Hades Rewound (Hades Series #2)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Evie."

I don't respond.

"Evie." They knock again.

Nothing.

"Agápi mou, please." They try a different tact. This time, it works.

I sigh in frustration and lift my head out of my arms purely so my snappy response isn't muffled. "Go away Hades."

"No." He replies stubbornly. "I will not leave until you talk to me."

I scowl and bite my cheek as hard as I can so I don't scream at him.

"Evie, please." He begs softly. "You have been in there for over four hours. Please, just unlock the door and come out."

"Has it occurred to you that the reason I haven't come out is because you're there?" I snap vehemently, and he falls silent. That's what I thought. I shake my head and draw my knees back up to my chest again, returning back to my original position. "Please Hades, just leave me alone."

"No." He repeats. "I once promised I would never leave you Evie, and I am not going to break that promise."

"But you did! You forgot who I was, and then you treated me like literal crap!" I cry, unable to stop myself.

"Agápi mou, I did not leave you willingly."

"And I get that Hades, I really do. But it's not the forgetting part that I'm mad about; it's the way you treated me when you got back." I say, hating how my voice breaks. "I understand you push people away when you're hurt or confused, and I can cope with that. But you didn't just push me away; you tried every possible way at your disposal to go out of your way to hurt me. Do you really expect me to just forget and forgive you for that?"

"No, of course I don't." He replies softly. "But if you just let me in, we could talk about it. I hate having this conversation through a locked door."

"No." I reply hotly. I know I'm probably acting childishly selfish towards him, but I can't help it. Every time I hear his voice, I see the way he looked at me, hear the hatred in his voice, feel my heart shatter in my chest as the words he said to me wrap around my heart like a boa constrictor, and any desire to forgive him goes up in flames. "I meant it when I said I'm done Hades."

Silence.

"No you did not." He finally says.

"Please, just leave." My voice comes out barely louder than a whisper, but I know he can hear me. "Don't make this harder than it already is."

"I love you, Evie." He replies, his tone so tender that it causes me to break down all over again. "I am not leaving."

I love you too. The desire to let those four words escape is almost uncontrollable, but I swallow them back and draw back into myself.

And I end up drawing so far into myself that I don't notice when my shoulders stop shaking as my sobs subside, or when Hades slowly stops pleading for me to open the door, or when he finally gets up and leaves.

— — —

"Evie."

I slowly lift my head up off my knees, barely registering in the back of my mind that it's a different voice.

The person knocks again. "Evie, open the damn door before I'm forced to knock it down."

"Don't you dare!" A second voices hisses in a hushed tone.

"She's not exactly leaving me much choice Cal." The first voice snaps. "She could have drowned herself in there for all we know."

"I don't think she will have drowned herself Kezia. Hades would be going even more out of his mind if she had."