My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #1)

Like father, like son-of-a-bitch (Part 1)

Yeah, yeah. I didn't cease to exist. Artistic license and all that. Sheesh. Give a girl a break.

Delphyne's alternative "reality," however, did totally blink out of space and time. Luckily, that was a fraction of a second after I got out. When I finally had the chance to look back, I figured that the extreme amount of energy that Delphyne had put into the labyrinth in the first place, took a certain amount of time to break down. Lingering echoes of her will.

Here's how my escape played out. Right as the portal closed, the bottom dropped out of the cave and dumped me in the spring below.

Stinky water filled my eyes, nose, and mouth. I couldn't breath; I couldn't tell which way was up.

I was convinced I was going to die as I was buffeted every which way by torrents of H2O. No longer a gentle (albeit odiferous) body of water, the currents now swelled violently, threatening to drown all in one final act of reclamation.

Mr. Locke's favorite phrase from Romeo and Juliet sprung to mind; "good night, good night/parting is such sweet sorrow."

What an absolute crock. Parting may have been sweet, but dying was messy, thrashing, choking misery. Also, my life didn't flash before my eyes. (How ironic would that have been to finally see my life, in all its Persephone entirety, right as I bit it?)

Instead, a pale hand waved in front of my face. Death wears blue nail polish? I thought. Then died.

Fine. Fainted. Next time you're drowning and black out, tell me you didn't think you were dead.

I came to blinking at a viciously bright white light. Not sure if I was in Heaven, Olympus, or an entirely different afterlife, I tried to be clever about getting my bearings.

I always liked stories in which people played dead to fool their captors. Granted, I thought I was dead, but I figured the principal held true for a subtle sussing out.

"Finally," a female groused. "Like I've been sitting here for a gazillion and two hours."

That voice. What could I have possibly done to deserve to spend eternity with Nysa? I opened my eyes.

There she was, half out of the water, filing her nails. "You gonna get up already, lazy bones?"

I pushed myself up onto my elbows in surprise. I was in the creek back at Hope Park. Aware that I was laying in less than two feet of water, I tried to reconcile how Nysa could be half emerged from the creek. While she was definitely standing, unless she'd suddenly gotten a ridiculously short pair of legs, I had no clue where the rest of her was. "I'm not dead?"

Nysa laughed. A beautiful sound reminiscent of perfectly crafted wind chimes. Hell, she could have sounded like a donkey braying and I would have found it lovely at this point. "Big silly. I don't hang with dead guys. Icky!"

I heaved myself out of the water. "You saved me. Thank you!"

She shrugged and bit off a hangnail. All class, that girl.

"How did you know where I was?"

"Prometheus. He sent out a super signal."

"But I wasn't even in this world."

"No matter," she replied. "If it has water, I can get to it."

"I could kiss you."

She blushed, gazed down as if embarrassed, waved a hand at me, then with a flip, dove into the water and disappeared.

Ohmigod. Nysa had a crush on me. Persephone. That's why she was always around. She didn't want to be me, she wanted to do me.

A weird thought but flattering nonetheless. I felt bad that I didn't reciprocate. Liking someone who didn't like you, sucked.

Take me, for instance, and the stupid male who had betrayed me and left me to die. I was still harshly crushing on him. How pathetic was that?

'Course I quickly realized that spending five seconds in a relationship with Nysa would drive me to nymphicide, so it was probably for the best.

I wanted answers, but first I wanted to find my friends. And get out of these wet clothes. Was there even anything clean for me to change into? This goddess trip had been brutal on my wardrobe and it's not like I'd had a chance to do laundry in the past couple of weeks since my life had turned upside down.

Ten minutes later, I was pushing through the crowded hallways en route to my room. I had no idea what time it was. Given that I'd gone into Delphyne's maze this morning and the number of students milling about now, it could have been lunch or after school. I'd have to check.

I received more than one odd look at my soaking wet, filthy, and scorched self. Sadly, mass gratitude was not part of the package. Only a cemented weirdo status.

It wouldn't bode well if I'd missed yet another day of class. Not like I could give Principal Doucette a note reading "Please excuse Sophie. She was battling dragons in order to save your students. Signed, her mother."

To access the stairwell up to the girls' dorm, I had to pass by the counselor's office. Or the faker formerly known as Ms. Keeper. I paused as I reached her door. I had to look inside and see if anything had changed as a result of us killing her.

I think I was still hoping that maybe everything had reset itself with Delphyne's death. That I'd open the door and find Mrs. Rivers, smiling as she attempted to locate a specific piece of paper among all her general clutter.

I brushed the dampness from my eyes and turned the knob. As I stepped into the room, I was tackled in a huge hug from behind.

"Don't ever do that again, you big stupid!"

I disentangled myself from Hannah and spun to face her. "Okay. That's nothing like 'thanks for getting me through the portal Oh Great and Glorious One.'"

"I thought you were dead."

"Me too," I grimaced, hating what she must have felt.

"Are you okay? Your head?"

She grinned. "Hamata pumped me full of migraine pills. Bliss."

"How long were we dealing with Delphyne? It must have been hours."

"About five minutes."

Curious and curiouser. I glanced over at the portal which looked like a normal window again. "Why is the window back to its regular self?"

"No clue. What happened after we got separated?"

How to answer that question? "I'll fill you in while I change."