashing in Charon’s arms. “That bitch needs to pay! They all do!”
Charon locks his arms around me in such a way that I can’t move. “Settle,” he says.
“Fuck you.”
Meike.
Gods, the warmest of hearts. Always smiling. All about the adventure.
“Settle, Lyra.” There’s so much command in that one word that despite the rage still pumping through me in hot spurts, I do.
I go dead still.
Charon doesn’t let me go as I stand here breathing loudly through my nose like a bull ready to charge.
“Are you going to start back up if I let go?”
I clench my teeth but, after a beat, shake my head. Once. “I’m calm now.”
He still takes a moment before he loosens his arms a tiny bit. When I don’t start thrashing again, he lets go and steps back. I don’t turn to face him.
I also don’t start raging again.
The anger has abandoned me for something way worse. Grief. For Meike, of course for Meike. For Rafe, Dex’s poor nephew, who will miss the uncle he hero-worships. For Dex’s sister, who lost the brother who was trying to help her through illness. For Zai, who will carry Dex’s death around with him, along with Isabel’s, for the rest of his life. For Trinica, who is comforting him without me.
For me.
“Hades sent you instead of getting me himself.” The words I direct at Charon are not a question.
“He couldn’t come right that moment.”
Couldn’t come? I was fighting for my life, and he couldn’t… What was he doing that was so godsdamned important? “Did he even watch?”
“He was…called away.”
Called away? “By whom?”
“He wouldn’t say.” There’s an edge to those words. Is Hades pushing Charon away the same way he is me?
No. That doesn’t make sense.
My gaze skates past him and out the window at his back, looking over the brilliance of Olympus in the sun. It’s all so gaudy to me now, after the Underworld.
“He wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t important, Lyra.”
“Don’t make excuses for him. He was in my bed last night…” I’m vaguely aware of the way Charon startles, but I’m still stuck following the runaway train of my thoughts. “And today he can’t be bothered to watch while I fight to win that fucking—”
I cut myself off, because the anger is rushing in on the back of resentment toward Hades, toward all of them, and the overwhelming sense that I’m even more alone than ever. It’s like there’s a dam I keep building up only to have it break again behind the weight of the flood. Over and over.
I force myself to move, like I’m shrugging it off, like I’d reject a touch. “He warned me he had nothing to give beyond…” I shake my head. “I just didn’t realize—”
I walk away. If I don’t move, the anger will drown me.
Charon goes to follow, but I ignore him, stalking out the back of Hades’ house, down the terraces to the lands beyond. I keep walking through the fields of soft grasses and summer flowers toward the closest mountain. A path catches my eye, and I follow it.
I just need to not stand still.
The steps are small, forcing me to shorten my strides, and they never stop going up. And up. And up. Winding around the curves of the mountain. And with each step, I’m going over and over every single moment since I tried to throw a rock at Zeus’ temple.
