Page 105 of A Subtle Scar
“I think you should call Christine to help with the human side of this.” The Dragon Mother vaguely pointed at the humans still in the cave, all of which were in various stages of passed out. Or dead. The three with their skull masks looked…like mummies.
I fished my phone from my pocket.
There was no reception and I’d have to teleport up, but before I could, one of the skull mask people scrambled to his feet and staggered toward the golden creature. I watched amazed because he looked like a literal mummy, and his eyes shone dull copper.
“You are ours, star servant, serve us and destroy these diseased invaders, slave!” the mummy person said.
The golden creature backed away, the terror vibrant on that bright face.
I put my phone away again, walked past the scared golden dude who cowered away from me, and punched skull guy. His fucking skull cracked and fell away. He looked faded, used, aged beyond reason, and his skin drawn in an unnatural way. And his eyes of course, they were wrong. For a second, I thought something other than human stared at me through them, but before I had a chance to examine that, he dropped his gaze.
“You keep your hands off of him. Dragon Mother, I need to teleport above ground for a second.”
I did, and the detective picked up almost as soon as her phone began to ring. “Detective Rice. So we went for a hike and found a bunker with some cultists inside. Can you come help, please?”
Surely the police did that kind of thing every day.
Chapter Thirty
I’dbeenawakeformaybe ten minutes, maybe an hour. I was in Charon’s bed, and the sheer curtain above it was shimmering, just a little bit, not enough to be annoying. In a corner, a butterfly made of light fluttered its wings.
It was almost like they had left on a night light for me, like they didn’t want me to be scared when I woke up.
I hadn’t been scared as such, but the light had nothing to do with it. I was not dead, and I was not exactly sure how I felt about that. It meant… It meant. Something, for sure.
While I’d tried to figure out what exactly it meant, I’d mentally prepared myself for the possibility that I’d broken something important in my back. Hitting the cave wall was quite clear in the forefront of my recent memory, and the noises of all that damage—I remembered.
I’d wiggled my toes and fingers, had lifted my hands, then both knees, one at a time. Everything was in working order. Everything hurt like a son of a bitch, but everything was where it was supposed to be.
I was not in a mind space where “good” was an adjective I was willing to use as a descriptor of this state I found myself in, but I was, if nothing else, whole.
And yet, I hadn’t left the bed. For whatever cruel twist, I was still here, still alive, but I was in Charon’s bed, and Charon wasn’t here. If I got up, I’d inevitably find out why that was, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to handle it.
The Dragon Mother had said she was going to heal him as best as she could. From what I had seen, one of his wings had been nearly torn off.
In the end, I knew I had to do something. I’d always been able to take myself out of the equation, to just manage. Remove myself, not let myself grow attached.
The idea of getting out of this bed and facing whatever there was to face with that mindset scared me more than anything.
Maybe I can love them. Maybe I can bear their love. Maybe I can learn to accept it and not run from it.
I’d been willing to die, and those maybes were my only regrets. I pushed the sheets back and shuffled to the edge of the giant bed. A fucking chore, seeing aseverythinghurt and I was black and blue, bruised beyond reason. To top it all off, someone had put a short, red silk robe on me.
I forced myself to ignore the robe. If nothing else, all those maybes made a to-do list, and I knew how to work my way through one of those.
Charon’s house was a fucking hike and a half. The stairs, the stairs were fucking torture, and I didn’t even have the energy to moan, I just moved, arm, leg, other leg, step, repeat.
When I was on the ground floor, I had to navigate my way to where Hermes and Charon were, which sucked. I realized that it was daytime at some point, something I hadn’t been able to really put together, even though only the bedroom had been darkened.
When I saw an open back door to the garden, I headed that way, and when I saw two massive black wings slung over the back of a garden swing and gleaming a faint, bluish purple in the sunlight, my legs gave out, and I collapsed on the very nice marble terrace.
“Thank fuck,” I said.
“What the—baby, why are you up?” I heard Hermes ask.
The golden-haired god appeared before me, feathers rustled, and Charon walked up to me as well. I’d never seen a god with bruises and cuts and the white of one eye gone red, but I didn’t care, I was just glad to see him.
“You okay? Ow!”
