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ChapterNineteen
“You’re fucking joking.”
“I wish I was. I don’t know who I expected to find, but I assumed it’d be someone obscure. I thought maybe one day I would reach out to them and ask how I ended up with more than one ability.”
“But now?”
“I can’t do that now. There’s no way I can just call on two of the most powerful beings in existence and demand answers. They would probably laugh me right out of the Underworld if I went to ask.”
“You don’t know that. They might welcome you home with open arms.” Even when he was having a hard time believing what I was telling him, Sam was still trying to find the bright side of the situation.
“Or they could smite me for daring to question them. Equally likely scenario. No, actually, the more likely of the two scenarios.”
“I don’t think this has ever happened before.” Varon’s frown hatched lines into his perfect face. “No one here has ever been that closely related to someone in the Upper Pantheon.”
“How do you know?”
“They make us learn the first three generations descended from the Upper Pantheon in our second year.”
“Yeah, V, but her name wasn’t on that list, yet here she is. Maybe it has happened in the past. If they’re not documenting every child born, how do we know we aren’t walking among first generation descendants?”
Sam made a good point, and neither Varon nor I had a good argument. I was still shaken to the core. I didn’t know what to make of this.
“Text the others, let them know we’re clear,” Varon instructed, but I didn’t catch Sam’s response. My mind was moving at light speed, white noise washing out my hearing.
In one way, it made even more sense that my parents had given me up because they didn’t have time for me. When you’re the rulers of the Underworld, it would follow that you’ve got a lot on your plate already. Adding a child who needs constant rearing and attention would probably have detrimental effects on the processing of the dead.
But it also made me hate them a bit more. They were gods, for fuck’s sake. They hadn’t been able to set aside two measly decades of their eternity to be proper parents to me?
The second I thought it, I took it back. I was better off for what they had done. It had given me real parents that loved me more than anything on the planet. I was my mother’s entire world, and my father’s, too, before he died.
I would never trade them for a pair of emotionless deities who couldn’t have cared less about me.
“Hey, come here.” Sam reached out and grasped my wrist, pulling me to a stop. I only then realized I had been pacing across their room. “Fuck, Puff, your pulse is racing. You have to calm down, or you’re going to have a panic attack.”
“No, I’m not. I’ve never had a panic attack before, and I’m not going to have one now.”
“You also never found out that your parents are two very famous, supposedly mythological figures. If ever something was going to bring on a panic attack, that’s probably it, Killer.”
“Take a deep breath for me, in and out.”
“I know how to breathe, Sam. I’ve been doing it my whole life, believe it or not.”
“I know that, Puff. I’m just trying to help.”
I knew he was, but I couldn’t stop myself from being snappy with him. “I didn’t ask you to help me right now. I’m fine. I just… if I could just... I have to…”
Apparently, Sam was smarter than I was because suddenly I realized I wasn’t doing a great job breathing. It was getting harder and harder to inhale as my mind whirled frantically with the knowledge of where I had come from.
What it meant.
What it didn’t.
How it changed me.
How I was just the same as I had ever been.
I felt two large hands cup my cheeks. I forced my vision to focus and looked up into Sam’s eyes. “It’s okay. We’re here.”
