Part 9 (1/2)

Matt's face twisted in disgust. I reached for him, but he pulled away.

”Alex was only trying to help me. I just didn't know it. He's like me. He saved my mom. I killed her, Matt. It was an accident. We were cooking, and I cut my hand. I tried to stay away, to tell her the truth about me, but she grabbed my hand and then... If Alex hadn't been there, she'd be dead. He saved her, and then I left. I went with him to a school to study with other Ophi. He's really sweet.”

”How soon?”

”How soon what?”

”How soon after I died did you take off with him?”

I closed my eyes, feeling the threat of tears again. ”Matt.”

”I have to know. I'm trying to be really patient and understanding right now, but I need to know this.”

”I don't want you to hate me. I was crushed when you died.”

”How soon?”

Payback really was a b.i.t.c.h. This was proof. I was paying for everything I'd done wrong. This was supposed to be my way of making up for all the things I'd done to Matt. I'd saved him from the underworld, yet here he was with me and in more pain than he'd been in Hades' hands.

I bit my lower lip and inhaled deeply. ”I left the night of your funeral.”

A strange half-cough, half-laugh escaped Matt's lips. ”The night of my funeral? Wow.”

”My mom died. I couldn't stick around and chance killing her again. What if Alex wasn't there when it happened again? I couldn't risk it.”

”And when did you and Alex...” He couldn't even say the words.

”It sort of happened gradually. I didn't plan on it. You have to understand it nearly killed me to lose you.” I didn't want to tell him about me bringing him back wrong, about how I watched him rip apart a bunny with his teeth. He didn't need to know that.

Refusing to look at me, Matt stared off at the open road as we kept in the cover of the trees. ”Does he treat you well?”

”Do you really want to talk about him?” I didn't want to rub his face in the fact that I'd moved on. He didn't deserve that.

”No. How long has it been since I died, and why am I in the wrong body now?”

”A few months. I couldn't bring you back. Not at first, anyway. When Hades took me and the others to the underworld, I found you. You were wandering around in this place called the Fields of Asphodel. I didn't think you belonged there. You're too good to be trapped in an afterlife where you felt nothing at all. And when you recognized me, I knew I had to free you, raise your soul. I found a young couple who'd just died, and I raised us both.”

He turned to me, meeting my eyes for the first time in minutes. ”You wanted to be with me again? Is that why you did this?”

I could've lied, made him believe I did this all for us, but when I returned my soul, it would crush his heart all over again.

”I have to free my friends. They're trapped and being tortured. My body is still being tortured, too. My soul can't stay split like this.”

”So, we can't be together, even though you're human right now.”

”I won't be human for long.” He was silent for a while, and I didn't know what to say to make this easier on him.

”Do you need help finding a way to free your friends?”

I nodded. ”But I understand if you don't want to help me.”

He took my hand and squeezed it. ”I'll help you. I can't change the way I feel about you, though.”

Did he hate me now? Was that what he was trying to tell me?

”I won't try to pressure you into changing your mind about me, but I won't hide my feelings either. I'm still in love with you.”

Pain tore through my insides. It was going to be torture for both of us to be this close and unable to act on all these unresolved feelings. My body felt like it was being hit by a thousand hammers at once.

”Jodi?” Matt squinted at me and grabbed me by my shoulders as my eyes rolled back into my head.

It wasn't heartache I was feeling. My body was being tortured in Tartarus, and the pain was forcing me to tune into the Ophi half of my soul.

Chapter 12.

I cried out in pain, and Matt carefully lowered me to the gra.s.s so I wouldn't hurt myself. I saw glimpses of Victoria looming over me, smiling as she continued to deliver my torture. ”Service with a smile,” she'd called it. She was talking to me, but I couldn't hear her over my own screams. I felt the h.e.l.lfire burning me from the inside out. This wasn't the normal torture. I wasn't reliving a death I'd caused. Victoria was burning me the same way Hades had after I'd raised the entire cemetery in my sleep.

”You ready to torture your father's soul yet?” Victoria asked, easing up only enough for me to answer.

My dad? ”No!” What had I missed? Hades was torturing me by trying to make me torture my own father?

”Then I guess I get the pleasure of torturing you both.” Victoria smiled, and I turned to see my seventeen-year-old father on the ground next to me in Tartarus. His eyes said he was more concerned for me than himself.

”Jodi!” My name echoed in my ears. Matt's hand was on my face. ”Look at me. Focus on me.” His voice was firm, demanding my attention.

I choked back the fire in my throat. My eyes watered, and I clenched my teeth against the searing pain shooting through me. Dad's cries tore through me worse than the h.e.l.lfire.

”Jodi!” Matt was screaming now. ”d.a.m.n it, listen to me!” Matt had never yelled at me. Never cursed at me.

I opened my eyes, seeing double. Victoria's image hovered over Matt's with a faint ghostly glow.

”Good,” Matt said. ”Tune it out. It's just me, okay. You're not there. You're here with me.” He took my face in his hands. Please, don't kiss me. Alex-he was near me, near my body in Tartarus. Matt leaned toward me as I shoved the image of the underworld out of my mind. I turned my head away from Matt, and he paused inches from my face.

”I'm okay now.” But my dad wasn't. I never thought I'd see him again, but of course Hades would make me watch Dad suffer.

Matt hung his head in relief. ”I was trying to shock you out of it. I wasn't really going to kiss you again. I know you're with... I guess it worked.”

”I'm going to have to learn to keep those thoughts out. Hopefully, my Ophi half is doing a better job tuning out what's going on here.”

”It's almost like you're two people now.”

”I know. Even with all the crazy things I've been going through, this tops them all.”

”You okay to get up?”

I nodded. ”I think so.”