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Chapter 8
Elyse
The only way to deal with everything going wrong in my life was to work out. Training wasn’t only my day job these days, it was also my escape. I pushed myself so hard that thinking about my problems was out of the question.
And I had a hell of a lot to escape from.
Since X took Catina, there’d been no sign of her. I didn’t know where he was keeping her, and it ate me up inside each time I thought about what she’d be going through. Was she still alive? I’d searched all over Chicago, looking everywhere I could think of, and anywhere that was darker than it should have been. Old buildings, rundown joints, and even the underground tunnels.
I wiped my cheeks of tears.
I’d asked Poseidon to call an audience with Zeus to help us out, but he insisted calling him might not necessarily result in the answer we wanted. He wouldn’t say anymore, so I left it. Some things were better left unsaid when it came to Zeus. If Heracles said Zeus’s help came with more complications, I believed it.
X was connected to Hades, and only Hades had power over him, not Zeus. A situation the king of Mount Olympus had created when he segmented the Earth and straight divided it between him and his brothers. So it came back to Hades. Always him. Which the other gods were on top of, they insisted. They were running around to find Catina and telling me to stay safe and keep training. But it killed me to sit back. Especially when all of us had no clue where X was hiding.
A sickness sat permanently in my chest, and I could barely eat since my thoughts were with my friend every second of the day.
Catina’s job was on the line as Tina had called me looking for her, threatening to fire her if she didn’t appear. And while that wasn’t as high a priority as her life, Catina would be devastated to lose the job she adored and had worked so hard to keep. For that reason, I opened a missing persons file at the police station. Tina couldn’t fire her if this wasn’t Catina’s fault. So, she’d at least have a job once she returned.Please let her come back in one piece.
Of course, the police wouldn’t find her. Even if they put their best detectives on the job. But they wouldn’t do that, anyway. Too many people were nowhere to be found in Chicago, too many other crimes took precedence. She was just another missing persons case.
It only pissed me off more, even though I’d knew this would be the outcome. What about the families out there who had no hope but to rely on the cops for their absent loved ones? On the bright side, Catina’s parents were alive, so the cops could contact them to ask questions about her disappearance.
I was beating the living shit out of a punching bag at the training center. I hadn’t wrapped my hands; I’d barely warmed up, but so much pent-up anger and stress and sorrow burrowed inside me. And I had no idea how else to deal with the fiery anger burning me up. Grief surged with every exhale, and nothing I did soothed the agony and regret over the fact that I should have kept my distance from Catina. Then X wouldn’t have targeted her. The emptiness in my heart left me hollow, and numbness thundered in my head. Tears crammed in the corners of my eyes, and I wiped the moisture with a shoulder. But I kept hitting the bag. Harder. Faster. Until it hurt so much I felt nothing else.
“Are you trying to kill it?” Ares asked behind me. I stared at him in the full-length mirror behind the punching bag. He wore jeans and a muscle tee. It seemed that look was his thing. He also had a pair of wraparound sunglasses on his head that looked silly with his hair cropped so short. Ares had never fit in, yet it worked on him perfectly.
I ignored him and kept hitting. He couldn’t make this pain go away, so I’d do it myself.
“Elyse,” he said. “Stop.”
No fucking way. I slammed the bag harder and harder.
“Elyse.” Ares’s voice climbed, and suddenly he stood next to me. He grabbed my wrists to stop me from striking and held them so we could both see my hands. My knuckles were raw and there were smears of blood smudged across the bag.
“Fight me instead,” Ares insisted.
I frowned. “I’ll get blood on your shirt.”
“Yeah, I don’t care about that. Seriously. Fight me. It will help.”
I avoided eye contact with him. “I’m not going to hit you, Ares. I just need to blow off some steam.”
“And combat is how you do it. I get it. Trust me, if there’s anyone who gets it, it’s me. It helps when you’re battling someone. That poor bag doesn’t stand a chance, and you won’t feel better, anyway.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. Why was he so nice? Then I remembered our kiss, and how incredible he felt, how he made me forget myself.
“I’m not here to look for trouble,” he said in a soft voice, as if he’d heard my thoughts. “You should know that by now.”
I was starting to know Ares a little better, and he was nothing like what I’d first thought. Of course, I still remained wary of him, but that worry was born from stories I’d heard from others, and from what the history books said about him. I was realizing they were all wrong.
“Fine,” I agreed. “But you’re not dressed for it.”
Ares pulled down his jeans.
“Jesus,” I said when he stood in front of me with just his jock strap on, his package as clear as day. Were my cheeks burning up?
“Better?” He winked.
