Leticia grabbed my arm, bringing me to a sudden stop. “Jodi.”
“What?” I looked at her, but her eyes were focused off to my right. “Did you see something?”
I figured it could’ve been any one of our victims. Someone she’d accidentally killed and now they were roaming these Fields for all eternity. I knew, if I saw the hiker or any of the other poor people I’d killed, I’d need more than a moment to freak out and regroup.
“I’m not sure, but isn’t that—?” She pointed to a group of souls, wandering aimlessly. At first I had no idea what she was trying to tell me. There were two women and an older man with them, but none of them looked familiar.
“Leticia, I don’t see—” They parted, and I saw who Leticia was talking about.
Matt.
Chapter 5
No. There had to be a mistake. Matt was a good person. He was perfect. He’d never hurt anyone. If anyone should end up in the Elysian Fields, it was him. I moved toward him, determined to prove my eyes were deceiving me. It had to be someone who looked like Matt. Looked like him but wasn’t him. That was the only explanation that made sense to me.
“Jodi.” Alex reached for my arm as he followed. “Don’t. Please, don’t.” He gently tugged on my arm, making me turn to him and breaking me from the spell that had taken hold over my body.
“It can’t be him.” My words shook with the threat of tears. “He was too good to end up here. I have to prove to myself that it’s not him.”
Alex pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me. I buried my head in his chest, breathing in the scent I knew so well. Alex. My Alex. He was home to me—even here. When I was with him, everything else seemed to fade away. Nothing else was important. He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head.
“Don’t torture yourself. Hades is doing enough of that. These Fields are supposed to be a break for us. A place where we can rest for a little while.”
His words didn’t completely register. All I was hearing was that he didn’t want me to go to Matt. Not because he was jealous. Not because he worried I still had feelings for him. Alex didn’t want me going to Matt because then I’d see it really was him. It wasn’t a mistake. Instead of being happy in his afterlife in the Elysian Fields, Matt was living like a zombie, wandering around the asphodels.
I pulled away from Alex, looking him in the eyes. “This is my fault, isn’t it?”
“What?” He shook his head. “Jodi, no.”
“Yes, it is. Matt’s judgment, the one that placed him here, it was based on me—his connection to me. I’m sure of it. Hades is punishing me by punishing him.”
“Can he do that?” Leticia asked, coming up behind us with the rest of the group following her.
I looked to Tony, hoping he knew. He shrugged. “He’s the god of the underworld. There’s nothing he can’t do here. I mean, he raised Matt that night in the cemetery, and from what I was told, Matt wasn’t anything like the last time you’d seen him.”
No, he wasn’t. When I’d killed him with my kiss, I’d raised him without knowing what I was doing. I’d brought him back wrong, as a bunny-eating zombie. Hades had brought Matt back human again and very much alive. Until my tears killed him again. Now Matt was here. It had to be my fault.
“Do you think he was in the Elysian Fields when Hades raised him?” I stared at Tony, but he looked away. “Tell me! I need to know if I did this to him.”
Tony sighed, and when he raised his eyes to meet mine, they were full of sympathy. “No one can say that for sure. Only Hades knows.”
“No, someone else here would know. Victoria, maybe.”
Alex rubbed my arms, trying to ease the tension that had worked its way through my entire body. “Victoria and the others are in Tartarus. Believe me, they didn’t see Matt.”
I turned to Alex for a moment before looking in Matt’s direction again. “Abby came here to get us. If she can leave Tartarus, the others probably can, too.”
Alex turned my chin back toward him, taking my eyes off Matt. “Abby only came here to get us. Hades sent her. I doubt he does stuff like that often. He hates Abby and the others just as much as he hates us.”
“Does he? Because they seem to be having a great old time punishing souls. They don’t seem to be in much pain at all.” I looked toward Matt again. “He doesn’t deserve this.”
Alex’s shoulders dropped when he realized I wasn’t letting this go. “He’s not going to be able to talk to you, Jodi. Look at all the souls here. They’re completely spaced out. He won’t even know who you are. He probably doesn’t even know who he is.”
“Alex is right,” Tony said. “Going to Matt is only going to torture you more.”
I didn’t care. I had to see him. I had to make sure he wasn’t suffering here. “I need to do this. I know you don’t understand, but I just have to talk to him. Even if he doesn’t respond, there are things I need to say. I won’t have closure until I do this.”
Alex closed his eyes, exhaling loudly and nodding. “Go.”
I reached up on my toes and kissed him. “Thank you.”
He squeezed my hands. “I deserve serious brownie points for this.”
He was right. He deserved credit for a lot of things. I reached up and kissed him again. “Major brownie points. Got it.” I let go of Alex and took a deep breath, bracing myself for the worst. Matt wasn’t going to recognize me. He might not even acknowledge me.
I forced my feet to move in his direction, which wasn’t easy considering Matt was walking in a strange circular pattern. I wasn’t sure what to do, how to approach him, so I fell in step with him, making the crazy pattern.
“Matt?” I kept my voice gentle, not wanting to startle him. He didn’t respond. “Matt, it’s me, Jodi.”
At the mention of my name, he stopped. He did remember me! “Can you look at me?”
He was almost in a trance, staring out over the asphodels. I gently reached for his arm, and he jumped at the contact. I pulled away, afraid I’d scared him, but he turned and faced me. His eyes were glazed over, and he seemed to be looking through me rather than at me.
“Matt? Do you know who I am?”
“Jodi.” My name was so quiet coming from his lips, like a distant memory, which was all I was to him now.
“Yes, Jodi.” I choked back tears. “I was your girlfriend before you came here.”
He didn’t say a word. His head cocked to the side for a second, like he was trying to understand, but his brain wouldn’t process the words. He shook his head in frustration.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to remember. I just want to tell you that I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I really did care about you, and I think I even could’ve loved you if we’d had more time together.”
“Where?” he mumbled.
“Where what?” I looked around, wondering if he was talking about this place. “Where are we? Is that what you’re asking?”
He didn’t respond, but I went on anyway. “This place is called the Fields of Asphodel. You’re in the afterlife, Matt.”
“Gone. Happy. All gone.”
My insides twisted at his broken speech. This place was turning him into a mindless soul. It wasn’t just his speech that was broken. He was broken. A shell of who he once was.
“Warmth. Light.”
Was he talking about before he died? Was he wondering why everything was so colorless and cold here? “You aren’t alive anymore, Matt. You…died. I’m so sorry.”
“Not here. Somewhere else. You.” Finally his eyes found mine—really connected. He was seeing me now. “Then gone. Now here.”