My Boyfriend is a Dead Roman Hero | Jason Grace

I Go Bat Hunting

Trigger Warning: Suicidal thoughts

--

Picture that you get handed a bag of jellybeans.

It's pretty remarkable. Just behind a thin layer of cellophane, right in the palm of your hand, lies everything you ever wanted.

Every flavor there is: Strawberry. Rootbeer. Pineapple. Buttered popcorn.

You know the plastic packaging will be tricky to get through, but the reward on the inside is going to be worth it.

So, you're careful. You start by chewing off the corner of the bag. All the while, you can smell them.

Cinnamon. Bubblegum. Cherry.

High school. College. Birthdays together. A letterman jacket which smells like the sky.

The solution isn't comfortable. The plastic is cutting into your gums. You taste blood more than sugar. It's all you can taste.

But you can still smell what's on the inside of this stupid bag. Even if it's taking longer than you expected to reach. You've made it so far already. Why would you turn back now?

Graduation. A dorm room. An apartment with a pair of high heels and some faded blue sneakers at the door.

Raspberry. Vanilla.

A house with spare bedrooms. A bottle of champagne beside a white lace veil.

Four sets of handprints set into concrete. Two big. Two small.

Maybe you get too impatient. Maybe the smell is overwhelming for you, and you just lose it. You put too much force behind your jaw.

The bag tears, and the candy all spills out onto the floor.

That's how Juliette is feeling.

She's feeling like she just spent spent six months chewing a hole into a bag of jellybeans. Millimeter by millimeter, she worked to keep from losing any of them. She worked to keep them safe.

Julie has been kidnapped. Three times. She's broken every bone in her body putting on a show for some psycho in a banana hammock. She's spent nights alone, bleeding, crying on the cold concrete of a prison cell. She's been betrayed by her own family. She's had her body used as a weapon to hurt people she cares about.

She's been enslaved. She's been tortured. And she's taken all of it in stride, fighting to keep her mind whole and the bottom of her bag well maintained.

All for other people.

For Meg. For Lit. For Aphrodite.

For Jason.

Now, she's in the driver's seat of a broken old van. Alone. Half naked. Soaking wet. Feeling like fire is charring solid every vein in her body.

Her jellybeans are not only spilled, they're squashed into pulp.

And she is so hungry.

Juliette's gold foot is the one on the accelerator. The needle on the speedometer is flush to the right.

She's burning from head to toe. She's sizzling with adrenaline.

Every story that Nico has ever told her, every word of advice from Grover and Percy is playing in her head. She can hear all of their voices at once. She can hear Annabeth's teacherly lecture from that campfire two years ago.

'Charon won't just let mortals through the entrance that he guards,' Annabeth had warned the campers. 'If you ever need to get to the Underworld, you'll have to convince him that you're dead.'