Hades Sent : Book One of the Sent Series, page 20
“Not so fast! We’ve been waiting days for you to come back to us. You won’t be leaving anytime soon.” Her arm pulls mine as she drags me across the room.
My feet stumble over bodies lying on the floor. Each time I trip, sounds escape their mouths. That is enough to at least let me know that whoever they are, they aren’t dead.
“What is this!?”
“You’ll know soon enough. Though, I suspect you won’t like what you hear.” I can hear the happiness seep through her voice.
With one final jab to the arm, Gabriella pushes me down into the floor. She binds my hands and feet together, making sure I’m as uncomfortable as possible.
“I want to ask you something before I go. This might be the last chance for me to find out …” Gabriella’s body shifts away from me. She doesn’t wait for me to say anything. “Tell me, Ireland. That Greve guy … he is pretty hot. Did he live up to your expectations?
I flush. “Fuck off.”
She shrieks out in laughter. “Because I plan on getting to know him once you’re dead. I wanted to know if he was worth my time. With the way you answered, clearly he is.”
“If I die, he will know you are involved. He would kill you before you get five hundred feet near him!”
“I’m not afraid of hybrids like you,” she says as she walks out of the room.
The door clicks closed, leaving me with bodies of people I don’t know.
“He’s mine,” I say to anyone willing to acknowledge my dedication to a guy I can’t remember that well.
A noise comes from across the room. Someone is letting me know they hear my exclamation. The problem is that I don’t know if they are calling me out for being stupid or calling me out in support.
The thing is—I don’t care. In the back of my mind, things are sketchy about the past few weeks. My memories are slowly coming back to me now that I am home and out of my mother’s reach. Jade almost destroyed me mentally and physically. She tried to make me something I refuse to be. And when the moment of self-destruction was imminent, I opened my eyes to him.
Greve was there, staring back at me. He talked with my mom and got her to agree, somehow, to let me come home. Without that intervention, I would still be in that club, staring into space, with no hope whatsoever.
The thought makes shivers go down my spine. Greve let me go, thinking I would get the one thing I’ve always wanted—my freedom. What he didn’t consider was that the higher authority was never going to give me anything.
“So stupid,” I mutter into the darkness. “It’s all been a lie.”
Voices around the room all mutter in agreement. Phrases like “yeah really” and “we are going to die” fill the room with chaos.
Everyone is too busy screaming and muttering that we don’t hear her enter until the door’s already wide open. Gabriella pushes a teenage boy into the room and places him down a couple of feet away from me. My eyes do a double take when I see his face. Red hair comes down just above his mis-matched eyes. One blue eye and one red eye stare right back at me. His nose matches mine, along with the way his mouth forms a thin line when he’s angry.
“Get over yourselves!” Gabriella yells to everyone in the room. “Everything will be explained very soon. In the meantime, SHUT IT before someone dies earlier than intended.”
“How about we kill you and then we won’t have to worry with someone killing us?” says the guy who has to be related to me.
Gabriella’s hand whizzes by just before the sound of a slap quiets the room. The guy grunts a little from the impact of her hand colliding with his face.
“Stop it!” I shout. “Stop! Don’t hurt him!”
Gabriella flicks her eyes at me. “Oh please. You are such a martyr.”
“Stay out of this, Ireland,” the guy adds while rubbing the place Gabriella hit.
My breath catches. “How do you know my name?”
The guy rolls his eyes at me. “Everyone knows your name. You’re the topic on everyone’s lips. We can’t go half a day without the mention of your name.”
“Alright.” Gabriella waves her hands in the air. “Everyone is here and accounted for. The countdown begins. I cannot explain the joy I have in knowing that you all will be leaving us very soon. Especially you, Ireland,” Gabriella adds before walking out the door.
Darkness takes over as soon as the door is shut all the way. I don’t have to see in order to feel their eyes on me. Suddenly, I feel like bacteria under a microscope. Everyone wants to examine me to figure out if I’m the good type of bacteria or the bad. Am I going to wreak havoc or am I going to assist in fighting off the dangers we face?
“Okay. Seriously … how do you know my name? How is that possible when I’ve been shunned to the lowest level my whole life?”
“Shunned for security, more like,” mutters the guy. “Your father is one of the reasons the rest of us are in here.”
His words hit me square in the chest. “What … what … did you say?”
“You heard me. Did you not ever consider that there were more hybrids than you? Or did you think that magically you were the only one?”
I swallow hard, in hopes of making my voice steadier. “Look, guy. I’ve always wondered and I’ve always hated the fact that I was made to feel alone when clearly I’m not. But what you said about my father is impossible. There is no way he could be a part of this. Whatever this is …”
“Whatever this is?” The guy’s voice rises louder. “This is it. The end. A time of cleansing from the impure, of the filth that we are. We are scheduled to be dropped out of the sky, with no wings! And your dad is one of the guys heading the operation!”
“No … no … no! You’ve got it all wrong!” I strain my body against the restraints, to try to get closer to the guy who is calling my dad a traitor. “He hasn’t been on the higher authority since my birth. We are the same as you. If anything, he will help us. My dad wouldn’t let me die. He wouldn’t let any hybrid die.”
“He let you go to Jade, didn’t he?” I can feel his eyes on me without seeing anything. “Your father is just like the rest. He let you go to see if you could pass the tests your mother gave you! And you must have failed if you were brought back. We are all failures. The angels can’t use us because we are tainted. We will not conform to the way they think. The demons won’t use us because we are too weak to fit into what they consider their “norm.” We don’t fit anywhere or into anything. It’s dark in this room, but you are not blind. Ireland, feel us in your mind. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Father didn’t want me to go. He … practically forbid me to go …”
“But you went and yet here you are,” the boy says to me for the first time with pity in his voice.
“I don’t believe you. You mention knowing all about Jade and my dad. Well, tell me how you know about them. Tell me something because all I know is some random stranger spouting out lies.”
The boy sighs. “We might be strangers in person, but not by blood. Jade is my mother, too.”
My breath catches at his words. In truth, he looks like he could be related to me. When he walked into the room, it was like looking at a male version of me. Seeing him should give me enough proof that he is who he says he is. Then again … words are just … words, until proven otherwise.
“If we are half-siblings, how come you never came to look for me? You act like you’ve known about me for years. Here you are spouting out things about me, but in reality you never cared to see if what you heard was the truth.”
“Ireland,” he whispers, “I never intended on knowing anything about you. Not really. Your father came to me as a small child and forbid me to come looking for you. He said you were superior to me, and if I did come looking, he would have me killed.” He laughs, sarcastically. “Obviously, he intends on killing me anyway.”
“He never told me about you, and I’m sorry for that. If I had known I had a half-sibling brother, I would have come looking. I don’t believe my father is responsible for what’s happening though. He is so gentle and kind. There must be another explanation”
“Good luck finding it,” he mutters under his breath.
“I will find out what’s happening. And when I do, I will come for you. You and them”—I nod to all the others in the room even though I know they can’t see me.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he says so quietly I almost don’t hear him.
“Brother, I intend on keeping this promise. Our mother left me to die, crazed out of my mind. She tortured me both mentally and physically. She’s forced me to kill innocents and when I got so lost in myself, she left me. No part of her cared for me and she is our mother. You have a similar story to tell, I’m quite sure.” My voice quivers.
I continued, “Even if we didn’t share the genetics of our mother, we share similar stories all the same. I don’t intend on leaving anyone to go through something alone. Blood or not.”
“Okay, well … no offense, but I don’t need you to try to save me. Just stay out of my way, Ireland. I aim to kill anyone who tries to hurt me.”
“I won’t leave you,” I repeat even if he doesn’t believe me.
“You don’t get it. I’ve been perfectly fine without you in my life all these years. I will be fine without you now. So let’s enjoy our last few minutes as brother and sister before they come in to save you and then kill me.”
His words cut me like a dull knife. It takes a while and a lot of effort to cause damage, but once the wound is there, it bleeds and hurts all the same. I suppose that is what he wanted. I won’t leave him without knowing his name at least. “Give me your name, brother.”
“If I do, will you leave me alone?”
“Yes. I won’t say anything else to you while we are in this room.”
My brother sighs, defeated. “Dad named me Enoch. It means dedicated. Jokes on him though.” Enoch laughs. “I’m far from that. Don’t call me Enoch. If you want me to answer you, call me Elah. Elah suits me better.”
“And what does Elah mean?”
“I thought you weren’t going to say anything else to me.”
“Give me the definition and I won’t say anything else.”
“Fine. Elah means a curse. That’s what everyone sees me as. Either I’m a curse in their life or a curse for not doing something right. So, that seems fitting. Don’t you agree?”
There it is again. The familiar feeling of hurt flows through my veins. This time, his words don’t hurt me. They are made to hurt him.
“No, I don’t agree. Hybrids are not curses on our people.”
“Just stop talking, okay? I gave you want you wanted. Now, it’s your turn to hold up our deal. I’m not in the mood to argue about our self-worth. You obviously value yourself a bit more than the rest of us,” Elah snaps at me.
“Nice knowing … err … never mind.” I stop myself before finishing what I wanted to say. To tell Elah that it was nice knowing him, would solidify what he thinks of me. Plus, I wouldn’t have meant it.
“Die fighting,” he says loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
Voices echo him in reply, “Die fighting. Die fighting!” Soon, the whole room vibrates with shouts of all the hybrids condemned to die.
Goosebumps form on my arms from the impact. They will all join together when it’s time. These hybrids have all but given up. They want to die fighting our enemies. I can understand that. We’ve been singled out, used, and tossed away when others thought we could serve no purpose.
They have plans to take down as many of our enemies as possible because to them, they will die no matter the costs. It doesn’t matter to them as long as they can take down some of the pure angels, too. But I can’t bring myself to join them in their war cries. Die fighting? No, I don’t want to die fighting off my enemies. I will fight to live.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ireland
It’s been hours since the chanting died down. The tension in the room could snap a rubber band and send it flying into oblivion. Everyone is set to fight to the death, except me. I intend on doing more than die and in order to do that, something else needs to happen besides me sitting in the dark with all these people.
Luckily, it doesn’t appear I will have to wait any longer. Shadows just appeared under the doorway. A combination of fear and curiosity fills me as the door opens.
My heart beats so fast I might get sick from the sensation. A man appears at the doorway and his voice sends chills down my spine. “Ireland? Are you in here?”
A sigh of relief escapes from my mouth as my dad’s voice slices through the silence in the room.
“Dad! Help me! Help us!”
“OH IRELAND! Sweet Ireland. Thank god.” Dad’s voice cracks as he rushes to me. “How did you get in here? I only just heard that you’ve returned.”
His arms wrap around my waist to embrace me. His familiar scent relaxes me along with the feeling of him being this close again. Seeing him now makes me realize how much I’ve missed him and how hurt I will be if Elah’s statements about him are true.
“Gabriella put me in here with the rest of the hybrids. Dad, you’ve got to help them! They said something bad will happen to them.”
Dad shakes his head. “I told Gabriella to inform me when you got back. This is unacceptable.” He tugs at my restraints while producing a key to open the lock. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.” He takes my hand and pulls me to standing position.
“But … didn’t you hear me? I said we need to help the others. You’ve got the key; just unlock the rest of them.”
Dad tucks the key into his pocket before replying. “The deal is that I only take you. If the other parents don’t come to dispute on their child’s behalf, there’s nothing else to be done for them.”
Elah clears his throat. “I happen to think there’s a lot more that can be done for us. Isn’t that right? Quit lying to her. Don’t you think she has a right to know everything so that she can make her choice?”
“Who are you?” Dad asks a little too sharply.
Elah laughs. “You know who I am!”
“Dad!” I put my hand on his arm. “He claims he’s my half-brother. He seems to think you have something to do with all this. Is that true?”
“We will not discuss this here, Ireland. I must say that questioning your own father is not a desirable trait to have.”
“I just don’t want anyone to die. You shouldn’t either.”
“I don’t, but right now we have to get you out. Then I will come back for them.” Dad looks at Elah, suspiciously.
My eyes shift toward Elah. He shakes his head in disbelief.
“Promise me,” I whisper. “Promise you will help them.”
Dad bends down and puts his hands on my shoulders. “I will do all I can.”
“I … don’t … know …”
He takes my hand and starts to pull me away from Elah. “We cannot wait here any longer. Come. NOW!” Dad pulls me along as I struggle to break free.
I’m like a naughty toddler being dragged for scolding. My cheeks become hot with embarrassment. “Stop! Let me go!”
“Shut up, girl! You’ll get us both killed,” Dad hisses at me.
“You have never acted like this! What’s happened?”
“That man is gone. It has to be this way in order to save you.” Dad stops pulling me to kiss me hard on the forehead. The effect feels like sandpaper on my skin. Our eyes connect in one fleeting moment of panic. It’s over as quick as it came. Dad’s eyes form back into the cold, hard shell he’s become.
Is this what I will be one day too? A cold, heartless person all because of this place? I can’t. I won’t. Thoughts and pictures form in my mind. The ones featuring Greve come first, then Faith, the humans who I’ve helped, the humans who … I’ve … killed, and it all ends with Elah.
Even in my mind, seeing Elah is like looking at my reflection. Every fault, need, worry, and desire that shows on his face, I also see on mine. We are connected by blood. We are intertwined by fate. We are bound to every hybrid in creation.
If he dies, then a part of me will die, too. In reality, we are two different people, but in society, we are the same. Hybrids—the result of all things wrong.
I cannot leave knowing that if he dies, another hybrid’s death is added to the list. One less hybrid means one more piece of me destroyed. It will keep happening until the only hybrid left is me.
Then what?
They let me live just to honor my father’s request? I don’t think for one second that will happen. The higher authority will kill us all. No matter what my father thinks, I know in my heart it is true.
“Give me the key.”
“Excuse me?” Dad crosses his arms, impatient.
I reach out my hand. “Give me the key,” I say again.
“Stop playing games, Ireland. There is no time. We need to get out of here alive. You and I. Not us and them. You set them free and we go down with them. Things are bad here. Worse since you left.”
Dad’s body begins to tremble. His cold exterior is gone for the second time in a matter of minutes. “Even some purebreds haven’t been seen lately. Hybrids have also gone missing … like Faith. She was one of those who disappeared. No one has seen her for two nights. And if they aren’t missing, they end up in there.” He points toward the room we just walked out of.
“What a minute!” I squeak. “Faith is gone?!”
“Yes,” Dad answers, solemnly. “Adam reported that he expects she just ran off. But don’t worry about her. Adam says he will find her and bring her back home.”
“That’s not possible. Faith wasn’t supposed to leave. Not without me.”
“I saw her a few days ago and she didn’t look like herself. Her face was flushed and she looked worried. I asked Adam about her and whether he knew what was going on. Adam said he didn’t, but would send someone to check in on her just to be sure.”
“Like I’m supposed to believe that. Someone or something made her go. Otherwise, she would have never left.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re reporting to Adam. He’s waiting to see you just so he knows you are okay. After that, you will go into hiding until I understand exactly what’s going on here.”
