Page 76 of Hades

It’s impossible to know where I fit anymore.

I’m not a fallen Archangel; Themis made damn sure of that. Yet I can’t go back to what I was a thousand years ago. That Reaver no longer exists either. The decorated warrior Reaver died on the battlefield that day.

“What are you doing?” Ash’s voice brings me once again out of my self-induced trance. “You’ve been down here for a fucking hour. It’s nearly dawn.”

“What?” I say looking around. I’m still standing in the same spot as I was when I came down here a few minutes ago, or at least what I thought was a few minutes ago. “That’s not possible,” I retort because it’s not. There is no way I have been standing in front of a stack of beer cases for an hour, lamenting.

I watch as a look of concern mars Ash’s face. “You are feeling okay?” he asks, his voice laden with something akin to sympathy. I scoff at the absurdity—him pitying me after all that I’ve done to not only him, but his family.

Without looking, I grab a case of beer and shove it into his arms. “I’m fine. Never fucking better,” I mutter before grabbing another case and heading back upstairs. With each step I take, I try to figure out how I lost a fucking hour just standing in the basement. “I must be losing what’s left of my fucking mind,” I hiss under my breath.

I’ve had lapses in time before, and none of them have ever turned out to be something good. Most of the time I wake up chained to a wall, or worse, tortured to within an inch of my life. Neither is particularly enjoyable. But at this moment, I would take either option over having to explain myself to my brother, who is currently standing on the opposite side of the bar giving me a death stare-down.

“What the fuck happened?” Ash asks or rather demands an answer from me, one I have no idea how even to begin to explain.

“I just lost track of time,” I inform him without so much as a glance his way. “Can we just drop it?”

All I can do is busy myself behind the bar because I know he will not let this drop. Even when we were kids, he would stare me down until I told him what was wrong, exactly as he’s doing now.

“I can wait all day,” he says as he pulls out a stool from the bar and sits. “You really want to call my bluff? Because I have no place to be,” he adds as he crosses his arms over his chest and kicks his booted feet up onto the bar.

“Fuck,” I grumble after a few minutes, because hewillwait all fucking day. “I think I’m going to go back to…” I pause, unsure of the terminology I want to use. “To the other reality,” I finally blurt out.

Ash doesn’t say anything. He stares at me as if he’s waiting for more to come. Archangels are a warrior race. We don’t sit around the table and talk about our feelings, so I’m not about to start gushing about how I don’t fit in anywhere. That is a level of therapy I don’t want or need.

We stare at each other in a standoff that only brothers could tolerate. I’m not really sure how long the silence stretches between us, but it is becoming… uncomfortable.

“Why do you want me to say?” I finally acquiesce. “I don’t belong here, and I don’t want to sit and watch you and your perfect family while I run your bar.” The words are out of my mouth before I can even think better of them. I visibly cringe as the verbal blow hits my brother in full force.

There is no denying that my little outburst is like a slap across the face to Ash, but I can’t take it back.

“I should have stayed away,” I continue without giving him a chance to speak. “Do you even know how I got my freedom?” I ask, knowing fully that he knows only what I’ve led people to believe.

“Of course. You fought and won in the fighting pits. What does that have to do with you not thinking you belong here? You’re my brother, for fucks sake. Of course, you belong here. You belong more than anyone.”

Taking a deep breath in, I contemplate my answer. There is only one, and it’s the truth. But it requires me to utter a vile name that should be forbidden to speak. “Pestilence,” I utter the one name that no one wants to hear. “She was the one who ultimately got me into the pits. Themis herself had contracted my stay in Treachery, I never would have seen the light of day again if it hadn’t been for her.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me, brother,”

I let out a low growl of frustration. How can he not understand what I’m trying to say? “With me here, it puts you and your family in danger. It’s only a matter of time before she decides to come and find me. You know as well as I do, she doesn’t do favors out of the goodness of her heart.”

“And what, you don’t think I’d have your back for that? It’s not like you to run away from a problem.”

I’m not sure if he understands the implication of what he’s saying.Running away is what I did when I asked him to take my life. I have been running since the day I earned my freedom. Running seems to be the only thing I’m good at.

“What about Kennedy?” he finally says after a long silence—or maybe I just stopped paying attention. Either way, the mention of her name has me clenching my jaw so tight, I’m surprised I don’t hear my teeth crack.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been gone for more than a year. That’s a lifetime for a human woman. Besides, the last time I checked, she was dating some doctor in Boston.” I add the last part more as a reminder to myself that she’s moved on. The words are like acid as I say them, and I must hold back a sneer.

I made the nearly fatal mistake of heading up to Boston a few months after I returned here with Kat. I stood outside Kennedy’s Back Bay apartment for nearly an hour watching as she laughed and talked with some gangly man that I later learned was a doctor. He would have been no match for me, and I could have easily snapped him in half like a dead tree branch. But in the end, I walked away without ever letting her know I was there. The last thing I wanted to do was stand around while she invited him in. If that were the case, I would have murdered him… slowly.

“There’s nothing for me here. I wish there was, but there isn’t.” Ash seems to want to say something, but I continue before he has a chance, “I appreciate everything that you and Sloane have done for me. I really do. But you know as well as I do that if I wasn’t your brother, there is no way in hell you would want me to run The Black Door.”

Shaking his head, I watch as a slow grin creeps across Ashes’ face. “Maybe that’s true. But you are my brother, and we’ve already lost so much time. You belong here. It might not seem like it right now because you haven’t given it a chance. You haven’t given your family a chance.”

Family. The word hits me like a punch to the chest. As Elite Archangels, we are taken from our families before the age of three to start our training. Ash and I were lucky to have each other. Our family became the other warriors we trained with. Men I stood shoulder to shoulder with in battle, eager to give my life for theirs. But that was so long ago, it might as well be someone else’s life.

“It doesn’t have to be forever. I can still come back and forth,” I retort, and I instantly regret it by the look on his face. Even if we weren’t twins, I would know exactly what he was thinking. So, before he can argue the point, I continue, “There isn’t any reason for the gate to close. I’ve gone back and forth hundreds of times.”

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