Chapter 2
“Persy? Isn't that a boy's name?”
I bit back a retort before it could slip from my lips, and forced them into a smile. Today was not the day I got sacked for swearing at a customer.
“Do you want milk in this Americano?” I asked the tall, muscular guy with the lopsided grin across the counter from me.
“Nah, I like my coffee bitter,” he said, and waggled his eyebrows at me. His gray eyes shone, and when I looked into them I found it strangely hard to look away again. I was sure I could see purple swirling around in them. “So,” he said, pointing to my name badge. “Parents wanted a boy?”
I sighed, snapping out of the pleasant effect his eyes were having on me.
“No. It's short for Persephone,” I said, slapping a plastic lid on the steaming coffee and sliding it over to him. “Next!” I called.
“What time do you finish your shift? Are you busy later?” he said. I looked sideways at him as the next customer in the line, a doddery little old woman with a stick, stepped forward scowling.
“You need to move out the way,” I told him, and he bowed his head at the old lady apologetically. His pale hair flopped forward and he pushed his hand through it as he straightened, his chest muscles straining under his tight blue t-shirt.
“I'm so sorry, ma’am. I was just asking this delightful young lady if she had plans later this afternoon,” he smiled at her. I rolled my eyes as the lady's scowl vanished, replaced with a smile under flushing cheeks.
“Well, aren't you the lucky one,” she said to me.
“No, I'm not. I'm afraid I have plans this afternoon,” I said to the cocky guy.
“That's a shame,” he said, this time his smile not quite reaching his eyes and a wicked gleam forming in them instead. “Catch you around, Persy,” he said, and strode from the coffee shop. A weird tingle skittered through me, and I shook my head as I turned back to the little old lady.
“I'd have canceled my plans if I were you,” she said, cheeks still pink. “There aren't many men that look like that, even in New York.”
“In my experience, the prettiest men are the best ones to avoid,” I told her. “Now, what can I get you?”
My shift at Easy Espresso lasted another two hours, and even though a steady trickle of caffeine-starved customers kept me busy, I couldn't shift those mesmerizing eyes from my mind.
I'd meant what I'd said though. Well-polished men whose second sentence was to ask you out were an absolute no-no for me.
Unfortunately, my type was the effortlessly cool, ripped jeans, oily t-shirt, totally-distracted-by-something-stereo-typically-male-like-fixing-or-building-things guy.
In short, the sort of guy who never, ever noticed or chatted up girls who worked in coffee shops.
I'd worked in Easy Espresso for a year now.
I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.
Don't get me wrong, working as a barista in a little, local coffee shop beat working in one of the big ones, where the lines were always ten people deep and everyone was angry and in a hurry.
Easy Espresso had a more relaxed vibe, sandwiched between a dry cleaners and a bakery, with only three little tables inside and the same outside.
My boss, Tom, wasn't an asshole, which was rare for New York and a first for me, but I knew I wouldn't be there much longer.
I only had one semester left at the New York Botanical Gardens, and when I graduated I'd be able to get a job doing what I really loved.
I felt a frisson of excitement as I shrugged on my biker jacket when Stacey arrived to take over from my shift at 2pm.
“See you tomorrow,” I called to her quickly, and raced though the door before she'd even got her ugly brown apron on.
The crocuses should finally be opening in my little patch of greenhouse, and after Soil Science class I had a whole hour with Professor Hetz to go over the designs for my private garden.
If I did a good enough job then he would put me forward for the landscape designer scholarship, and I'd actually have a shot at my dream career. And the way rooftop gardens were taking over the city, there was a good chance I could find enough work to stay in Manhattan too.
I grinned as I jogged towards the subway entrance, pulling my tatty slouch purse higher over my shoulder. The Botanical Gardens, and my beautiful domed lecture building, were in the Bronx, a good twenty minutes away, and I only had thirty minutes before Soil Science started.
A flash of lightning caught my eye, and I cast my gaze upwards. Black clouds were rolling across the sky out of nowhere. Weird. It was forecast to be dry and warm all week, and after a dismally wet start to April, the city deserved some sunshine.
People began to hurry around me, picking up their paces and scowling. I didn't have an umbrella and my little leather jacket wasn't going to keep much of me dry, so I upped my jog to a sprint, aiming for the cover of the subway underpass.
A sudden clap of thunder made my heart leap in my chest, and I couldn't help slowing down to a stop and looking up at the sky again as the noise reverberated through the streets, bouncing off the towering buildings surrounding me.
It had gotten dark quickly, and although there was still no rain falling, the sun was completely blocked by thick, dark clouds.
I could see purple lightning sparking inside them, and then there was another crack of thunder. This one was so loud that an involuntary cry escaped my lips, my hands flying to my ears unbidden. Fear started to trickle through me. Outside in the city was no place to be during a lightning storm.
“You should get inside, Persy, where it's safe.”
I jerked my gaze down from the lightning-filled clouds and my jaw dropped as I saw the blonde haired pretty-boy from earlier, standing ten feet away from me. And he was the only one on the streets, I realized, flicking my eyes from side to side.
Where had everyone gone?
There must have been fifty people bustling about not thirty seconds ago! This was getting really fucking weird. Panic was beginning to build inside me, and I took a step backwards. The pretty-boy smiled at me, then in the blink of an eye, he was standing directly in front of me.
I gasped, my pulse skyrocketing, and took another step back, but I couldn't take my eyes off his. Purple lightning was firing in his irises, in time with the flashes above me.
It was utterly beautiful and completely terrifying.
My muscles twitched as my heart hammered against my ribs. Every part of me wanted to get away from him, but I couldn't move.
“Who are you?” I breathed.
“You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” he grinned. “But I don't like being turned down.”
A flicker of anger penetrated my fear. The pretty-boy couldn't take rejection? My mind filled with an image of Ted Hammond, who'd bullied me all through high school, making my life hell whilst anyone was looking, and worse when no one was.
“So you make flashy storms when girls aren't interested in you?” I raised my eyebrows at him. He laughed softly, and I swore he was starting to grow taller, beginning to loom over my already slight form.
I instantly regretted what I'd said, the familiar helpless feeling making my insides shrink. I wasn't strong enough to stop him. It was the same thought that had dominated my life for years.
“Ohhhh, Persephone. I do so, so much worse than make flashy storms.” He was beginning to glow a faint purple, and I screamed as a bolt of lightning suddenly flashed from the sky, hitting him square on.
Light erupted from him, and I turned and ran, my instincts finally taking hold of me.
“Where are you going, little Persy? There's no escaping me!” Booming laughter echoed around the empty streets, and my chest began to tighten, my lungs burning as I ran faster.
I didn't know where I was going, panic blinding my ability to reason or think, an animalistic need to get away forcing my body to keep moving.
Another purple flash blinded me momentarily and I skidded out of the way as a lightning bolt screeched down into the tarmac. The smell of burning asphalt filled my nostrils as I turned, spotting an entrance to the subway further up the abandoned street.
“Come on now, Persephone, Hades will be so upset with me if I fry you before I can get you to his realm.”
Hades? Did he just say Hades?
I kept running, my sneakers pounding the street, desperate to reach the subway.
Lightning couldn't get underground, surely?
But as I got closer the entrance to the subway shimmered, and my steps faltered as the world ahead of me morphed from 6th Avenue to a meadow, the subway entrance becoming a dark and gaping cave mouth.
I stumbled hard and fell to one knee, landing on soft grass instead of hard asphalt. My breathing was shallow now, my mind reeling, and I scrabbled back to my feet and spun around.
How the hell was this happening? What the hell was happening?
A wave of dizziness swamped me as I tried to process the endless green turf and pretty flowers surrounding me.
“Where am I?” I shrieked, looking around for the lightning-eyed pretty-boy. Dark clouds still rolled overhead, flashing purple. “Why am I here? Who the hell are you?” Tears of frustration and fear began to fill my eyes.
I had a class to get to. I needed to show Professor Hetz my garden.
The garden I'd worked on for months, that my whole future depended on.
.. Some part of me knew that the garden should have been the least of my worries, but it had occupied every corner of my mind for months.
It was a chance at a new start, where nobody would see me as weak or poor.
I had to cling to something real in this twisted hallucination, or whatever the hell it was, and all I had was my garden.
There was another boom of thunder, and rain began to fall from the flashing clouds, heavy and cold. I let out a roar of anger, still turning around frantically, looking for the asshole who'd fucked my day up so tremendously.
“Where are you, you cowardly bastard?!” I screamed. As if in answer, the rain pelted down harder and lightning streaked towards the earth on every side of me.