Page 3 of The Gods Forbid

Sebastian scoffed, and even that sounded lyrical. “Yeah, why’s that?”

I folded my hands together in front of me. “As you so astutely pointed out, my brother is quite stubborn and has a vendetta the size of Olympus against you. The only way he agreed to this plan was for you to spend a month alone in this cell.”

Sebastian opened his mouth, likely to say some quip. I held up my hand, cutting him off. “Recognize how kind that is, all things considered.”

He rolled his full lips together, leashing his retort. Then he settled back against the wall. While I couldn’t do much about the cold stone covering this section of Prometheus, I had installed a fresh bed and side table and ensured the small connected bathroom worked well.

Someone would be along soon with hot food.

I stood, opening the door back up and catching my wince at the last second as the lock pricked my finger.

I lifted my eyes from the lock to find Sebastian studying me again with a deep observation that seeped into my bones.

“A month,” I said, softly. Though I was still quite angry with him, and certainly did not respect him, I still wasn’t the best enforcer of the harsher punishments. Even if this was nowhere near the level of pain that I’d been asked to inflict.

“Then the torture starts,” Sebastian responded as he let his head rest back against the wall and his eyes close again.

➸

Sebastian

“Then the torture starts,” I said, my words as honest as any I’d managed for as long as I could remember. I collapsed back against the wall, forcing my eyes to close and hide Persy’s form as she turned to leave.

I would have taken death and an eternity in Tartarus over this.

Over being locked outside the world with a woman made of sunlight who thought she could do anything to cure my sins.

Chapter 2

Persy

By the end of the first week of Sebastian’s sentence, I was worried.

By the end of the second, I was angry.

By the end of the third, the anger and worry had morphed into some combination of the two, but mostly had the effect of me deciding that something needed to change.

For the first few days of his solitary confinement, he ate the food supplied to him and slept a rather normal number of hours. He’d even get up and pace the length of the cell.

A few times, I’d caught him dropping into a workout. Quick, strong push-ups on the floor. Pull ups on the top bar of the cell that I was shocked he could jump and reach.

But as the days passed, each one dropped off slowly. He stopped working out, instead choosing to walk aimlessly along the bars lining the cell.

Then he stopped walking, spending the entire day sitting or laying down on the bed and stuck inside his own head.

Sleep started to command his day, his eyes only opening for maybe four hours out of twenty four.

And when he stopped eating…that was when I was the most angry.

At first, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not that it was deserved, but that was in my nature.

When his meals returned half-eaten, I told myself that maybe his stagnant days started to reduce his appetite. But then they started coming back entirely untouched.

He didn’t even try to move the food around in an attempt to make it look consumed.

He just stopped fueling his body.

It seemed like he was trying to kill himself. And he didn’t get to do that. As much as I didn’t accept baseless torture for anyone, he didn’t just get to evade repenting for his sins by slowly slipping into death from starvation.