Chapter 22 Ophelia
Ophelia
I run.
I don't think. Don't plan. Just see an opening and take it.
Behind me, I hear the crash of gods fighting, lightning cracking, shadows exploding, but I don't look back.
Because if I do, I'll see Hades.
And if I see him, I might stay.
And I can't stay with someone who lied to me. Who slept with me, came inside me, all while keeping the truth locked away like I didn't deserve to know what a fucking cult wanted to use MY body for.
I feel ill just thinking about it.
Was Hades trying to get me pregnant? Could he?
I feel silly for not thinking of these questions before I gave my body to him.
MY body. Mine.
You're just a vessel. A prophecy. A body to be used and discarded.
I stop for a minute and vomit into the desert. The very idea of what the cult wants to do to me makes my stomach turn, and if it weren't for my incredible anger, I might have just laid in the dirt and died.
But I'm too stubborn, and my anger propels me to get as far away as possible.
I'm running on pure adrenaline and rage, and I barely register when the plants start responding to me.
Vines erupt from the ground creating a wall between me and any enemies. Flowers bloom and twist, forming a living barrier that blocks the view of anyone who might be watching. The plants seem to understand what I need before I do: protection, concealment, and the ability to escape.
I allow them to guide me.
A small tree bends, its branches pointing down a side street. Ivy crawls up a building, creating shadows for me to slip around without being seen on the CCTV on the various houses in the area. Every growing thing in this city responds to my panic, my desperation, my need to disappear.
Mother Nature.
That's what Hades called me once.
The memory makes my chest tight. I smash down the grief and focus on my red hot rage, allowing it to fuel my legs, my power, my escape.
I'm not sure how long I walk until I come to a bus stop.
The bus is pulling up just as I arrive, and I climb on without thinking about where it's going, grateful that I always keep a five-dollar bill on me.
I sink into a seat near the back and finally let myself feel it.
The devastation.
The betrayal.
The horrible, crushing realization that everyone I've ever trusted has lied to me.
My mother tried to kill me.
My father lied about my powers, my identity, his past.
Hades kept the truth from me while sharing my bed.
And somewhere out there, a cult wants to use me as a fucking incubator for a dead goddess — also my mother.
I press my forehead against the cool window and try not to cry.
I fail.
The bus drops me in a part of Vegas I recognize: the neighborhood where I lived before. Before Hades. Before gods and prophecies and divine bullshit invaded my life. I breathe a sigh of relief at something finally going right.
I get off, and I'm one block from home. I nearly collapse at the realization, but I keep moving forward.
When I see the door and find the spare inside the plant, like always, I sob in relief.
When I open the door, I am shocked to see the space just as I left it.
The apartment is small. One bedroom, and a study we turned into a bedroom when my dad was still alive. After he passed, I couldn't sleep in his room, so I'd kept it.
The kitchen is barely big enough to turn around in, and the living room has a tiny T.V. we found at a pawn shop. It's nothing compared to Hades's luxury penthouse with its floor-to-ceiling windows and marble everything.
But it's mine.
I'm surprised and grateful my shit hasn't been thrown out in the streets, and I'm too exhausted to think about who has been paying the rent.
I sink onto the worn couch and finally let myself break. Really and truly fall apart.
Great, heaving sobs shake my whole body. Tears fall uncontrollably, and I make no effort to stop them. This is the kind of crying that comes from somewhere deep and primal and utterly devastated.
I cry for myself, for the normal life I thought I had.
I cry for the stupid, foolish part of me that fell for Hades despite knowing better.
And I cry because I don't know who I am anymore.
Am I Ophelia? Persephone? Some fucked-up combination of both?
Am I a person or just a vessel waiting to be filled and discarded.
All the questions swimming in my mind cause me to fall to my knees as I gasp for breath and reason.
"Oh, sweetheart."
The voice makes me jump.
I spin around, and there, materializing from the shadows in the corner, is my father.
My very dead father.
"Dad?" My voice cracks, and I blink several times, once again wondering if I am losing it. "What — how —"
"You can see me," he says, and there's wonder in his voice. "I wasn't sure you'd be able to."
I shake my head. "I'm going crazy," I sob. "Fuck."
"Language," he scolds, in only the way a parent can.
"I don't think this is the time for a lecture." I'm on my feet pacing. "I've finally broken."
He gives me a sad smile, and I realize he's translucent, more shadow than man. I inhale, remembering my time in the Underworld, Hades's explanation. "You're a shade."
He nods. "Have been for a long time."
"Did Hades send you?" My tone is accusatory.
He shakes his head. "No," he clucks his tongue. "Though I suppose if you can see me, you've found him."
"I have."
He looks sad. "Then that's why you can see me now. You're connected to death." He moves closer, and I can see through him to the wall behind. "Queen of the Underworld."
I stare at him, torn between wanting to run into his arms and wanting to scream at him for all the lies.
I choose a weird medium. "I'm happy to see you," I sniff, rubbing the sleeve of my sweater across my face, trying to dry my tears. "Even if you lied to me."
I'm not sure what I expect from him, but when he comes closer and I see the grief on his face, I feel a bit of my anger dissipate.
"You made me think my powers were in my head."
"I know." He doesn't apologize. Doesn't try to justify it. "I did what I could to give you the life you deserved. Even if it meant lying to you."
"I deserved the truth! I deserved to know what I was! Instead, I found out from a cult trying to kidnap me and a god who —" My voice breaks, and I inhale shakily. "Who used me."
"He didn't use you."
"You don't know that." I cross my arms defiantly over my chest. "You weren't there."
My father's expression is gentle. "Hades would never bring you harm. That's the only peace I've ever had, that knowledge."
"He lied!" I'm shaking. "He knew about the prophecy. He knew what they wanted to do to me, and he said nothing. He took me to his bed, and he —" I can't finish. Can't say it out loud.
There are some things a father shouldn't know.
My father is quiet for a moment, and I wish that he were corporeal, that he could wrap me in his arms and comfort me. I never realized how desperately I need him.
"I feel like I don't know you," I whisper, another tear falling down my cheek. "Like everything I thought I've known has been a lie."
He smiles sadly at me. "What do you want to know, sweetheart?"
"Why did you join the cult?" It's the question I've turned over and over again in my mind.
"I didn't join," he says. "I grew up in the cult."
"You grew up in it?" I ask, surprised.
He nods. "My parents were members. My grandparents before them, and their parents. We go back so far I don't even know the when or why. It was always a thing."
I inhale sharply. This is the story. The one I've been dreading — the truth.
"It's why your mother and I were chosen. We were both bred from long lines of true believers."
"Chosen?" Bred? Vomit.
"For you. To bring you into the world." He settles onto the arm of the couch, not quite sitting, not quite floating.
It's very weird. "Being selected to potentially birth the Maiden was considered a great honor.
When it happened, your grandparents wept.
My mother had been a selected woman, but she failed. My sister was not the Maiden."
Horror crawls up my spine. "You were... they bred you? Like livestock?"
"In a way." His expression is sad. "They'd been trying for thousands of years, according to Mother Callista. Different couples. Different attempts. None of them worked. Until us."
"Why?" I whisper. "Why did it work?"
"I don't know. Luck? The Fates themselves intervening?" He shakes his head. "All I know is that you were born, and from the moment I held you, I knew you were special."
I deflate slightly. "Because I'm the Maiden?"
He shakes his head. "Because you were my daughter." He closes his eyes slightly. "I loved you. Deeply, fiercely."
Fresh tears spill down my cheeks, but this time they aren't from disappointment or lies. The emotions welling inside my chest are something different.
"Your powers manifested when you were an infant," he continues.
"You'd touch a wilted plant, and it would bloom.
You'd cry and flowers would sprout from the cracks in the floor.
Once, you helped one of the cult members conceive a child — they'd been trying for years, and you just..
. touched her belly and smiled, and three months later she was pregnant. "
I press my hands to my face. "I don't remember any of that."
"You were too young. So young. But the cult..." he trails off, anger in his tone. "They started planning. They talked about how to prepare you. How to make you ready for Zeus when the time came."
My stomach churns with bile. "How old —"
"Eighteen," he says quickly. "They were going to wait until you were eighteen. The indoctrination would have started long before, of course. Teaching you about your sacred purpose. Your divine duty. Making you believe it was an honor to be used that way."
"But you didn't let them."
"No." His expression hardens. "Because you were my daughter, not their tool."
"Is that why you left?"
He clears his throat. "Partially," he tells me. "I wasn't strong enough. But then..." he trails off. "You started talking about him."
I frown. "Who?"