Iris

Chapter 35- Michael (part 2)

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She snorted. "How exactly do you explain something like that?" She looked at me with one perfect brown eyebrow raised. Her cerulean eyes bore into me with a beautiful intensity. I swallowed, knowing this was going to be hard for her to share and hard for me to hear. She swallowed her drink back. I twirled mine around. Trying to keep a hold on my awareness.

"Just, what was the first thing you remember after," I had to take a breath to even say the name. I long for the day I get my hands on him. "After Thanatos took you." I poured her another drink.

She bit her lip. I really wanted to remove it from her mouth, but she was thinking. And I mean thinking. The kind of thinking that takes you to another place. You leave your body, your eyes glaze over, and your whole body ceases to move. "Ice. They had put me in ice. When it started to melt, they refilled it with water. I would drown and die. Then wake up for a little bit to have it happen all over again."

I was at seventy four when she started talking again. "I don't think I was in the usual ice. I'm pretty sure they had me in a special area. I had died three times before they removed me from the ice. I couldn't tell time in the ice." Her eyebrows drew together. Causing a wrinkle to form between them. How long was I gone?"

"Almost three months."

"Felt like decades." She said quietly. Those words cut through a deep part of me. One that made me feel like a horrible guardian, and one that made me feel like less of a man. Unworthy of my title.

"I'm so sorry Iris." She drank half of her drink, then set it down. Her swollen lip was between her teeth again. She grasped my hand in reassurance, and I felt something strange. My breathing accelerated as I slowly left the room I was in. my drink, the counter, the whole kitchen, Iris- they were all gone. I felt like I was falling. Falling in slow motion. My wings were as useless at tits on a bull. I saw the sky come into view above me, then the tops of trees, then my whole body crashed.

I landed in a room that had poor lighting. It smelled of mold, blood, and sweat. Not a good combination. I groaned and turned to my front on the floor. Crawling to my hands and knees, being careful of my back. I looked up and my heart stopped beating. Fear coated my insides, and sweat coated my outside.

Right in the middle of the room, Iris had her hands tied above her head. They were being held up by a hook in the ceiling. Her legs were tied apart to hooks that were imbedded into the ground. Her clothes were still intact except for her shoes- showing no signs of sexual assault had taken place. Yet. There was a bucket in front of her filled with nothing. There was a table to my left filled with all kinds of tools that looked like a torture's wet dream. The only people in the room were Hades, Thanatos, Iris, and myself. Thanatos turned, and didn't see me. I assumed I was in her memory.

"Time to wake her up don't you think?" It was hades that spoke first. Here wore a simple jeans and black t-shirt get up with some boots. Thanatos had the same getup.

Thanatos chuckled. "That sounds perfect. I was just starting to get bored." Hades walked to one of the farther walls that were too far for me to see what was on it. He came back in with a freaking scythe? What is he going to do with that? He turned the scythe in his hand then lowered it. The back of the weapon was aligned with the back of her ankles. Right where the Achilles heel is.

He lowered his hands on the weapon, and sliced through her flesh and muscle. Cutting to the bone. Iris jerked awake and groaned. Her eyes rolled and her head fell back. Hades aligned the scythe with her other leg, and sliced again. The sound was something I would never forget. Iris's jaw dropped, her face scrunched in pain. Her mouth open in a silent scream. Her breath was coming faster. Her whole body sagged against the ropes that held her up.