The God & The Shadow

Chapter 58

PERSEPHONE

"Are you afraid?"

"No."

"I do not need to break down your walls to taste your lies, assassin."

"Good to know." She watched as the girl removed the hold he had on her and walked off.

"You lie a little too much." He started when he caught up with her.

"Yeah? And how do you expect me to care?"

He scoffed and stopped the girl by placing his hand on her shoulder, turning her around. "Your lies will catch up with you one day," he stated.

Like twin flames on the field, destruction attracted to ruination. One left because they knew that the other would follow. That's how Persephone saw them.

She watched as the girl inched closer to him, lifting her chin up. She felt something deep within her burst with warmth as if she'd seen this before, time and time again.

"Not if I run faster."

Persephone emerged from the water with a gasp. With heavy breaths, she got up and scoured for a towel to wrap around her body.

She knew the woman she'd seen with Hermes and Lore took care of her awhile ago, had been close to unconsciousness when she did but not quite fully. Persephone had to bite down on her lip when the woman cleaned her feet, now marred with scabs and cuts.

Her body was clean, but she didn't feel like it. The bath she took was merely for her own peace of mind, scrubbing herself in places until she seethed at the abrasion of her skin.

Then she went under the water. She was at peace for a moment, only the beating of her tumultuous heart thrumming through her ears.

But the vision caught her and paralyzed her. She didn't know what it was, where it came from, or who they even were. A girl and a boy she'd never seen before.

Persephone wished she'd seen their faces. The smiles she could hear in their voices seemed too difficult for her to form in her head. She wished she saw the happiness the couple had, one she knew she could never have.

Sure, she had Nixon. But she'd ran away from him on their own wedding day, and she feared what reaction she might gauge from him if she ever returns to him. It was highly unlikely that she would come back willingly, but the possibility of him finding her was too high to ignore.

Breathing in and out, Persephone looked down to the dress on the marble counter. She knew that she was highly against accepting his handouts and changing, but she was already out of her wedding dress anyway. And quite frankly, it would only hurt her more if she didn't change.

Several clothes were laid out on the foot of her bed when she woke, all of them ranging from white to grey, with a single black dress at the end.

It was a color she rarely wore, which was why she picked it out in the first place. But looking at it now, maybe she should've chosen differently.

Black was Hades' color. It was the color of his shadows and the darkness he loved all too much. It was what his powers exuded, and the representation of his title as the God of Death and the King of the Underworld.