Dionysus didn't seem keen on the need to properly introduce himself to Cathy—none of this rather mismatched crew did, and it was abundantly clear that they all were not friends despite a shared experience. Although, Cathy understood in a way. They couldn't afford to be. Dionysus already did know her—she was Hestia, and that was all he needed to know, all she'd ever be to him. It was like an unspoken agreement between them all: your previous life is forfeit. You needed to check it at the door the second you cross Olympus's borderlines.

It all harkened back to Calliope's urgent refusal to know the real girl beneath Hestia's mask. Looked like Dionysus was of the same mindset. Or was coached by Calliope to do so.

Images of the elevator buzzed in her brain. It's shaft must've led to other maintenance corridors, floors, or storage areas. The lift carriage wouldn't be that big if it wasn't used to transport cargo much larger than a statue or vase. A building this size had to have some other "Employees Only" areas not meant for the public, away from the paths of least resistance. Penguin wasn't visiting the Olympus building for his prize, Hephaestus was going to see him. If Penguin's territory was The Bowery, then Hephaestus had quite a ways to travel there from the Amusement Mile. Several city blocks, in fact.

That meant transportation was available to him. That meant a boat was possible.

That meant an escape to Gotham was possible.

Cathy kept her eyes on the floor, absently watching her toes pop from behind the veil of her skirt, remaining wary of Calliope and Dionysus ahead of her. The two seemed really acquainted with eachother. She snuck a peek at their ring fingers, but glints of gold were absent. However, the mythological god and muse they were impersonating wouldn't have been married, would they? Still, there weren't any ring indentations left behind either, at least none that Cathy could see. No, Calliope and Dionysus were perhaps not married. At least not to eachother.

Perhaps they really were just business associates. Calliope previously mentioned that she and Dionysus were here long before anyone else, employees under Zeus's corporate umbrella.

"So, question," said Cathy cautiously to the back of their heads. "It's not just me who's noticed that Hephaestus doesn't dress like us, is it?"

Dionysus looked over his shoulder at her and gave another one of his patented apologetic smiles. "You're right, it's not just you. It's for a good reason, though. Hephaestus appealed to Zeus to keep the jumpsuit to get through Arkham City unnoticed. Zeus approved, convinced in the logic that Hephaestus could better slip by the mortals without fuss."

"Oh," replied Cathy nonchalantly, like it was a perfectly sound explanation. "So...what, does Zeus, like, keep a three headed dog in his room, too?"

Her attempt at injecting a little lightheartedness was met with a tight-lipped glare from Calliope.

"I wouldn't be laughing if I were you."

"I-I wasn't, I was just-"

"Oh yes, it's all smiles until somebody gets hurt, isn't it?"

"I didn't mean to-"

Calliope huffed. "How about being a little more grateful that we're not kicking you out into the mess where you crawled from?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean anything by it. Honest."

"The girl didn't mean anything by it, Calliope," said Dionysus pacifyingly. "She means no harm."

Leftover embers of Calliope's glower remained in her expression, but she was mollified by her companion's words and didn't push the subject further.

Though Cathy knew it best not to warm up to anybody who dwelled with her in Olympus, she was grateful for Dionysus's interjection and ability to alleviate tense situations in his own placid way. She imagined he had more loyalty to Calliope, though, seeing as he knew her longer, therefore Cathy made certain to be mindful not to cross boundaries with him, either.

In no time the trio happened to wander by a room that offered a splash of slatted color to Cathy's drab peripheral. Hooked naturally by it, she did a double take to find a small library passing her by. Her feet slowed and she leaned backward to get a better look. It was natural impulse, happened everytime she visited a mall.

The room was small, only the size of an office. There was even a mahogany desk with a fancy leather chair behind it, plus two plush, dark brown leather armchairs before it. What caught Cathy's eye, however, were the three walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, each carrying hundreds of spines of varied height, hue, and thickness.

She noted this small library in her mind map for a later visit. It was the perfect place to drop off her Greek Myths book that Calliope let her borrow. It seemed like not all that bright of an idea to keep it in her room, especially if she left tonight and Maxie went snooping around only to find her to have been an impostor. Even if she was long gone by the time her ruse was discovered, she didn't want anybody here to have any reason to come after her.

The noon meal was filling, though uneventful. Just the usual fare, except for once a prominent figure was missing among their usual ranks: Hephaestus. He still hadn't returned from his errand.

Somewhere between, Cathy managed to sneak upstairs to grab the Greek Myths book from under her bed, and brought it down to find a place for it in the office library. She couldn't deny how much lighter she felt now that it was safely on a shelf and in no way able to be affiliated with her. She felt that she'd gleaned everything she could from its contents. It was no longer useful, so it was no longer a necessary risk to house it in her quarters.

There was an approximate hour left until sundown. Twilight was usually the call to dinnertime. That left Cathy some time to scope out the elevator. If it did lead to another place, she'd have to confirm first. Then she'd return to her room to dress into her warm, original clothes, sneakers, and her bag. And if she just happened to fail to attend supper? Well, that wouldn't be her problem anymore by then, would it?

3 - 7 - 8 - 1, she chanted in her head. 3 - 7 - 8 - 1.

She didn't really expect anyone to be patrolling the halls, that wasn't likely, but she was cautious anyway. Wandering down a few flights of stairs until she reached the correct level, she glanced left and right one more time before ducking inside the same Employees Only area, and shut the door behind her.

The one thing about the color orange, she discovered in that moment, was that it blazed against muted grey like a flame.

"Hey, chicky. Lookin' for a way out?" asked Hephaestus coolly. He had been standing just to the right of the elevator. The dolly he used earlier was rolled back into its storage corner.

Cathy froze in place, heart hammering from the unexpected surprise. Was this a set-up? Had he been waiting for her? Worse off, she never interacted personally with Hephaestus before, she was at a loss as to predict his patterns.

It didn't matter, she thought quickly, her brain sparking to think on the fly. No one could prove she was up to no good, she had done nothing. Yet.

"What makes you think that?" she replied in a similar tone, though mindful to add an air of innocence. Don't lay it on thick. Natural.

Hephaestus raised his eyebrows as if to say 'really?'. The motion stretched the dimly purple scar cutting through his brow and eye. He then visually took in the room's entirety, following the exposed piping in the ceiling, trying to find the place's appeal. "Somehow I doubt you came here for the view."

"I thought I left something here, that's all," Cathy retorted haughtily, like she was above such accusations to her character. Keep your arms to your sides, don't cross them, that looks defensive.

Hephaestus's expression was inviting her to indulge him. "Yeah? Like what?"

The sensation of the key against her ankle spurred her. "A key."

"A key."

"Yes."

"Well alright then, I'll help you look for it."

"No need. It's obviously not here."

"You sure? That was quick."

"I have two eyes, I can scope a floor just fine."

Hephaestus watched her unflappably, as if he were a palace guard with the power to administer or forbid entry to the elevator. Cathy controlled every muscle in her face, denying even a quirk of the eyebrow or a blink lest Hephaestus interpret her lie for what it was—though at the same time, she disciplined herself not to appear too imperious. If Hephaestus found her attitude irksome, or just a little too high and mighty, then all the more reason to bring this matter to Maxie or Calliope.

Suddenly, her adversary dropped his chin and shook his head amidst a throaty chuckle. The jig was up. Cathy's ruse was as see-through as wet tissue paper, he knew all along why she was there, and it was for no blasted key. "You almost had me going there, you know. God, you can play the stuck-up bitch like nobody's business."

Cathy's brow hardened unamusedly. She was caught, and his chuckles weren't helping. Her cheeks flushed not by humiliation but by the glower she was trying to conceal.

"Seriously, you can give up the act now. You're here because you know that I have a way out of this place."

Cathy kept her lips sealed. True enough, that was her intention, but if this really was a set-up, then she was as good as forbidden to ever leave her bedroom again once she admitted as much and retreated.

"So, Hestia," her fellow prisoner said, mockingly throwing her phony name in her face the way a ribbing friend would, "I'll actually level with you, you caught me at a great time. I know what you want and I'm willing to help. All we gotta do is just take this here elevator down to the third floor, get in the motorboat, and take off for the city. Easy-peasy."

"A boat?"

"Yeah, a boat," he repeated. "How else do you think I deliver them statues? Swim?"

Cathy regarded him with a side-eye. This was exactly what she hoped for. But it came too easy. Recalling from experience, every plan she thought would have been easy turned out to require more additional hidden steps just as soon as any previous were completed. It was prudent to not jump the gun just yet. "If you had access to a boat all this time, why did you never leave?"

"Like I said to the boss lady earlier, the food is good and the board is free." There was something contemptuous in the way he said 'boss lady'. Obviously he and Calliope didn't get along very well. "Think it's about time I went on my way this time, though. Got better things to do than play house all day. Plus, in case you haven't noticed, this Zeus guy is nuts. I ain't stickin' around."

While that assessment was crudely accurate, Cathy couldn't help but feel that fleeting, brief pity for Maxie again. What happened since then? she wondered. To build oneself up as a successful shipping tycoon only to spiral into a delusioned mental state. Though she always vowed to walk on eggshells whilst around him—he wasn't entirely faultless afterall—undeniably he'd been good to her, so long as she followed orders and remained tight-lipped about her true identity.

Hephaestus shared her fate, but she never even shared a conversation with him until this very moment. Calliope's warning buzzed in her head all over again. "You stay away from him," she'd said.

But was it because he really was dangerous, or because he had access to an escape route? Hephaestus's inmate jumpsuit did seem to tell a story all it's own. Then again, was Calliope trying to actually keep them all there under Maxie's orders? Or maybe even her own?

"Let's say I did go with you to the boat," Cathy said calculatingly, watching Hephaestus's amber eyes closely but trying not to nudge him away with distrust should she miss her golden opportunity to see her dad again, "what's in it for you?"

"What's in it for me?"

"Yeah. Because that's going to be a long way to Gotham just to drop me off. I don't know if you'll be welcomed back there with open arms."

"What?" Hephaestus then looked down at his clothing. "Ahh, I get it, I get it. It's this, isn't it?" he smirked, pinching a section of his orange jumpsuit. "Alright, alright, ya got me. Honestly? I nicked this off some dead guy who got his lights permanently punched out. Easier to blend in this way. Got my leg messed up pretty good before that."

"You still didn't answer why you'd help me for nothing."

Hephaestus spread his arms out dumbfoundedly, like Cathy's interrogation was unfounded. "Is it so hard to believe that I might be a stand-up guy? I've never seen the inside of Arkham Asylum before, I'm a victim of circumstance, which I'm sure you were, too. Don't know how someone like you lasted so long in Arkham City, I mean look at you. But obviously you're made of some strong stuff if you made it here alive, or probably the luckiest girl who ever lived. Look, it's simple. We both say adios to this shithole right now and we leave these crazies behind. It's a win-win for both of us. I didn't intend to bring you along either, but now that you're here, why not take advantage of it while the offer's still hot?"

Cathy's discomfort was hard to let-up. A escape route, gifted and wrapped in pretty paper, was blinking her right in the face like a Vegas sign. Could she trust her new abruptly-instated business partner, though? Strike an under-the-table deal from under Olympus's nose?

"Not enough? Okay, maybe this'll convince you," added Hephaestus, noting Cathy's hesitation. "You really wanna know what happened to that pomegranate chick whats-her-name?"

"Persephone?"

"Yeah. That one."

Cathy couldn't deny that she did.

Hephaestus nodded knowingly. "Oh, I know you do. Zeus caught her lie easily. Psh, was her own fault really, dumb broad shoulda really caught up on her Greek myth stuff. Even I knew that it was the wrong season for her to be walking around. Tried to cover up her mistake by saying that Hades granted her visitation. Zeus had none of that and done away with her. And when I mean done away, I mean fried her to death then and there. Trial? Yeah right. Zeus don't negotiate. Betcha that snotty Calliope didn't tell you that."

"No. No, she didn't."

"See what I mean, chica? These people are crazy. Every single one of them, even the cook."

"Dionysus?"

"Oh, you better believe it. Come on, you can't tell me you haven't been trying to leave since day one."

Those last words were so obviously true that Cathy couldn't even block the assertion in her expression.

"Here." Hephaestus turned his back on her and punched in the number code to the elevator panel. 3 - 7 - 8 - 1. The heavy duty panels split apart instantly. The elevator had been waiting on their floor. Granted, nobody else in the building used it, it wasn't going to go anywhere. "We're finally gettin' out of here. Follow me."

Cathy hesitated. This was her chance! She yearned to do what he instructed, but she couldn't go right now. They had to plan it better, she had to get dressed into her warmer clothes. As much as she wanted to dropkick all caution and just catch the first opportunity of escape that was thrown at her, she had to be smarter. Gotham was currently in the dead of winter. Icy wind whipping her hair at high speeds, not to mention a dress that offered the elemental protection of tin foil, was asking for trouble before she'd even make it.

"Can it wait? Until after dinner." The hour must have been close to twilight, they were cutting it close.

"No, no, I'm afraid this is our only chance. Hurry, or I'm leaving without you."

Cathy's body was tingling, ready to take a running leap into the dingy freightcar-like elevator without a care, but she knew she'd suffer for her impulsiveness later. "It won't take long. I just need to change." She thought back to the wad of cash still stowed in her bag upstairs. "I've even got money in cash. You can have it all, I promise. Just an hour or two, that's all I need."

"Get. In. The elevator."

Hephaestus's response made Cathy's body tingle again, but for an entirely different reason. Her lips parted lifelessly and her hands began to sink like a slowly deflating balloon.

"Seriously, what ain't you gettin' here?" inquired Hephaestus rigidly. He left his post and began to approach her unevenly. There was that limp again. "Do you want to stay behind with these freaks?"

"N-no."

"Then what's the problem? You're almost free, there's no time for us to look back."

Cathy was rather perturbed by his sudden change in mood. Hephaestus closed the distance and was already casting his shadow over her. He reached down and twirled a strand of her hair. Too close. Much too close. Cathy stilled, her instinct screaming at her to flee.

"Or, you know, I could always break old Zeus's heart and tell him his sister is a fraud," Hephaestus said contemplatively. "Better yet, would be nice to have you all to myself. But damn, would be hard to pass up all that money I could get for you out there."

He swooped like a hawk. Cathy's vision rushed in a blur of unfocused grey walls. Hephaestus, too fast for her to react, violently seized her in his tree trunk arms and threw her over his shoulder, like she was just another sack of cargo.

"No!" she protested. Helplessly dangling and disoriented from the sudden blood rush to her head, she twisted and rolled her torso, desperate to dislodge from his strength holding her there. She mermaid-kicked her legs for double the force, but her knees then became strapped down with his other arm, leaving just her feet loose.

"Oh, quit'cher whining," Hephaestus said forcefully, a little physically displaced by her refusal to stay still. He wobbled slightly to keep his balance. "Just get in the boat like a good little girl, just like you wanted to, and we'll have no trouble."

"Let go! You liar, LET GO!" she screeched.

"Hey, hey, I was totally honest with you! I really have never seen the inside of Arkham Asylum before. Blackgate on the other hand..."

Cathy's lungs squeezed together tightly. Clenching her fists, she pounded and beat on the tough hide of his back, flopping her body like a beached salmon. The inmate was built like a tank, though, her fists were no more deadly than paintballs from a distance.

Judging by what scenery had already passed, she surmised that they were already halfway to the elevator. Whatever happened, she couldn't enter it! If she did, it was over for her. Nobody in the building would hear her from that many floors down. With a high-pitched, defiant noise that felt like sandpaper in her throat, she cocked her elbow and slammed it right into the base of Hephaestus's skull—enough, she guessed, to at least make him see stars.

While she wasn't sure if it worked like she intended, Hephaestus pitched forward and stumbled the tiniest bit. It was just enough.

Taking advantage of her captor's temporary loss of equilibrium, Cathy swung her upper-body up and pitched backward to bring them both down. She'd seen it in a wrestling move once during the Sunday nights when she watched matches with her dad, and while her maneuver was far from as smooth an execution as it was on T.V., the shift in weight was too much for Hepheastus. He automatically released the hold on her legs in order to catch his fall, and the grip tying her to his shoulder loosened. Gravity slammed them both to the concrete, Cathy a bit better off due to her positioning. Her elbows landed square on the safety mat of his back, and she nearly smashed her nose into his spine. Now that they were grounded, she barrel-rolled off of him, away from the direction of the elevator, favoring her throbbing knee that she landed on to break her fall. Her roll came to a halt and she propped herself on her elbows, cringing from the pain.

Hephaestus faced her like a whip, his dark eyes zeroing in on her in milliseconds. "You bitch!" he spat.

Like a rabid animal whose fury had been ignited, he army-crawled on his elbows, reaching out to take back whatever he could of her.

Cathy had no time to rise. She rolled over backward onto her elbows, crab-crawling in reverse and tucking in her feet to keep her grabbable ankles away from him. She was at a severe disadvantage, though.

Hephaestus's blunt fingers grazed her skin through the straps of her sandals. Cathy retreated her foot just in time. When Hephaestus reared back for another attempt, his attention swiftly left her and his eyes glazed to focus beyond her head.

A sturdy pair of muscled legs stepped between the two so quickly that Cathy was almost sure they sprang from the ground. A flutter of blue-tinted drapes swung before her face and barely a second passed before she glanced up to see the back of Maxie's head, ringed with his golden laurel-leaf circlet. He was shielding her protectively with his massive body.

"Impostor!" he roared down at the fallen god. The lightning rod in his hands buzzed and crackled, strobe-lighting his face in electric blue. "You dare throw yourself upon a maiden goddess! You are not of this realm."

Cathy saw shades of the man on that first blustery night he discovered her, and the terror she felt then was rushing back full force. It filled her like a watery outpour, saturating her veins.

From behind, she suddenly felt hands slide beneath her armpits, and she was hoisted up. Grateful that whoever lifted her didn't let go when her limbs didn't respond, she willed her limp legs to stand on their own.

"Stay back," Dionysus whispered urgently in her ear. Cradling her body against his, he guided—almost dragged—her backwards, putting a couple extra feet between themselves and Maxie. Calliope was there as well, marching forward urgently to gauge the situation.

Maxie's stare kept Hephaestus on the ground. "Your deception and trickery will be punished!"

In a sudden jerk, he crossed the room and angrily jammed the sparking end of his staff right into the elevator's code panel. Cathy flinched from the loud crunch of metal, ducking into Dionysus's arms. Electric crackles and searingly bright blue arcs shot from the box. He violently yanked the staff out and then an eruption of hot comet sparks shot from the console, illuminating everyone's faces in a sudden flash of brilliant light. For all the times Cathy had seen Calliope's face serene and composed, the woman's brows were now taut, and the whites of her eyes were showing, shrinking her dark green irises. Even she didn't expect that.

"Lord Zeus," Calliope enunciated soothingly, taking a step closer and placing a humble hand over her heart, "my ruler, my immortal king. Perhaps a misunderstanding has taken place here, perhaps—"

Maxie flashed his palm. "SILENCE!" His livid stare pinned Calliope's feet to the floor, halting her intrusion. "This matter concerns not the likes of muses!"

Any remaining words Calliope had to offer were censored in an instant. Defeated, she bowed her head stoically and obediently. Then she stepped back lest Maxie's rage spill over unto her. Dionysus had released Cathy when he was sure she could stand on her own, and just regally watched Calliope return to her place. Cathy was trying to find some fear or sympathy in his eyes, some semblance of the soft-spoken man she knew away from Maxie, but there was none.

Hephaestus's jagged scar brightened in contrast to his non-marred skin, for his face was draining of all color. "If it is deception and trickery you seek, look no further than your own sister!"

Cathy's heart solidifed, leaping in mortal fear.

If Maxie was furious before, his nostrils could have spit fire right at that moment. "You dare besmirch the name of Hestia?!"

"Your humble Hephaestus begs the mercy of, but I lie not! It is—"

Maxie jammed the butt of his staff into the prisoner's cheek. Hephaestus was instantly muted. He folded to the floor, cringing from the explosion of pain.

Blankly satisfied with that punishment, the lightning god's command of "Follow!" to everyone else was not to be ignored. Maxie wrenched a still-conscious Hephaestus up from the floor by the collar of his jumpsuit and marched him out through the maintenance door. For once, Calliope didn't take the lead for the others in his stead. Rather, she trailed behind the newest goddess, like it was her place to be below them. It was an attempt to get back into Maxie's good graces.

The silent, sorry parade was led up one flight of stairs. Cathy tried to block out Hepheastus's harried attempts at reasoning with Maxie. She didn't want to hear it, she was rather frightened about what was happening and couldn't think of a single thing to do about it. Her heart felt like it was shrinking to the size of a peanut, the beats were so miniscule. Her chest cavity was as heavy as if it had been filling with concrete. She didn't know what was happening. All she felt like she could do was just adopt Calliope and Dionysus' looks of serenity. Their hands were front-clasped, like they were marching to a funeral procession.

At the top of the stairs they merged through an open, moonlit lobby which held a dark fireplace. A leftwise pair of glass-paned doors led to the enormous terrace where Mount Olympus's Zeus statue watched over Arkham City, ever-present bolt still lit, draping the veranda in a weak, synthetic blue glow. Dionysus jumped ahead and opened the doors wide for all present.

Stepping outside onto the cool, humid veranda, it was as if someone placed a blue filter over Cathy's eyes. Though the time was night, the buzzing neon of Arkham City, plus the dots of spotlights on the containment wall's perimeter, entrenched the air with a gloomy illumination.

Despite Hephaestus having had nothing but the lowliest of wishes for her, Cathy's conscience swelled in her chest, exercising her vocal chords in preparation to protest on his behalf, just so she wouldn't have to live with the guilt of whatever horrible fate befell him. But she couldn't. Maxie was set to go off at the slightest dissent along his group. Potentially she'd just get strung along, too.

Maxie was grasping Hephaestus by the neck and dragging him along. With a bulge of his mighty biceps, he launched Hephaestus with enough force to make the traitor stumble to the terrace's edge. The stone railing caught the prisoner's reeling body, the only thing keeping him from plunging into the freezing harbour below.

Hephaestus spine arched over the balustrade. A pained grunt slid through the cage of his gritted teeth. Stiffly, he straightened himself and wiped at the bead of blood sliding from his right nostril. The impact must've been harder than it looked. "H-Have I not been a faithful servant, Lord Zeus?" he informed. "Was it not I who negotiated with the snivellous Cobblepot mortal in order to secure our sacrificial sustenance for our glorious Olympus?" His voice was rough and strong, like he was capable of letting the whole situation end amiably with no lasting hard feelings, but the steadiness was a little too concentrated, a little too stiff to not have fear behind it.

"I said SILENCE!"

Maxie strode powerfully to meet his traitor head-on, clutching his lightning cattle prod like a trident. Hephaestus tensed against the railing behind him, the only movement he was able to act before Maxie was upon him. In a feat of strength Cathy had never seen before, Maxie's fingers closed over Hephaestus's neck in a vice grip and he actually raised the orange-clad prisoner aloft. Hephaestus's helpless feet left the floor, never to touch ground again.

And then, Maxie embedded the prongs of his lightning bolt straight into soft, waiting flesh.

Cathy's mind was wiped clean, leaving nothing but the barest inclination she was living and breathing. A glistening, black spot was growing from the entry spot in Hephaestus's belly, staining his uniform. A tremor shuddered down to Cathy's feet. The shocked instinct to cover her mouth made itself known in her gut, but she restrained for the sake of her life.

Hepheastus's jaw gaped like he was screaming to the sky, but the prod lodged in his abdomen worked like a vocal silencer. Or perhaps the blood rushing in Cathy's ears was so loud that she couldn't hear his anguish.

All of a sudden, his body started convulsing unnaturally, twitching in a subdued, macabre way. It was only then that Cathy noticed Maxie's knuckles clenched tight over the cattle prod's hand trigger. The lightning bolt was active. Horrified, Cathy realized she was in the middle of witnessing a pleased smirk overcome Zeus's features.

Nobody on the terrace would have denied it, Hepheastus's body was losing the fight, and soon, it wasn't countering back at all. A miniature sliver of life was still left in him, as seen by the minor twitch and swing of his limbs, but for all intents and purposes, he was already dead.

The trigger was released. Maxie retracted his weapon, meeting only soft, wielding resistance in sliding it out. The shaft was glistening upon every inch of removal, stained by the life it had easily taken.

A dry heave of nausea rose in Cathy's throat like a powerful tsunami. She never would have thought, in all her lifetime, that she'd witness another person die in front of her eyes. Not just die, but torturously, painfully, brutally witness life ebbing away and finally leave a victim's eyes. It wasn't like anything she'd seen before in a movie where an actor's eyes merely rolled up into their brain and they slumped their head. No, this was different.

"I banish thee to the depths of Tartarus," Maxie said with one last deathly glare. Unceremoniously, he heaved Hephaestus over the railing, and his ragdoll body plummeted out of sight. Seconds later, a distant splash was heard by all present.

The terrace was silent.

Maxie, huffing through his nose from the effort, continued to watch where Hephaestus had fallen, as if the dead body would have the indecency to resurface. Cathy didn't dare exchange a glance with Calliope lest Maxie turn around that very second and view their expressions as doubtful that he had done the right thing. Cathy didn't even know if Calliope would agree with the tumultuous emotions she was feeling at that very moment.

Several seconds, long and agonizing, dragged while the soft, wintery breeze tousled their Grecian clothing. Gentle snowflakes fluttered at a slant, soft and sparse, much at odds with what had just occured. Calliope and Dionysus had adopted looks of powerful indifference. They had no choice.

"I shall go tend to the hearth," Cathy announced in a low, plain voice, as if bored with the proceedings. Without another word, without being dismissed, she strode away demurely, entering the terrace doors. To Maxie it would have appeared her tone was indifferent and unsympathizing to the pathetic mortal who dared pose as a Greek god, but to Cathy it was merely to keep herself from heaving her stomach out onto the veranda for everybody to see. The higher and more emotionally-charged her voice was, the bigger the likelihood of such a thing happening.

Nobody followed her. Nobody called her back.

Once the terrace doors were out of sight when she turned the corner, she swiftly detoured and made a beeline for her room. Looking over her shoulder and still finding no one following her, she scurried faster into a power walk, breaking into a two-step jog at intervals, as if putting herself further away from the murder site would keep the memory of it further away, too. Hephaestus's fate stalked her the entire way, looming over her shoulder in all its grisly prominence.

Cathy's legs felt unsupportive, like her bones were melting and disappearing entirely. Her knees were getting too weak to support her, they simply could not lock into place.

The hall was akin to a tunnel that never ended, her bedroom door hardly seemed to be getting closer. Miraculously, she somehow made it. Bending to reach the key in her sandal to unlock the door nearly grounded her, and rising put her into the throes of vertigo.

Busting through her door and scuttling behind it, she leaned, pushing it shut with her back. Lost and alone, she slid down helplessly to the floor. Entangling her fingers in her hair, she clutched her scalp for dear life like it was the handlebar keeping her from going under. To where, she didn't know exactly, but she did know it would be a lonely, desolate place in the furthest reaches of her mind that not a soul but her would be able to reach. With her knees tucked under her chin, she rocked back and forth, desperate to rid herself of the image of Hephaestus' demise.

Conflict wrestled with itself in her ribcage. Hephaestus had nearly attacked her, nearly threw her back into the crawling cesspool of Arkham City and would leave her to a grim fate, yet she was still terribly upset. Both at what he'd tried to do, and that Cathy had never seen somebody be killed. She recalled the bodies in the alcove that night she escaped her apartment, but they had been shot down before she arrived on the scene. This was different. This was raw.

Oh God, oh God, oh God! Even her mind's voice was dry sobbing. Don't think about it, just don't think about it. I can't do this!

Hepheastus's real name died with him, her mind reminded her. He had an indentity, a life, before this mess.

A wave of nausea crushed her to the floor, tumultuously upsetting her stomach. She felt that same wave the night she first broke into the Olympus club and stared down Maxie's murderous visage. It could have easily been her tonight. If Hephaestus had let her secret—all of their secrets—slip, it would have been her sinking to the asphalt floor of the drowned city block.

Gone was the pity she'd developed for Maxie. He wasn't some poor man saddled with insanity. He was a savage. Though he came to her rescue and gallantly stepped in to stop the unthinkable, he was an uncontrollable monster at the end of all roads.

Cathy felt exposed, like she was dancing blindfolded on the edge of a cliff, unaware of the drop just inches away. She had thought it relatively simple to just pretend to be who Zeus wanted her to be, and she even thought she'd done a good job of it when she managed to scrape through on good terms. But tonight made it clear - crystal clear - that Cathy wasn't prepared for her new role at all.

A/N: Thanks for the feedback, Erik and Guest! It's really helpful :D