Chapter 15
Fay awoke to silence, broken only by the random whisper of someone nearby. Above her, sunlight turned the canvas pale gold. She craned her head, wincing as pain lanced through her chest. Rows of beds, just like hers, dominated the long tent, and most were empty. Only a few were occupied, whose occupants were fast asleep, the closest several beds away. Fay turned back in her bed and stared up, wondering how long she’d been out. It’d taken so long for her to heal from the first wound of that sword, so she began to have a sinking feeling that she’d missed the trials. If the team had made it, and Andromeda would ensure that, what happened if Fay didn’t go, too?
She closed her eyes and tried to reach Andromeda. Only silence greeted her. With a sigh she opened her eyes again and tried to sit. Pain shot through again, stabbing like the blade was going in again, and she cried out. She back with a groan.
She heard the feint sound of curtains parting, followed by the muted hush of footsteps that approached her bed. Fay turned her head slightly as the hound loomed over her. A guy of a tall, lanky build with long, curly black hair, and a curious but kind expression.
“You are certainly an enigma,” he declared and lifted up the clipboard that had been tucked under his arm. “You were found dead in the middle of the camp. Confused the hell out of everyone because the second we ‘die’ we vanish, spin back up somewhere in the camp and everything is normal.”
He was looking at her, expecting her to explain what happened. She frowned at him.
“I didn’t spin back up eventually?”
He shook his head. “No. We brought your body here for Hades to look at but he’s busy…Then I get word you had resurrected by yourself. We took you to this tent whilst you were out cold.”
Fay digested his words with a sick feeling. She’d been dead and she hadn’t even realised it during the vision. Then, somehow, she’d come back to life. Had that been Andromeda’s hand or something else? She swallowed hard and buried her shaking hands in the folds of the blanket, staring at them still trembling beneath.
“How long was I…out?”
“Several days.”
“And…and the trial? The squads?”
He was silent for a moment, making her look up as he scratched his neck. “Remus’s squad – your squad – won…They left for Tartarus yesterday.”
Oh gods, no.
She’d failed. The squad had left without her. She was glad they’d passed, never needing her help at all, but bereft that she wasn’t with them. It meant she’d have to steal into Tartarus some other way.
“They…They didn’t know you’d woken back up. The last visit was three days ago…and you were still dead.”
The squad thought she was dead? She pinched the bridge of her nose, inhaling, then exhaling with control. Had they any guesses whom had killed her? Had they cared? Did she care if they did or not? Yes, she did. She dropped her hand back down into the blankets and peeled back the blankets, peering at her bandaged torso. There was a feint patch of dried blood. She touched it and winced.
“I need to change your bandages, if you’re feeling up to it?”
She nodded and he helped her sit up slowly, propping her with pillows. Silently, he worked, digging out fresh bandages and all his equipment from the cabinet next to her bed. He removed her bandages with care, then the wrappings underneath before washing out the wound. Once it was clean, he rewrapped it and stepped back, letting her draw her cotton shirt back down.
“When can I go?”
“That wound is nearly healed so I’d feel happy for you to go but no fighting and no training for another day. Your healing is improving, so the bandages can go from tomorrow. Oh, and I spoke to my boss, Leia. She said since your squad is gone you’ve been transferred to Olara’s squad – they’re a waiting squad, new hounds, transfers, so on and so forth. Olara’s second can be here within the hour to take you, if you’re happy with it?”
She was edgy at the idea of a new squad but she told herself it’d be a brief stay. The second her wound was clean and she was fit she’d be off, stealing away into Tartarus. The squad had already too much time on her. That, and she wanted – no, needed – answers from Andromeda.
“Is that all?”
“A General will be around in a few days to speak to you about your attack. There are questions but that’s all I know,” he explained.
Too bad she wouldn’t be around for that, as she would’ve liked for Marcus to be hunted and dragged back to Tartarus – or to an even deeper hole. Somewhere where they might lose the key for.
“Okay.”
It was all she could say.
Olara’s second was a tiny girl named Kida. She looked scarcely older than a child but her eyes, a rich emerald green, were ancient, patient. Which was something as Fay hobbled out of the hospital at the edge of camp and followed her to her new accommodation. She said nothing on the walk, which was just as well, as Fay’s mind drifted about. She was dimly aware of the hounds they passed, the hushed whispers, the rumours circulating. Disbelief and suspicion warred on a myriad of faces. Fay defied their whole understanding of what it meant to be a hellhound; where boundaries existed for them, she tore them down as if they didn’t even exist. She was beholden to her own set of rules she scarcely knew herself.
It seemed like the world’s longest walk but when they arrived to the ramshackle collection of tents, Fay walked to the nearest wooden seat and sat down. The walk had sapped what little energy she had. A thin band of sweat clung to her forehead. She wiped it off.
“Your tent is there,” said Kida, gesturing to the tent behind Fay. “Bed is near the front, the only empty one. Can’t miss it.”
Before Fay even opened her mouth to a reply Kida was off, called by a tall, imposing woman. Olara perhaps. Fay sighed and dragged herself to her feet and stumbled into the tent. She found it easily and slumped onto the bed. From what she’d been told her belongings from her old tent would be transferred by the evening. She had some clothes that she decided she’d take with her when she left, so with that thought, she crawled beneath the thin sheets and promptly fell asleep.
She woke a few hours later to the gentle nudging of someone. Stirring, she realised it was a shy looking guy, no older than her in looks, with a plain face and a small, wiry build.
“It’s meal time. I thought you might be hungry,” he said sheepishly.
As she sat up, she saw her bags, what little she owned, had been delivered. She followed the stranger into the next tent over where several tables had been set up with platters of roasted meat and vegetables. Not wanting to look rude she sat by him, wincing as she lowered herself down.
“The name’s Ledo.”
“Fay.”
He chuckled, like she’d said something funny. “Everyone knows who you are.”
Of course, they do.
“This looks like good food,” said Fay, determined to change the subject.
He laughed, something in agreement. “Our cooks Phoebus and Fenwick make a mean spread from the animals we hunt from the forest.”
Animals, not demons. Fay was surprised. She’d assumed the meat they’d eaten had been demons, of a sort. Maybe that was what her squad ate. What they were able to hunt. Perhaps weaker squads had to eat off easier prey. Something that was less likely to fight back.
To her surprise she ate a full meal and kept it down. Afterwards Ledo asked if she wanted to attend a bonfire afterwards, their nightly tradition, but she politely declined. Not just bone tired she had a plan to formulate. He nodded sheepishly, as if sorry he’d asked when he should’ve known how tired she must’ve been, then excused himself to head on. She watched him go, wandering what might’ve happened had she followed. Unfortunately, her path led her away from others. To where, exactly, she didn’t know, only that it felt like a lonely path.
She turned back to the tent and parted the curtains, about to step in, when she walked straight into a wall of muscle. She stumbled back, bewildered for a moment, aware of hands that grabbed her, steadying. With a wince she looked up – and froze – and equally shocked eyes, staring back. The name finally found her lips.
“Ben?”
They sat side by side by a quietly burning fire, away from the others, as though in their own little world. Fay stared into the fire, all too aware of Ben staring at her. She’d just given him the quick catch up, then fell silent, not willing to divulge her plans to go to Tartarus. However, something in her mind whispered that, from what snatches she’d told him, he’d likely figure it out himself.
“Abe is well. He and Amanda are doing well. They visited before…” He chuckled nervously and gestured to himself. “Before this happened.”
The last person she ever expected to see in the Underworld was Ben. He was a bloody werewolf, not a hound! Her mind was still trying to grasp it when his hand reached out tentatively, gingerly brushing against hers. She wrenched her gaze from the fire, found his.
“How?”
He drew back his hand, scratched his neck sheepishly. “I left the pack when you were gone. There wasn’t any reason to stay with you and Amanda gone and all the pack business sorted. Found work with the council, with the agency, and for a time it was good work. Got assigned a partner, a vamp named Clint, and got a good job. We were hunting some rogue vamps that had been turning indiscriminately when we got cornered. Before I knew it I had half my throat ripped out and I was on the ground, dying. I figured hey, this is it, then bam! Thanatos appeared and offered me a deal. It seemed silly to no – death or keep living.”
As a slave, she wanted to say but, truthfully, she was glad to see him, glad that he was alive, in one form or another. They’d resolved much of their past, ugly as it might’ve been, and in the time apart, she had begun to see that horrid part of her past as something she was able to move on from. It had been hard but what she faced was worse.
She looked back to the fire. “You said Abe and Amanda were good? He’s treating her well?”
An unsaid question haunted her words and Ben heard it easily.
“He hasn’t used any Commands her and he’s training her well, which is saying a lot. She’s resisted a lot, struggled with being able to trust someone again but she trusts him. They’re not perfect but it’s working,” he said with a strange tone in his voice, like it wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.
To Fay Abe felt like an entire life time ago. She hadn’t forgotten him but suddenly his betrayals seemed small, that time in her life fading. She missed how she used to feel safe around him, how deeply she trusted him, and that whatever they faced, they were strong. Looking back, he’d been a kind of crutch to her as she buried her own traumas. Without him, in the Underworld and facing what she had to, she’d been forced to stand on her own, face the demons both within and before her.
“You’re going to go to Tartarus, aren’t you?” He finally said with a heavy look.
She grabbed a stick by the fire and poked it. “Yes.”
To that, he said nothing. If he’d been Abe, he would’ve tried to stop her, Command her even. There would be pleas, frustrated words. With Ben, there was silence, like he was acknowledging that Tartarus was something she had to do. Inevitable, really.
“You won’t let me come with you, will you?” He asked quietly.
She dropped the stick in the fire, looking at him, shocked. “What?”
“I want to go with you.”
“To Tartarus?”
He gave her a long look, as if to say Tartarus wasn’t the point. That he was trying to say other things and she was pointedly ignoring them.
“I think I need to do this alone,” she said quietly. “I think this is the part I was always meant to do alone.”
“What of your old squad in Tartarus?”
“My path is different to theirs. They’ve gone to destroy. I’m going to understand. I think it’s best that I’m not with them,” she said softly.
Then I won’t have to see their faces as I run off, abandoning them to the wolves.
“You won’t reconsider letting me coming with you?” He pushed, just a little harder.
She stood up, feeling a sudden burst of restlessness. “Why are you so determined to go?”
“Because I feel like if I let you go, I won’t ever see you again…and I can’t let you go, not again!” He exploded, jumping up, grabbing her arm. “It destroyed me what I did because I was stupid and weak and I couldn’t resist the pack. I should’ve picked you. I should’ve always picked you, Fay.”
Her heart slammed loudly in her chest, the blood roaring in her ears. It drowned out everything else until all she could focus on was the roaring noise…and his eyes, boring straight into hers, begging for an answer. Her lips were parted but no sound escaped, no rational reply. When he leant in, searching her face, she wrenched herself free.
“You can’t care about me,” she blurted out. “You deserve someone-“
“Like what? You’re like no one else I’ve ever met and forgetting you is like forgetting how to breathe. I can’t do it and no matter how much you beg and plead I can’t forget you. Don’t you get that?”
He was in front of her again, his hands cradling her face, forehead to forehead. His warmth enveloped her and she didn’t feel so afraid of what she had to do. If she was to face the darkness it seemed easier that for one single moment, she knew what it was like for someone to love her. Despite what she was, despite whatever she did. Unconditional. It tore her apart.
“When Thanatos offered me this, I thought it had to be a kind of trick…and maybe I’m just a pawn in a game. You know what, though?”
She lifted her gaze to his. “What?”
A smile tugged at his mouth, full of pain, of love. “I’d say yes anyway because it meant I’d see you again, if only for a moment.”
“I…”
“Just let me come with you, please.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
As the night crept on and Fay lay wide awake on her bed she touched at her wounds. They hurt but they’d healed over since getting back. It’d be a little longer before she was perfectly healthy…but she hadn’t that time anymore. Ben at the camp changed things. Made it complicated.
She’d agreed to let him come along but how could she do it? Take him to a place where even Gods feared to go? Where she wasn’t meant to return from? It’d tear his heart – and mind – apart all over again. She knew she couldn’t do it to him.
Rolling over she glanced at the pack she’d made up when she got back to the tent. Just a change of clothes, a sword she’d scavenged, a few daggers, food and water. Enough for one person.
She threw herself out of bed before she talked herself out of it and gathered up her bag, slinging it onto her back. One glance back at the beds and no one stirred, not even as she gingerly parted the curtains and slipped through.
There was no one about amongst the tents, no night owls sitting by fires, murmuring quietly amongst each other, as she carefully headed off through the camp. She passed the arena where she’d faced down demons, exposing herself; then, through the camp centre itself, and past the very same sparring yards she’d trained with the others on. When she came to their tents, silent without Motep’s soft snoring or the hushed conversation between Lucilla and Tiberius, she lingered. Only for a moment though.
In her mind she felt the longer she lingered the bigger the chance for someone to catch her – stop or defy her. She didn’t want to hurt anyone but she had to go to Tartarus. The closer she got to it now the bigger that hunger inside of her grew, driving her forward. Tartarus was calling her and she wasn’t able to ignore the call anymore.
She continued on until the camp eventually fell away and she cut through the fringe of a small forest to the gates. Just before she was within sight she stepped onto the road and walked right up to it, acting like she was meant to be there. The two hounds, half asleep from their long watch, regarded her with shock and confusion.
“What are you doing here?” One asked.
She stared at him, then gestured to the gate. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“You’re not allowed-“
“I’m not allowed? You’re going to stop me from entering where even Gods fear to go?” She stepped up but they crossed their swords in front of her.
Back in the forest when she’d first arrived, she’d Commanded a hellhound. She considered her chances trying again – or, if that failed, she’d fight her way through.
The guards exchanged looks, like they were deciding how much it was worth stopping someone whom wanted to go into Tartarus. That, and how much trouble she’d probably give them. After a beat they looked back at her, a decision seemingly made.
They stepped aside and one set a hand against the great stone doors. With a thunderous rumble the doors swung open and revealed a field of green, a lush forest beyond. Sunshine splashed the scene in gold, whilst dew-tipped grass glittered with a field of diamonds. It looked like heaven, not the deepest pit of hell.
She glanced at them, wondering if they saw the same thing but from their expressions, perhaps not. With a deep breath she grasped the straps of her bag and stepped through the gates into the depths of Tartarus.
In her ear, a song, like something was calling her home.
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