Modern Goddess: Trapped by Thor (Book One) (25 page)

“
You are also...” he trailed
off.

I was also what? I held onto his words as if
they were an anchor somehow keeping me in place though a storm of
uncertainty was threatening to sweep me off my feet.

“
Not normal,” he finished with a
heavy sigh that shook my bedroom window.

Not normal? Hardly an illuminating thing to
say, a voice of reason said from somewhere inside the storm of my
mind.

“
You are not...” he trailed off
once more.

I waited on his words.

He didn't speak again.

What was he trying to tell me? I was not
what?

I pulled my hands from my face.

There was a room around me: my room. There
were bullet holes in the far wall and plaster was strewn all over
the carpet.

“
Details, we cannot do this
all night,” Thor said from outside my bedroom window.

Rubbing my eyes and still shaking like a
leaf in a storm, I turned to the window behind my bed. It was a
large window, and though the curtains were drawn, they were thin
enough that I could see the giant shadow of Thor behind them, his
form illuminated by the street lamp outside my house.

I watched him.

Would Loki bother going outside when I asked
him to get out? Would he bother mooching around on my porch while I
had a breakdown – respecting my need for space and yet not wanting
to outright leave?

Wouldn't Loki cackle, pull a gun, and take
me off to strap me to a wall somewhere?

The tiny voice of reason that had been
small moments before began to grow. I pushed to the corner of the
bed as I kept a wary eye on Thor.

“
I didn't expect this,” his
voice lowered as if he were talking to himself.

He didn't expect what?

The questions pressed at my mind, and the
more they gathered, the more they pushed the confusion out. A
question indicated ignorance of the unknown, and it was the threat
of the unknown that had pushed me into this frantic, self-doubting
frenzy. Somehow the questions were like rungs on a ladder, while
the confusion blew me off my feet and twisted me inside
out.

The only problem with ladders was
enterprising sea monsters, but hopefully there weren't any hiding
under my bed.

I held onto the questions, cupping them in
my hands (if you could imagine it) and keeping them safe from the
doubt and confusion.

I stood up.

“
I’m sorry,” Thor said quietly.
His voice no longer shook the window, walls, or floor. I had to
strain my hearing to pick it up. “I didn’t realize....”

He didn't realize what? What was he trying
not to say here? He didn't realize that going to the Ambrosia was a
dumb plan? He didn't realize that his maybe-wife from another
identity would be there to hunt me down and try to scratch my eyes
out? He didn't realize that taking the time to have a domestic was
not something he should prioritize over taking the time to save the
universe (and me)?

I walked over to the window warily. I
watched his shadow. I could see his shoulders heave up and down. He
was breathing heavily (though gods don't breathe).

“
Details, there is much to
find out, and you can't help me if you are lying on your bed,” his
tone returned to normal.

I stared at that shadow. It was the first
time I’d looked not at Thor, but at the effect he cast on the
objects around him. The shadow was solid, reassuring,
real.

I needed real right now.

I pressed my teeth hard into my bottom
lip. I felt... different. The hysteria was passing and the doubt
was leaving with it.

“
Come on, Details, don't
make me come in there and knock you out with Mjollnir,” he said
through a gruff laugh.

Thor. Yep, it was Thor.

“
You do that,” I said, voice
still unsure but growing in power with every breath, “And I'll be
sure they revoke your current visa.”

“
Details,” Thor boomed with a
definite note of happiness that shook my window something
chronic.

I crossed my arms and stared at his
silhouette. It disappeared.

I heard his thundering steps as he rounded
my porch, went through my broken door, and popped his
golden-bearded face into my bedroom.

I crossed my arms and took a shaky breath
(though I hoped the fact I was still shaking was hidden by the
half-dark of the room).

“
You should not have left
the Ambrosia,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes and glared at him. “You
shouldn't have gone to the Ambrosia in the first place—“

He put up a hand. “I was gathering
information.”

“
You were gathering empty
beer mugs,” I shot back.

He took a sharp laugh, his mouth kinking
up to the side in a familiar move. “You, of all people, must
appreciate that the details of a situation are not always what they
seem.”

I clutched my hands tighter around my
middle. The statement brought up the familiar lick of uncertainty
I'd been grappling with over the last couple of hours.

Thor watched me carefully. If I hadn’t
known better, he'd said that on purpose to see how I would react.
“Details,” he said after a deep breath, “I’m afraid this is more
serious than I originally thought.”

Despite everything, I gave an abrupt
snicker. “Really? You mean you are going to take the fact I'm being
hunted down by gods seriously now? How nice of you.”

Thor's face didn't turn to stone at my
snide comment, and he didn't reach behind him, rip off a chunk of
wall, and throw it right at my head. No... he went silent. “Who are
you, Details?”

I let out a sharp, involuntary breath. What
a stupid question, I thought bitterly. Yet the thought shook
through me. I swallowed. “You know the answer, don't be
stupid—“

“
I know more than you allow for,”
his tone had a note of warning, but not a threatening one. This was
his attempt to point out to me that, although he acted like a total
and complete jerk/bully/nong most of the time, he was still privy
to the kinds of divine secrets small-time goddesses would never
learn. He'd done the same thing in God Hospital when he'd stopped
time to stare at me.

While academically I appreciated he must
know – and I hated to admit it – more than me, it was a fact I was
usually willing to bury.

I sucked my lips in.

He pointed right at me. “I do not know who
you are,” he said.

I locked my jaw together, not wanting and
not capable of moving it.

“
There is much to this situation
that is strange.” He grabbed a hand to his chin and appeared to
think.

My mind caught up to my body. “I'm
Officina,” I said with a punctuated breath of air.

He looked down at me immediately, eyes
blazing. “Who is that? Where do you come from? What pantheon? When
did you arise? What is your mythology?”

I shook my head. No. I said to myself
firmly. I didn't want to begin doubting myself again. The incident
with the oak in the middle of the street... it had almost torn me
in two. It had made me doubt the evidentiary base of everything I
believed in –everything I was.

No. No. No.

“
Officina, goddess of
details, what is your legend?” Thor asked, a distinct note of
authority in his voice. He was talking to me, not as a
petulant-bully god, but as the combined champion of various divine
pantheons across the globe.

“
Stop this, Thor,” I wanted
to say with finality, except my voice shook so much it sounded far
more like a plea. “You know who I am, so stop this. I'm a goddess
of details, I work at the Integration Office, I live in a cottage.”
I shrugged my shoulders tightly, trying to indicate the godly
shrine around me.

“
But what is your legend?”
He kept staring down at me, and the more he stared, the more he
looked statuesque. The less and less he looked like the
golden-bearded, hammer-carrying nong who would smash a sea monster
only to let one of its wily tentacles kidnap a goddess by his feet.
The less he looked like the kind of god who would leave you in your
sitting room while his once-best-fried blew up your front door. Or
the kind of god who would ignore a plea from his father to save the
universe and instead indulge in some ale-sloshing party
times.

The less and less he looked like the Thor I
thought I knew, the more he looked like the Thor of legend – the
Champion of the Nordic Gods.

I immediately dropped my gaze. It was a
defense mechanism, I realized. If I wasn't looking at him, I
wouldn't be able to pick up the change in his visage – the way his
stature and stare became innately powerful. Seeing that change made
me doubt – and it was a terrible, gut-wrenching doubt. It made me
suspect that Thor had always been that way, but I’d chosen to see
him as the godly equivalent of a teenage boy, supporting my
conclusion by concentrating on all the wrong details.

I backed off.

“
I will not harm you,
Details, but tell me who you are,” his voice had a growing
force.

I glanced at him then jerked my gaze away.
In that quick move, I saw the same look I’d seen in the Ambrosia
when he’d shaken me from my first leaf-filled hallucination. It was
a look of searching. It was a look of loss. It also had a pressed,
determined, frightening edge to it.

It was as though Thor was looking for
something – something important enough to make the
usually-contained god show a tender, uncontrolled emotion at odds
with his boisterous and macho personality. As though he thought
that whatever he looked for had something to do with me.

He must believe I stood between him and his
goal.

Instinctively, I shifted to the side.

It didn't change the way he stared at
me.

I shrugged my shoulders again, but it was a
tight move. “I don't have a legend like you,” I pointed out in a
single breath. “I'm not a big-time god, Thor,” I tried to reason
with him.

He stood there, glaring down at me.

“
Look,” I said desperately,
“I don't know what you want me to tell you! I'm the goddess of
details. I've always been the goddess of details—“

“
Always?” he cut in sharply.
“Always?”

That
question sent a shiver down my spine
– a cold and quick move that felt like a blizzard slicing down my
back.

I shrugged again.

It was the best answer I could give.

Unfortunately it wasn't good enough for
Thor.

“
When did you arise?” he snapped.
That look in his eye was only growing.

I unwrapped my arms and put my hands out
in a peaceful move. “Look, I have a file, or a legend, if you want
to put it like that.” I swallowed. “It's... it's not detailed,” I
said the word, and as I said it, it gave me a terribly odd feeling.
It was true. My origin story paradoxically wasn't that fact-filled.
For the goddess of details, I had a murky past.

I... just arose one day. For centuries I
wandered around in a haze. It wasn't until mankind learned to
appreciate the necessity of details in reasoning that I began to
form the personality (and control) I had now.

Thor was hardly going to like that
peculiar origin story in his current mood.

He pointed a finger right at me. “Tell
me.”

“
I don't,” I sniffed, “I don't
have a story like you. I'm a small-time goddess. I just appeared...
or something.”

“
You appeared,” he repeated my
exact tone with an incredulous look crumpling his brow. “Goddesses
do not simply appear.”

“
Look,” I batted a hand at him
and backed off again, “I did. I appeared. I can't remember where I
came from. For centuries, for eons, I wandered around... looking at
stuff. Okay? I was an airhead. I didn't do anything. I wasn't
involved in any heroic battles. I didn't go on any legend-worthy
adventures. I... I don't know, I just lay on a hill and smelt
daisies and watched the clouds or something.” I spread my fingers
wide and stiff and hoped like hell Thor wasn't going to respond to
my story by bringing down the house with a lightning
bolt.

He looked furious. Then his expression
softened a tad. He raised an eyebrow. “That is not an origin story,
Details. Gods do not appear and wander around aimlessly for years.
They are born in battles, out of stars, in the fiery pits of mans’
imagination. A god must unfurl from a moment of concentrated,
powerful belief. The belief must be enough to sustain, personify,
and embody them. What you have described couldn’t sustain a
divinity.”

Great. Just great. I didn't only have
reason to doubt my senses and my sanity, but also my past,
too.

I clamped a hand on my stomach as a
whirlpool of bitterness took hold. I looked up at him. “Why are you
doing this?” I gave a sharp breath. “Why are you coming in here
acting like this?” I flapped my arms around, frustrated but unable
to find the exact words to express myself. I couldn't put into a
sentence how much I hated Thor right now. He’d come to anchor me,
to save me, only to push me right back to the ledge I'd been
standing on, then to push me off altogether. He'd given me hope,
only to take it away. He'd unloaded my burden only to hurl more
onto my shoulders. “Why are you doing this?” I asked far more
sharply and bitterly.

Thor closed the gap between us in an
instant. A snap didn't do justice to it – he came upon me faster
than lightning.