Hades Rewound (Hades Series #2)

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

For the next three weeks, every time I arrive at the judgment room, Hades isn't there; in fact, the most that I see of him during those twenty-one days is the back of his trench-coat as he disappears around the corner. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting; that now, since we called a truce, things would go back to normal, and we would return to judging the souls together. But obviously, that wasn't the case. Even though he'd said he was now my 'friend', Hades obviously still felt uncomfortable around me, and from the way he didn't turn up at all to help me determine Elysiums, it became painfully clear that he was still making an effort to go out of his way to make sure he spent as little time around me as possible. Things were still far from normal; things were still as painful as ever.

Like always, that still stung like hell, but I had made a promise to both myself and Hades that I wouldn't let it affect me or my behaviour. So, instead, every day, I went about with a smile on my face and the pretense that everything was fine, even though it clearly was not.

Despite my inner turmoil, I found myself almost immediately distracted by my job. For some reason, there was an unusual increase in the number of souls who poured through the doors, every single one of them even more confused about their death than normal. Even more unusual was the fact that they all swore that, against their better judgment, there was something almost supernatural about the way they died; something that has never happened in all the years I've now been judging souls by Hades' side.

And the nail in the coffin of my growing suspicion? Almost every single one of them died in the exact same way; by the unusual activity of the ocean.

Something was clearly going on upstairs, and it was obviously getting so bad that even humans are noticing that something isn't right. And if the humans are noticing something isn't right, then something most definitely is going on. And I can almost immediately guess who is right in the middle of it all.

That fact alone worried me enough that I almost went out of my way to seek Hades out and ask if he knew anything about it, but after what happened between him and Poseidon, I decided against it. He was furious enough at his brother as it was, and I didn't want to fuel that anger with my suspicions. I wanted to find out more concrete evidence about it all before I told him, because I knew that as soon as Hades found out that Poseidon was carelessly murdering innocent people, he would storm upstairs without a second thought, and I was almost certain that he still wasn't quite strong enough for another showdown with his powerful younger brother.

Hades may not spend much time upstairs with people, but he's more passionate about humanity than anyone I've ever seen, save perhaps Spencer. He might be the Lord of the Underworld, but he still tries to treasure and preserve life as much as he can; he just cares more than any of the other gods. It's one of the things that I love about him so much.

So, like every other time I don't have anything to do, I decide to head to the library to try and find out more.

You'd think I would get sick of the library, after all the time I spend there, but I really don't. I never do.

I'm such a bookworm.

I stop short, a realisation so bizarre hitting me that I actually burst out laughing.

Oh my god.

I'm Belle. From Beauty and the Beast. I'm Belle.

Does that make Hades the Beast?

I snort, grinning to myself. Hades is definitely the Beast.

I have to make him watch that movie.