Rifts (33 page)

"Yes, she is." She hugged me and then stepped back. "I'm glad to see you up and about. Dylan, it's time for training, my friend. Suit up."

"Aww, Athena! My mom just got here." My kid could ace the guilt trip whine. Seriously, he could.

"Yes it appears that she has. However, if you don't want to get beat up as often as she does, you'll gear up so that we can train."

His face fell so I grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Hey! You and me – dinner tonight. Okay?"

That made him smile. "Yeah, that sounds great."

"Good. I have a few things to take care of, anyway. I'll see you around six. We'll grab some Thai food and you can catch me up on the guys."

He nodded excitedly. "I totally have to tell you what Alton did yesterday. It made me laugh so hard I farted!"

My eyes got big with feigned excitement. "Wow! That sounds like a pretty epic story!"

"It totally was," he went on excitedly.

"Tell me later. I love you!"

"’Kay," he called as he ran back into the bedroom portion of his suite.

"I don't remember being that young," I began, turning back to Athena.

She shook her head. "I came out looking like this. I was never young." I detected a hint of bitterness in her voice but ignored it.

"Well you look great." I smiled, pushing back the uneasy feeling that was growing in the back of my mind like a cancerous squid.

"Thanks." She smiled back.

"Well, I should get to business. Take care of the kid, would ya?"

"You know I will. I've never had a nephew before. He's fun."

"Yeah," I replied with an abrupt laugh. "He's a barrel of monkeys." I didn't wait for a response, I just teleported into the Forge.

Without preamble, I started talking to Hephaestus. "So I've got this uneasy feeling lately whenever I'm around Athena. Have you noticed anything weird about her?"

"Hello to you too," he replied dryly.

"Yes, yes. Hello. But do you get a hinky feeling around her? I think you probably know her better than anyone. I was actually surprised when I found out that you two weren't an item."

"We share the commonality of being different within the Community. That is all that it's ever been between us. I help her build her gadgets and she coerces me out of my hermit shell."

"I see," I said nodding. "Well that makes sense. Anyway," A change of subject sounded like a good idea. "How is our friendly homicidal prisoner doing?"

"The same," he said with a sigh. "She alternates between howling and trying to negotiate her way out of her prison. I didn't think anyone talked more than you do, Grace. I was wrong."

"Well it's good to know that it runs in the family," I rejoined sarcastically. "I think it's time for me to talk to her."

"Really? You think that's a good idea? Aren't you afraid that she's going to try to talk you out of it?"

"Out of what?" Drew's voice echoed through the small room and I flinched. Fuck.

With purpose, I slowly turned to face him. "Out of killing her," I replied calmly. I expected him to blow up, try to talk me out of it - anything but the reaction that I got.

The look of betrayal cut through me with a hot lance of pain. I had to catch my breath. "You are going to do it." His voice was dead of all emotion.

"What would you have me do, Drew? She's attempted to murder both myself and our son on multiple occasions. She cannot be left alive if Dylan and I are to be safe. Would you put his life at such risk? For what? For the memory of a love that existed hundreds of years ago?"

My voice had risen to a frantic pitch. I realized that this wasn't about me killing Hope. This was about him loving her – still - and not me. There might be feelings of fondness there but in the end, he wouldn't choose me.

"Obviously you're too young to understand," he rebutted.

"Yeah, that makes a ton of sense, Drew. Call to point my age. Guess what? My son's life is way the fuck more important than a ghost of a memory - that from what I understand wasn't even your reality. If you don't like my decision, you can take it up with your father."

"Or, I could stop you." The words were spoken so quietly that I almost didn't hear them. Heph's breath left his body in a surprised burst of shock. It was clear to him that this discussion had skewed way too far to the left. Logic wasn't playing a part anymore.

"Could you? Things have changed. You don't have any idea of what I'm capable of," I replied coldly.

"So you could just kill me like that?" His voice was now filled with uncertainty. It killed me to make him feel this way. God knew that I hadn't wanted to get here. We just kept hurting each other and I couldn't figure out how to stop that.

"To save my son's life, yes." I made sure to fill my voice with determination and purpose. I couldn't let him see my weakness. I couldn't let him know that living in a world without him would destroy me, but I'd do it to save Dylan's life. If I couldn't get rid of Hope without killing him first, well then…so fucking be it.

"Parricide is never pretty," interrupted Heph, trying to ease the tension in the room. "But, in this case, Grace is correct. Hope's mind is so broken, there’s no hope for recovery. She'll stay at this level of madness for the rest of her existence. Adonis, you know as well as I do how long that’s going to last."

"I made an oath to protect her for as long as she was my wife. The last time I checked, she was still my wife."

Yeah, that hurt. He just negated anything between us. It felt in that moment that he'd spent this entire time lying to me. The kisses, the moments of laughter and joy…all of it was meaningless – a farce.

"Then let's go." I closed my eyes and saw what would happen next. Felt the visceral pleasure of the speed and agility of my body while the kukris materialized in my hands. I would catch him by surprise, piercing his left pectoral muscle before he could react. I saw the steel slide through his skin and muscle - saw the blood flow. But at the last minute, I adjusted my grip to miss his heart. We stood pressed together for what seemed like an eternity; his blood covering my hands, his eyes staring into mine.

A scream of rage and frustration at my own weakness left my lips as I opened my eyes.

He was staring at me with open-mouthed shock. He'd never moved. Neither had I. But the look on his face broke my heart. He’d never in a million years expected me to attack him and he'd just received very visual proof that I would.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. "Of course the asshole can read your mind, Grace. Dur."

His eyes met mine. "How could you do this," they said to me.

Tears of regret spilled from my eyes. I didn't know how to take this back. This couldn't be taken back. I knew in that if I backed off, he'd never forgive me for this. I would never taste his lips. I would never see him smile at me. I'd gone too far. I let that knowledge fill my watery gaze. "I'm so sorry, but I
will
hurt you if you try to stop me." I whispered and immediately ‘ported away.

***

I landed in my living room in Colorado Springs flopped down on my couch and started stroking the fabric. "Oh my God, Grace," I said aloud to the walls. "What did you just do?"

I wasn't going to use the excuse that he'd forced me to this. That was a lie. I could have waited for him to leave in a huff and then killed her, anyway. But I don't do things in half measures. When I set out to burn down a forest, I carpet bomb not only it, but the surrounding countryside too. I forced the situation so that not only would he not love me, but he would hate me.

I could claim that what I'd projected back there was an accident because my chemistry was still all messed up from the battle with Lyssa. But we all knew that it wasn't an accident. There were too many emotions surrounding my desire to kill Hope and somewhere along the line, self-preservation had become the least of them.

Why did it have to be me? I jumped off the couch and started pacing and talking out loud to try to reason through all of this. "Because who else is going to do this horrible, horrible thing? Do you think I want to kill my own sister? Do you think that I want to do any of this? I just wanted to write my books, raise my kid and find a man who loved me to settle down with. Because, the Universe doesn't believe in happy endings for me. Instead I get this. I get to stand here in the midst of a mental breakdown, loving him and knowing that fate isn't going to let me ever have any fucking peace."

My knees gave out and I collapsed to the floor where I simply stared at the ceiling, filled with an aching need to erase the last hour of my life.

The sun had moved toward the mountains, casting my living room floor in shadows. I didn't even move when Heph sat down next to me. I couldn't bring myself to look at him; I was so wracked with shame.

"You could always say that you were under Lyssa's influence." He thought he was being funny. It wasn't amusing, and I didn't respond. I simply rolled over so that my back was to him. Maybe he'd get the hint and go away.

"I'm not going away," he responded. "So you may as well turn around and talk to me instead of being a gigantic baby about this."

"Go away," I sighed.

"And let you forget that you just broadcasted a fantasy in which you couldn't even bother to kill him? I think not."

 "I hate you, you know. And
really
? I don't know how I manage to cock up every single thing when it comes to him."

"You do tend to become this irrational person when he's around. I think it's because you keep telling yourself - and everyone that will listen - that you don't love him and that you don't care if he loves you back. But in reality, you care a lot. It's distracting you when you need to be focused."

"I don't-" I started.

"Yes, I've heard this lie before, Grace. Just say it out loud. Own it. And then you can start dealing with the emotions of losing it."

"I don't want to love him. It's too hard and it hurts too much because he doesn't love me back." There, I'd said it out loud. "Yeah, that didn't make me feel better.
Thanks for that
." So I wasn't being gracious, whatever.

"Yeah that wasn't saying the words out loud. 'I don't want to love him' and 'I love him' are two entirely separate things."

"They mean the same."

"Maybe in your pigeon-headed mind they do. Just admit it and then you can push it out so we can go kick some ass."

"Why are you here?" I asked, exasperated. "I just want to be left alone so I can shut these emotions down and take care of business as usual."

"Because you're not going to take care of business, Grace. You're going to go out there and get yourself killed because you can't focus on the job at hand. You're so busy fooling yourself you can't see the forest through the trees."