My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

Picking Fights With Gods (Part 3)

My first order of business was to see how much of me had actually been tattooed. I pulled up the sweater and glanced down at my side. The answer was none. All I could see was the purple outline of the drawing. No black ink on me anywhere.

Which meant that Jennifer had literally just touched the needle to my skin, and my entire vision had occurred in a split second. Or, more likely, she'd never had a chance to do anything because I really had been convulsing.

Either way, I was untouched.

I wasn't totally disappointed.

I kicked off the jeans. Since the sweater was long enough and soft enough, plus I hadn't done laundry, I crawled into bed wearing it and my underwear. I tucked the comforter around me and hoped that the sun would come out tomorrow. Maybe I'd wake up and all would be glorious warmth with the arrival of spring heralding our good fortune to come.

But I wasn't counting on it.

Which left a whole bunch of hours to think through what I'd seen. I closed my eyes to mentally review the vision. To start, that pomegranate tree better not have been some kind of obvious symbolism about her. Because what exactly was the big message then? That Persephone was dying? Gawd, even my visions featured her.

Well, guess what Universe? That chick was history. And maybe whoever or whatever was causing these visions should be more concerned with my mortal Sophie self that was alive and kicking and planning to stay that way.

Except, what if it wasn't the universe or whoever sending this vision to me?

Since prophecies were common to the not-so-mythological Greeks I was descended from, I'd figured that these visions were too. Which is why I'd assumed that these images had been sent to me.

But what if I was generating them myself? From my insecurities and fears, in the same way I'd installed Persephone's voice in my head. Maybe I was trying to give myself a giant wake up call—that I had to put all my issues with Persephone aside, once and for all.

Kai and I both did. That could be why he hadn't figured in any of it. I mean, he had that pomegranate tattoo on his back, right? Maybe the tree in my vision was symbolic of him.

Of us.

Maybe the point of all these freaky hallucinations was to press the urgency of Kai and I working things out so that we remained a winning team, instead of two distinct parts that would lose.

Zeus and Hades had been warring against each other on Earth for thousands of years. They caused a lot of destruction and death, usually managing to blame it all on natural disasters. If Kai and I failed to stop them, their attacks on each other might amp up, thereby taking out more humans. Or worse, if they might just decide to harm humans for the spiteful fun of it.

Either way, we needed to defeat them.

I rolled over, mushing my pillow up to a better fluffiness level and resettling myself. I didn't really believe that Kai wouldn't show up to the big battle. He had such a horrible history with his father, Hades, that I knew Kai would do anything to take him down.

I even knew that he still loved me. But Kai's anger might dilute his intentions enough to cause the ritual to fail. And if I continued to enable him by not forcing us to hash this out, well, that would make me just as complicit in our eventual loss.

The thing that really killed me was that I didn't blame Kai for feeling gutted at Persephone's intention to use and betray him. I just didn't think it was fair that I was the one who had to deal with the fallout of his anger toward her. He believed that she was a part of me and technically, he was right.

Still ...

Kai was just so damn stubborn.

Two months with both of us being mad, and still unable to keep our hands off each other. If that wasn't messed up, I didn't know what was.

I loved Kai back. Fiercely. I'd just been so scared of losing him that I'd gone along with this pattern, even though it didn't sit right with me. To be honest, I'm not sure who I was more mad at—Kai or myself.

I sighed. Come tomorrow morning, I had to confront Kai. I'd make him yell at me if he needed to. Whatever I had to do to make this wound stop festering.

My eye twitched at the brain—exploding sensation of all this overthinking. Okay, it was the pulsing of my low grade headache. But despite the throbbing, I felt filled with a sense of peace, and the courage to finally confront Kai and sort things out.

Seeing Jennifer had given me clarity. With new hope, and a game plan in hand, I fell asleep. Like, passed out cold.

I would have slept in even longer on Friday morning, but a particularly despised sound woke me up. A sound that struck dread into the marrow of my bones. The sound of someone singing, "Happy Birthday."

I squeezed my eyes tighter, flung the covers over my head and rolled over with my back to the door. None of which deterred Festos from tromping in, still singing the damn song.

"We talked about this," I said, my voice muffled.

He waited until he'd ended the final "to you" in a rousing falsetto before he answered me. "You talked. I ignored."

"I hate you," I said. Although it probably came out muted by the covers.

"I have cake."

Hmph. That was tempting.

Somewhat.

I poked my head out from the comforter but didn't look at him. "What flavor?"

"I don't understand the question," he replied. "Is there another flavor besides chocolate?"

"Yes," I heard Theo say. "I like pie."

I rolled over and opened my eyes in time to see Festos shoot Theo a pitying glance.

"Well, you would. But fun people like cake." He winked at me.

Theo waved him off. "Cake is obvious. Pie is for people with depth."

Festos' idea of a deep response was to stick his tongue out.

Theo grinned. "Way to make my point."

I loved my bickering boys.