Page 79 of Hades and Persephone: Threads of Fate

“What?”

“Are you seriously sneaking out to see him? Why didn’t you just stay?”

“I’m not going to see Hades,” I whisper-hiss my defense.I don’t know why I’m defending myself to him.

Things between me and Addison have felt off since I had that vision of him as Adonis. The way he’d pleasured me…the way Hades had watched.

Sick churns in my belly. Hot prickles of icky distaste rise beads of sweat on my skin.

I regret the hoodie.

“No?” Addison demands. “Where are you sneaking off to then?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“So, it is him?”

For frick’s sake. “I’m going to the dig site.”

Silence. “Why?”

“I just—I don’t know. I just am.”

Addison folds his arms over his bare chest. Hisbroadbare chest. I can see more now that my eyes have adjusted. That means Addison can see as well, so I’m pretty sure he caught me looking at his chest and—undoubtedly—getting the wrong impression.

I huff, dropping my eyes to my feet. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“Tell me why you’re going to the site.”

I roll my eyes heavenward. “I feel like I have to. I can’t explain it, Addison. I feel like—like I’m missing something and it’s there. The answers are there and I need to figure out what it is.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

I groan, a surge of hot frustration blooming under my flesh. “I know that.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “We shouldn’t be there without the crew lead. You know that.”

“I’m not going to dig anything. I just need—” Ishake my head. “I don’t know, Addison. I just need to go.”

“Fine.” I breathe a breath of relief that is quickly cut short when he adds, “I’m coming.”

I could argue with him, but I don’t. There’s no point when I know he’ll follow me anyway.

Still, I don’t wait for him as I walk out the front door and down the sidewalk in the direction of the site. Addison catches up only a few minutes later, tugging a shirt over his head and finally,finallycovering his rack of muscles.

“So, what are we looking for?”

“I don’t know.”

I can feel his eyes on my face as I walk, but I refuse to look at him. To acknowledge that he likely thinks I’m nutty.

I already know I’m off my rocker. I don’t need him pointing it out to me.

When we arrive at the site, it feels eerie and quiet. Haunted with the ghost of an ancient past that is finally ready to spill every confession into the ether of the present. There is a heaviness to the air that whispers of danger even as it calls me forward, like a siren in the deep.

I’m not sure what I have to know, but I have to know it.

I’m not sure what I have to see, but Ihaveto see it.

---