“See?” Asia said. “The Grim Reaper can’t touch us. He works for us.”
“But I’m not dead,” I blurted, unthinking.
Asia snatched up the poker from the floor where she’d tossed it. “Why don’t we test that out?” she hissed. She sprang at me with animal speed, but Jake was faster and intercepted her, whipping the weapon from her tight grasp. He threw her onto the couch and crouched over her, the tip of the poker pressed menacingly against her throat. Asia eye’s flashed with excitement. She bared and gnashed her teeth as she ran her hands along his hips.
“Bethany is not a toy,” Jake said, as if he were scolding a naughty child. “Try to think of her as your baby sister.” Asia held her hands palm up in defeat but couldn’t repress her expression of deep disappointment.
“You used to be so much fun.”
“Ignore her.” Jake looked at me. “She’ll get used to you in time.”
That’s if I survive, I thought bitterly. “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “How can you torture souls when they can’t feel pain?”
“I never said they couldn’t feel pain,” Jake explained. “Only the demons are immune. The souls, on the other hand, feel everything acutely. The beauty of Hades is that you keep regenerating only to go through it all again.”
“The torture cycle’s set on repeat,” Asia said with a crazed look. “We can hack ’em up and by sundown they’ll be whole again. The poor suckers look so relieved to know they’re close to the end. You should see their faces when they wake up without a scratch and it starts all over again.”
My face must have reflected the light-headedness I suddenly felt. I sank down into a chair, resting heavily on my elbow. Jake brushed Asia’s wandering hands from his chest and came over to me. He lifted my chin with an icy finger.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said in a voice surprisingly devoid of sarcasm.
“I don’t feel well,” I said flatly.
“Poor baby’s sick,” Asia crooned.
“What can I do?” Jake asked.
My gaze wandered inadvertently to Asia. I knew it wasn’t wise to make an enemy out of her, but her very presence was making me feel unwell. Jake looked at her flippantly over his shoulder. “Get out,” he commanded without a second’s hesitation.
“What?” She sounded genuinely surprised and even unsure of who he was addressing for a moment.
“NOW!”
Asia had clearly never been in a position in which she wasn’t Jake’s favorite and she didn’t like it. She threw me one final venomous look before storming off. I breathed easier with her gone. The malice she projected was debilitating, as if she were feeding off my very life source.
“Tucker, pour us a drink,” Jake ordered. Tucker sprang to life, moving to the dresser to pour whiskey from a crystal decanter into a tumbler. He handed it to Jake with an expression that suggested a mixture of fear and loathing. Jake held out the glass to me.
“Drink this.”
I took some tentative sips of the warm, glowing liquid and felt surprisingly better. It burned inside me, but somehow the burn had a numbing effect.
“You need to keep your strength up,” Jake said, putting an arm casually around me. Instantaneously I shook myself free. “You don’t always have to be so defensive.” He swung himself playfully around a bedpost and slid in beside me so deftly I barely had time to react. Although filled with a strange darkness, Jake’s face was beautiful in the fading light. His lips parted in a slow smile and I could hear him breathing fast. His black eyes traveled unhurriedly over my face. He always had a way of making me feel exposed and vulnerable.
“You must make an effort to be happy,” he murmured, trailing a finger along the inside of my arm.
“How can I try when I’m more miserable than I’ve ever been?” I said. There was little point in trying to mask my feelings.
“I understand you’re pining for lost love,” Jake said, in a voice that sounded almost sincere. “But that human can’t make you happy because he can never truly understand what you are.”
I edged away from him, but his grip on my arm tightened and he began tracing the network of veins beneath the translucent skin. I flinched, remembering how his touch had been accompanied by an uncomfortable burning sensation in the past. It felt different this time, almost soothing. I figured I was in Jake’s domain now and he could manipulate things any way he chose.
When Jake left, I couldn’t settle and Tucker loitering by the closed door only made me more uncomfortable. Instead of returning to the fire, he withdrew an electronic device from his pocket and began compulsively playing games to wile away the time.
“You can sit down,” I suggested, remembering his lame leg, which must have been bothering him because he kept readjusting his position, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
He looked up for a moment, startled by my expression of kindness.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I added with a smile.
Tucker hesitated a moment, then relaxed enough then to slide down and sit with his back against the door.
“You oughta try ’n’ git some sleep,” he suggested. It was the first time I’d heard him speak or look at me directly. His voice wasn’t what I expected. It was soft and mellow with a lilting Southern twang. The tone, however, was surprisingly worldweary for someone his age. “If you’re worried about Asia, she won’t bother you while I’m around.” He seemed proud of his ability to keep watch. “She’s a piece of work, but I ain’t easily fooled, despite what y’all might think.”
“I’m not worried,” I reassured him. “I trust you, Tucker.”
“You can call me Tuck,” he said.
“Okay.”
Tuck hesitated, and then looked at me with interest. “What makes you so sad all the time?”
“Am I that obvious?” I gave a small smile.
Tuck shrugged. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’m just thinking about the people I love …,” I said, “and whether I’ll ever see them again.”
A pained expression crossed his face as though my words had triggered troubling memories of his own to resurface.
“You can see them again if you want to,” he said. It was barely a murmur. Had I heard him right? All my hopes were suddenly roused, but I tried to keep my voice from trembling.
“Excuse me?” I asked slowly.
“You heard me,” Tuck mumbled.
“Are you saying you know a way out of here?”
“I didn’t say that,” he snorted. “I said you could see them again.”
This time he sounded mildly annoyed at having to explain what should have been patently obvious. It struck me suddenly that this lumbering boy with his crooked haircut might know more than he was letting on. Could his allegiance to Jake be merely pretense? Was it possible that here was one person in all of Hades with a vestige of conscience left? Was Tuck trying to tell me he was prepared to help? There was only one way to find out.
“Tell me what you mean, Tuck,” I asked, my heart leaping with expectation.
“There’s a way,” he said simply.
“Can you tell me?”
“I can’t tell you,” he answered. “But I can show you.” He brought a broad finger up to his lip in warning. “But we have to be careful. If we’re caught …,” he trailed off.
“I’ll do whatever I need to do,” I said determinedly.
“There are five rivers in Hades. One is for forgetting your past life, but there’s another that let’s you return to it. Well, at least temporarily,” Tuck said. “Drink from it and it will give you the ability to visit your loved ones whenever you like.”
“Visit them how?”
“You’ll be able to project,” Tucker said. It seemed the more he spoke, the less I understood what he meant. I looked at him blankly, my previous expectation dwindling to disappointment. It was entirely possible that Tucker wasn’t even in his right mind. The fact that I was attaching so much hope to what he had to say was a testament to my desperation.