Chapter 67
But The Future Keeps Fucking Up The Past
LYRA
After several days preparing with the Titans, when we go to the Locks this time, we don’t risk all of us. Half of the Titans and Persephone hang back in our current safe room while Cronos, Rhea, Mnemosyne, and Iapetus escort Boone and me down to the next Lock.
I tried to get Persephone to come with us, actually. I don’t know why that little conversation we had made a difference, but it did. She just shook her head, gaze sliding to Boone. I think maybe she’s afraid to distract him or afraid to watch him go in Hera’s Lock.
Honestly, of the two of us, Boone should be the most afraid, because apparently, for this Lock, we’re going to experience the pain of childbirth.
No idea how that’s supposed to work for him at a biological level—me either, for that matter, given I’m not pregnant—but I’m sure the goddess will find a way.
Even knowing this, he insisted on going with me.
None of us speak as we make our way there, passing by doors that contain screaming, doors that rattle, and maybe the worst of all, silent doors, as we wind our way there. Is it terrible that after only the short time I’ve been here, I’ve stopped noticing? I’m pretty sure it is.
Meanwhile, with every step, instead of focusing on the Lock and what we’ll face like I should be, I’m still hung up on what happened with Hades, what I did.
I haven’t told anybody else about this yet, not even Persephone. I want to get all my mental ducks in a row before I drop this new fun fact on them.
But I’m so busy worrying over my thoughts, which are zooming around like bats inside the belfry of my head, that before I know it, we’re past the ominous obelisk that the Pandemonium come from when they unleash and standing on the bridge overlooking the abyss that will lead Boone and me to Hera’s Lock.
I glance over my shoulder to find both Mnemosyne and Iapetus waiting at the entrance to the tunnel on the other end of the bridge from the doors.
Iapetus insisted on being one of those who came with us. I’m not sure if he insisted because he felt he has something to prove. That the last time the bell went off was a fluke. That this time, if that happens, the Pandemonium won’t find him so slow again.
Honestly, I think it has less to do with pride and more to do with Phoebe.
I’ve seen the way he flinches when Phoebe makes the slightest move or sound as she slowly heals from the injuries he inflicted on her in his rage state, or the way quiet, studious Koios, who hasn’t left his wife’s side, won’t even look at Iapetus, let alone talk to him.
Maybe that’s why I offer him a small smile now. One that gets a frown in return.
He really is a grumpy motherfucker.
Boone, standing to my left, whistles a question. Ready? Then nods at the pitch-black void we’re about to toss ourselves into like human sacrifices.
I purse my lips to whistle back the signal for let’s go, but the sound cuts off in my mouth as my eyes widen at the sight of a crack opening up out of nothing, like a scar in the air. It flickers oddly behind Boone.
In reaction to whatever my face does, he jerks around. “That’s shit timing,” he mutters. “We should jump now.”
But the fissure stops.
Just…stops.
It doesn’t disappear or go a different direction, but it doesn’t move, either, almost as if broken time itself has been stopped.
The way it’s gone so unnervingly still reminds me a little bit of how it felt when Cronos stopped time long enough to yank me and Boone through the massive gates of Tartarus at the end of this bridge.
I check the Titan. “Is this you?”
He’s staring at the rip of time. “I’m not the one—” He stumbles forward, hand flying out in front of him like he’s trying to stop or catch something.
I whirl to face the crack only to back up rapidly at what’s coming out. Boone grabs me by the wrist hard and keeps me from tumbling into the abyss, but neither of us takes our eyes off the horror we’re looking at.
Me.
I am what comes out of the crystalline fissure, looking exactly like I do now except different clothing, and…
Someone or something has slit my throat.
Not a nice cut, either. Jagged, all the way across, and I suspect so deep they hit my spinal cord at the back.
“Oh my gods.” Boone drops my arm and runs for the other me…
future me?…as she takes one stumbling step forward.
Her hand goes up to the slit in her throat, red blood—not golden because she’s mortal in that moment—squirting and gurgling out between her fingers…
my fingers…and down my arm to splatter and pool on the rock bridge at my feet.
I’m staring at me, feet frozen to the spot. And whatever future of me this is, she is looking only at me even when Boone reaches her, cupping his hand over hers, trying to stem the flow of blood.
She’s mouthing something at me.
I shake my head. “What?”
She takes another unsteady step and, even with Boone trying to help her, goes down to one knee. Her wide eyes remain on mine, desperate for me to know what she’s trying to communicate, and she’s still mouthing. Two words, I think.
“Don’t speak, Lyra,” Boone tells her…tells the future version of me he’s trying to save.
“Hera’s Lock?” Cronos guesses.
She pushes Boone off her, visibly weakening and dropping to all fours, or threes, rather, as she keeps one hand still pressed across the wound in her throat.
But she nods. Then forces her head up with her hand under her chin, opening the wound like a gaping hole down to her soul, allowing the blood to gush out faster as she mouths one more word.
“Monsters.”
Then she collapses to the ground as her body tries to find some way to control the blood loss or get air down her windpipe, but she only gurgles as she sucks in the blood that’s pouring out of the same hole.
“No!” Boone is on his knees beside her, trying to plug the wound, do anything.
But my future self shudders in slow jerks, and I know I’m watching my own death rattles.
That rip in time that dropped her here decides to move again, swallowing her body and taking it away from us, back to whenever or wherever that was.
Leaving Boone behind, on his knees and staring at his blood-soaked hands, looking like death himself. Meanwhile, my blood—the thick, bright-red liquid pooled on the bridge—drips over the sides and down into the abyss below.
Hades’ undeniable voice cuts me off on a shout coming from far below. “Lyra!”
Then everything goes dead and silent.
At first, I think maybe shock has me in its grip so tightly, I’m not sure I’m still alive. I even try to cry out, but my vocal cords won’t work. My body won’t move, either, not even to blink. Not even to breathe. It’s not time travel. I’m not caught in a broken crack.
This is something else.
Just as I think I’m about to follow my future into death, sound and sensation and breath return in the strangest kind of way. Not with a whoosh, but with a stutter, like a skipping record.
I think all of us must have been in the same frozen state, because we all come out of it shouting.
Boone is the loudest and directed at Cronos. “What the fuck just happened?”