Strife: Hidden Book Four (15 page)

I pulled up into the driveway, patted Kurt and Courtney as we walked toward the back door. Nain leaned down and scratched Kurt behind the ears. The dogs had lived with him at the loft after I’d died. He’d fenced off the empty lot next to the building, installed sod and everything. They even had custom-built doghouses.

We walked in the back door. Eunomia and Levitt were in the kitchen, washing dishes.

“Hey,” Levitt said in greeting.

Eunomia looked me over, stopped still from drying the plate in her hand.

“Mollis? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. We managed to destroy Terror,” I said, and Levitt pumped his fist in the air, congratulated me.

“Well, that’s a relief,” E said, eyes still on me. “But are you all right?”

“I’m all right enough. He’s here on babysitting duty tonight. I feel like I’m about to fall over.”

She nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

I made my way up the stairs to my room, Nain right behind me.

I didn’t want to be in my bedroom with him. In the room we’d bonded in, in the room we’d made love in. I gritted my teeth, refused to start crying again. I steeled myself and walked into my room.

He settled himself into the yellow chair in the corner of my room, the one I liked to curl up and read or doze in sometimes. I went to my dresser and dug out pajama pants and a t-shirt, then I went across the hall to the bathroom and took a quick shower. I pulled the clothes on and took a deep breath. Then I headed back into my room. He was still in the chair.

“There are books over there,” I said.

“Lots of classics,” he commented.

“I went through a phase where I was trying to read them. I thought at one point I’d try to go to college and figured it couldn’t hurt,” I answered, pulling the covers of my bed back.

“
Jane Eyre
looks pretty worn,” he said, still looking through the stack of books.

“Yeah. That’s one of my favorites.” Nearly told him that I like
Wuthering Heights
, too, even though I hated it the fist time I’d read it. I kept my mouth shut, tried not to remember the way I’d come to my house to be alone a few months after he’d died, tired of everyone else hovering over me, trying to make me speak or eat. How I’d sat in that chair and flipped through my copy of
Wuthering Heights
until I found the part where Cathy says that “whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same” and cried and screamed into the empty house, grieving, missing the other part of my soul. I’d written his name in the margins of that page, as if writing it would make him feel more real again. I shook my head, climbed between the covers. I turned away from him, faced the wall.

I heard him flipping pages. Felt the usual from him: demonic rage. Lots of guilt mixed up in that just then. Good.

“Do you really hate me, Molls?” he asked after a while, his voice low in the mostly dark room.

“Yes. I really do.”

He was quiet for a long time, and I thought he wouldn’t respond. Then he finally said “good.”

“Yeah? What’s so good about it?”

“It means you still care enough to hate me. And if you still care enough, then maybe someday you won’t hate me anymore.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” I said, closing my eyes.

Chapter Nine

When I woke up, I glanced toward the chair first. He was there, head resting back against the back of the chair, snoring quietly. He was too big for the dainty chair, and he looked like a giant. Even more than he usually did. I got up and shook him.

“What?” he asked, jumping awake.

“I’m up now. Take the bed for a while.”

“Thanks.” I watched as he climbed sleepily into my bed, rested his head on my pillow. Tried not to notice the way he pressed his face into my pillow, the same way I had so often with the pillow on his bed after he’d died. Within moments, he was asleep again. I looked toward the chair.
Wuthering Heights
was sitting on the little table beside it. I sat down in the chair and picked up the book. I leafed through it, noticed a piece of yellow paper from the legal pad I kept on the table sticking out of it. I opened it to the page he’d marked, which was the same page I’d been thinking about the night before, the one on which I’d written his name in the margins.

I looked at the paper. I’d thought it was a bookmark. It wasn’t.

In his neat, exacting hand, he’d written to me.

You are my soul, Molly. Always will be.

My hands were shaking. I put the paper back in the book, set it down. Left the room before I did something stupid.

I went into my bathroom and locked the door behind me. I rested my hands on the edges of the sink, let my head fall forward. I tried to remember to breathe.

Focus, girl,
I told myself.
That is a whole mess you can’t even deal with right now.

I tried to force myself to snap out of it. I brushed my teeth, washed my face. I brushed my hair and put it up, slipped into a pair of jeans and a black top.

I put on make up, which I’d been doing more often in the past couple of weeks, when I thought of it. It made me feel more human, I guess. Normal. As I did it, my mind kept going back to what he’d written.

I had two notes from Nain now. The one he’d left me after he’d died, and the one he’d left in my book. I had the first note memorized. It was in a metal box in my basement. It was creased from being folded over and over again, smudged.

I can’t. I just can’t even with this right now, I thought. I’m supposed to not be feeling anything, and when he’s around, I feel every goddamn thing. Everything was bigger, stronger, when he was around. Especially the things that happened between us. Every word, every glance seemed weighted, tense. There was no way to be calm around Nain. Not really. I shook my head and took a deep breath, steeling myself to face him again.

I opened the bathroom door just as he was coming out of my room.

“You should sleep longer,” I said.

“I can’t sleep in there,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I can smell you all around me. It doesn’t make me feel sleepy.”

I watched him. “It doesn't? How does it make you feel?”

His eyes met mine. “Is this really something you want to talk about right now?”

I blushed. “I guess not.”

“Stone’s on his way to pick me up.”

“I could have driven you home.”

He was watching me. “I think you’ve probably had enough of me for a while.”

I glanced away. The hallway felt tiny with him in it. It felt as if all of the air was being sucked from my lungs. I rubbed my hands together, rubbed my arms. “Thanks for staying last night,” I finally said.

“Anytime. Thanks for not fighting me on it.”

I nodded.

We stood there a while longer, and I could tell he wanted to say something. He was tense, his emotions swirling around me. I tried to shut them out, remembering that I was supposed to not be feeling.

“Molly, I—”

At that moment, Stone walked through the front door, calling a raucous “good morning!” into the house.

I glanced up at Nain, met his eyes. We stood there like that, for just a second.

“I’ll see you,” he said, and I nodded. He headed down the stairs. I watched him go, and called a good morning to Stone. When they were gone, when I heard Stone’s car going down the street, I headed back to my room, and I sat in the chair, and I held his note in my hand and tried not to feel anything.

I really didn’t want to feel the things I was feeling anyway.

I made myself leave my room and try to stop thinking about things I had no business thinking about. For once, I was the first one up, and I let the dogs out and fed them, tossed the grungy tennis ball they loved so much a few times and watched them chase it down. It was early November, and the air had taken on its winter chill.

I was about to head inside when I felt a presence behind me, coming out of the gateway. When I saw who it was, I smothered a groan.

“Hello, abomination,” Aphrodite said. How lovely that she’d adopted my stepmother’s nickname for me.

“Good morning to you, bitch,” I said in as pleasant a voice as I could muster.

Anger rolled off of her. “What did you call me?”

“Aren’t we calling each other what we really are? I’m an abomination and you’re a bitch.”

She just glared at me. “You are vile.”

I grinned. “Thank you. If you believe that, then I must be doing something right.”

Okay. So I’m not a huge fan of the goddess of love. She’s bitchy, walks around with her nose in the air, and she’s spent eternity screwing around on Hephaestus. I don’t have the world’s highest opinion of her.

“Whatever. I am here to speak to my husband.”

She hated me. I knew it. Part of it was that her husband had chosen to live with me instead of her. Never mind that the reason was that he’d felt spurned by the immortals over and over again, which made me want to kick every single one of their asses. He was a freaking genius. Loyal. Dependable. And I knew she wasn’t the only one. There had been whispers, and flat-out accusations about why exactly Heph was so devoted to me. I tried to ignore it, but clearly Aphrodite hadn’t.

“I think he’s still asleep,” I said.

“Well, I’ll just go wake him up,” she said.

“You are not stepping foot in my house,” I snarled, and she glared at me.

“And who’s going to stop me, abomination?”

I just crossed my arms and smiled. “Remember that you’re calling me that for a reason.”

I felt just a teensy bit of nervousness from her then.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” I said.

“Someday, you’ll get your comeuppance, Fury. And I will be first in line to cheer whoever takes you down.”

“I’m sure you will be. Probably on your knees if the person is the right gender.”

Her mouth dropped open in shock, and I did my best to keep my bored face in place and not start laughing. I felt a good dose of humor from behind me and turned to see Heph walking down the back steps.

“Morning, queenie,” he said, grinning. “And to you too, Aphrodite.”

“Good you’re here. You can go now, abomination.”

At her words, Heph threw her a disgusted glare. “If you’re going to talk that way, you can take your ass back to the Aether.”

“Oh, right. Can’t be insulting little miss perfect, can we?” Aphrodite sneered. “Speaking of knees, I wonder how often she’s been on her knees for you. You do get around, don’t you, Mollis? From your husband to his best friend, and now, what? Back to the husband?”

Rage rolled of of Heph, and I nudged his arm with mine. “I never two-time. That’s more your thing, I think.”

She smiled a vicious smile. “Ah, right. The shifter cheated on you, didn’t he? How did that feel?”

I didn’t answer.

“You can go now,” Heph said to Aphrodite.

“Oh, right. Sure you want alone time with your little girlfriend. You know he wants you, don’t you? Even if you haven’t given him what he wants. The way he follows you around is embarrassing,” she said, glaring at me.

“I think you need to leave now,” I said, starting to get pissed. I turned to Heph. “Unless you want to talk to her?”

“Fuck no,” he grumbled.

I produced my flamesword. “I’m in the mood to cause some pain. Are you volunteering?” I asked Aphrodite.

“You wouldn’t,” she said, though I felt a wave of fear roll off of her.

“Oh, I would. Definitely.”

She snarled at me, and then she disappeared with a “crack.” When she was gone, I let my sword disappear and turned to Heph. “Well that was a shitty way to start the day,” I said to him, and he nodded.

Heph walked toward the back porch, and I followed. He settled onto one of the steps, grimacing a little. I couldn’t imagine living with something that hurt you, for eternity, the way his leg did. I sat down next to him, sensing that he wanted to talk.

We sat in silence for several long minutes.

“You know nothing she said is right, yeah?” he finally asked. “That shit about me wanting you.”

“You really know how to make a girl feel good about herself, Heph,” I said, and he laughed. “Yes. I know that,” I said. “But she’s not the only one who thinks that.”

“Artemis,” he said, and I nodded.

“Aphrodite already hates me because of the Ares thing (Ares, her former lover who I’d imprisoned for all eternity) and then to have you living in my house it’s just a little too much for her ego to handle.”

“It is. I just feel like we need that spelled out between us, the way people’s jaws flap. I don’t feel that way about you. I mean, you’re a good-looking woman and all that, and I like you a lot, but I’m not interested in you that way.”

I smiled at how uncomfortable he seemed. “I know. I can sense emotions, Heph,” I reminded him.

“I know. I just wanted to say it so there would be no doubt.” He took a breath. “I like you. A lot. You’re probably the best friend I’ve ever had. No one’s ever showed me as much kindness as you have. You appreciate the shit I can do. I’ve never had anything like this before.”

I looked over at him. “I’d be stupid not to appreciate all the help you give me. You’re a fucking genius and an artist. Not shabby in a fight either. And you curse almost as much as I do.”