Page 76 of Lovesick Gods

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He deserves this, Zeus had said. Interesting.

Prometheus should have been there the night Zeus murdered Thanatos. But he wasn’t. Zeus resented him for it, that was clear, yet they’d still ended up in bed together. This affair had more layers than Hades realized. Zeus was planning something of his own.

For now, Hades filed the information away for later. The city’s hero and his nemesis were making this far too easy.

Chapter18

When Danny knew Lynn and Andre would be elsewhere, he jumped into the morgue and grabbed his phone from where he’d left it with his clothes last night. He also found the pill bottle from Lynn and downed one without a moment’s hesitation.

Everyone had tried to reach him at some point—Andre, Stella, his father wondering why he’d never come home. He spent his lunch break answering texts while avoiding actually seeing anyone. He was fine. He was sorry. Yes, he’d talk, he just needed to get through the day, hopefully without incident or anyone showing up to blindside him. And he almost made it.

Until John came in as Danny was about to leave his office for the day and said he’d walk down with him to the morgue.

They were silent for the first few minutes, even after they reached the basement floor and no one was around to overhear them. John’s silent treatment was almost worse than his lectures.

Closing his eyes, Danny leaned against the wall once they slipped through the locked door into the old morgue’s hallways. “Andre and Lynn know. Stella knows a little.”

“Care to share with me finally?” his father asked.

I’m broken, Danny thought, but he’d just scare John if he said that. “I’m sad and angry all the time and nothing”—almost nothing—“seems to make it go away. It’s making me careless, dangerous when I’m out there as Zeus. But if I try to talk it out, I’m going to end upscreaming.”

“Like you have with your friends?”

Danny opened his eyes with a sigh, but he couldn’t look at his father. “What am I supposed to say, Dad? Mom and Rick are gone because of me. I hate myself and sometimes I don’t even know why I…”

“Why you what?”

Why I keep going.

“Danny, listen to me,” John said when Danny didn’t speak. “Rick and your mother are not dead because of you. None of what happened was your fault. You did everything—”

“Can you stop lying to me, Dad?” Danny finally turned to him.

“Lying?” John’s brow scrunched in confusion, his teal eyes bright in the dim light of the hallway. “What are you talking about?”

Danny stared at the door leading into the morgue’s main room, at the other doors leading to rooms they’d repurposed just to play hero. “Being a cop always puts more of a bullseye on your family—you said that to me when I chose to go to the academy. Not to scare me away, but so I’d understand the burden. You had no idea what a bullseye was until I became Zeus.”

“Danny—”

“He turned me into akiller. You can’t tell me you don’t blame me when the only reason Mom died was because Thanatos wanted to get to me.”

“I would never—”

“But you do!” Danny yelled, quickly reining his voice back in at the risk of Andre and Lynn overhearing from down the hall. “Ido. Everyone does, they just don’t want to say it. If you didn’t blame me, you wouldn’t cringe every time you look at me.” His cheeks felt numb to the tears leaking down them. “And it’s okay, Dad, I get it. I don’t like looking at me either.”

Scrubbing the wetness from his face, Danny tried to push past his father, but John stood in his path like a monument, as tall as Danny but broader, bigger. Danny almost lightning jumped pasthim, but before he could, his father’s arm hooked around his neck and pulled him in tight against his chest.

He held him there and squeezed until Danny lost his breath. When John shushed him, like he used to when Danny was a little boy, something triggered in the back of his mind and he sniffled miserably into his father’s shoulder.

“If I cringe,” John said, soft and steady, “it’s because I hate seeing so much pain looking back at me.”

“Dad, I…” Faltering, Danny squeezed his father in return. “I need a break, but I can’t take one, so what’s there to even do about it?”

“There’s the hard way. The long way. One day at a time. I know that’s not the answer you want to hear right now, kiddo, but I promise you that the people who care about you will always be here. I’ll always be here. If you need a break from being Zeus—”

“I can’t.” Danny pulled out of the embrace. “I can’t let anyone else get hurt when I can do something to prevent it. Ludgate would have targeted me anyway. He wants the limelight, and that means facing Zeus. I’ll be okay, Dad. I just need to think like you said—one day at a time.” It sounded so simple and yet insurmountable all at once.

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