“What was that?” I needed to know the true story—what had really happened.
“Jealousy.”
“Everyone gets jealous.” My voice was small as I thought of how jealous Alex had been of Chase. Even after I’d convinced Alex I didn’t want to be with Chase, when he saw how Chase’s power could make me feel…euphoric…Alex couldn’t handle it.
“True.” Hades stepped inches from my face, and it took all my strength not to back away. The heat radiating from his body was intense. “Chase, however, was jealous of you. Your power. He wanted to be the Chosen One. The funny thing is I probably didn’t even need to take his mother. He probably would’ve gone along with my plan just to get rid of you.”
My eyes found Chase, but he turned away from me. It was true. He hated me. Maybe it had been jealousy that started it, but he’d enjoyed controlling me, poisoning me with his blood. He was almost as sick and twisted as Hades himself.
I took a step around Hades, afraid he’d stop me, but he simply smiled and moved out of my way. I let go of Alex, and Hades held up a hand to stop him from following me. I shot Alex a pleading look before walking over to Chase. “You never cared about me. You just wanted my power. All that stuff about choosing you—it wasn’t because you liked me.”
“I liked making out with you.” Chase laughed, which caused him to choke. He was still weak.
“What about those rare moments when you were nice to me, almost human?”
“There’s nothing human about him,” Hades said. “Or any of you, for that matter.”
That wasn’t entirely true. I’d been half-human until I drank Medusa’s blood and killed my human side. I lingered on that thought. My human half. Where was the part of my soul that was human? If I didn’t die, and Hades resented me for not giving him my human soul when I drank Medusa’s blood, then where was it?
My eyes flew to Tony. I had to talk to him. He was the most knowledgeable Ophi here. If anyone could give me answers, it was him. Except, how could I get him alone? I was sure Hades would let Victoria and the others continue with our punishment the moment he got bored with us.
I faced Hades, set on keeping him talking as long as possible. Leticia and McKenzie, the two youngest Ophi, looked like they couldn’t survive any more pain. “So, this is it? This is your plan for us? Keep us here for all eternity? It doesn’t make sense. We’re still alive. You don’t have our souls.”
Hades’ eyes burned into me. Literally burned with hellfire. I fell to my knees, and Alex reached for me, wrapping his arms around me and blocking me from Hades’ view. The fire subsided as soon as Alex broke the connection.
He held my face in his hands. “Jodi? Are you okay?”
I nodded, but I wasn’t okay. None of us were.
“There’s something to be said for the living,” Hades said. Alex and I turned to face him. “I can hurt you so much more than the dead. I have both your souls and your bodies to punish.”
This was all about payback. He hated us because we had taken souls from him. Now, he was going to make sure we paid for it.
“Well, then.” He clapped his hands in front of him, and Victoria and her group advanced on us. Leticia whimpered. McKenzie sobbed. Lexi cowered as her own sister, Abby, moved toward her. The others managed to hold their ground, along with Alex and me. Then, Hades surprised us all. “Shall we get going?”
“Go where?” All I could imagine was a deeper level of Tartarus—someplace darker, hotter, and more painful, if that were possible.
“You’ll be moving to the Fields of Asphodel.” If his expression wasn’t so stone cold serious, I would’ve sworn he was trying to trick us—lull us into a false sense of security before unleashing some new form of torture ten times worse than the last.
“But why?” Not that I wasn’t relieved to get a break from Tartarus, but something was up, and I didn’t like not knowing what.
“Your former friends have been doing a commendable job doling out your punishments.” He nodded briefly at his new servants. This wasn’t at all what I’d intended. Victoria and the others were supposed to be suffering down here in the underworld, not living it up torturing souls. “However,” Hades continued, “this kind of torture all the time would kill you, and I’m not ready for you all to die. Yet.”
I should’ve known. He was dragging this out. Keeping us alive for as long as possible, maybe forever. I had to find a way out of here. Hades motioned for us to follow him, and just like when we’d arrived in the underworld, it was like our bodies had minds of their own—or more like they obeyed Hades—because we were following him. Of course, we were all happy to get out of Tartarus, even if it was only for a little while.
Arianna, who had become like a second mom to me—although biologically she was Lexi and Abby’s mom—fell in step with me. “We’ll figure something out,” she whispered.
I nodded and turned to Tony, who was on the other side of Arianna. “We need to talk. I think I have an idea, but I’m going to need your help.”
He gave me a weak smile, and I couldn’t help thinking he doubted any plan I’d come up with would work. I was never really one for paying attention in class, especially when it came to mythology. I had this thing against Zeus. After finding out that it was Zeus who put Ophiuchus in the heavens to stop him from taking souls from the underworld, well, let’s just say he’ll never get a Christmas card from me. But Zeus aside, I did remember that only a few people have ever made it out of the underworld alive.
That was the beauty of my plan. I wasn’t going to try to get out of the underworld alive. I was going to try to raise my own soul. My human soul. The one I’d killed. I was going to force that soul into the body of another dead person.
I was going to become one of the living dead—and hopefully not the zombie kind.
Chapter 2
The walk to the Fields of Asphodel was surreal. Mostly because it wasn’t a walk at all. Hades sort of floated us there in a cloud of black smoke. It was his preferred method of transportation. As we crossed the Phlegethon, the river of fire, I couldn’t help wondering if Hades dipped us closer to the flames; my feet and ankles burned as the flames licked at them.
Finally, we came to rest above the Fields of Asphodel. Hades dropped us—yes, dropped us—and we landed in a heap in the middle of fields filled with asphodel flowers. As we got to our feet, I noticed the asphodels were about three and a half feet tall. They looked beautiful with their long stalks and white petals, which had the slightest tint of red down the centers. Not at all what I’d expect to see in a place like this.
McKenzie reached out and touched the white flowers. “They’re so strange. They almost look good enough to eat.”
“No!” Tony yelled.
Now that Hades was gone, having left in his cloud of black smoke the second he dropped us here, everyone was starting to act more like themselves again.
“What?” McKenzie looked like a puppy that had just been scolded.
“Asphodels are the food of the dead. We’re still alive, but if you eat one of these, that could quickly change.” Tony looked around the group. “No one eats them. In fact, no one can eat anything here. If you do, you’ll be stuck here forever.”
“We’re stuck here anyway,” Lexi said.
Alex took my hand in his and walked us away from the group. I needed to talk to Tony, to get my plan in motion, but I couldn’t resist the urge to be alone with Alex. Part of me was still shocked he didn’t hate me.
We sat down, letting the asphodels give us a little privacy. Alex leaned forward and gently brushed my cheek with his fingers. “How are you holding up?”