P. Hoover - Solstice

“I want you to leave Piper alone. Forever.”

Reese looks toward me. “Piper wants to be with me.”

I shake my head. “No! I don’t.”

But Reese licks his lips. “You seemed to want to be with me in the greenhouse.”

“Shut up!” I scream, willing him to stop.

He turns away, his eyes roving the room for Shayne. “Do you know how sweet your Piper tastes? How hard her nipples are when she’s excited?”

“I can’t stand you!” I want it to not be true. For me to never have done anything with him. And I don’t want Shayne to hear. My face is hot, and everything around me is starting to turn red. “You’re a monster.”

But Reese is having too much fun to stop. “You didn’t seem to think so when we were together.”

“We were never together!” I want Shayne to know, whether true or not, I was not a willing party.

A bucket slams into the back of Reese’s head, wiping the smile off his face. He falls to the ground, but lands in a crouched position, like a lion ready to pounce.

“It’s time you let someone else have a turn, Hades. Let someone else show her how it feels to be a woman.”

I shake my head. The only person I want—I’ve ever wanted—is Shayne. “I would rot in Tartarus before I’d be with you.” I take my own scissors and pitch them at Reese, but he springs off the ground, and I miss him by inches. And then I feel a slight brush on my cheek, and my hair moves aside. I turn, but it’s gone.

It’s only when I notice the drops of blood on the ground that I know Shayne is in trouble. Each a footstep apart and moving across the room. And before I can warn him, Reese notices, too, and he pounces, landing on top of an invisible form, so it looks like he’s levitating in the air.

Shayne pops into visibility, and Reese tosses the Helm of Darkness across the room where it clatters to the ground near my mom who’s still standing there, watching like she’s placed money on a boxing match and needs to see who will win.

Reese and Shayne fight, rolling around in a battle I fear will end in only hurt. The struggle is a blur of flailing limbs and electricity mimicking the storm outside. I want to go in and stop it but know I can’t. Shayne has Reese in a throat lock so tight that Reese’s head begins to turn white. He manages to throw Shayne off, gasping for air as he stands up. And then he’s back on Shayne, pressing Shayne’s head together with the flats of his hands. And Reese turns him to face me.

“Who do you love, Piper?”

I watch in horror as I see Shayne struggling to break free from Reese’s grip. But it’s like a vise.

“Let him go!”

Reese shakes his head. “I can’t. I can’t trust him ever. He’ll take you away from me.”

“I’m not yours. I never will be. I never was!”

Reese smiles as Shayne’s face turns redder and redder. His head is being crushed.

“Oh, yes. You are.”

Shayne’s eyes can’t focus. He’s losing, and I’m going to lose him.

“See, Piper. You and I were meant to be together. I’ll make you so happy.”

I shake my head, trying to erase his words, but they won’t go away.

“I see it in your face. You want me.”

My face? All he should see there is loathing, but whatever hope I’ve given Reese for our future gives Shayne the opportunity he needs. He shoves his arms under Reese’s and breaks free, rolling away.

And then Reese moves. Not toward Shayne, but right at me. He reaches me, wrapping a sweaty arm around my waist. I twist and try to escape, but he’s got me too tight.

He turns to me and grins. “Ready?”

“Stop!” Shayne’s voice shouts out, and he starts running.

“Ares, catch.”

My head spins toward my mother’s voice. She picks up the Helm of Darkness and tosses it through the air toward Reese. He catches it, and the last thing I see before I disappear is Shayne coming for me, his hands only inches away, and then the world shifts around me.

I wake up on a sofa inside a room with walls made of rock. When I sit up, all around me I smell something sweet and thick. Like wine.

Reese.

I look around, and even though the scent of Reese is so strong I want to gag and breathe deeply at the same time, the room is empty. I’m alone, and I have no idea where I am.

The room has no doors and no windows. Only grotesque tapestries cover the walls, giving the otherwise dismal room a hint of color. I stand and move to the first tapestry, a bloody scene with bodies impaled on poles, pull it aside, and look behind it. There must be a way out of this place. Behind the tapestry, mortar holds together stones the size of Cerberus. If there is an exit, it’s not here.

I move to the next tapestry, a scene depicting an ocean of blood with body parts floating on the surface, but find the same thing—solid construction sealing in my doom. And so I keep moving, circling the room, trying not to breathe in too deeply. Reese may not be in here with me, but his scent—his drug—lingers everywhere.

The next few tapestries turn up nothing better, but when I get halfway around the room, my search is rewarded. I find a loose stone.

I push on it, attempting to shove it through the wall. It wobbles a bit but won’t budge; the cracking pieces of mortar wedge it in place. And so I shove harder, fighting to keep the fear building inside me under control. What if there is no way out? What if I never see Shayne again?

“Shayne,” I whisper, hoping that Reese can’t hear me. Shayne can find me here and help me. But he doesn’t come. I whisper his name again and turn to look around the room. It’s still empty. Wherever Shayne is, he hasn’t heard me.

I try to steady my breathing, but I’m shaking too hard. I shove on the block with renewed effort, but the results are the same. Nothing. I bite my lip, letting my teeth pierce the skin, trying to focus on the pain and not the panic. And then I think to look up.

Overhead, a chandelier hangs, fashioned of wrought iron and human skulls. Their mouths gape open, frozen in screaming terror, and chains wrap through their eye sockets, holding them in place. My eyes follow the chains from the skulls upward where they twist around, knot together, and then continue on to the ceiling. At the point where they meet the ceiling, there is a hole through which the chandelier is raised and lowered. I think I can fit through it if only I can find a way up there.

I run back to the center of the room, to the sofa. It’s some kind of antique piece, with a black moiré cushion and a solid wood frame. A frame that should hold my weight. I move to one end of the sofa and rock it forward until it’s propped up on its side, perpendicular to the cold slab of the floor. And then I walk behind it where my weight is least likely to tip it, and I climb to the top.

I’m standing on top of the sofa, inches from the wrought iron of the chandelier, when I hear Reese.

Going somewhere?

His voice is low, a sound that echoes through the room but doesn’t seem to come from within it. I’m being watched. I don’t hesitate but jump upward, catching the iron with my fingers. I swing my legs up over a couple of skulls and pull myself up. If I can get inside the ceiling, I can get away from the watchful eye of Reese. And into the skeleton of the fortress.

I climb the knot of chains, crunching skulls under my feet. I don’t look back. I’m at the hole in the ceiling, and though it’s a tight fit, I manage to squeeze my way through and get inside. I reach back down through the hole and grab an unlit candle, but there are no matches around. But I remember the match at church and the fire in the Underworld. I have power. Light bursts around me as the candle ignites, illuminating steel tresses that span a distance tall enough to crawl but nowhere near tall enough to walk. And so, with the candle in one hand, I crawl forward.