[2] 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐈𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐘 , p. jackson , j. grace

i. destination getaway

CHAPTER ONE ───────────
✧₊˚｡({ DESTINATION GETAWAY })

"  daylight     DAVID KUSHNER  "

{ ROMA }
JULY 10TH,  2010
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ROMA HAS NEVER REALLY BEEN afraid of the dark. Not really. She's never found the monsters lurking between the folds of the shadows to be anything but a little disconcerting. Samara always found that strange about her. She, herself, was completely terrified of it. Of the things that could hide in it and hurt her. But Roma thought it was stupid. There was nothing there! It was all a fucking fantasy!

And Roma had always found peace in the darkness in her bedroom. In the stars in the sky. She had always preferred night to day. It was soft. Like a warm daisy in July. And sometimes it felt just as tearfully lonely as she did. She sought comfort in it and often found herself anticipating sunset. Darkness often felt like it was close to caring.

But some types of darkness care about nothing and no one. Some types of darkness embrace its loneliness and slowly warp it into madness. Into psychotic madness that creates the monsters under kids' beds, the silly nightmares in your head, the pure evil that lurks behind every corner of the world.

And that is this type of darkness.

She feels like she's being swallowed whole. Again and again. Teeth gnashing at her skin and wind whistling in her ears. It's uncomfortably warm. Like it's trying to sap all the daylight and happiness out of her. She thinks she would've gone insane had she fallen by herself.

If Percy hadn't━ hadn't sacrificed himself for her. If he hadn't saved her from being alone down here. In hell.

Roma has to fight the urge to laugh hysterically at her predicament. At the deplorableness of it all. Even Venus couldn't devise a fate so . . . so fucking torturous. It's just her luck.

She stares at the unmoving darkness until her thoughts turn volatile. Until she cannot stare at it any longer. Until she feels like she's about to scream her throat into bloodiness.

She buries her face into Percy's neck and just breathes in the scent of the salty ocean. He doesn't deserve to be down here with her. This is her own fault. Her own problem. He should've just dropped her. It would've been easier to die by herself when she fell. To force herself to summon a dagger before she got too far away from the surface to try. And then she probably would've killed herself before she reached the bottom. She would have taken the coward's way out rather than endure the horrors of Tartarus alone. Not in the way she'd done with the Labyrinth before she ran into Clarisse. She physically can't do that again.