Page 81 of Hercules

Worse, and weirdly, Lo understood it better than all of Nat’s other façades. This side of the woman didn’t come out often—usually when she’d been mansplained in the studio or wrongly quoted from an interview—but when it did, it was something to be feared. Respected. And usually, Lo gladly handed both right over—because underneath Nat’s demands, she’d found power and awareness. Admiration for a woman who wasn’t satisfied with “simply” succeeding. Nat was determined to carve herself onto music history. To be a Tina, Taylor, Madonna, or Gaga …

No.

She wanted to be more.

Lo just never realized how hellbent—literally—the woman was about getting there.

The realization was obvious now—to the point that she raised a trembling fist over her heart, certain she’d feel an actual dagger embedded there. She almost dipped her head, wondering what the sight of her ventricles on the blade would look like, but ordered herself not to. Not when Natasha’s stare continued wielding enough steel for an army: centered in a brutally beautiful face that she no longer recognized. Not by a single pore.

“Nat.” Her own voice wasn’t recognizable either, thick with more shock than she wanted to admit, adding to the black dread in her throat. “What…have you done?”

The woman’s rhinoplasty did her proud, so photogenic despite her flaring nostrils. “Oh, stop it,” she spat, rolling her eyes. “I did what you would have, biya.” She drew out the insult as if brandishing a knife, with the full intent of twisting it in. “Exactly what you would’ve, once learning that the man you’d fallen for was a demigod with plans to cheat on you with the whole world. Worse, that he was going to turn you into the zombie who cheered him on.” Her bitter quirk of a smile was twice as frightening. “Zombie chic isn’t our thing, Lo. But flipping the magic show? Making him the one who gets sawed in half and then changed into a rabbit? Now there’s the fun, yes?”

“No,” Lois snapped. “No, Nat.”

Her shoulders shivered in time to her voice. She sensed a matching vibration from Herc, though she inwardly begged him to stay where he was. If he came closer, she’d cave and run to him before burrowing in and begging him to get out of here. But what would that do, besides trading out one set of walls for another?

It was time for the ramparts to come down for good.

The ones he’d already chipped away at—to show her that the woman—the person—inside, vulnerabilities and all, was worth discovering. And believing in. Yeah, she was still a mess, but the chaos was also worth it. The tears and the sadness but also the passion and the power—and the choices she could make to be all those things.

Her chaos. Her choices.

Her humanity—which had been behind walls for too long. Boundaries with her name on the blueprints.

“No.”

Not ever again.

She spoke her protest out loud, needing to emboss it on the air for herself and for Nat. Especially that. The woman before her now… What had happened to her? She hardly recognized the sight, despite how the basics remained the same. How she should still feel as if gazing in a mirror.

But the physicality was where it all ended now.

The dove’s wings that normally soared in Nat’s eyes…they were harsh charcoal that could tip a hawk’s feathers. Though the woman still smiled, the look was a crow’s calculated smirk instead of a precursor to a sweet trill.

“This isn’t you,” she blurted before she could take it back. “Come on, Nat. You know it isn’t. World domination? What do you want with that? Think about it. Really?”

Even the woman’s new laugh was an avian rasp. “Oh, gasp. Why wouldn’t I want to fly when the cage is made of gold, right? I mean, how dare I dream bigger?” But then her posture tensed and she swept in on Lo, already dropping her head by ninety degrees. “The. Gold. Is. A. Lie.” She swooped a hand up to tapped at Lo’s temple. “Hey. You can do it too, sweetie. I dare you to.”

A rough gulp. A more painful swallow. “Do…what?”

“You know what. Break free, darling. Join me, Lois.”

Because your little croon isn’t creepy at all?

Lo kept it from erupting by gulping hard again, which was helpful for subtlety on her answering squirm of a scowl. But if anyone needed more of a sledgehammer for delivery, it was her boss in this moment.

No. Not her boss. She considered her three backward steps a sufficient enough resignation letter.

“Not really a joiner, Nat. Think I learned that one from our last try at the Chamber of Commerce, right?”

She was compelled to throw in a watery laugh, if only to commemorate their failed try at a strip mall pop-up for Natasha’s indie clothing store. But there was no sign of similar cognizance from the face in front of hers, carried forward atop the body that hardly seemed to move.

Not at all creepy either…

What was happening here? How had Natasha shifted without moving a muscle?

Or was it possible…