Daughter of Death
Chapter 2
I stir from sleep by an alarm startling the quiet room.
My dreams were filled with walking shadows and murky rivers- all things that remind me of my first home, and I feel a small ache for it. For my father's realm. Maybe I should visit.
Something warm and soft shifts beside me, and suddenly the cloth that I had clutched in my hand is pulled away.
My brother rubs his eyes, tiredly glancing at me, then to my bed where the sheets were tossed to the side.
He smiles slightly when his sluggish mind comes to the conclusion that I had climbed in with him in the middle of the night.
He gets to his feet in a technically standing position and shuffles to the dresser for clothes.
Being the children of hades, even our pajamas consist of black clothing, and I watch with heavy eyelids as he trips into the single bathroom at the top of the stairs.
Charlie has a small house- just two bedrooms and a bathroom, so Nico and I share a room, which I am perfectly fine with as I have been sharing with him for the past two years.
Two twin beds had been stuffed into the room and though I remember falling asleep in my own bed, I had still woken up in his.
Getting annoyed with the constant beeping of the alarm clock, I lurch to my feet in order to roughly click the off button.
Nico pops back into the room looking more awake than before. He shrugs on his aviator jacket that he always wears with a glance at the clock.
"You've got twenty minutes to get ready."
"What for?" I grumble, glaring at the glowing seven exposed on the clock face.
"School." He grunts in distaste.
"What?"
"A place where mortal teenager go to learn things and either inflate or lower their self esteem."
"That sounds terrible." I sigh.
"It is, but it should be interesting."
He shoves some black jeans and t-shirt into my arms in a final sort of way.
I groan and shuffle into the bathroom.
…..
The smell of burnt toast reaches my nose as I walk into the kitchen, and I smile slightly at seeing my brother gasp and juggle steaming bread before tossing it onto the counter.
Charlie is watching in amusement at the table, lips twitching around a mug of coffee.
"Just because we are children of hades, does not mean that we have to eat black food too," I tease walking forward to nudge the brick of bread. "But who knows, dad was always talking about renovating the hose; perhaps you could lay down the first brick."
He scowls at me, running his red fingers under cold water.
"I was trying to be nice."
I pluck up the killed toast and take a large bite from the crunchy bread, smiling as I do so.
"Next time we could just atop by McDonald's."
"Sure." He smiles and takes an apple from the bowl in the counter, munching on it happily.
"You kids ready? I'm dropping you off."
At the reminder of the son of Hermes, I turn to him cautiously.
Like all half-bloods, his souls doesn't scream in agony at me, and I can't see his lifespan.
For all demigods, their fates are trickier than mortals. They have so many uncertainties in their normally short lives.
Plus if I could see their life line and hear their tortures, I would surly go mad. I had only been living with them the past two years, and they are all my family.
I would want to change their deaths, warn them of the dangers, but changing fate is impossible. Many people have tried to prevent prophecies, but it never works. All you get for trying is disappointment and exactly what you were trying to prevent.
"Let's go," I say, giving him a comforting twitch of my lips.
As soon as I step out of the police cruiser in front of several spaced grey buildings, my body seems to hum with that same feeling of when we first arrived.
My mind muddles as screams and moans of pain sound in my skull.
I gasp, clenching at my head at the begging of peace.
I reach blindly forward until I grasp my brother's arm to ground me to the living. The lines always blur when I'm alone in the mortal world.
He holds my hand just as tightly in response, knowing the urges I get.
"They beg for death," I whisper, looking around the curious faces of teens. They are silent, watching us eagerly, unknowing to the pain that their souls scream. No, not all of them are tortured, some are confused, a very few are calm.
I try to focus on those souls.
I scan the students, focusing on the marks on their necks.
I tighten my hold on Nico as we get closer to the school, and the voices get louder in their wailing.
Then a soft purr enters the parking lot in the form of a shiny silver Volvo. I notice it because it is the newest car in the lot and by far the most expensive.
I gasp as one door opens and my eyes almost roll to the back of my head.
My brain turns foggy at the essence wrapping around me. The stench of death, never a bad smell to me, wraps me in its grasp.
"Oh," I breathe. "Brother."
He turns, alarmed by the waver in my voice. His eyes widen at something that must be on my face and grasps my hand tighter, dragging me inside the school.
"Come on Izzy, snap out of it. This is not you."
They are strong. Human- but not. They are changed. But their souls remain unharmed, therefore mine. They belong to me, not in the world of the living.
All I need is one touch... One touch and they will no longer have a body to function with the breathing...
"Hello, you must be the DiAngelos."
I blink multiple times at the woman sitting behind a desk in front of me. She stares intently at us, and I shift uncomfortably, tangling my fingers into the back of Nico's jacket.
The lady behind the desk's eyes glance at our clasped hands, and her smile seems to tighten.
Huh. How odd.
"Yes." My brother replies smoothly. "Do you have our schedules?"
"Yes of course." She shuffles around her desk lifting papers and talking about something or another. Possibly saying that there is an alligator in one of the toilets for all I know.
I was focused on the five teens striding toward the buildings. They are beautiful creatures, inhumanly so, and all of their steps are taken with a sort of elegance.
But my eyes aren't focused on their beauty, but the thick black likes wrapping around their throats.
Lifelines. That's how I can tell the length of a person's life; there is a line that wraps around the owners throat. The darker the line, the closer to death.
And their lines are as black as the darkest parts of the underworld.
Dead. They should be dead. Father would be pleased if I brought him these souls who think they can cheat death.
Perhaps they escaped when Gaea was awakening.
Or maybe they are all very close to death. That's the most unlikely situation but still a possibility. I'll have to wait.
A tightening on my arm has me glancing up into the dark warning eyes of my brother.
"Perhaps we can call Chiron. I'm sure he will let us come home..."
"No," I say. "I think I'm going to run an errand for father..."
"Iz, we came here to be normal."
"I know, it's just..."
"I know," He whispers softly, affection shining in his eyes, and it's enough to push away the fog clouding my mind.
I force my fingers to unclench his jacket and I move to a more comfortable grip on his arm.
He hands me some sort of slip along with my schedule, and I look at him questioningly.
"You need to get all your teachers to sign it and then we have to turn it in at the end of the day."
"Why can't you just get both of ours signed at the same time?"
"Chiron, he um... He couldn't us in all of the same classes."
"You're... Leaving me?"
"No, no, no, only for an hour, and then we can be back together. It's only one class." He quickly reassures me.
Panic rises in me. "You can leave me alone here, you have to stop me when it gets to much. You're the only one who can calm me down."
"It'll be okay." He murmurs, guiding me towards a dull red peeling door.
…..
By the time lunch rolls around, no monsters have attacked, and I hadn't killed anyone- so over all a good day.
Many people have tried to talk to me but all I do was shuffle closer to Nico.
It's hard ignoring people when their souls are screaming at you, and their throats are right in your face.
Most of the lifelines that I've seen are a light grey, almost white, but there are a few that are darker, indicating that they won't live past high school or their twenties.
The closer someone is to death, the more my fingers twitch and spasm at my sides.
This is when Nico would take my hand to calm me down, and we would get those strange looks again.
"Isabella! Nico!" Someone calls as we walk into the dining hall. The idea of eating inside is mind boggling to me, even if it is sprinkling outside.
I turn my head to the caller to see a boyish face with spiky blond hair. I vaguely recognize him from one of our classes, but I wasn't really paying attention to anyone.
I was too busy trying to sort out the swimming letters on that paper the teacher handed out.
I clutch tighter onto Nico's arm.
He guides me through the line to pick up food, and as if reading my thoughts, pulls me past the overly enthusiastic boy and out the doors to the cool rain outside.
We eat in silence for a while until my back stiffens.
I turn and meet liquid gold eyes, five pair staring right at me. I hold the gaze of the one boy that I first saw, bronze hair defying gravity.
After a while, he lowers his gaze back to his table.
The bell rings, and I stand, barely noticing the circle of dead grass around me.
A/N: So, I only have one, or half of one, more chapter already written so it might be a while till the next update with all the other stories I'm currently trying to keep up with.
Please review.
~Silver~
