Strife: Hidden Book Four

Published by
Building Block Studios, LLC
Detroit, Michigan, 2014

© 2014 Colleen Vanderlinden

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the author at
[email protected]
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Contents

As always,
to my amazing husband and
partner in crime, Roger.

Thank you to my husband and my crazy awesome kids. You guys are the absolute best, and I am so lucky to have you!

Thanks to my lovely in-laws, Peggy and Roger, for their support and enthusiasm.

Thank you to Will Vanderlinden for proofreading help with a touch of humor.

Many thanks to the lovely Elizabeth Hunter. The advice you've given me, as well as the much-needed pep talks, have been such a help to this newbie indie author. Thank you!

I was extremely lucky to have an amazing group of beta readers for Strife. You ladies absolutely rock, and I know for a fact that this is a stronger book because of your input. Huge thanks and many hugs to Susan Cambra, Shawna Cerda, Jolissa Cooke, Ginger Garff, Jennifer G., Katie Knudsen, Sarah Leenart, Kathie Littlemore, Jayna Longstreet, Katherine Helen Peters, and Rachel Scott. Let's do it again sometime, shall we?

Thank you to everyone who has followed Molly's story up to this point. Every writer dreams of the day when their words will actually be read by someone, of the day when they hear the words "I was up all night reading this!" You guys have helped make that dream a reality for this particular writer, and I cannot thank you enough.

Colleen Vanderlinden
Detroit
June, 2014

Chapter One

My name is Molly Brooks.
Vigilante.
Godslayer.
Oathbreaker.
Daughter of the Lord of the Dead.
The Angel.

What a joke.

I now lead a team of supernaturals who chose me when I'd split from my old team. The people of my city consider me a legend, a god. A hero.

You want to know what I am?

I'm someone who's afraid to go to sleep at night. I'm someone who scrubs my hands so often I make them bleed. I'm someone who re-lives every single one of my deaths, over and over and over again.

I'm a powerful being who can't use my powers without ending up in agony.

I'm afraid of myself. The darkness inside me grows, and I am losing hope that I'm strong enough to contain it. If I lose control, if I unleash whatever this is that is inside me, everyone I've ever loved will suffer for it.

One, in particular, more than others.

And the easy solution would be to get rid of the problem: me. Except that unfortunately, I can't die.

As in, plenty have tried to make that happen. But I just keep fucking coming back.

Lucky me.

I drove the route I'd driven dozens of times from my house to the loft where Nain and his team lived. Every block that closed the distance between me and the people who lived there made my stomach clench a little more.

My hands gripped the steering wheel, hard enough to snap it if I'd unleash my powers just a little. As it was, the stress was stirring my powers, heightening them, and it was starting to hurt. Eunomia reached over and put her cool hand over mine on the steering wheel.

“Relax, my friend,” she said softly.

“Better to be on edge than relaxed, considering. Don't you think?” I asked her. I glanced over at her, then into the rear-view mirror. The rest of my friends, my team, sat in the back seat. Levitt, Hephaestus, and Shanti. The imps had gone ahead; they'd meet us there. My team knew about the problems I was having. They knew that the moment I relaxed, the darkness inside me threatened to take over. They knew how close I was to giving in to it, to becoming the thing I feared most. They fought beside me. They watched out for me. And maybe most importantly, they watched me, always prepared for that moment when whatever was inside me took over for good. And they knew that when that moment came, their job was to try to put me down.

Yes. I trust my best friends to try to destroy me. Doesn't everyone?

We'd gotten to know each other better than I could have imagined over the past few weeks. We lived together, worked together, fought together. My house, which had seemed so big during all the years I'd lived there alone, felt cozy now. Granted, it was a crazy combination of gods, demons, vampires, and imps, but it was mine.

They knew my weaknesses. My problems. The promises I made to myself. We were more than a team. We were a family and I trusted them with my life, as they trusted me with theirs. Considering how many powerful beings I had gunning for me, I thought their trust was misplaced. They ignored me when I said stuff like that.

They knew, better than anyone, that I was not as tough as most of the world believed. They knew I still tried to scrub unseen blood and gore off of my body. They knew I had nightmares, when I managed to let myself sleep. They knew that in my weakest moments, I cursed my life for the things I couldn't have.

“This is exactly why you should have talked to the fuckin' shifter on the phone all those times he called. Now you’re goin' in with all this pent-up shit. Not healthy, queenie,” Hephaestus said from the back seat.

“Well, that's why you guys are here, right?” I said, glancing at him in the rear-view mirror. “Keep an eye on me. Make an excuse to leave if it seems like I'm going to lose it. But I can't keep putting Nain off about this meeting, considering we're all trying to hunt Strife down and she's here because of me.”

Strife.

I'd trapped her in my realm back when I'd initially destroyed the gateway between here and the Nether, cutting off this world from the world of the immortals. She was not my biggest fan. I'd killed one of her closest friends, Enyo, the goddess of war. And I'd trapped her other pal, Ares, the god of war, in a talisman that added to my power. She'd been doing her best to cause chaos, even going as far as using Brennan's infant son (another thing I tried not to think about too often) to harm those I cared about.

And we'd all been hunting her, but she was wily. We hadn't even gotten close.

So I'd finally given in and agreed to meet with Nain and his team.

I hadn't seen Brennan since the night we'd decided to stop seeing each other. So I'm a coward. But it hurt too much, and I had enough on my mind. I knew it was for the best. It didn't make it any easier.

Sometimes, love doesn't conquer all. That's a bunch of bullshit.

I pulled into the parking garage and we all got out of the car. My team, for better or worse, had adopted my uniform as their own: black cargo pants, black shirts. The imps were there already, waiting for me as they'd said they would. And it wasn't just them. My parents, Hades and Tisiphone, stood by the elevator. Hades leaned against the wall, arms folded over his chest. My father never looked worried about anything. Though, I guess if you were the Lord of the Dead and ruler of the afterlife, you wouldn't be worried about much, either. Tisiphone, as always, looked like she was on guard, ready to kick ass.

“What are you two doing here?” I asked them as my team and I walked toward the elevator. “Not that I'm not happy to see you,” I added. My mother gave me a small hug, murmuring a hello, and my father studied me.

“There's a reason you've been avoiding this. We're here in case we're needed.” I hadn't been thrilled about telling my parents about the issues I was having, but E had insisted and I had to admit it was smart. If I lost my mind, they were two of the few beings who had any decent chance of getting me under control.

I nodded. My parents, as always, were also dressed in black. “Go team death,” I muttered under my breath as I pulled the gate up and we all got onto the elevator.

“We need a secret handshake,” Shanti said. Then she hit the button to take us up to the loft. I took a deep breath. My stomach was turning. It wasn't seeing the team, or even Nain, necessarily. I was fine with that. I'd had lunch with Ada and Stone the previous week, seen Nain around town, and while things with my ex always had a weird undercurrent of tension, I was fine. It was Brennan. I loved him. At least, I thought I did. I was hurt over what he'd done, and the more I thought about all of it, the harder it was to just let it go. Maybe I wasn't as mature and understanding as I thought I should be. But the fact of the matter was that the more I thought about it, the less likely it could ever be that I'd be fine with Brennan, with seeing his son every day and knowing how he'd come to be.

Great. I was more like my stepmother than I'd ever realized.

I could admit that I missed him. I'd loved the way he’d taken care of me, the way every one of my whims had been met. I missed the way he made love to me.