My Date From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #2)

Sophie Gets Gone (Part 1)

Despite the lack of clearly marked exits, I'd figured fleeing Olympus was going to be a straightforward "blow-this-joint" operation.

Silly, silly me.

"You seem to have two choices." Zeus' voice boomed around me via some invisible speaker system. "One, you meet me in the courtyard and we discuss this like rational adults. Two, you don't." His voice was scarily calm. But his subtext was blatant "co-operate or I'll crank your hurt to eleven and enjoy doing it."

I pressed myself deeper into the shadows behind a statue of his giant head, and willed myself not to slink back like a beaten dog in the face of his command. Pops did commanding really well. Which, given his position as Lord of the Gods and twenty-foot-tall Big Kahuna, was probably to be expected.

"Two it is," Zeus said.

Click. Click.

Pops carried around a fancy silver pen that he obsessively clicked. I'd thought it disconcerting before, but now, with him after me? It came through the speakers like atmospheric menace in a bad horror film.

I had to get out of here. I rolled my shoulders back, feeling the tension in my neck. My poor head felt stuffed full of cotton; a woozy by-product from the drugs Pops had been feeding me during my stay in Olympus. The ever-present scent of flowers in the air didn't help matters. Once pleasant, the aroma was now cloying.

Overcome by a momentary wave of dizziness, I placed one hand against the cool stone of the statue's massive ear to steady myself. Focus, Soph. Carefully, I peered out from behind the chiseled representation of my father's ego to survey the cavernous gallery.

Surprisingly tasteful spotlights illuminated hundreds of statues ranging in size from about ten to ninety feet. Each depicted Zeus posing in all his destructive glory, their shadows creating a creepy undertone of deadly narcissism.

The door which I'd snuck through to hide in here lay to my far left, but that way out was a no go. I could hear footsteps running up and down the corridor—no doubt everyone on the hunt for me.

Zeus' minions were in big trouble, which made them hellbent on finding me. Return the kid or suffer the shame (death) of losing a sixteen-year-old.

I touched the sapphire pendant hanging around my neck for good luck.

About the size of a small egg, it had been given to Persephone by Demeter. It was engraved on one side with a sheaf of wheat and on the other with a thunderbolt—the symbols of my parents. It fueled my resolve.

I readied my power to call up at a second's notice and willed myself to leave my hiding spot. I dashed across the room, ninja-ing my way across the marble floor to the far end, the Mission Impossible soundtrack in my head as I zipped between the gaudy statues.

The damn things freaked me out. I expected one of them to come to life and smite me. The hair on the back of my neck bristled.

I wove around one of the largest statues, gilded entirely in gold, and spied a large patch of sunlight at the far end of the room. As I scooted toward it, my toe whacked something hard, causing me to stumble.

I stopped and knelt down. A large iron ring was set into one of the blue-veined blocks of marble tiling the floor. The ring felt warm and heavy as I tugged on its hammered surface. The block didn't shift but on closer inspection I could see a hinge, so theoretically, it should open.

Except, it obviously led downwards. And since that was the traditional territory of dungeons everywhere, not so much a direction I wanted to go. If Olympus even had dungeons.

Best not to find out.

I pivoted soundlessly, scooted over to the dust motes dancing in the sunshine and looked up at a windowless skylight. Beyond it lay nothing but the always perfect, bright Olympus sky. The warmth on my face felt delicious, even from this far below it. I shaded my eyes with one hand and peered up, guessing the distance. At least a hundred feet.

Lucky for me, heights were not an issue.

Unless I looked down. I really hated looking down.

I called up my stage one goddess power. A ribbon of moss green light flew from each of my palms, like vines. I fired the ends up to secure around a massive, hideously ornate crystal chandelier beside the skylight and began reeling myself up to freedom.

The most radically awesome thing about Greek powers is that they trump laws of physics. No way should light behave like it has substance. Then again, no way should my entire teen existence have been turned upside down with a kiss that had unleashed my true goddess self. Which just proved that truth was stranger than, well, everything.

About a third of the way up, the chandelier groaned and shuddered, swaying dangerously. My legs flopped from side to side. I froze until the steroid lighting fixture and I had stilled. I tilted my head up, coughing as plaster dust rained down squarely on my face.

Wiping my eyes with my forearm, I geared down to a crawl, inching myself up very carefully, gaze focused on the chandelier to see if it wanted to raise any more protests. All seemed well, so I continued my slow ascent, trying desperately not to think about the growing amount of space under my feet.

The track in my head switched up from "Mission Impossible" to "I Will Survive."

"Sophie." More cool detachment in Zeus' voice as the speaker system came back to life. Weren't dads supposed to sound mad, instead of psychopathically disinterested? "While I appreciate that for a human, you are showing a lot of pluck, you are also exhibiting quite the annoyingly short-sighted will to live."

Click. Click. The pen made me think of claws clacking on the floor as the monster approached. Which, I guess, was apt.

My arms were starting to tire from going at a snail's pace. I ignored their trembling and the chandelier's protests to focus on the sunshine above growing warmer on my head. I could smell the lemony fresh air. That had to be a good sign.

Yes, think positive thoughts. Like this would get me out of Olympus somehow and I wasn't currently doing the 'ole "frying pan into the fire" routine. That the overinflated lampshade above me wouldn't come loose and pancake me to the ground in a mass of glass shards and pulpy flesh.

Or better still, that I lay comatose in a boring hospital bed and this was all a figment of brain damage. That would be nice.

"It would go far better for our relationship if you would behave more like your essential Persephone self. A lovely girl."

Ah yes. The familiar refrain of "Persephone, how great thou art." I was sick of it.

Demeter, my real mother, had roamed the earth in grief when Persephone was abducted down to the Underworld. But when I'd been awakened, she hadn't even sent me a postcard. Hadn't bothered to make herself known to me at all. Instead I'd been stuck with my drunk, adoptive, socialite mother Felicia, whose one act of kindness was to keep me at Hope Park with my friends. Something she threatened to rescind whenever I pissed her off.

Then there was Kai. He'd had this God-defying love for her. And even Zeus claimed fondness, which for him was favored status.

Persephone inspired adoration from parents and boyfriends alike. Sophie got absentee parenting, death threats, and betrayal.

With every passing day since I'd found out about Persephone, I'd felt less and less whole. Here I was, Sophie, my human self, which until recently was the only personality I'd ever expected to have, teenage mood-swings notwithstanding. Then my goddessness had surfaced.

While I now had special bonus features like kick-ass powers, sped up healing time, and a destiny to save humanity, I was still, for all intents and purposes, human. First and foremost, still me, Sophie.

So why did I feel like some kind of container for the magnificence that was Persephone?

Why did I feel like I was competing with her?

And losing.