Deliverance [malexmale]

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

"So, you're still here, huh?"

I ground my teeth together at the sound of Hades's voice outside the bars of my prison in Tartarus. The air stirred with Hades's presence in the darkness outside my cell, and I couldn't see anything, but his glowing blue eyes narrowed in the darkness, feel his power crackling with a new electrical charge that confirmed my suspicions of Rhea and Cronus's ultimate demise.

I actually felt a smirk tug at the corners of my lips as I remembered Rhea's offers to me if I joined her crazy revenge scheme. I'd warned her what would happen if she peacocked around like she was so prone to doing. Now she was dead, and I could feel her power flickering inside Hades's aura, feel it being absorbed by the Olympian god.

The war against the Titans was over. Tartarus was getting a whole new makeover.

"Why didn't you leave?" Hades asked, stepping close to the bars. There was a faint light from somewhere above my cell, casting an eerie glow down over Hades's face. Sharp purely Greek features shadowed by dim light, blue eyes like a pair of headlights in the darkness around him, and that insistent power that pushed into my cell and applied pressure around me, almost like he was trying to suffocate me to no avail. I was already dead.

"There was no point," I answered hollowly, staring across my cell through the darkness that was so oppressive, it hurt my eyes, "Stay or go, I'd end up in the same place." Hades scoffed, my eyes glancing over at him as he studied me, his arms folded over his chest.

"You're more depressing than I am," he said, and I shrugged, "Anyway, I'm moving you to a new location. It'll be cleaner."

"I'm not going anywhere," I said dryly. Hades rolled his eyes.

"Do you think you really have a choice?" He asked. No. I didn't. I just liked the darkness of the cell, the moment of peace. Despite Rhea taking off on her crusade and leaving me in Tartarus, there were no guards here to torture me or feed me or hurt me. I was left alone and it had felt so nice to suffer in silence, in peace. Unfortunately, it was over the moment Hades and his family beat back the Titans. My peace was over and my hell resumed.

Hades had forced me into a new cell, on the third level of Tartarus. It was sterile and cold, everything was blindingly white. The cell was smaller than the last one I had; a flat box with only a small toilet, a strange white sink built into the wall, and an iron cot that pulled out of the wall. One wall was made entirely of glass. Instead of sitting in filthy rags, I'd been put in a stiff white uniform that clung to my skin with a high collar. The floor was icy cold on my feet, so I'd gone out of my way to only stay on the cot. As if the new change wasn't hellish enough, Hades had implemented something he called therapy. He'd change the glass wall into some kind of television. I'd be forced to watch my worst nightmares over and over again.

If I tried to break out, they'd rip my fingernails out and burn the undersides of my feet. Once it was healed, they'd do it again. I'd had my tongue cut out once. It was all I could remember, just the basics, not really the feelings. The memory behind those feelings had vanished during my rebirth.

Hades had done it so I didn't carry the trauma of it with me into my new life.

God fucking forbid I let my trauma get in the way of saving the world, or so he thought.

Unfortunately, that same numb sensation to that torture didn't work this time when I woke up from what I swore was my second death. Then again, if it was a second death, I wouldn't be waking up and nothing would exist. It still felt like a second death, though.

I woke up feeling sore and stiff. Behind heavy eyelids, my eyes felt as if they'd sunken to the back of my skull. I took a deep breath into my aching lungs, and I choked at the rush of air, going into a coughing fit that only made my body hurt even worse. Once I sobered, I cleared my throat and parted my lips to take another breath, this time picking up on strange scents around me. Something sweet and salty, like the ocean, combined with the faintest hint of mild cologne.