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11
Hawthorne
I never meant to be the villain in Tennyson’s story, but I see now that I am.
Her cheeks were already streaked with tears, but now fury fills her face.
“What the hell?” she shouts, fists raised. South pulls her back, and she crumples against his chest.
“Tell us who the fuck you are,” Lennox growls. I’ve never seen him pissed. He has always been the weak one, the sensitive type. But now I see another side of him, strength comes when you know you are loved, and maybe that’s what’s happened to him -- same as me.
Tennyson gave him her heart and it has fortified him into something larger than life.
Well, it’s done the same to me.
Except, I was already larger than life. Truth is, I was never human, to begin with.
“What do you mean you made a deal to save your soul?” South asks, his arms wrapped around Ten.
I pace the cottage, my hands running through my hair, my mind buzzing. What do I say?
“The word soul may have been a stretch.... more like... I gave Hades my loyalty in order to live here, in Styx.”
Tennyson lifts her chin, looking at me with eyes so filled with hurt, I can’t help but step toward her.
She steps back. Scared of me. She’s shaking and scared and fading too damn fast and it can’t be like this. Not after seventeen years devoted to her. Hades can’t turn on his word now.
Or can he?
Looks like he fucking did. I’m not supposed to fade. It shouldn’t be possible with the protection he placed on me all those years ago when he asked for a volunteer.
“What loyalty?” South asks, pulling Ten back in his arms. And I fucking resent him for that. For his human body that allows him to be where without secrets. Without lies.
“You’ve been waiting to kill me all this time?” she asks, confusion lacing her words with sorrow. “Why would Hades send a four-year-old to kill on me?”
“I wasn’t four. I mean, physically I was... but come on, Ten. How do you think you survived in this place, so well? Got the clothes you wear or the houses we’ve stayed in? The books you’ve wanted to read. Hell, all of it.”
“I don’t understand.” She shakes her head and her purple hair covers her eyes. I wish she wasn’t scared of me right now, so I could brush it from her face, tell her I am the same person she has always loved.
But she sees me as someone else now. Someone I’ve worked so hard to hide, to bury.
“You’ll never see me the same again,” I say, shame covering me.
“Too late,” Tenny says, stepping away from South and pointing her finger at me. “You tricked me.”
“I tried to protect you.”
“By lying about who you are?” She shakes her head again, bewildered.
“The truth will wreck you, Ten. I don’t want that.”
“How badly is it gonna wreck her?” Eric asks, interjecting himself in our affair. “Because I need Tennyson in one piece, so I can take her to the surface.”
“Not before Hawthorne tells us who he is,” she says again. “Then we can leave him.”
But Lennox grunts in disapproval. “He’s the one who has been here the longest, maybe he can help us find a way out.”
“Lennox!” Tennyson shoots him a disapproving look. “Whose side are you on?”
“It’s not sides. It’s love.”
“It’s not love when it’s grown from lies,” she says softly.
“Tennyson,” I say, reaching for her hand, but she pulls away. “I’m a demon. Is that what you really wanted to hear?”
“A demon?” she asks, her eyes narrowed.
“I lived in the Underworld, I have no idea how long. I lived there and then Hades said he had a mission that was important. To kill you, his daughter. And he sent me because I was his right-hand man.”
“His daughter?” She looks at me blankly.
“I don’t know the details. I just know he isn’t allowed in Styx for some reason. And you’re here, which makes you untouchable.”
“You know how impossible that sounds?” she asks.
“What part of this isn’t impossible?”
She covers her mouth with her hand. “Is that why I’m alive?” she asks. “Because Hades was involved?”
“I remember him saying that the binding would only last until you were twenty-one. So, I knew time was running out...”
“You knew this was coming?” she asks. “You knew things would come to a head and you just…”
“Just did my best to make you happy? Yes. That is exactly what I did, Tennyson. Everything surfaced yesterday because we admitted our love to you. We should never have confessed. It accelerated everything. The only thing Hades hates more than true love, is his wife, Persephone.”
“I don’t understand,” South says, crossing his arms. “If you were Hades’ right-hand man... how old are you?”
I swallow. This is the question that I know will send Ten running.
