Page 127 of The Games Gods Play
The beeping of the machine now penetrates, and it’s going in time to my rapid heartbeat. I’m looking at Hades, but I’m not really seeing him or hearing him. I’m just replaying those few questions and answers on the TV over and over and over in my mind. I’m shaking my head a little bit, as if rejection of all that is coming out in movement. If I don’t let it out somehow, it’s just going to build and fester. Maybe I know that.
I dash a hand across my eyes.
“Do you want me to smite them for you?” Hades asks.
That gets my attention. My gaze meets his, and I blink several times. “Could you?”
The look that he gives me is one not of admonishment but patience and…warmth. And I twist my lips and shake my head at the same time.
“No. Don’t smite them.”
I’m pretty sure he knew that would be my answer in the end. I dash my hand across my eyes again. Why won’t I stop watering like a poor, pathetic gray cloud that doesn’t stop drizzling? “They sent me to the Order when I was three.” The words come out softly.
I look away from Hades. His gaze is too full of understanding. Empathy just makes me want to cry harder. “Those people are not worth my tears. Of course they’re not worth it.”
Again I don’t realize I’m saying my thoughts out loud until he answers.
“No, they’re not.”
I pick at the thin blanket covering my legs. “The Order wouldn’t have told them that I am close to paying off their debt, because I paid it off years ago. I just had nowhere else to go. No one knows that.” I glance at him. “Except you. Every word out of that man’s mouth was lies. How could I…” I stop, shaking my head again.
“How could you what?” Hades asks.
“Come from liars like that?”
“Could be worse,” he murmurs. “You could have been swallowed alive as a baby by your Titan father.”
But I’m still in my own head, spinning like a tornado sucking up more and more debris. “And my mother just stood there saying nothing. She didn’t believe him. You could see it in her face. But she just said nothing. Is that what she did when he wanted to make me work off their debt at three years old? She just…let him?” I give myself a shake. “I know one thing for sure. I’m not going back to them.”
He tucks some hair behind my ear, his fingers gentle and soothing. “You don’t have to. You’re well past legally being an adult in the mortal world. They have no claim over you.”
My heart is still beating hard, the ping of the machine matching its rhythm. I wish Asclepius had turned that off. I wish my heart would just stop beating.
They’re not worth it.
Easy to think, harder to truly absorb. Maybe if I keep repeating it…
“I don’t have any family.” I whisper this to myself more than to Hades. “I don’t have anyone.”
Hades pulls me against him, tucking my head into his shoulder. “There is a saying you mortals like to use.” His voice is a deep, scratchy rumble under my ear. “It goes ‘blood is thicker than water.’”
I frown into his shoulder. “Are you telling me to forgive them and reunite?”
That at least stops the tears.
“No.” Hades leans away, holding my gaze captive. “I’m saying that if you use that phrase to define your family, then you shouldn’t be surprised if sometimes they try to pull you under.” He says this next part slowly, as if he’s considering each word. As if he’s trying not to poke at a sore spot. “But you can find a family and make them yours. A family that lifts you up, helps you float. One not made of blood.”
I swallow and stare at him. It’s possible if I win. If he takes away that curse. “Are Charon and Cerberus your family?”
“More than my brothers.” He shrugs.
“And Persephone?” I don’t know why I asked. I expect him to do what he always does when her name is brought up… Shut down.
Instead, he glances away—I think maybe toward the heart monitor, which has slowed down, I realize. My heartbeat is steady now.
“Yes. And Persephone,” he says. Slowly again. Not reluctantly, though. He’s deliberating what to tell me, I think. “But not the way mortals believe. Not even the way most of the gods believe.”
Like Charon said. “Does it hurt to talk about her?”
