The Long Way Home

Chapter Four

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

The sound gets closer with each boom, like footsteps. I look to where the sound is coming from, my heart already in my throat. I see nothing but darkness beyond the cramped trees. I know that whatever it is, it sure as hell is getting closer to us.

"Shit," I whisper, fiercely. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

I bolt, running the opposite way from where the sound is coming from, to hell with Hades. My feet take off as fast as my body allows them, leaves crunching under my feet as I run.

The torch.

Realization hits me. The torch lights up the forest like a beacon in a void of nothingness. It would give my location away. Quickly and fiercely, I drop the torch and stomp the fire out, utter darkness now blanketing my sight. This time I take off with no sense of direction, hands outstretched so as to not to run face-first into a tree. I don't think about where I'm headed. I just run, knowing I have to get away from whatever is making that sound. As I'm running my mind drifts off to what that thing could be. Could it be the Fae? Are the Fae really that loud? Could it be the man named Death? Or maybe it was-

I shriek as I'm tackled, face first, to the ground by strong arms. I catch my (or better, perhaps, our) fall, hands hitting the rough forest floor. The person landing on me makes the fall all the more painful. This was definitely going to leave some cuts.

Quickly, I remember the times I watched my brothers learn defense, something I was never allowed to take part of. I remember what their instructor repeated over and over until those words were glued into the deepest parts of my brain: Never have your back to your enemy. Clinging to those words, I twist in the person's arms, ready to knee them between the legs.

But this person is fast. Faster than should be possible for any human.

One second I'm pinned underneath them on the ground. The next, I'm pinned to a tree, the person's hands clamped unyieldingly over my mouth. My nails dig into the person's hands. The person releases one, that hand going to their lips in an aggressively shushing gesture.

Those lips. I know those lips.

My eyes adjust to the darkness, the pale moonlight making way into my vision. I calm when I look into the person's eyes and find that it's Hades staring back at me, his eyes an angry thing. I try desperately to calm my breathing, which is coming out in ragged gasps through my nose.

Hades. I forgot all about Hades.

Hades, hand never leaving my mouth, half drags me to the other side of the tree, where we are exposed to the booming that keeps getting closer, and pulls us down until we are sitting against it. Soon we'll be exposed to whatever that thing was, hiding in plain sight.

Is Hades out of his mind?

I pull away from him preparing to ask him just that, but he pulls me back to him, holding me tighter than before.

"Trust me," Hades whispers into my ear. He then reaches for his cloak that fell a few feet away from us and wraps it around me, over my head and all.

What the hell? I think to myself. Now is definitely not the time to be worrying about my body temperature. I move the cloak from my eyes so that I can at least see.

Hades holds me, his arms wrapped around me as if he's clinging to me for dear life. Ignoring the footsteps rearing closer with each sound, I focus on Hades' breathing instead, which is like whispers against my face. I focus on his heartbeat which beats hard but steady against my back. I focus on his hands wrapped around me; they are as pale as the moonlight basking through the trees.