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Chapter 21

Surrender

Your hand reaches for the thin swirling thread, seeking to crush the tiny tendrils that connect you to her. It breaks you inside to do this, but it's the only way to keep her alive. If you cut the connection, she might get out. You won't, but she might.

They notice. A freezing hand clamps around your wrist, pulling you back. You grit your teeth and pull through the pain, wrenching your arm out of their grasp, and closing your hand around the cord.

The smoky strands unravel, swirling away, dissipating in the air, but there's something else there, something that hasn't broken. You look at it more closely. It's barely visible, but it shines golden as the sun, strong as celestial bronze.

With a start, you realize what it is. It's love. Not pink and sappy, with a fairytale ending, the way Aphrodite portrays it, but simple love. Pure love. Love that has ups and downs, twists and turns, but always perseveres. Love is much harder to break than what you had originally anticipated, but you must break it, out of love for her.

You have only a second at most. With a strangled yell, you bring the strand to your mouth and rip through it with your teeth. The minute your teeth make contact, the cord dissolves into liquid, a taste of everything you've lost. You savor the sweet flavor of Annabeth, then swallow.

Annabeth disappears in a flash of bright light. When the light fades, you're alone. The overwhelming sense of loneliness is all you feel. Tears stream down your face. You're making a sound, you think. Like a wounded animal keening. The rock smashes into the cot and together they fall, fall, fall, splashing into the lava. Like you.

Kronos and Gaia got you this time.

Annabeth is safe, though. You hang on to the one piece of good information. Cruel laughter echoes above the crashing rocks. The two evil forces shake with mirth. You swing there, hanging limply from their grasp, plotting your next move. Annabeth is safe, so you don't have to worry about her. You need to worry about getting out.

They start to pull you higher, higher, higher. You fly into a large cavern situated near the ceiling of Tartarus.

They drop you five feet to the floor, and your ankle twists painfully. Your jaw tightens in pain, but you don't make a sound.

There's a bubbling pool of lava in the center of the cave, and two monster essences are dipping wickedly curved knives into the frothing substance. Your torturers each grab two, then float over to you.

The air pins you down, pulling the breath out of your lungs. You gasp for oxygen, a fish out of water.

Then the burning bronze parts the skin on your arm and you scream. Again and again the blade slices your skin apart, releasing thick hot blood, which streams down your body, pooling around you.

The pain is unbelievable. You writhe in agony.

Time seems to stop.

The pain courses though your bloodstream, burning from the inside out. Tears slide down your face.

After what feels like forever, the knives stop.

You open your eyes and try to focus on something, anything. The ripped cloak that Gaia is still wearing whips into your vision.

You moan something intelligible, even to your own ears. What were you trying to say? You don't even know if you wanted to say anything at all. Vomit burns in the back of your throat, you turn to your side, and your stomach divulges its contents. Your eyes sting as you roll onto your back. Kronos raises his scythe again, makes an incision with seemingly no effort on the rock a quarter inch from your skin. You can feel the cold metal whisper against your flesh and you shudder with dread. Nothing happens, nothing, nothing, nothing….Bam!

A rock smashes the bones in your leg to pieces. The pain you experience immediately is surreal, as is the sight of shards of rock and bone, the chunks of flesh, the spurts of blood you didn't know you had to lose, all flying into the air.

You cough and choke on blood. The scream that rips from your throat almost makes your eardrums pop. It catches on all the sharp points of the cave and ricochets back at you.

Darkness is pressing in on all sides. You want nothing more than to welcome it, to let the blackness consume you. It would be so much easier than facing cruel reality. But, like always, the easy way is impossible.

Just when you accept the nothingness, sunshine spreads the gap. Sunshine that curls around a suntanned face, framing laughing grey eyes. Sunshine that makes the darkness recede, refusing to let you go.

You can hear her voice in your head, goading you on, the way she does when you spar. "Come on, Seaweed Brain. Is that all you've got? Please tell me you're going easy on me. A Savior of Olympus, that bad at fighting?"

This, of course, makes you stick your tongue out at her and ease the dam on your abilities open just a little farther. You almost always win when that happens.

You smile at it a little, even now. This aggravates Kronos and Gaia, you know from your days trapped here.

But a strange shift of emotions is overtaking you. Fear to rebelliousness, despair to defiance, sadness to joy. You aren't trapped here. You were, but you're not connected anymore. You can leave any time you want. The revelation leaves you dizzy.

I can leave if I want. They can't stop me. I kept myself here. If I want to leave, the door's open.

An icy hand clamps around your arm, but you barely feel it anymore. A searing heat is coursing though your body. They can't hurt me.

You grunt, flipping yourself over onto your stomach. The hands start to grab at you, nails digging into your skin, drawing pinpricks of blood. You don't care.

I can leave.

You start to drag yourself forward by your arms. I can see Annabeth again. Your legs scrape uselessly behind you. There's nothing holding me back but myself. Your arms burn, but you keep moving. I won't let them rule me again.

You reach the edge of the pit. You don't doubt your decision, but you still glance back at the livid figures of Kronos and Gaia, who have your shoulders in a vice grip, trying to drag you back.

You take a deep breath, shake your shoulders in an attempt to dislodge their fingers, and slither off the edge of the cave floor.

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