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Natalie, Alek, and I stood at the door to my old apartment. I hadn’t been back here since before Theia had attacked me, since before I dropped the veil, since before Alek died. Now, this place felt completely different.
It wasn’t the same space I had spent years in, stranded alone in the confines of solitude. Now it was a graveyard. A sick reminder of everything I once thought was freedom.
Alek hesitated for a moment before reaching forward and twisting the knob, letting the door swing open ahead of us.
We didn’t care about the cameras anymore. If Theia was still watching us through them, she would know we were looking for her. But I didn’t care. She couldn’t kill me; she couldn’t risk losing the one key to the veil.
Or maybe she was done with the veil. Maybe after failing at her one purpose in life, she had banished herself from her duties as a goddess and disappeared from our lives permanently.
It was a nice thought, but we needed answers. Which meant, as horrific as it sounded, we needed her.
“Shit,” Nat mumbled as we made our way through the door.
The perfectly clean, organized apartment that used to be mine had been ripped to shreds. Not a single object was left unturned, not a single book remained untouched on the shelf. Garbage, bedding, and broken glass littered the floor.
My chest tightened.
This was never freedom.
This was a cage, as gilded and spacious as it may have been.
“Do you think Theia did this?” Natalie asked. Alek lingered behind, giving us the space we needed to survey the remnants of my old, tattered life.
I ignored the stinging in the back of my throat. “I have no doubt.”
Theia would never have gone quietly. She wanted to ruin my entire life, and what better way to do that than to rip apart the only place I had ever called home?
“I knew she would be angry,” Natalie sighed. “But I somehow forgot what a raging bitch your mother could be.”
She took another step, and glass crunched beneath her black boot.
There was nothing left, nothing salvageable.
Theia had managed to ruin it all.
“Let’s just go,” I mumbled, squeezing my eyes shut and turning back to Alek.
“What?” Natalie asked, furrowing her brows.
Alek’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t need any of this. This was never really my home, anyway. I get to start a new home that she’ll never be able to touch. A new home with you two, the people I actually love.”
Natalie stepped up beside me and threw an arm over my shoulders. “I never liked it here anyway. The window was much too difficult to maneuver through.”
We all laughed then, Alek included, as we glanced over to the window that had become so familiar to me.
I could still see Natalie’s silhouette climbing through, Alek tapping on the glass in the middle of the night.
But I didn’t have to sneak around anymore. I didn’t have to hide. This was my life, and nobody would take that from me anymore.
Nobody.
“Follow me,” Alek said as we retreated to the street. “I have someone you might want to talk to.”
Natalie and I shared a glance. “Very cryptic,” she teased. “Is that how all you demons talk now? In code?”
Alek ignored this as he grabbed the helmet of his motorcycle and handed it to me, placing a quick kiss on my lips before helping me slide it over my head.
