My Date From Hell (2 page)

Zeus waved me off. “There’s truth serum in the water. And you know, hydration is essential to good skin.” He made a circular motion around his face. “You practically glow with youth and vitality now. In the cheeks. Also, I’m immune to the more adverse effects.”

Yeah, because younger, more radiant skin was a top priority of mine right now. I shifted my weight and glared up at Pops. “
That’s
why you kidnapped me. To get the location. Why?”

Zeus pursed his lips, considering. “Is this where I do the arch-villain bit and divulge my plan?”

I fired my index finger and thumb at him, gun-style, but stayed on high alert. I readied myself to move quickly, weight on my toes. “Got it in one.”

He shot me an assessing glance. “Persephone wasn’t mouthy like you.”

I stiffened involuntarily.

Zeus pulled a tube of moisturizing cream from a pocket, uncapped it and squeezed a blob into his hands. “Touchy, are we?” He rubbed the cream in with brisk strokes. “While ‘prophesied’ doesn’t mean guaranteed, always better to be safe than sorry when dealing with attempted coups. Your turn.”

I shook my head, doleful. “I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome. We can catch up another time. I’m free on Thanksgiving. We’ll celebrate our dysfunction with turkey and stuffing.”

Zeus pinned me in his gaze. “I don’t think so. In the event of any other possible candidates coming forward with the ridiculous notion of overthrowing me, I’d like to destroy the ritual location. Can’t go around battling every spawn I ever produced.”

Pops spawning. Could I memory repress
that
visual?

I exhaled deeply. This conversation, like my entire relationship with my father, was hopeless. But since I couldn’t let him seek and destroy this location that was so vital to stopping him, I had to get out of here.

“Can’t help you. And won’t.” Planting myself in a firmer stance, knees slightly bent, I narrowed my eyes at the remaining Photokia, and made a “bring it” motion with my right hand.

“If you insist,” Zeus said. He snapped his fingers and in an instant a half dozen more Gold Crushers had shown up.

Gold lightning lit the sky as the minions came at me, eyes blazing. I couldn’t dispose of them on a ribbony-death-by-ribbony-death basis, so I had to boost things up to the next level of my power.

I fired single blasts of green light from my eyes and palms, obliterating them one by one as I ducked and bobbed, dodging their blasts. Seven against one.

Whatever.

The secret weapon bonus of dad’s minions was that he had an endless supply. So even though my superior goddess power made me capable of taking them out quite easily, if Zeus ever set them full force against me, I’d be exhausted (and thus dead) before he’d barely tapped into his stockpile. That fact currently listed as number six on my list of “Final Showdown Terrors.”

Lightning scorched across my side. I let out a mangled curse.

“Language,” Zeus cautioned me.

With a growl, I took out the rest of them before they could do any more damage to my breakable human exterior. Done, done, and … done.

Panting, I swung my eyes toward Zeus. Me and him.

He tilted his head with a cat-like grin. “I think you missed one.”

Hundreds of Photokia poured into the room.

Bastard.

I fired my vines upwards, wanting out through the skylight, since flight seemed more prudent than fight.

Zeus smirked and gestured with his hand. “Not yet, my girl.”

The minions lunged. I managed to swing past them and land on the head of one of the statues, calling my light back inside me. I planted myself in a solid stance, then dug my toes into the sculpted locks of Zeus’ hair to get a better grip on the slippery stone. “You’re contravening basic parenting commandment number seven, Pops. ‘Thou shalt not try to kill thy kid.’”

Forget escaping. I had to take the Gold Crushers out first. I reached down deep within myself, ratcheting up to my highest power level.

I blasted a full-body, all-powerful shockwave of green light, almost falling off the statue since the recoil on that move was a kicker.

Damn! The move destroyed all the Gold Crushers, as I knew it would, but left my father standing infuriatingly intact.

Power-wise, firing the shockwave severely depleted me. I was too limp and spent to do more than heave while hunched over, hands braced on my legs. I’d never done it more than once without needing to majorly recharge, which required being outside. Being Goddess of Spring meant my powers were tied to the outdoors. I was the ultimate solar battery. The light filtering down from above was helpful but wouldn’t totally recharge me.

Since my kaboom hadn’t taken Pops out, my only option was to flee. And fast.

Please let me have enough power to ribbon myself out of here
.

I gave ‘er. And all I got were two weakly glowing palms.

I leaped off of the statue hoping I wouldn’t break both legs, as dozens more Photokia showed up and attacked me. Kind of like being caught in a sea of battering rams.

The bodies dogpiling on top of me knocked the breath right from my body. I couldn’t blast them, didn’t even really have the power to fight them at all. Before I could catch my breath and attempt
something
, I heard Zeus say, “Let’s wrap it up, shall we?”

I was plucked from the pile by a large, knobby, miniony hand and thrown high into the air. Before I could process what was happening, Zeus called “Pull!” and lightning enveloped my body.

Son-of-a-bitch, he was skeet shooting his own kid.

“Pull!”

My body snapped back painfully, somersaulting with the force of the electric blasts. I tried to blindly send out my light vines but nothing came out.

“Pull!”

My body spasmed uncontrollably as more lightning struck it. My head snapped to the right, my fingers flailed like I enthusiastically counted by tens and my legs made a pumping motion much like cartoon characters as they gear up to run, all while still flying upwards through the air.

Lightning shots give quite the endorphin kick. The last enveloping hit knocked my energy from foul ball to home run. My eyes widened on a manic high. I felt pleasantly warm. Colors were sharper, no detail too small to notice.
Whooeeee
.

It passed five seconds later, leaving me falling in wet noodle mode.

I would have cried out had I been capable of speech. Instead I just made a moaning sound and drooled. I smelled burned hair and charred flesh and saw plumes of smoke rising from various parts of my dangerously overheated skin.

Bye-bye, endorphins. Hello, pain crashing into my system. From the bruises forming from being tackled, to the burning pain ripping through my side
—
my injuries were intense.

I took a shuddery breath and flailed as my muscles seized up in a grand finale. I hit the ground with a hard thud.

Ooh floaty stars
…

I blinked rapidly, until the spots had disappeared from my vision. I was completely winded.

The one bit of good luck was that I lay in a patch of sunlight. And maybe it could recharge me enough to be able to escape.

Zeus motioned for the Photokia nearest him to come over. The minion placed his foot on the middle of my chest and pressed down until I could feel that one more lean into me and his boot would smash through my body.

I bit my lip at the searing pain of my ribs spearing my torso. I was glad I couldn’t remember the location of this planned overthrow, because any more pain and I’d have handed it over with a hand-drawn map.

My father loomed over me. “You can make this stop, you know. Just answer my question.”

Ignoring my screaming neck muscles, I turned my head up to face Zeus.

Exhaustion and pain threatened to pull me under but I didn’t think closing my eyes would be a good idea in this situation. I forced them open by digging my nails into my palms as hard as I could.

I jutted my chin out at Zeus, stubborn and silent. The stoic effect was only slightly lessened by the tears of pain streaming from my eyes. I squirmed against the Photokia’s foot. No go.

Click
.
Click
. Again with the damn pen. “Enough of this, child. Tell me the location.”

The Gold Crusher slowly grinding me into the floor turned his head to say something to the minion beside him. He leaned back a bit as he did, letting up the pressure on me.

Now or never.

I hadn’t been recharged much, but I had to try. Flinging myself hard to the side and knocking the Photokia off balance, I fired a puny ribbon of light out to shove him farther back so I could make my escape. Instead, I knocked Pop’s pen out of his hand and sent it flying toward me.

I leapt up, my legs wobbly, and narrowly grabbed it. At least I wouldn’t have to listen to anymore clicking.

Zeus took a step toward me, hand outstretched for the pen.

As I’d seen, even my highest power level didn’t faze Zeus. So I had two options. One, I could meekly comply and see what happened, or two, go for the low tech choice.

Two it was. I jumped up and jabbed him in the thigh with the pen with all my might, then pulled it back out again with a resounding
click
click
for added insult.

Zeus didn’t make a sound. Merely noted the hole in the leg of his suit, rimmed with blue ink and blood. His expression hardened. Cold. Severe.

Pure terror was a great motivator for finding my last dregs of energy. As was the accompanying adrenaline rush that hit me.

I ran, my heart racing, desperate to make it back across the room to the door and a way out.

Zeus’s hand closed on the back of my neck and I felt something clamp around my left wrist.

My body started to tingle. Not in a good way, either. More like my blood starting to heat up.

I stared down at the three inch, black metal cuff on me embossed with the letters “FeE,” then glowered at my father, struggling to summon any power at all.

Zeus squatted down to my level and wound a thick chain attached to the cuff around my upper body. I gasped and arched back as every nerve I had went into screaming overdrive.

Pops smiled serenely. “Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?”

My fingers white-knuckled the pen. Man, did I want to stab him again. Repeatedly.

Tears streamed down my face. My head throbbed and my entire body strained against the sensation of being caught in a vice. With needles attached for extra probey pain. “What … ?” It was all I could manage to say.

Zeus held the other end of the chain up in his hand, a matching wrist cuff for my right arm swinging from its final link. He gazed at it, almost dreamily. “It’s really a thing of beauty. This binding both calls up your power and prevents it from going anywhere. There is nothing you can do to stop it. And since you can’t use your power, it’s not like you can blast the manacles off and free yourself. There you are, stuck with an ever-increasing pressure with no release.”

He stroked the right wrist cuff, with a long, index finger. “It’s calibrated perfectly so that eventually you’ll die, but not too soon. Most go mad way before then.” Head tilted, he cast a critical gaze over me. “You will for sure.”

How comforting.

I ground my teeth together.

“You might want to take a deep breath,” Zeus said and manacled my other wrist.

My eyes bugged out. It felt like my power was trying to rip through my skin. By chewing its way out.

“Relax,” Zeus said, “it’ll settle down in a minute.” He leaned down and stroked my hair with his enormous hand in a surprisingly gentle gesture. “Don’t struggle. It’ll just be worse.”

Total psycho! I jerked out from under his touch.

He was right about the pain though. It did settle. From unbelievably unbearable to barely-keeping-conscious tolerable, which was worse. Had it stayed at its initial level, I would have blacked out and been put out of my misery. But, as that wouldn’t have been as fun for my father, awake and in excruciating agony it was.

I refused to die like this. Not that I’d planned my demise, but it would have involved being much, much older. Having saved the world. Had sex. Stuff like that.

I shook my head in a couple of sharp jolts, trying to stop the itchy squeezing of my brain. If I could just Velveeta it out through my ears, I’d be okay.

“All good now?” he asked. He picked me up like a trussed turkey and we blinked out of the room.

No. Not good at all.

Two

We landed in the middle of nowhere, in a desert. At night. The only manmade item was a large portable trailer with no windows and a heavy steel door about fifty feet away.

With the manacles making my head buzz and vision warp, the sculpted rock formations and the occasional spiky, twisty Joshua Tree gave the world an eerie lunar-like feel. The effect was heightened by the insanely bright star show above.

I felt unhinged, like I was losing all sense of myself. But the one thing that did manage to penetrate the fog of my intolerable pain was the fact that
both
a Photokia and a Pyrosim, one of Hades’ minions, guarded the trailer.

I called the Pyrosim “Infernorators.” They were wraiths who always reminded me of Munch’s figure in “The Scream” set on fire. The screamer would have to start flying and stretch out his arms impossibly to shoot fireballs to complete the comparison so maybe the resemblance wasn’t spot on, but when faced with weirdness, human nature tried to make sense of it.

But why was he here at all? The Gold Crushers and Infernorators hated each other so this made zero sense. Figuring it out was beyond me because my entire world had shrunk to sharp, knife-edged fragments.

Zeus dragged me roughly forward toward the trailer, my bare feet scraping over brush and small rocks. My skin stung from dozens of tiny cuts.

Good thing he held me up, because I was having trouble getting my legs to function. My lower half felt like Jell-O.

He snorted in derision. “You really are weak. One night should be enough to break you. Allow the memories to return. If not, well, I
will
kill you for destroying my suit.”

“That hasn’t been decided yet,” I heard Hades say. “I think I should do the honors.”

I willed my muscles to work enough to raise my head and look at him. Last time I’d seen Hades, he’d been choking from poison. He was back to his massive, alcoholic, bloated self now, the white in his hair more pronounced. Even so, he still exuded a ton of charisma. It was plain wrong.

WTF? Why were these two (im)mortal enemies fighting over who got to kill me?

I watched in pain-induced shock as Zeus backhanded Hades without breaking stride.

Hades’ seething hatred emanated from him like a furnace.

My body began to spasm.

Zeus dropped me in distaste.

I could feel their eyes on me, neither bothering to help as I clawed at my throat to try and get air into it, my limbs flailing painfully against the hard ground.

“Great,” Hades muttered. “She’s going to die before she reveals it. She’s the only one that knows the location. You always break them too soon. But then,” he said slyly, “‘too soon’ is a reoccurring problem of yours, isn’t it?”

A thud and a grunt followed that.

Pops picked me up. I recognized his citrus cologne. I was bent double, the agony curling my body into itself.

“We’ll get it from her in the morning.” Zeus turned, dragging me with him. “Lower the wards.”

And without so much as a “nice knowing you,” he tossed me away like a frisbee.

I barely had time to glimpse the door being opened before I flew inside the trailer and landed with a thunk. My body was crumpled and the sharp, spiking pain in my shoulder blade made me wonder if I’d fractured it.

I heard Zeus’ and Hades’ continued arguing fade away and the thud of the door being shut. I didn’t care. I wanted to bash my brains out and end my misery. Struggling, I raised my head and brought it down with a sharp smack on the vinyl flooring.

Bruised but not broken. I raised my hands, squinted at them through puffy eyes, and wondered if I could thwack the heavy cuffs against my head hard enough to stop the pain.

That’s when I caught sight of a small lock on the inside of one of the cuffs.

I probably would have been a bit more excited at this splinter of hope if my freaking eyes hadn’t started to bleed. It did not feel like the warm wash of tears. More like my insides had decided to flee my body by any means necessary and my blood was making a break for it through my tear ducts.

I dashed them away with the back of one manacled hand, almost blinding myself with Zeus’ pen which I still held in a death grip.

Hang on. I could use that.

I had to take a time out to twitch uncontrollably as my skin began to pulse, kind of how I imagined the ground did before a geyser gushed up out of it.

Despite my agony, I willed myself to lift my hand up and smash the pen onto the ground.

It snapped.

I groped around amidst the plastic fragments. This was complicated by giant black spots swimming through my vision as the pressure in my head mounted. Blood continued to stream down my cheeks and my organs felt a little jumpy.

Sharp metal pricked my finger. Pathetically grateful for small miracles, I snatched up the tiny metal spring that powered the damn clicking of the pen.

Holding it in my right hand, I turned my left wrist over, facing up. My arm shook so hard that I had to slowly crawl over to the wall and lean against it, trapping my left arm in place to keep it still enough to work on.

I couldn’t see anything, my body was slick with sweat, and my right arm trembled madly, but I had never been so determined to master a fine motor skill. I had to pick this lock or I was dead.

I sent up a prayer of thanks to Theo for having taught me how to both jimmy and pick locks so I could pull a prank on queen bee Bethany Russo-Hill the night of the Halloween school dance. A prank that had ultimately led me to Kai, his kiss, and this entire crazy mess.

Sweat joined the blood streaming down my cheeks. My bottom lip had gone numb from me biting it so hard.

But what felt like an eternity and some of the most creative cursing I’d ever uttered later, my left cuff fell to the stone floor with a dull thunk.

It was the greatest sound I’d ever heard.

My eyes stopped bleeding, my skin stopped boiling, and the pain went down from “kill me now” to “kill me in about a half hour.”

But each breath still felt like inhaling a lungful of hot, broken glass.

Getting the right cuff off was a lot trickier since I was practically useless doing stuff with my left hand. Having clear vision again and insides that didn’t feel like they might liquify helped.

Finally, blessedly, I got free.

I ripped the chain from around my body and tossed it deeper into the room, then sprawled limp in a jelly fish imitation on the ground.

The pain was gone. Let me rephrase. The manacle pain was gone. My body still felt like it had done a tango with a freight train. Every inch of me hurt.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything except will my body to return to its normal functioning.

Inhale
…
Exhale
… I calmed my racing heart down to a slow gallop, eyes fixed on the perforated ceiling tiles and florescent lights favored by soulless institutions everywhere.

All this pain that Zeus had rained down on me. I wondered if he’d have hurt Persephone as easily. I doubted it, given the way he’d spoken so glowingly about her, even knowing that she’d been planning to instigate a coup.

I wearily rubbed a hand over my eyes. There were a lot of important reasons for me to get Persephone’s memories back. But maybe, if I was being honest, my biggest one was to know what it had felt like to be that loved. Instead of being killed without a second thought, the way Zeus was behaving with me now.

For someone who was such an absence in so many ways, Persephone’s presence was impossible to ignore.

Though I’d have rather died than admit any of this.

I rolled onto my side and pushed up with both hands to swing myself into a seated position. Gingerly, I massaged my limbs, my breath hitching at the pins and needles screaming to life in my hands and feet.

A large table blocked my view of the rest of the room. I used its metal legs to pull myself up to standing so I could get a sense of where I was, then flinched, jerking my hands off it when I realized the table was made of cold steel. The kind used for autopsies.

The table had been designed for beings that were at least fifteen feet tall. So on the plus side, it was roomy. On the minus side, it recalled pointy things that could cut me open.

No way was I going to to let Zeus slice into me. I glanced out at the rest of the room to see if there was anything useful.

My heart sank.

Other than the table, the only other item in the room was a nightmare of a machine.

About ten feet tall and three feet wide, made of black iron, it had “FeE” embossed on its frame, just like the manacles. The frame held a wide vertical board, about seven feet high. Also attached to it were all manner of hooks, blades, saws, lightning rods, and miscellaneous scary things.

My imagination ran riot with all the ways Zeus would have that monstrosity deliver pain in the morning. Didn’t matter. I couldn’t let Zeus get that location from me.

Ignoring the dread in the pit of my belly, I forced myself to creep toward the torture device to examine it for something that could get me out of here. Something to get me through the wards and past the guards.

I came around the front of the machine and screamed.

I wasn’t alone.

Strapped to the board, manacled, and totally unconscious, was Kai.

As much as I wanted painful payback for his having betrayed me and left me to die, I wouldn’t have wished being manacled on Hades and Zeus themselves. Not to mention whatever they’d done to him with this torture device. I had to uncuff him.

His arms lay limp at his side, the chain connecting the cuffs pulled tight across his muscled torso. Thick metal bands secured over top of the manacles, held him across his upper body and hips. I’d have to get him down to pick the locks.

I took a step closer, scared of what state he’d be in. Pain? Probably. Madness? Maybe. “Kai?” Nervously, I pressed two fingers to his throat. His pulse was faint but at least he had one. His eyes fluttered open for a second, then fell heavily shut.

I peered at the machine and luckily found a release lever pretty quickly. I wedged my body up against Kai’s and pressed the lever with my foot. As I suspected, the bands holding him snapped open and had I not been there, Kai would have crashed to the ground.

Sadly, I wasn’t the strongest at the moment and while I managed to mostly cushion his fall, my left hip smashed hard into the floor.

Several swears later, I’d managed to prop him against a wall so that I could pick the locks on his manacles. His eyes were still closed. His breathing unsteady.

I took his right wrist in my hand, again feeling his pulse. Stronger, but thready. I’m sure it was residual fatigue and not anxiety that caused my hand to shake as I inserted the tiny metal spring in the lock of the cuff and began to work on it.

“You stupid bastard,” I muttered. “Going after Hades.” I wanted to be angry seeing him like this, watching his shallow breathing, rather than let myself feel the fear and concern that gnawed at the edges of my consciousness.

His left hand closed over my forearm with the tiniest tremor. Kai stroked my skin with his index finger. He sighed. “So pretty.” Kai’s voice came out like pure raspy honey
—
you know, like when you’re still coming to from a dream.

I fumbled the lock as a tiny pang of happy shot to my heart. “You’re delirious.” He had to be, because there was no way in his right mind he’d compliment me like that. That was far too sweet.

I moved his left hand away to get a better angle. After a moment, his right cuff popped open.

Kai’s arm thudded uselessly to the ground.

How long had he been like this?

I repositioned myself so I sat cross-legged and bent over the lock on his left cuff.

Kai’s right hand reached up to gently tangle in my hair and pull on one of my somewhat matted ringlets.

I couldn’t help myself. I leaned into his hand. Let him stroke my jaw with his blistered fingers. Closed my eyes as he gently traced my eyelashes.

I felt my entire body come alive and push my pain aside in a giant sigh of bliss.

This wasn’t the time for indulging in fantasy or our insane attraction. We had to get out of here and nothing had changed between us. I grasped his hand and placed it down by his side.

Once his left cuff finally came off, I tugged him forward so I could yank his body free from the chain wrapped around his torso. I had to grapple with his dead weight to keep him from falling over. Hot fury at what they’d done to him flushed my skin. My light danced weakly out of my palms, desperate to blast things at the unfairness of it all but I had to conserve what little I had for our escape.

As soon as Kai was free, I threw the entire manacle contraption across the room, where it smashed against the wall with an angry clang. Kai slid back against the wall.

“Oi!” I held my breath as our Gold Crusher guard pounded on the outside of the door. Loudly bitching about crap job postings, he stomped away.

Big sigh of relief. I was alive. That was a plus. And there were two of us, which would increase our chances of getting out of here. That’s all I could let myself focus on. Rage, sorrow, the state of the relationships I had with various males
—
all had to wait. I shoved my emotions down deep inside me.