Disclaimer: i do not own Twilight - i do own some awesome cinnamon sugar cookies with sliced almonds. yummy.
chapter twenty one
"Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge."
Paul Gauguin
Edward
Bella's city apartment provided by Hades is built in a sleek silver and black glass building in the center of the Death District where several of Hades' men guard the structure with their life. Inside, her apartment is fairly stream-lined with grey leather sofas and white furniture with glass in-lays and dark floors. The windows are clean sheets of tinted glass, large and giving a whole view of the District below.
We'd gone to bed feeling relieved that our tests were finally over and we could move on with our life - I definitely had plans for Bella and I in the near future. When I slipped off into sleep, it was deep and dreamless.
I woke up alone and realized that my relief was both foolish and short-lived.
Bella was nowhere in the apartment.
And based on the clear signs of struggle from her side of the bed to the broken glass and lamps and torn curtains all the way to her front door, Bella didn't disappear willingly.
Panic rushed through me and it felt like my heart was made of ice. The bond seemed to be lethargic and I knew instinctively that Bella had been drugged.
"Shit," I whisper brokenly into the silence around me. The heat gathering under my eyes gives away my need to cry but I hold it back, instead reaching for my phone and calling Jasper.
Soon enough, though a series of escalating phone calls, Hades - along with a few other Gods who were interested in Bella's well being for one reason or another - arrives at the apartment. I don't think I've ever seen someone so distraught - and I was sure my face was an exact reflection of Hades'.
This is when the desperate search for my Bella begins, the pain radiating from our muffled bond pushing me forward.
We would find her.
And I would destroy whoever took her from me.
Isabella
My mind felt like it was swimming in murky circles, coming back again and again to the strange disconnect from my body - I couldn't feel my lips or my arms or my toes but they weren't numb. They just didn't feel…there. Like they'd disappeared.
In fact, the only thing my mind registered were my own confused thoughts - I heard nothing, smelt nothing, felt no cold or hot sensations. I was also quickly losing the minimal lucidity that I was hanging onto.
Even fighting against it, I faded back into blackness.
When I woke next, I was aware of many sensations - I was lying on a cold, hard and gritty surface, something scratchy against my face, my hands tied behind my back and my mind absolutely foggy.
One thing was glaringly clear - I was not with Edward.
Immediately, I begin to struggle against the bindings on my hands and, as it turns out, my feet. I hear a dark chuckle from above me and force my eyes open.
James's sneering face greets me, his eyes frosty and unfocused. Could a Demi-God go mad?
I shrink in on myself, automatically twisting my hands and finding that my gloves had been duck tapped to my skin. There was no possible way that I was getting out of this any time soon.
"Sleeping Beauty finally woke up," James shouts over his shoulder.
My mind, though foggy, snapped up that piece of information. James was not alone - someone had helped him with this. But why? What was the point in harming me? I hadn't truly made any enemies since arriving in Olympus a few months ago.
"Good," a sickly sweet voice intones, the slow clicking of heels moving closer to where I am on the ground. "I wouldn't want my sister to miss her own death."
Sister?
My stomach drops and I feel bile rising up in my throat - a reaction from the drugs, I hoped.
It wasn't too far-fetched to believe Hades had more than one child; though, I had to assume that he fathered children far less often than Zeus. But, if that voice was truly my sister, why is she doing this? Kidnapping me? Insinuating killing me? Working with James?
I had a feeling I'd be getting plenty of answers soon enough.
Edward
The pain radiating through my body started in the tenth our of Isabella missing. I knew instantly what it was; just like the starving she'd put herself through all those months ago, the bond was copying her pain and transferring it to my body again.
It was almost unbearable.
What hurt more than the aching developing in my ribs, back, arms and head was the knowledge that someone was also making Bella suffer this pain - in fact, someone was enjoying beating her.
Jasper caught my arm when I staggered back from a particularly painful blow over the center of my chest, causing me to cough and gasp for my air. Hades was the first to react, grabbing onto my arms and demanding information from me.
It hadn't ever occurred to me to mention the bond between Bella and I before then. Athena latched onto the idea as soon as it tumbled from my mouth, ordering me to tap into the pain, really give into the ghost sensations wracking my body.
I looked at her incredulously until she explained to me that I could use the bond to track Bella.
After that, moving our group into the darkest parts of the Demi-God district was easy. I knew with absolute certainty that we were getting closer and closer to where Bella was hidden as the pain over my body grew more and more intense.
Closer wasn't close enough.
Isabella
"You see, I'm much older than you. Much, much older. This is the second time I've been passed over as heir for Hades. I won't let it happen again." The voice of my sister is growing more intense the longer she continues on her tirade.
Between her brief pauses of explanation for drugging me and kidnapping me in the middle of the night, James has been gleefully beating me into the hard floor of whatever building we're in.
Based on the abandoned boxes and the fine layer of dust and dirt on the miniscule surfaces. Somehow, my sister - Victoria - fit in with this setting despite her perfectly symmetrical face that was nearly a carbon copy of Persephone's.
"Your gifts are that much greater than mine," she tells me, running a finger from my forehead down my nose. "I talk to dead things - you just kill them." Victoria sighs, bored, and stands back up.
James lands a kick right to my stomach and I hold back the gasp that wants to escape.
"I have to kill you sister. I killed Laurent, too. He was raised in France, raised all kinds of hell with these poisonous plants he could conjure up. Really, the perfect balance between our Mommy and Daddy, don't you think? But you would have surpassed him too, I think. Hades thinks you have more talents that we don't even know about yet." She stops, smirking deviously, wiggling her fingers at me. "I think he's just being hopeful - you're nothing without your gloves. Stupid."
James's foot pushes me onto my front, his heavy boots stomping on the rope ties around my wrist; I hear my left wrist bone crack and tears spring into my eyes.
But the pain seems to trigger something in me - I can feel the swirling tattoos on my arms growing over my body, moving quickly and rising up from my skin, hovering over my broken wrist and searing the rope and tape from my hands. I don't stop to consider the very sudden development as the swirls bind themselves around my most pressing injuries and seem to bury the pain beneath the surface of my skin.
James curses and moves back, Victoria moving with him with her eyes wide, staring at me with something akin to horror.
I breath deeply as my gloves simmer off my hands, the ice I'm used to feeling turning into searing heat. My hands seem to glow a subtle silver as James, who doesn't seem to have all of his marbles in order, rushes towards me, clearly intent on using his Arena skills on me.
But Andre trained me too. In fact, Andre and Rhea took great lengths at teaching me how to defend myself and now that I had my gift at my disposal, I had every intention of using it to my advantage.
I catch James's fist with my bare hand, watching as his skin seems to immediately drain of moisture and color - he becomes nothing but bones in less than ten seconds, leaving me with Victoria and a crumbling skeleton.
It is just as I step towards Victoria that the door on the far side of the room bursts open, a frazzled Edward and an enraged Hades stalking into the room, taking in the bones at my feet and my sister who had begun to cower against the wall.
I make no indication that I plan to stop, my gift still thirsty for the one person who had orchestrated this entire ordeal - and now that I think about it, the matches at the Arena probably had a lot to do with Victoria.
Hades watches with heavy, wise eyes as I step towards Victoria.
Edward stands straighter, his face void of emotion but our bond, which I could suddenly feel, blazing with approval.
Victoria faces the same fate as James.
And I prove to several Gods just how formidable my gift is.
A/N: chapter 21 done - i think that there are three more chapters left - including the epilogue. wow. almost done. this chapter was short because...well, i didn't want to linger on Bella being kidnapped and all that. it was a tough decision as a writer to go through with this chapter but, it's done and it's been planned from the beginning. the next three or so (not completely sure, might be more, might be less) should be...well, fluffy, happy times with a few answered questions.
if you have a questions about anything in the story thus far - a detail that still doesn't make sense - please ask. the answer will either show up in a PM from me or in the next chapter...
shout out to two new readers who kind of blew me away with their fantastic reviews -
nicola gill, thanks for calling my story a book!
BMSCullen, you've officially coined Godella!
MariaLorenzen, who enjoys my universe, which is super awesome.
stupidlamb2010, who reviewed several chapters as she read along and that just made me smile!
AND the first reviwer of the last chapter, brittany86, who reminded me of my New Years promise - without you, this chapter might have been given a day later!
that said, Happy New Year everyone! may 2012 be the year the world doesn't end! cheers! now, for some New Years jokes that make me giggle!
You have a New Years Hangover if...You set aside an entire afternoon to spend some quality time with your toilet.
You have a New Years Hangover if...You'd rather chew tacks than be exposed to sunlight.
To kick start my New Year, I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
You have a New Years Hangover if...You get it into your head that chirping birds are the Devil's pets.
You have a New Years Hangover if...You replace the traditional "praying on your knees" with the more feasible "praying in a fetal position".
You have a New Years Hangover if...Your new response to "Good morning," is "Be quiet!"
You have a New Years Hangover if...Your catch phrase is, "Never again."
as always, be brutally honest. i can take it.
~cupcakeriot