My Life From Hell (2 page)

Persephone had reneged on that deal. Demeter had murdered her.
Our
relationship was only marginally better. I wasn’t giving Mommy Dearest squat. Besides, if she’d been willing to kill Persephone, who she loved, there was no way I was letting her get her hands on
me
, her giant disappointment of a daughter.

“Soph?” Festos was getting closer.

Kai tensed against me. I knew what was coming and grabbed at him, but he was faster than I was. He disappeared.

I screamed in frustration, picked up my desk chair, and threw it across the room. It landed on the plush brown rug with an unsatisfyingly muted thud. I stomped around, swearing with every step. I was madder than a court ordered participant in an anger management course.

Seventeen years ago, the dying spirit of Persephone, Goddess of Spring, was magicked into my newborn Sophie body. A fact of which I’d remained blissfully unaware until last Halloween. That’s when a prank I’d pulled on my “frenemy minus the ‘fr’”, Bethany Russo-Hill, had resulted in a kiss from a bad boy (two guesses who
that
was). The kiss had awakened my goddess identity, and given me a whopper of a responsibility as the Savior of Humanity in the ongoing war between Zeus and Hades here on Earth.

Although I’d gotten Persephone’s powers, for the longest time, I didn’t get her memories back.

Until that glorious day when I did, in all their Technicolor vividness. That magnificent day when Kai also declared his love for me, and, for a whole freaking hour, I’d felt on top of the world.

Reality is such a bitch.

Later that night we’d learned that, back when Persephone and Kai had been voted “the couple most likely to nauseate everyone with their happy bliss,” she had actually been planning to use and betray him.

Kai had walked away from me at that point. And while he hadn’t been able to stay away from me, hence the on-going locking of lips, he had refused to talk about it. Just a lot of bottled anger and making out.

Which made me feel both happy and crappy.

Lately though, I seemed stuck in the latter gear.

Festos popped my door open, leaned against the doorframe, and crossed his arms. His left foot was permanently turned inward, and he held the sleek black cane he used in one hand. Although his hair was now bright blue, his jeans were saucily skinny, and his trademark fedora was at as rakish an angle as ever, the blurriness in his eyes belied the sparkiness of his look.

Festos pointed his cane at me accusingly. “Do not
e-ven
tell me that a certain spawn of the Underworld was in your bedroom again, doing lip things that were not talking.”

I opened my mouth to lie and deny, but he cut me off, whipping one hand up. “One week, honeybunch. Do you remember what happens in one week if you and Kyrillos don’t sort yourselves out?”

Hot anger rose up inside me and I scratched furiously at the familiar itch on my arms. “Yes!” I snapped. “Our love ritual doesn’t work. Hades and Zeus win and humanity bites it. I get it. I’m trying Fee, but—”

“But what? Hmm? His lips are laced with a paralytic that make you unable to converse? You promised me you’d speak to him.”

I stared stubbornly at a spot on the opposite wall as my eyes got hot. No way was I going to cry over this.

Again.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to speak to Festos calmly. “Kai won’t talk to me. When I push him, he disappears. When I follow him, he blocks me out with wards around his place. What am I supposed to do?”

Festos scowled and banged his cane on the ground. “I don’t care but do
something
. Because Prometheus thinks you and Kyrillos have worked things out. And I won’t keep being an accomplice in a lie to my boyfriend any longer.” With a final glower, he stomped away.

Suitably chastened, I shuffled to my bed and sat down on my heavenly blue comforter. With the exception of a better mattress, I’d furnished Festos’ guest room with all of the stuff that I’d had back at my boarding school, Hope Park Progressive.

Festos and Theo had even painted it the same raspberry color that my other best friend Hannah and I had used for our dorm room. I missed being back at Hope Park with her so much. Sometimes I could convince myself that my room here was my room
there
.

If I squinted really hard.

And it was dark.

And Hannah had come to visit.

Thinking of Hannah and that life I could never go back to just made my heart hurt. Like burning razorblades were systematically and quite thoroughly shredding it apart.

Turn the misery to rage. Use it.

“No,” I snapped, “and shut up. We are going to get through this peacefully.” Yes, I had become the crazy person talking to the voices in my head.

Okay, one voice. Persephone’s.

Ever since I’d gotten her memories back and my life had turned to a massive pile of suck, I’d heard her egging me on. Urging me to wrap my fury around me like a blanket and do unto others with a heap of goddess retribution whoop ass.

I did my best to ignore her. Mostly by obsessing about how hearing her voice meant I was probably going batcrap crazy. Which was why I hadn’t told anyone about it either.

Rationally, I understood that it wasn’t literally Persephone talking to me. It was me, channelling my insecurities or neuroses or deep dark fears, and projecting them in her voice.

Didn’t make it any less weird though.

I flung out a hand and smacked the button on the CD player docking stand on my bedside table. It was black, thin, and oozing with priciness. Festos loved his tech toys.

Soothing water sounds flowed out of the speakers. I crossed my legs, closed my eyes, and breathed in and out to the sound of waves lapping at the shore. Low flute music accompanied the water.

So relaxing.

So … blech.

I hated this stuff. I massaged my temples, feeling the beginning of another headache. They’d become pretty constant companions of mine, along with hot itchy arms.

Brilliant.

I breathed through my tension, doing my best to relax my body one muscle at a time from my toes to my scalp; a technique I’d used a lot since I’d learned how Persephone betrayed Kai.

I forced myself to unlock my jaw.

The gentle waves began to crackle. Opening my eyes, I turned my head and hit the side of the speaker with my open palm. The crackling only got louder.

I rocked back and forth.
Oh no. Not again.

There was a loud
whoosh
.

I scrambled off the bed. Fumbling for the cord, I yanked it out of the wall, unplugging the CD player. Maybe I could stop the vision before it hit me full on.

But it was too late.

I was outside. Ash and smoke blinded me. The burn in the air scratched the back of my throat. I coughed, trying to yell out for help but the fire roared too loudly. Besides, who would hear me?

My stomach clenched hard, practically doubling me over with cold fear and the queasy knowledge that I was all alone on Earth.

I balled my fists, tense against the mocking laughter that I knew was coming. That I was helpless to prevent.

My fault.

I’d failed.

SMACK! “Sophie!” Festos had my shoulders in a death grip; his face inches from mine.

Dazed, the despair of my vision still clinging to me, I touched a hand to my jaw. I felt the blood rushing to warm the spot that Festos had bashed.

“Thanks,” I said, my voice cracking. I cleared my throat. “Thanks.”

“What the Holy Hell just happened?” he asked. “I walked past and found you standing blank-eyed and shaking in the middle of your room.”

I opened my mouth to tell him but the words wouldn’t come out. I hadn’t told anyone about this disjointed vision I’d been having. I was terrified that saying anything out loud would make it come true. “I think I’m losing it,” I told him.

Festos rubbed his index finger over his bottom lip as he studied me.

I tried not to feel like a zoo animal as I stood there fidgeting.

“Talk to me,” he said gently.

“I’m having … visions,” I muttered, wrapping my arms around myself, utterly self-conscious.

“Visions, huh?” Festos pushed my arms away. He snatched the hem of my black waffle knit shirt and tugged it up to just under my boobs, ignoring my protests.

I glowered at him as he traced the white puckered scar running vertically along the right side of my gut.

“Sometimes extreme trauma can cause a disconnect,” he said.

This had been extreme, all right. Despite all the supernatural attacks, the one with the most lasting damage had come from a human. My classmate and long-time nemesis, Bethany, had freaked out when I destroyed the magic tattoo that gave her enhanced popularity. She’d been using it to try to attain global celebrity and push her vapid, dangerous ideas about social status.

I’d stopped her.

She’d stabbed me.

I hadn’t died.

Moving on.

I swatted Festos’ hand away. “Leave it. What does that have to do with anything?” I pulled my shirt back down to cover the ugly slash.

He slung an arm around me. “How do you feel about tattoos, honeybunch?”

I blinked and thought about it. I’d never considered a tattoo. But I’d always believed that with the right design, there was something empowering about them. Maybe the first step in my straightening out this giant mess involved doing something small to reclaim my body. To feel right within myself again, instead of the slightly off-kilter grossness that had dogged me for the past couple of months. Maybe it was time to turn my pain to power. I nodded. “Tell me more.”

He did.

***

Which is how I found myself, an hour later, warily stepping clear of the pine tree that served as my entry point into this stretch of Oregon forest.

I glanced up at the gray, drizzly sky. No evil minions sent courtesy of Zeus or Hades yet, but they were coming. Thus, I hugged the tree trunks as much as possible, hoping my green and brown camo clothing would buy me some cover.

I tucked my egg-shaped sapphire pendant safely back under my puffy winter vest. I didn’t
need
to hold onto it, squeezing in rapid pulses when I stepped through trees to travel from point A to point B, but it made me feel better. You try walking into a tree without worrying that you’re either going to get a mouthful of bark, a trunk rash makeover or, worse yet, end up all Han Solo-like embedded in wood. Then come back and mock my superstitious rituals around the magic talisman that made the traveling possible.

I stepped over a gnarled root jutting up from the dirt, and began my trek southwest to the tattoo-parlor-in-a-cabin that Festos had sent me to find. He had assured me that getting a tattoo from the Goddess Aglaia, one of the three Greek Graces, had a way of providing clarity in difficult situations. I’d thought it was worth enough of a shot to check it out.

It was slow going. There was no nice path. I hopscotched my way around ferns and rocks and over half-rotted logs. My black boots scuffed along through carpets of fallen pine needles, garnering the occasional mud splatter.

An old compass and sheer determination kept me from getting lost. I would have preferred to come out right in front of the cabin, but Festos had pressed upon me that Aglaia could be touchy. The bigger heads-up I gave her on approach, the better my chances of getting her co-operation.

I wove my way through the sea of trees. Towering Hemlocks, whose spindly branches started dozens of feet above me. Fat, needly, blue-green Cedars. Vine Maples with moss-encrusted branches trailing to the ground in long, lazy arches, tall enough for me to walk under.

The misty light filtering down to me was depressing and gray, and my breath puffed tiny bursts of white in the cold. All in all, it was a fairly classic January day.

Which pissed me off because it was mid-March. Not that you’d know by looking around.

There were no signs of spring. No tiny shoots of tough-leaved Oregon Iris, growing in preparation for its bloom of purple. No rhodos or foxgloves. No buds waiting to unfurl into thick, leathery Madrone leaves.

Nada.

I had a horrible, gut churning suspicion that somehow I was to blame. That this life sucking limbo of our world stemmed directly from how I felt. And I had no idea how to stop it. Thinking happy thoughts hadn’t worked. Meditating hadn’t worked. A month of plastering my room with photos of the cutest kittens the Net had to offer definitely hadn’t worked.

Humanity’s savior indeed.

Shouldn’t a savior feel more … capable? I scrambled around an eight-foot-high tangle of moss, fallen trunks, and winding roots, my worries causing the pain in my temples to spike.

I tugged my knit cap down more snugly over my ears, tucking a wayward strand of my dark brown hair back up inside it. Not so much for warmth, since the constant simmer of rage that I couldn’t seem to shake off kept me feeling nice and toasty all the time.