What If Our Life Threads Bind?

Chapter 52

Thud. Thud.

A beat precedes me.

For a moment, I feel peaceful as if I am in heaven. Like I am on a sea shore. I hear the waves of the sea lick and sway away the sand salt. The white dots dance around in the void of my vision and then something brushes my leg. I twitch.

Thud. Thud.

Panic wakes through me when suddenly a prick of pain needles me on my ankle. I twitch again, thinking if I am in hell. I don't think anything hurts when you enter heaven. Then a thought strikes me.

Thud. Thud.

Maybe, I am not dead. Am I a vampire now?

But I don't think Greek Gods ever turn into blood sucking vampires, do they? That'd be creepy.

Thud. Thud.

The source of the beat seemed to have moved far from me because it had recoiled into normalcy. I twitch as another pain pricks through my ankle. I hiss and my eyes peel open. When the light hits my retinal veins, I close them quickly. Small white and multi colored dots move around in the hollowness. I blink furiously as I open my eyes again and suddenly sit up.

A muscular figure sits at one side of my foot. I blink and suddenly his hand is on my cheek. I gasp, startled and I feel his breath hit my face. I blink again and a face comes to my vision. His olive skin tone looks almost angelic with the light coming from the backdoor. He smiles at me and his thin chevron cut mustache lifts upwards crookedly.

"Martha.." Austin breathes, my face in his hands.

"Am in heaven?" I ask him and he laughs.

"You fainted. You were bitten by those whatever they were....I thought those were boa constrictors with the way they were coiling around you. I didn't know they'd actually bite you." His hands move to my injured ankles.

"Those were boa constrictors. But they are not poisonous. Don't worry." I tell him, relieved to know nothing really happened to him.

"Yes but you are bleeding." He said and then hesitated. I frowned, perplexed at his expression and then as if understanding what I was thinking, he blurts out "Martha, your eyes are all black now."

"I am a sinner." I told him and wished him to question no more.

"But-"

"It doesn't matter. We are both alive." I smile at him and he nods. For a few minutes, nobody says a thing. I wanted to ask him everything. About the sword, about his meet with my sister, Chloe, and whatever did he do to the snakes and the furies.

"I know you probably have some question...." He says and I nod. He looks away and then nods back. Questions rise up my throat automatically like bile.

"You found the sword on your own?" I asked and he shook his head in 'no'.

"Your sister gave it to me. She told me not to kill you but threaten you that I am a betrayer. Then you would have gone back to her and never would have trusted me." His voice broke a little. "I know, you'd be thinking why I took the sword in the first place...but what I said, it was true. I did see someone just like you murdering someone with their supernatural powers. Then they told me to run and I ran like a bitch. I thought you were dangerous."

"And what made you change your mind?" I asked, braving my voice to not to shake but it did in the end.

"Because I realized if you had to kill me, you would have killed me back when Augury barged in through those doors. You wouldn't have brought me the bottle of forgetfulness and-"

"Wait...how did you-" My eyes widened when I saw the bottle missing.

"The snakes bit you because they got hurt. I could never have even pricked you with a normal toothpick and that bitch was telling me to fucking kill you with a heavy ass sword." He said and I frowned at him, still confused though I wanted to laugh at his vocabulary.

"Well, I was aiming for those boa constrictors when I was going down with the sword but then I saw your sisters doing something with their hands to attack me..So I dropped the sword which was enough for the snakes to uncoil from you. But I stumbled back and dropped to the ground." He gave a dramatic pause and I inclined my head for him to continue. "And I grabbed the bottle you had kept.

"I broke the bottle..." He continues.

Oh wow, there goes my chance to let me let him forget me.

"And told her that if she made any of her snakes to come near me or you, I'll slice them up and then her." He said and suddenly I felt proud of him. Tears well up in my eyes as I reach for his hands. He holds my hands with both of his hands and then brings them up near his mouth. Slowly, his eyes meet mine and he kisses my knuckles one by one. I shiver.

"I didn't want to lose you." He kissed again and I felt too warm. "The other two of them told me that you wanted to make me forget you in order to save my life, when they saw the bottle." He said, kissing my hands again.

"I just don't want to put you in any more trouble." I told him and he pulled me close, into a hug.

"But you still don't trust me." He says with some coldness and I shift away, unlocking our bodies as I look at him. He looks disappointed and I frowned.

"What? Why would you say that?"

"You don't tell me what sin you committed."

"Its none of your business." I tell him and he clenches his jaw tightly.

"Yeah doesn't matter. Besides, I already know." He snaps back at me.

"What?" All of the blood rushes to my face.

"You committed a sin because you deviated from what was written in your fate. You fell in love with a mortal. Me." He says and my stomach flips.

"How-" I did not know what to say. My speechlessness made a grin creep through his face as his eyes locked with mine.

"Love is like a smoke fire. Even if the fire dies, the smoke keeps it alive and you can't hide those."

He wiggles his eyebrows at me and I grin. "Who says you're not a poet?"