34. Chapter 34
Chapter thirty-four
Corre
M arkus’s arms wrapped around her, his body pressed against her back. His hands slid up her forearms as he helped her get into the right position for the technique. She could feel the massive amounts of power flooding through him like it was wind rushing from his soul to hers. She’d never felt such power from anyone before. It scared her a bit, but in a way that sucked her into him.
Her stomach fluttered as his breath grazed the back of her neck. She found her eyes closing and her body falling into his. He must have realized she wasn’t paying attention anymore because her head grew dizzy as she felt his mouth trail up her neck. Her eyes didn’t have time to flutter open before his lips found hers and they were kissing in heated waves, each kiss more urgent than the last. A rush of warmth rose to her cheeks, his fingers finding the flushed skin on the nape of her neck.
But then he grew cold. His lips like ice. And when she finally did open her eyes, he was gone. The dungeon was empty. And she was alone. Tears fell down her face, but she couldn’t hear the cries leaking from her mouth until her violent shaking roused her from sleep.
Leaving her dreams only made her cry more. The intense shock of remembering where she was and who she was without never ceased to hollow out her stomach. She tried silencing her cries by curling her body up and sobbing into her pillow. She let the muffled sounds mix with the liquid falling from her eyes and into puddles near her nose.
Outside, the birds chirped, and the sun was bright, but Corre couldn’t have felt more detached from it all. She was cold and so completely alone. Every morning, she woke up feeling empty and sick. There was a weight in her stomach that made her want to vomit. Sometimes, her dreams were happy, filled with sweet, stolen kisses, with memories of Markus training her or sleeping next to her in his chambers. But other times, they were even worse than the agonizing hours she spent awake each day.
And sometimes they were nightmares. Of Markus’s face as she’d left Tartarus, sorrow and agony carved in an expression she couldn’t peel from her mind, no matter how hard she tried. Or of Thanatos lashing out at him with a cold strike of his claw-like hand, his apprentice falling into a pool of blood at his feet.
She always woke up with that same sick feeling, but there was nothing she could do about it. That’s what killed her most. That helpless guilt. Or guilty helplessness. She wasn’t sure which it was. All she knew was that there was nothing she could do to help Markus and that she’d broken his heart before leaving him to break in front of his master—by the hands of his master, who was doing who knew what to him at this very moment.
Corre couldn’t let herself think about it. All it did was make her collapse into a lifeless, useless shell. She knew that was the last thing she should let happen in the weeks leading up to her return to the Underworld, so she forced herself to train. Day in and day out.
No distractions. No looking forward or back. Just fighting. Training.
She didn’t even talk to Phineas; she hadn’t since arriving back on Olympus. But today, as she made the trek through the woods to Athena’s, she knew there was no more escaping him. She’d managed to evade him for a month, but there he was now, blocking her way to the training course, arms crossed and eyes set in a heavy stare.
She tried moving past him, but he wouldn’t let her. He stepped in front of her every time she tried to go by. She let out an irritated grumble. “Let me by, Phineas.”
“No. Not until you talk to me.”
She glowered at him. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Why?”
Her jaw dropped, and an exasperated laugh rolled out. “Are you serious?”
“What?”
She shook her head and laughed again. An annoyed, astonished laugh. “I can’t believe you don’t know.”
He scowled. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“For one thing, you shot Mark—um, I mean, Theron —without even knowing anything beforehand. Have you always been like that? Shoot first, ask questions later?”
“You were in danger. What else was I supposed to do?”
“And how did you know I was in any danger? Hm?”
“ Weren’t you? Because it sure didn’t look like you were in the middle of a picnic when we got down there.”
Corre let out another tight laugh. “You have no idea, do you? You have no idea what you’re doing.”
This set something aflame in his eyes. “I saved you, Corre! This is the thanks I get? Sure, I don’t know how to lead an army yet, but last I checked, you didn’t know anything either. About anything .”
“I know more than you,” she spat.
“Yeah? About what?”
“About the Underworld.About the way this whole place works! About Theron. He isn’t to be feared. Everything anyone’s ever said about him is a lie.”
“And you know that for a fact?”
“Yes, I do.”
“After, what, a few weeks of knowing him?”
“That’s not fair—”
“Oh, and avoiding your lifelong best friend after he risked everything to save your life is fair?”
Tears stung Corre’s eyes. “You don’t understand, Phineas. He’s a good man.”
“I thought you were smarter than that,” he scoffed.
Corre’s blood boiled. “ What ?”
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I thought you were smarter than to trust an evil god you barely know just because he’s easy on the eyes.”
It took everything in Corre not to reach out and slap him. “Get out of my way,” she growled, pushing past him.
“You know I’m right about him.”
She whipped around. “You don’t know anything about him, Phineas. You have no idea at all. You just walk around this place, trusting all your friends and everyone who looks remotely innocent. But you don’t look into what may or may not be true about someone you know nothing about.”
“And you know him? Theron of Tartarus?”
“Yes, I do. I know that people have used him as a scapegoat that they can pin their hatred on for far too long.”
“He’s the scapegoat for a reason, Corre! He’s God of the Underworld!”
“So? You’re the God of War! Should I see you as a ruthless killer?”
His mouth formed a hard line, but he didn’t say anything.
“Do you see?” she said, exasperated. “Do you see why you can’t trust someone based solely on words alone and the title they’ve been given? A title they may not want? One that was thrust upon them—”
“That’s ridiculous. Everyone wants their titles. It’s what we were born to do. We wouldn’t have been given our titles if it wasn’t what we were destined to be.”
“What does that have to do with it? What does destiny have to do with what we want?”
Phineas frowned. “What are you saying?”
She sucked in a sharp breath and tried to stay composed. She kept her voice leveled as she looked up at her friend, if she could still call him that. “Some of us don’t want the titles we’ve been given. Just because you like yours doesn’t mean I like mine, or that Theron likes his.” His face fell, but she continued before he could say anything. “I don’t know if our titles are our destinies anyway. Maybe the Titans and Zeus randomly decide everything.”
“I don’t believe that.”
She shrugged. “Well, for all you know, it could be true. All I know is that no one would want to be the God of the Underworld and be taken from their home at thirteen, only to be tormented and hated for eternity. So why don’t you think about that? Chew on that a while, and then come back to me and throw allegations at Theron and call me na?ve for finally seeing the truth of things.”
He let out a half-chuckle, but one of his eyebrows flickered in frustration. “The truth of things?” He tried to avoid her gaze, but she didn’t let him off the hook.
She kept her eyes on him with such focus that he had to look straight down at her as she replied. “Yes. The truth. That sometimes looks and reputations are deceiving. That sometimes the people we trust most are the ones we should trust the least.” Her scowl burned into him before she pushed past him and headed toward the training course. She paused for a moment, and, without looking back, she quietly added, “And sometimes, people are afraid of the wrong monsters.”
“Are you talking about me?” he asked in disbelief.
“No,” she said, still facing forward. “Not the last part . . .” She turned her head just enough to briefly make eye contact with him before saying, “But I don’t think I can trust you anymore. I think you should re-evaluate who you trust up here. There may be more enemies in your social circle than you realize.” She blinked back tears as she took the first steps toward the course. “It’s hard to believe what’s right in front of us sometimes.”
She didn’t know if he’d heard the last part, and maybe she didn’t want him to. She wasn’t sure who it was aimed at. Things were so sideways now. She didn’t know what to think anymore.
“Corre—” Phineas started, but she kept going. She had nothing else to say to him.
Everything was jumbled. In a little over a month, her whole world had turned upside down. She couldn’t blame Phineas for not being able to process the situation. She could barely process it herself. And if she were to tell her former self—the Correlia she’d been just before meeting Markus—would she have believed it? Would she have believed Markus’s innocence? Or would she have been like Phineas and believed she was being naively beguiled?
Maybe past Corre wouldn’t want to believe it, but present Corre knew it was true. She realized the gods she knew around her could be anybody. An y thing . Monsters and killers, or peacemakers and friends.
She picked up her speed, tearing through the woods, hoping the brisk air skimming her skin would shock her out of her mind.
But nothing could tear her from this mess.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Not even the character of gods she was supposed to believe in, like Zeus. He was worshiped by the humans and revered on Mt. Olympus, but he was nothing more than a monster himself. Yet everyone trusted him. Goddesses let themselves fall for him, and the ones clever enough to avoid him still found themselves attached to him somehow. Everyone thought he was a glorious legend. But he was nothing more than a psychopathic sham.
And Markus was a god who was strong, despite possessing a heart and spirit so battered and broken he barely wanted to breathe. With his openly warring emotions, his large stature, his dark hair and deep voice, he was easy to pin as the bad guy.
But . . .
She thought of the way he’d looked at her when she’d tended to his wounds. About the way he’d held her and kissed her. The way he’d cried. The way he’d loved her and wept for her. The way he’d trusted her. The way he’d risked everything for her and attempted to attack his master. His abuser. For her.
Nothing could convince Corre that Markus was the bad guy. She knew he wasn’t. In fact, he may have been the least bad god she’d ever met, and when she took a step back from everything, the notion was shocking. How many gods had she wrongly trusted, and how many had she wrongly despised?
This new knowledge of the way the world worked left a bad taste in her mouth. It was disturbing. Unsettling. To know how easy it was to believe the cunning and well-liked gods, like Zeus and countless others. How easy it was to believe the crowd and hate someone who was apparently born to be hated.
It had taken everything she’d gone through to learn the truth of things, and she didn’t like it. If all of this was true, then she couldn’t trust anybody. And if she couldn’t trust anybody, what then?
She stopped running and grabbed the cloth in her back pocket—the one used to bind her fists. To prepare her to fight—to pulverize the trees and wield weapons she wasn’t yet accustomed to or experienced in. Markus surfaced in her mind again, as if he’d ever left. She thought about the way his hands had shadowed hers as he’d taught her how to use those powers known only to him and his master.
What was his master doing with that power now?
A bolt of pain ricocheted through her ribcage, and she dropped the cloth. Watching as it unraveled from her fingers and fell to the earth, she took a deep breath and steadied her mind. Markus’s voice entered her mind, and it was like he was right there next to her. “Trust me,” he said, and the velvet sound of his voice warmed her chest. She could feel his breath against her skin. Smell the warm, masculine scent from his sweat-soaked body after a day of training. The scent that, for whatever reason, made her hungry for him.
“You have to focus,” his voice said, and she straightened, her eyes still closed. Her forehead scrunched tight as she tried remembering what he’d taught her. And then she heard it like he was telling her now: “You have to focus on something you really want. You can’t have any distractions.”
How was she supposed to not be distracted when all she could think about was him? About the pain he was going through while she was up here in complete safety, with people who cared about her. No one cared about him. No one but her. He might not even realize she still did. And without that hope . . . what would he . . .?
“No,” she snapped at herself and got into the position he’d taught her. “I have to focus.”
“On what?”
Her eyes shot open, and she whipped back around. For a small sliver of time between the world of her imaginings and the one she was in now, she half-thought she’d heard Markus behind her. That, somehow, he was here.
But, of course, she was wrong. That fleeting bit of hope had been only that, and she found herself scowling at Phineas. “Why are you following me?”
“I’m not—” he started, his voice almost blaring. He stopped himself from saying anything else, took a deep breath, and tried again. “I’m not. I just . . .” He walked closer, and she could see the concern in his eyes. “I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be,” she snapped. “I’m fine.”
His gaze fell to the ground, and when he didn’t retort, guilt twisted in her stomach. The wind whistled softly through the trees, filling the awkward space between them until Phineas finally spoke. “I’ve never seen you look at someone the way you looked at him.” His voice was quiet. His eyes met hers. “When I saw that . . . I didn’t know what to make of it . . . and I . . .”
“You shot him,” she said curtly, and he flinched.
“I-I did, but you have to believe me, Corre. I did it for your own good.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Why do you think I can’t take care of myself? You of all people should know that I can.”
His face was strained, and she didn’t know what to make of his newfound silence and his odd energy. Why was he acting so weird?
“Don’t you trust me?” she asked.
“Of course I do.” He sounded agonized, which made her even more confused.
“I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me, so just spit it out.” The frustration coursing through her was only getting worse. She had no time or patience for this right now.
“I love you, Corre,” he said, and she jerked back, wide-eyed.
“What?”
“I’ve loved you for a long time, and I’m worried about you. How could I not be? Just like how . . .” He paused before saying it. “Just like how you were worried about him .”
Corre wanted to be mad at the way he’d said it, but she couldn’t be. She was too shocked, and the sorrow in his eyes was too real. “What are you saying?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. Please. For me.”
Her stomach clenched tighter. She didn’t know what to say. She stared at him until he finally continued, “I’ll always worry about you, and . . . I-I went down there to save you. But when I saw you look at him like that . . . I couldn’t control it. I was furious. I was mad that he could beguile you into feeling for him in a way you’ve never felt for me.”
“He didn’t beguile me, Phineas,” she said, and for whatever reason, her eyes filled with tears.
He nodded. “I know.” His gaze fell again. “I know.”
The world inside her head whirred, and everything was suddenly too hot, the wind and birds too loud around her.
Tears stung her eyes as one escaped down her face. “Why?” The word came out like a plea.
“Why, what?”
“Why did you have to hurt him? And why do you have to . . .” Why do you have to feel like this? she wanted to say, but she knew it wasn’t fair.
Phineas surmised what she was getting at regardless. “I can’t help how I feel, and you should know that more than anyone. Right?” It sounded like an accusation.
“You’re like a brother to me, Phineas.”
“Great. That’s what every guy wants to hear.” He tried to laugh, but her bloodshot eyes seemed to stop him.
“I mean it. I’ve seen you as a brother. A friend. And now . . .” Nausea curdled in her gut. “Now, nothing will be the same.”
“Nothing was ever going to be the same after you went down there with him. After you fell for—”
“For what?” she challenged, and he should have known better than to answer.
“A monster.” He said it as if daring her to spar. Like it was just another mock fight. The kind they’d been using to train their whole lives. A time that seemed so distant now.
She wanted to yell at him, but she knew there was no point. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “My falling for Hades wasn’t why things will never be the same. That switch happened the moment you shot that arrow.” Her bleary glare stayed locked on him one more silent moment before she decided to walk back to town. She couldn’t train like this.
“I have to get out of here,” she said, but as she ran past him, he grabbed her arm. She shot him a look and said, “Please, let me go, Phineas. I can’t talk about this anymore.”
Tears were in his eyes, too, which made hers spill like rain down her cheeks.
“Please, tell me we can still be friends,” he whispered.
She sniffed back tears and turned away, yanking her arm free and wiping her face. “I can’t.” She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t.
She ran toward town, without looking back.
To get anywhere but here.