Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Peach
Carry You Home - Alex Warren
S tanding in the campus castle’s west quad in the middle of the night, trying to see where the statue of Athena is staring, isn't exactly what I had planned to do to heal my heartbreak.
But here I fucking am.
She's looking across the square, but down, and I always assumed it was because she's a goddess, and that's what gods do. They look down on us as they play with our lives. At least that's what Wren Hunter, God of SFU, does.
I follow all the way to the edge of the building, staring at the red bricks. One of them is clearly more used than the other ones. It doesn't quite fit into the wall. I graze it with the tips of my fingers and try to pull it out. If I get caught, I don't know how I'm going to explain this.
I heard there are secret rooms under the castle, and I wanted to have a little look. How do I know, you ask? Well, because the campus gossip account has been blackmailing me and told me to have a look.
I huff, acknowledging I'm fucking losing it, when the brick finally pulls away and a small handle shows behind.
"Oh, how I wished this hadn't worked." I groan, turning the round handle. The hidden door pushes in, and I enter a hallway only lit up by burning torches against the wall.
The second I'm in, the door closes.
"Awesome," I whisper. "Not the creepiest thing ever."
Actually, maybe being chased through a maze was worse. God, that feels like a lifetime ago.
I rub my eyes and proceed forward. The quicker I get this over with, the quicker I can go back home. But then Wren will probably be waiting there for me, so maybe I should just die down here.
My thoughts keep battling against my inner peace as I advance toward a wooden door. I can already hear voices behind it, mainly whimpers and crying.
I'm careful opening the door. I have no idea what I’m about to walk into, but if someone is getting hurt, it'll be Heras. And I can't let that happen.
It's only when I'm inside that I'm able to realize there was no way to enter discreetly. The room is too small for that. The walls are old stones curving at the top, meaning everyone standing is practically touching the ceiling.
It's an old basement, maybe a cellar at some point. The floor is some sort of red clay that has slowly turned to dust over time. All heads turn to me as soon as I enter. Four topless men stare at me, and a fifth one is already walking out by another door.
Hermes.
I don't know how I know it, but it has to be them. Probably…him?
Hermes is a man, and he's escaping the second I'm entering.
"Peach," someone calls out. "Fuck, did Wren finally accept our invite?"
"What?" I ask, completely lost as I recognize Simon Dresner. He goes to SFU, but I rarely see him or hear of him.
I can't linger on him too long, my gaze catching the four women on the floor. They're naked, playing some sort of sexual version of Twister. But what's catching my attention the most is that they're bleeding, cuts all over their bodies, looking like they're not really here.
"What… What the hell?" I try to push past the tightness in my chest. "What are you doing?"
"She wasn't invited," one of them says. I don't know him. "She found us."
Their behavior changes quicker than I can catch up, and I instinctively take a step back toward the door.
"Did you drug them?" I ask. My eyes don't go back to the women—I have to keep my focus on the danger—but they haven't moved one bit, and I hear their whimpers.
"We do what we want with our Heras, don't we?" Simon sneers.
"You're torturing them ," I hiss.
"Where's your Shadow, Peach?"
I swallow thickly, and I decide survival is more important than pride. "On his way. He told me to meet him here. How else would I know about this place?"
As I take another step back, two strong arms wrap around me from behind in a bear hug and lift me up. One of them must have moved while I was focused on the others.
"Let go!" I shout, twisting in his hold as my nerves kick into high gear. "Wren is coming, and he's going to kill you!"
"Yes, see…" Simon snorts as he gets closer to me. His breath smells of alcohol, and I choke on it when his lips press against my ear. "That's kind of how I know Hunter isn't coming. He turned down our invitations to bring you here so many times. He threatened to kill us if we ever tried again. If we ever…"
It's only when I feel cold metal against my cheek that I understand he had a knife in his hand the whole time.
"…touch you."
With my heart beating in my ears, I press myself harder against the man holding me.
"We have to play here with our Heras," he explains, the blade caressing along my jaw, and then my throat. "Because the more established Shadows have a little bit too much respect for them. We just don't care. Heras, Aphrodites, you're all little toys to us."
"Simon," I rasp, too scared to even move. "Let me go."
He steps away, smiles at me, and shakes his head. "I think it's time for Wren to share his toy."
The guy holding me brings me to where the four women are all twisted together, panting from pain, blood running from their cuts.
"Stop, stop, stop," I shout as desperation thrums through my veins. "Move! Don't stay like this!" I scream at the girls. I twist harder, my heart bruising my ribcage.
But they all just slowly blink at me, pumped with whatever drugs they've given them. One isn't even looking at me, staring at her flat palms on the floor and the blood dripping down her trembling arms. They're a pyramid of broken dolls.
I'm sweating when the knife comes back.
"Fuck you!" I shriek, attempting to kick the man behind me. Another moves closer, leaving the shadows to play with me too.
"Oh my god, Dustin." He's good. He's part of the college newspaper. He's just a nerdy guy who never causes any trouble.
"Do you know what I was thinking?" he says lowly, his eyes shining with anticipation.
Dustin isn't going to help me.
Dustin is going to make it worse; my instincts already told me everything.
"What's that?" Simon asks as he rips my uniform shirt, buttons flying everywhere.
Another blade shines, reflecting the low light from the torches. That one is being held by Dustin.
"I think," he purrs, "that Peach is a strong girl. Or so she always says. And strong girls don't need drugs to deal with the pain, do they?"
I shake my head madly, a sob getting stuck in my throat and turning the words I want to push out into a meaningless whimper.
"Stop… Wren… He'll kill you when he learns what you did."
I'm shaking as Dustin presses his blade to my sternum.
"Wren can't kill everyone ." Simon smiles. "See, Peach. The problem is, we're privileged men. We've always gotten everything we wanted. More money than we can count, no consequences for our actions, and after a while…you get bored, you know? We keep having to up the stakes to feel something. We just want to have fun."
"Let us have fun, Peach," Dustin says, almost softly.
"No." My god, I can't breathe. "Please, don't."
Is that what Hermes wanted? For me to suffer? For what I did to Ania?
The blade presses against my skin, tearing a cry out of me. I fight for a while. Fuck, I fight with all I have, because screaming and kicking and twisting in this man's arms is all I can do to survive.
But it does nothing.
Because at the end of the day, I'm just me against four men who think they have every right over the women of the Silent Circle. They think my body is theirs to play with.
And they do just that.
Pain. That's what they want. They make small cuts, agonizingly shallow, so they don't become lethal.
They don't have to keep holding me. Weakened, I give up quickly. Because I'm not strong. I'm tired. I'm tired of fighting against everything and everyone for basic decency. I'm tired of arguing with people who won't hear me.
And I'm exhausted from fighting men who will never see me as more than a body to use and a mind to break.
My tears burn my face when they lay me down next to the other women, and I realize it's because they cut my cheek.
Will it scar?
Will I forever look in the mirror and be reminded of the night Hermes trapped me in a room to be tortured?
"Please…stop." My voice is barely above a whisper when they all line up by us, observing, thinking what they could do next.
"Okay, I'll spin," Simon says as he takes the Twister spinner from the floor. "Peach, you have to put your"—he spins—"left hand on blue."
I shake my head, my eyes fluttering shut.
"Oh, come on, you're a cheerleader. Show us what you can do."
"Stop," I croak as another sob pushes painfully against my chest.
"She's so boring." Dustin huffs as he walks toward me. But he doesn't reach me.
The door slams open, and I don't understand what's happening until Wren is right in front of me.
Except Wren doesn't look like my best friend, or my boyfriend.
He looks like the God of Death. He looks like that man the Silent Circle calls the reaper.
If the reaper had a heart. And said heart had been torn into a million pieces from worry and anguish.
Relief consumes me, even if only for a moment.
"Wren," I rasp, my eyes so heavy.
"I'm here, baby, don't move." He leans down, picking me up in his arms. One under my knees, one at my back.
I settle my head in the crook of his neck, breathing him in. There's movement behind him, and I tense again.
"It's Achilles," he says. "He's checking on the Heras. Those guys aren't moving. Don't worry. They know what's good for them."
Everything happening is cut by moments of darkness. One second, he's picking me up, and the next, we're coming out of the tunnel that led me here.
I close my eyes again.
"You're going to kill them," I rasp against his neck. I thought we were in the quad, but we're already walking into his house. When did that happen?
"I'm going to take care of you. What comes after that doesn't concern you."
"You didn't snap."
He says nothing.
"You didn't snap because you can't kill all of them. They said you couldn't kill all of them."
"And they were right." That's not Wren. That's Achilles. "You can't murder all of them, Wren. The Circle will have your head if you kill so many members."
I'm lying on a bed that smells like Wren.
"I'm still mad at you," I croak.
"Of course you are," he mumbles. "I don't expect being tortured would do anything to your stubbornness."
"You didn't snap," I repeat.
"Good. Because he can't lose control on this one." My other friend is by my side too, and I feel his hand in my hair. "Stay with us, Peach, will you? I'd be a bit annoyed if you died. Who will save the polar bears?"
I groan. "Achilles, shut up."
There's something raining on my forearm. It's a spray and it really fucking stings, tearing more cries out of me.
"How did you find me?" I ask.
"Simon stupidly thought I’d want to have fun with them," Achilles explains. "He sent me a text to tell me they were… playing with you."
"It's almost over," Wren says softly.
He dabs what feels like a cloth. He does it again, on my torso, on my thigh, and on my cheek.
"If I want to kill them, I'll kill them," he mumbles to himself.
"But you didn't," I say again, feeling like I'm in a fever dream. "You didn't snap."
"I didn't snap because I'm too worried about you right now," he finally says. "Don't you think I walked into that room thinking it was going to be a bloodbath? Of course, I thought I was going to kill them, but my priorities shifted when I saw you bleeding on the floor. Now please, just stop talking, and let me take care of you."
"I deserve this." My heart is beating really slowly. Not because I'm dying, but because I feel safe again. Safe, and a little dizzy, but I know I'll be fine.
"You do not deserve this," Wren growls before turning to Achilles. "They're shallow. Just give me the Band-Aids. I need…" He hesitates, scratching his throat. And I understand it's because he's not feeling confident in what he’s doing. I’d go as far as saying that he might be a little afraid. I didn't think Wren Hunter could get scared. Gods don't get scared. "…I need to put something on the cuts."
"Yes, I deserve it. Hermes forced me to go there to punish me."
The silence around me is loud. Loud enough that I open my eyes again.
"Hermes?" Wren inquires, his eyebrows scrunching together. "Hermes talks to you?"
"Yes." I close my eyes again, then whisper the rest of my sentence like the secret it is. "Hermes is punishing me because I killed Ania."
There's a snort from Achilles. "I told you she killed her."
I don't open my eyes after that. I'm just too exhausted. I just want to forget and not be here.