The Meanings of Lost

Chapter 26

Hades:

Meddling Amazons. think they're so high and mighty. Ha! I'll show them.

Steve doesn't have much time left. He'll do it, sooner or later. I'm betting the Amazons will push him over the edge. Or vice versa. Either way, I'll be getting an extra special soul very soon. Goody!

Diana:

I wish I could just scamper upstairs and disappear down a hallway into a room and close the door. I hear the squeak of a bed frame as she settles in.

The three of us stand in the living room while the Amazons look around. Hyppolyta gives it all it a disapproving glare I know all to well, most likely contemplating the meaninglessness of it all and the way mortals attach themselves to mortal-made things.

My other sisters look around with curiosity, but never straying more that a foot from their position guarding their queen. No matter where a fight breaks out, my mother would get out alive. I try to suppress my smile and mange it quite well.

Rheliope, an Amazon with cropped black hair and green eyes, glares at me. She was the one who'd invented my lovely nickname Pixis. She probably influenced my mother to let me leave all those years ago too, hoping to take rule should she ever die in a fight. I know how much she disapproves of the way my mother runs the whole thing.

"Diana this is not what we expected." She scolds, running her fingers over a photograph of Ambrosine, her father, and a woman I assume to be her mother.

"This is my house and I do not approve of this intrusion." Mr. Rosefsky says.

"Insolent male." My mother chides, shaking her head the same way she had when I was barely one hundred and had lost a foot race to Aiclotris and four others.

"I'm asking you to explain your presence in my house before I call the police and have you all arrested for trespassing."

"Mortals!" She exclaims. "So troublesome. Like as if your moral patrols could scratch us." She chuckles.

"Likes of you?" He retorts.

My mother snorts. "Diana come. Let's leave this dying world be."

I glare at her but I don't move. There's more to this than just me, I know it. I can feel it deep in my gut, a spiralling sensation like when one gets too close to the Oracle; a heavy weight on my shoulders.

The room defends, second by second, into silence until I'm aware of every heart beat but my own. I can even hear the faintest of beats from upstairs, and the griddle of pages. Not The Red Queen, though, for that had been left on the couch when dinner had been served and was not taken upstairs in the commotion.

My mother is the first to cut through the silence. "Since no one seems to be reasonable." Her tone shifts. All the Amazons shift. I feel my spine straighten, and my gaze lowering; me pride inflating with the knowledge that Hippolyta is my mother and that I am the princess. Childish, but true nonetheless. "Mortal, we are Amazons. As you history is ignorant, we were sent down by the gods to pit love into the Waring hearts of males. When your stupidity prevailed, six of them gifted us-"

"The Paradise Island." He interrupts to my mother's fury. A few of her warriors gasp in shock that Ivan word dare interrupt the Queen. "I've read Rick Riorden, just like every parent of ten-year-old. Now please, tell me something I don't know that's not out of a fictional novel or I'm calling the coppers." To prove his point, he takes his phone out of his back pocket.

"No?" He asks treatingly.  He dials and brings the phone to his ear. While the Amazons stare at him with fascination. "Yes hello, there's a group of people who just barged into my house. I've asked them to leave twice and they haven't left yet. They seem to have some odd beliefs and are harassing my guests. I'm worried for my daughter too who is home. Yes, thank-you, I'm awaiting your arrival." He turns back to my mom. "They'll be here in a few minutes, I suggest you skedaddle."

"That talking machine, how do I know it actually works the way you saw it does?"

"My Queen, if I may," Rheliope intersects, "mayhap it's best we leave the mortal be and anger not the gods from our absence in the isle."

"Alright. We will depart without any further if Diana comes with us."

"There will be no kidnappings, voluntary or otherwise, under this roof!"

"Ivan," I start, but end abruptly. What would I say? That I'm one of them and going back home would not kill me? Or that I don't mind going if it means they'll be left alone? Should I just out myself and say that I'm Wonder Woman? None seem to be a good option. And I can't leave Steve, not now. Now when we're so close to getting some semblance of a life together.

I turn and face my mother. "You can't take me, I've slept with man." I declare boldly with a hint of a wild tone. Her eyes widen and she recoiled, nearly falling over. The colour retreats from her face. She stutters, a mix between trying to ask if I'm serious and scolding my stupidity in Greek. With a swift wave of her hand she orders all of them to leave. Rheliope give me a sly smiles as she passes behind my mother, knowing I have forfeited much by voicing this information, if it is true.

A few others give me glances as they live, but the most of them keep their heads bowed, nit meeting my eyes. I feel the heat rising to my face. Ivan mouths a thank-you at me and I give him a shy smile. I reach behind me for Steve's hands, but my fingers fall throughout the air where he should be. I turn, but he is gone.