Page 70 of Martyr
I am a boy again.Gangly, awkward. My body aches. I stretch tall, my fingers burning on the glass bulb overhead. A quick twist, and it shuts off, encasing me in darkness. I dream of being free of this place. The room. The guards. The stage.
And then I blink, and I am back in Olympus. The stage here is different. It’s a performance, yes, but it’s not forced. Not yet.
I think Ouranos will move his operation here. He will let masked people enter, and instead of fights, they will watch sex as entertainment. Porn brought to life. There’s brutality to it. There will be Terror, and then there will bethisperversion.
The sheriff will be replaced. He’s half-dead anyway. The knife went so far in, deeper than intended. I was justangry. Howling with madness.
Losing Lyssa unleashed a fury inside me that I haven’t been able to quiet. Even when I am still, it twists and burns. She is not gone, as Saint so kindly pointed out, but she is as far from me as can be.
“I wish Reese were here,” I say on a sigh. “He’d understand.”
“Understand what?” Artemis asks.
Pretty Artemis, with her gold jewelry, her hair twisted back out of her face. It still flows down her back, the dark strandsthick. Her skin has always been tanned, the olive undertones, her dark features. Lips and eyes and hair. She embodies the goddess she was named after. Her ancestors could’ve come from Greece or Turkey or Spain. Somewhere far, far removed from Sterling Falls.
“My parents sent me to Terror,” I tell Saint. “They said the Devil lived in me. They said I was wicked.”
Saint stands tall, but his expression belies his pity.
“I am wicked!” I shout. I pound my fist on the platform. “But I wasn’t back then. As a child. I grew into this. I was made intothis. Don’t judge me for that, Artemis, you’re just as much at fault as me.”
She presses her lips together.
“Focus on Lyssa,” Saint says softly. “Go back to her.”
I am unholy. I am unsound.
The buzzing noise that’s been in my head since Ouranos spoke of bringing Terror back to life only grows louder. I smack my head, but it doesn’t do anything. It does remind me of the pain in my cheek. It took me ages to pick out the pieces of glass, and there might still be more. I got sick of bleeding on the floor.
I found Lyssa bleeding once. After we were sent down…
Down, down, down.
“Help us stop this,” Artemis whispers.
I meet her eyes. She’s so close. I have a tight grip on her arms, and she on mine. I don’t remember moving. Didn’t think about approaching. Just did it. Now, I can’t let go.
“There’s no bigger cage after this one, Gabriel. We can put an end to this, and you can be with Lyssa.”
I narrow my eyes. “I spent the last decade waiting for her to wake up.”
“Who’s to say she won’t?”
Do they know something I don’t?
The noise ceases.
Silence.
There’s silence in my brain and nothing else.
I take a breath, and it’s all I hear. A sharp inhale.
A slow exhale.
My grip on Artemis tightens, but she doesn’t flinch. She stares at me, eyes wide. That was her last bargaining chip, I reckon. So fuckingreasonableof her.
And it’s a good one.
