Hermes | Book 1

: 12 :

Darkness, darkness, come and play.
Tonight I'm brave, I'm here to stay.

Chapter 12

THE SOUND  of the slap ricocheted loudly around them.

Hermes stared at the scene with a mixture of shock and horror, his own flesh stinging even though it wasn't his cheek that was hit.

Asta gave a mild look and brought a hand gently to the red colour blooming on her right cheek. The hand fell slack on her sides and then tensed, when another slap hit her cheek; this time on her right.

Smack. Smack. Smack.

A girl, about their age, poked her head from between her mother's shoulder and the door frame.

"Mum, I- Asta?"

The girl eased herself out into the open until she stood right in front of Asta.

Smack.

Hermes watched with quiet admiration as Asta patiently waited for the girl to exhaust herself by repeatedly hitting her on the face. He was thankful, even though it wasn't him, that it was not fists but just the palm.

The slapping cease momentarily when a boy emerged from the same door, probably hearing the commotion. Hermes wondered how the neighbours hadn't rushed out yet.

The boy's careful dark eyes fell on Hermes first, which was in itself a first (the woman and the girl didn't even notice him as they rained their share of slaps) and then slowly slid to Asta.

His mouth moved, shaping her name between his lips, but no sound escape.

Hermes expected the worst.

The woman who had opened the door had the exact same reaction, minus giving him any sort of consideration, before she had attacked an unresponsive Asta.

But the boy simply flicked her on the nose, which made Asta recoil and slam his chest, before he turned to the ladies with a malicious grin on his face. "All yours ladies."

Hermes thought he heard a tiny whimper of fear escape her lips, but he had no time to prove it right because Asta was dragged forward and attacked again. His fingers itched to stop them, to pull Asta away from their grasp and to hold her away from them.

But he didn't.

It was those few words that she softly whispered as they walked on the cracked pavement, dodging holes large enough to swallow a man, to reach the house that caged his terrible need to protect her.

"Don't stop them," she had murmured, in a tone of regret. "I deserve everything, and more."

The fact that she uttered them in Greek, made it even more serious to him.Asta normally conversed to him in English other than that one time she used Greek when he was riled up.

So he watched helplessly as Asta got slapped slapped multiple times. He didn't feel all that remorseful when he remembered the way she had forced the pills down his throat  and the many times she had deliberately ignored him and insulted him to the face.

When the slapping fest finally stopped, Asta's cheeks were a bright, brilliant red.

The girl looked like she might continue, but was stopped by the boy. "I think that's enough. Besides, we are terrifying our guest." Hermes didn't miss the lack of plurals in the word guest. Obviously, Asta was considered family.

The spotlight fell on him.

Hermes gave his most polite smile at them, but that didn't stop the analysing gazes but did bring out a welcoming smile from them.