My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

Presents For Pretty Girls (Part 3)

I held up my hands, not wanting them to start brawling. Again. "Enough." I turned to Theo. "Why do you think she'd help us? The kindness of her heart?"

"Power."

"Hell, no!"

"You and Kai take out the big bads and let her rule like Persephone originally promised," Festos said. "There's no other way."

"There has to be." I jumped to my feet, my mind working furiously. There had to be some other god we could turn to. "What about Jack? Or Pierce?" Anyone but her.

For my entire life, my adoptive mother, Felicia, had made me feel unwanted. She had shipped me off to Hope Park when I was six and spent the next ten years with minimal interaction, and maximum exuding of disappointment, at my existence.

Then I'd learned I was Persephone. How amazing was that? And what was the one thing that even I knew about her? Her mother Demeter had loved her so much that she roamed the earth in grief when Hades ordered Persephone's abduction.

That's when I'd started to dream of the day that Demeter would come back and find me. I knew there had to be some reason she hadn't shown up. Knew that she would get to me as soon as she could, and shower me with love.

Two months ago, when I'd realized that Felicia actually was Demeter? That she'd tried to kill Persephone, lied to me, not cared at all about me, and put me at risk by pulling me from the one place where she knew I was safe? The one place where my friends actually loved me? And then for her grande finale, she'd gleefully dropped the bombshell that Kai and I had yet to recover from?

I was not inclined to crawl back to her and ask for help.

I scratched at my arms. "I swore I wouldn't. To her face."

"Really?" Theo asked. "This is going to come down to your pride?"

"This is going to come down to her having been a cow to me for my entire life. She doesn't get to win. Who knows what she'd do with that kind of power?"

"Probably not much," Festos said. "Demeter has always liked humans. She's not going to hurt them now."

How naive. "Yeah, she will. She said as much before. She'll do whatever is opposite to what I want."

At which point Kai and Festos jumped in, all three of us arguing.

Theo's fist slammed down on the table, shocking us all into silence. "I gave up my powers for you. My immortality for you."

His voice was so cold I broke out in goosebumps. He advanced on me steadily. Just as steadily as I retreated.

I was caught in the fury of his gaze. I'd never seen Theo like this and he was scaring me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kai rise. Festos locked an iron grip on him, keeping him in place.

Theo's voice rose to a loud roar. "So maybe you could just suck it up?!"

I opened my mouth to fight back. But out of shock, or maybe an iota of wisdom, my brain stopped to think.

This sucked. I hadn't asked to be saddled with this responsibility. To save anyone. But since it had happened, I'd stood up and shouted down anyone who doubted me. Every single time. Was I really going to retreat into whiney teendom now? Yeah, I wanted to pout and scream, but I felt the weight of Theo's words deep in my bones.

I would rather stick knives into my eyes than go back to Felicia, offer her everything she wanted, and face her smugness. Along with whatever other hurts she would force me to endure before oh so graciously accepting my offer. I felt sick at the thought.

I sank back down beside Kai. Theo was right. And I was so very very wrong. If I had to come back and curl into the fetal position for a few hours afterward, well, I'd survive. So all I said was, "Yes, Theo. I can. Let's go see Felicia."

Which was the correct answer given the situation, but did nada to ratchet down the tension in the room. I could tell that Theo was still pissed at me. And at Kai. Who returned the sentiment in spades as he yanked his arm free of Festos' grip with a fierce glower at both of the guys.

Festos' fingers twitched. He obviously wanted to unleash his fire, as he pointedly stared Kai down.

A cold smile spread over Kai's face. His fingertips emitted a black glow. "Go for it," he said.

"Stop," I said, shoving at each of them in turn as I made my way to the kitchen. I wasn't mad at anyone, but I was feeling prickly. Ashamed and guilty where Theo was concerned, and still cautious with Kai. He had admitted that he was still mad, which made me nervous about doing the ritual. And, honestly? I was fed up with him being pissed. There was a small, hard festering ball of resentment in the middle of my chest.

I flung the fridge door open. "What's the best way to approach Felicia?"

I grabbed a small hunk of white cheddar, ripped off the plastic wrap, and bit into it.

Festos limped over to me, his cane thumping with each step.

He shut the fridge door. "Honeybunch?"

"Yes, Fee?" I smiled at my friend as protein flooded my body and kept me from going postal.

Festos boffed me across the top of the head in a stinging smack. "You've never heard of a phone? Next time, don't disappear from your own birthday party leaving us searching the place like crazy people. We practically got our favored status revoked."

"Ow!" I rubbed my head.

Festos' eyes narrowed. "Pull a stunt like that again and you'll really understand the meaning of the word 'hurt'. Also, you'd better apologize to Hannah when you see her."

"Huh. She noticed I was gone?" My tone was indifferent but my heart was not. I focused my attention on Festos' cupboards, rummaging around until I found a box of crackers to pull out. When I faced Festos again, I held the box to my chest, as if holding it tight enough could keep my heart from splintering because I missed Hannah so much.