Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ella
Lose You To Love Me - Selena Gomez
I walk through the main hallway on the first floor of the temple. I’m back in my regular clothes, looking as if nothing has happened to me. Only I can feel it. The bruise on my neck from when they stabbed me with a needle, the pain at the backs of my thighs, the feeling of Chris inside me. But I walk with my head high, going to the room where the men have drinks and chat together. They have the most expensive whiskeys, dress in the finest clothes, but still can’t find it in themselves to treat women like anything more than whatever they can use them for. A wife. A whore.
I don’t even really know what I’m going to do. My brain feels like cotton, and everything is blurry. I just want to go in there and insult them, hit them, claw at their faces until they understand the physical sensation of how they’re making me feel inside.
I’m about to burst into the room, when someone comes out. Black hair to his neck, eyes as glacial as his father’s, Achilles doesn’t hide his surprise when he sees me, his eyebrows crunching together.
“Were you about to walk into the Shadows’ library?”
“I was,” I answer sternly.
“Ella, you’re not allowed.” He looks around, making sure no one sees us, and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “You should go home. Let me get a chauffeur to drive you back to your house.”
“You’re in the library and you’re not even a full member yet.”
“My dad is Zeus. I get away with a lot of things I shouldn’t.”
I don’t move when he nudges me toward the front door.
“I’m not leaving. Where’s Chris?”
“In there.” He nods toward the room behind him. “Trying to hold himself back from killing all the men who are congratulating him for what he did. Let him play the part. He’ll meet you at your house later.”
I’m not falling for that shit again of Chris pretending he’s playing a part to the Circle when he hurts me. This is who he is.
When he tries to walk me to the door again, I get out of his hold.
“Were you in that room? The altar?” I ask, practically panting from anger. If he was, I’ll never be able to look at him again. I don’t even think I’ll be able to be friends with him anymore.
“Of course not,” he says right away. “The first thing I did when I heard about it was drive here to convince my dad to let you go. I still thought I had a chance to stop this when he came back up from the altar. I was…too late.”
I take in what he says, but I don’t know what he expects from me. A trophy for attempting to not let his dad and other Shadows abuse me in a torture room?
“Do you even know what he did to me in there?” I rasp, swallowing harshly as my eyes water once again.
“Els…” he hesitates, his gaze darting toward the door. “You know I don’t care about defending Murray, but I promise you, he did this because you would have been punished either way. Better from someone you trust.”
“I don’t trust him,” I hiss. “I don’t trust any of you anymore!”
“Stop shouting,” he growls.
“Where can I find the Heras?”
“What could you possibly want to find them for? You’re not even allowed to roam the temple without a Shadow by your side. Go home and stop getting yourself in trouble.”
“I’m going to get the truth out of Megan.”
“That woman is the last person you should listen to.”
“Where can I find the Heras, Achilles?”
“Come on, Els. You were in enough trouble?—”
“Where.” My nostrils flare as I look up at him, and whatever he sees on my face has him talking.
He huffs, running a hand through his hair. “Third floor. It’s a room called the knitting room. Blue doors with peacocks engraved in the wood.”
I nod, skipping the thank you. I’m too angry.
I climb the stairs two at a time, and the second I enter the knitting room—because I’m assuming that’s what women used to do in here while waiting for their cheating husbands—about five heads turn to me.
Why do they come here? Why would anyone want to come to a place where they know their partner is somewhere else having sex with another woman at best and abusing her at worst .
“What the hell are you doing here?” some random blonde asks me. “Aphrodites are not allowed in our room.”
“It’s fine,” Megan intervenes. “I invited her.”
She didn’t, but she knows she’s about to win this war I never wanted to be part of. I walk across the room to her. This battlefield is her territory, and it’s fitting to receive your enemy’s surrender.
She’s sitting on a sofa, a cup of tea in her hand.
“What else?” I rasp, feeling out of breath.
Cocking an eyebrow, she can barely hold back the smirk that tries to spread on her lips. “What else?” she repeats, as if she didn’t understand me.
“What else did he do to destroy me? He had a plan, didn’t he? When did it start?”
She takes her time sipping, delicately putting the cup and saucer back on the table. She just loves watching me squirm, doesn’t she?
“I can’t tell you his exact plan because no one knows it. No one can win a chess game if the pawns know they’re going to be sacrificed, can they? Every move is a secret he keeps to himself, but I can tell you the ones I know he’s made.”
I’m almost shaking from the need to hear the truth. What if this is more than I can handle? There’s always something terrifying about knowing who someone really is, especially someone who you have a codependent relationship with. If I learn the truth about who he really is…I might never be able to forgive him. It will be the end of him and I, forever.
And why is this so hard to accept? Ignorance is bliss, and I want to keep telling myself Chris is the man who will protect me, use me and make me feel good in the process, build my confidence as he controls me. It’s fucked up, but it’s our kind of fucked up and that’s the way we love each other. He gives me what I need and, in exchange, I give him exactly what he wants, what he obsesses about, what he can’t live without… me . My all. My conscious sanity and my instinctive, unconditional love. It’s how we’ve always worked.
But I am not the woman I used to be. I’m not the impressionable teen he molded. And he might have never been the man I thought he was.
“Nothing in our world comes for free, Ella.” Her rich voice is so assured and pompous compared to me, that I feel our difference in status deep in my bones.
“What do you want?” I croak. This is not what I ever saw for myself. I worked hard to become the girl everyone respected and envied, and the Circle shattered it all.
Maybe it was a lie. A very good lie I told myself.
“You know what I want.”
“You already have him, Megan.”
“Because I’m not giving him a choice. But if you shut him down once and for all, I’ll be there to pick up his broken pieces.”
“I tried.”
“No,” she snorts. “You pretended you didn’t want him, but everyone can see through that. Yes, no, yes, no. It’s so obvious you can’t resist him, it’s disgusting and pathetic. I want you to shut the door on him, lock it, and throw away the key.”
She’s right. It’s something I’ve always known myself, but that was easy to forget when Chris was away. I’m never able to truly say no to him, my will breaking at his first insistent actions.
But we all have that person, don’t we? That one individual we continuously accept back into our lives. The person we know will hurt us, but hope for the hundredth time will have changed. We all have our weaknesses, heart palpitating if we see a text from them after a long time waiting to have news. We melt when they give us attention and change our behavior to fit what they want from us in the hope that they’ll choose us this time.
They come in all shapes and forms. Sometimes it’s a toxic crush. He’s not that into you, but he won’t let you go. Sometimes it’s a family member who calls only when they need something. And sometimes…it’s an obsessed ex who enjoys manipulating you.
Who is the real danger when we adapt to the people who hurt us? Is it them? Or is it ourselves by showing them we are willing to accept their behavior? The truth is, the stupid saying of loving yourself fully before loving someone else is too common to ignore. Because if we wait for someone else to fill the well of love in our heart, they might fill it with poison instead.
The intensity of Megan’s gaze makes me want to shrink, but I force myself to stand still. Time protracts, the room becoming just me and her. And I break.
“I will. I’ll close the door. I’ll throw away the key.”
She relaxes on the sofa, resting back like a king on a throne.
“The Juilliard thing wasn’t a lie,” she explains. “I know because I was the debt.”
“Excuse me?”
She lets out a little sigh, understanding she’s going to have to explain every single thing to me.
“A Shadow can ask any favor of his brothers in the Circle. But Chris wasn’t a Shadow when you applied to Juilliard. He and I had been dating, and he broke up with me for the first time saying he ‘still had feelings for his ex.’ Little did I know that by feelings, he meant insanely obsessed .” She snarls the last words like it’s my fault.
“He asked them for a favor. He wanted your application rejected. And a favor from the Circle always comes with a debt. I was the debt. My dad was desperate to get me in as a Hera, and I needed someone to marry. That was the deal. He tried to leave so many times, like he had a choice. And then his dad betrayed yours, and he understood that this was serious. He asked me to save him, and I had to remind him that if he wanted his pitiful thing of a father to stay alive, he had to be with me, and be loyal .”
Was she born this evil, or did life make her that way? She talks about Chris being obsessed, but she does the exact same things as him. She trapped him like he tried to trap me.
“You didn’t even protect his dad,” I hiss.
“I did. But then he tried to break up again. He wanted to move back to Stoneview, transfer to Silver Falls University to keep a closer eye on you. So I showed him what happens when I don’t protect his dad. Poisoned. Ever heard of organophosphates? It wasn’t pretty, believe me. But hey, he wanted an excuse to move back to Stoneview. I gave him one.”
“What else?” I ask between clenched teeth. Will I even be able to stop myself from killing her before she gets to the end? “He ruined my chances at getting into my dream school. What. Else.”
“He knew you were in Reeves’s class and told him he wanted to be his assistant. Reeves had already picked Rose White, so that’s why there are two assistants this year.”
“What the hell.” I shake my head. It seems small compared to Juilliard, but it’s still manipulative .
I can feel the will to understand him leaving me. I feel numb, practically paralyzed from learning about this.
“Matias and Enzo. He’s the one who hurt them.”
I knew that, but it doesn’t mean it makes it any easier to digest.
“And the two guys who had an ‘accident’ for driving under the influence after that first party of the year? He’s the one who drugged them.”
“Anything else?”
“You should take a seat.” She points at the armchair perpendicular to her, and I stop trying to force my trembling legs to hold me up.
Once I’ve fallen into the seat, she licks her lips, smiles, and destroys me.
“Who invited you to the initiations?”
“Reeves,” I answer without hesitation.
“No,” she insists. “What was the name on the invite?”
“Hades. That’s Reeves.” Does she have to make it so stupidly complicated?
She presses her lips together, because I think she wasn’t sure about this one, and I just gave her the answer she needed.
“See,” she explains, “I thought Reeves invited you too. Because when you showed me your invite, it was signed Perseus.”
It takes me a moment to understand and remember what happened that night. And then I realize she’s right. I was talking to a girl, and we exchanged invites to look at who had signed them. Then Megan arrived and took the invite I was holding. The invite signed Perseus.
“Reeves is called Perseus in the Circle,” Megan continues. “That’s why I pointed at him when I told you he was the one who invited you. But then a few weeks later, I overheard him say he had refused to send you a card to be initiated. And that’s when I thought something was wrong. But I had no way of being sure until I asked you the name on your invite.”
“I don’t understand.” I rack my brain, trying to put two and two together.
“Amanda,” she calls behind her. “Turn on the TV, will you?”
Another Hera walks to a screen on the wall. Megan looks at me and discreetly adds, “Amanda is Reeves’s Hera. But I didn’t tell her about how you let him fuck you for good grades before you became an official whore.”
I ignore her, focusing on the screen coming to life. I see a video feed to the Shadows’ library, where ten or so men are talking, drinking, and smoking cigars.
“We don’t get to go in or hear what they’re saying, but we’re welcome to look at our Shadows,” Megan explains.
I notice right away that while Chris’s behavior shows that he’s eager to leave, he’s in a heated conversation with Achilles, and every time he tries to take a step toward the door, my best friend pushes him back with a hand on his chest. We have no way to truly know what they’re arguing about, but I can guess it has something to do with what happened earlier.
“Amanda.” Megan’s voice brings me back to reality. “Point at Hades for me.”
My heart is already beating out of my chest, harshly kicking against my ribs and making me feel lightheaded. It’s as if my body knows what’s about to happen, but my conscious mind refuses to see or accept it.
Amanda presses the screen, her perfectly manicured finger right on Chris’s head, and my heart freefalls to my stomach. Megan was right. If I had been standing up, I would have probably fainted.
And I know it’s true. They’re not lying. But still…I don’t want to accept it.
“But…” I panic, my lips feeling numb from the blood draining from my face. “He refused my mom when she asked him to get me an invitation. I heard it. He tried to get my brother in. That was his plan. Not me, Luke. It was the Circle who put me in this situation because they refused my brother to initiate. And when…when he found me after the maze, he told me I shouldn’t be here.” My teary gaze moves from the screen to Megan. “It doesn’t make sense.”
She leans forward, putting a hand on my knee to pretend reassurance. “Ella,” she sighs. “Chris didn’t ask the Circle to invite Luke. They didn’t refuse because Chris never put his name forward.”
My vision narrows, ears ringing as pain tears through my chest.
“But…”
She shakes her head. “He wanted you to initiate. He just didn’t want you or your family knowing it was coming from him, so I’m going to assume that’s why he refused your mother; because he already had a plan for you, and that’s why he said you shouldn’t be here when he found you after the maze. To keep you believing he wasn’t involved. But the truth is, Chris is Hades. He’s the one who sent you the invite, not Reeves.”
“How…” A single tear of betrayal rolls down my cheek, and I’m too weak to even wipe it away. “…could he do this to me?” I croak, looking Megan in the eye.
“Because he’s cunning and heartless. He wants you; I won’t deny that. He’d clearly go to great lengths to have you. But Chris needs you clueless and weak to manipulate you. You poor thing, handing it to him on a silver platter.”
My gaze drops to my lap. I’m scratching my thigh through my jeans. I notice tears crashing against the denim and only now realize I’m silently letting go of the pain.
“I don’t understand,” I rasp. I sniffle, focusing on my fingers desperately trying to get to my skin. “How someone who says he loves me could be so cruel.”
I look up at her, searching for answers in an enemy who wants nothing but my downfall, and I know she won’t offer comfort, but I’m past that now. I just want sincerity.
And it’s exactly what I get. Cold. Hard. Truth.
“I do,” she answers, completely detached from my situation. “I would do the same to have him.”
I wipe my face with the sleeve of my cardigan, shooting into a standing position as fury zaps through my spine. “Of course you do,” I hiss. “You’re as insane and controlling as he is. Have him, Megan. Marry him and spend the rest of your life with him. Just leave me the fuck alone. Both of you. I want nothing to do with either of you.”
She nods, a bright smile spreading on her face. “Make sure you tell him that too.”
The bitch is getting off on my misery, and something hits me like a slap in the face. Her and Chris…they’re exactly the same. And yet I hated her because she was the woman who wanted the man I love. And him…I let it go because…well, because he was the man I love. Loved.
He made my life hell, and she probably had the time of her life posting it all over Hermes’s account.
“You two deserve each other,” I spit out.
With more tears streaming down my face, and a newly broken heart, I leave knowing that she got exactly what she wanted out of me. And I got nothing but the devastating truth.