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I really was an asshole.
I leaped into the fight, helping her against X. Because as strong as she was, and as determined she was, she was still mortal and X was almost a god, like me.
“What are you doing here?” she snarled when I appeared beside her. We fought side by side, but we weren’t in unity. “Change your mind? Bored again?”
X started using a lot more power behind his hits, and Elyse was driven back, her expression fierce. She wasn’t giving up, and she carried a lot of her own energy, but she wasn’t used to fighting with her magic. This was where I came in—manipulating magic was like breathing for a god. Perhaps it was a crutch since we wouldn’t have been able to live without it.
“I’m here to help you,” I declared.
“Bullshit. You only ever help yourself. What will you gain from this?”
“Believe it or not, I don’t want you hurt.” I pushed X away with my magic, throwing as much force into him as I could. My skin buzzed as my attack shot out from my hands.
But he didn’t stumble backward. He was immune to me—he was a part of me, after all.
He laughed, blowing out a long breath that rattled his lips. “Look at you, trying to be the hero. Had to save your little damsel in distress?”
X threw another fiery ball at me that did the same to me as my power did to him. It was like fighting against myself. Except I wasn’t a murderer. All I wanted was to live in peace for a little while, to forget what everyone had done to me. I’d been ignoring it for so long, hoping, praying to be left alone. But it looked like that just wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m sick and tired of not knowing who you are,” Elyse shouted. The fight increased in intensity, the power so strong, she was starting to buckle under it, driven backward. Her arms trembled, but the fire in her eyes blazed, willing her to keep going. “Why can’t you just decide if you want me or not and stick with it?”
I couldn’t answer. But even if I could, X didn’t give me a chance. Instead, he moved in a flash and snatched Elyse’s arm, then disappeared with her.
“Fuck!” No way would I let her suffer the same fate as her human friend. But X had something else in mind for her, didn’t he? After all, he wanted to kill her so she wouldn’t be a problem for him anymore. It didn’t take a lot for me to understand his thinking. It made sense—in an alternate reality, that was what I’d do, too.
I followed the darkness, moving through the air in a flow of magic that prickled down my flesh, until we took form again at the top of a building in downtown Chicago. For some reason, X had taken us far away from my place, the quiet neighborhood where I’d decided to hole up.
And I knew exactly why.
Here in the middle of the city, even though it was nighttime, many more humans could get hurt. Even if X didn’t consume them, Death drove him. It didn’t matter how he killed them; he’d make sure he took down the whole building and destroyed a lot more than just Elyse.
“You’re so fucking predictable,” I shouted at X. He was trying to fight Elyse, but he spun around when he heard me. “You’re not going to get away with this. I won’t allow it.”
He laughed and lunged at me. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he hissed. “You couldn’t stop me even if you tried. I’m part of you. Doesn’t it scare you, knowing you have this in you? That this death is really a part of you?”
He attacked me, and we fought, our magic pressing up against each other, our power battling it out all around us while we punched and kicked.
With a cry, Elyse jumped into the battle, too. Her scythe sang as it lashed through the air and the sharp edge connected with X’s back. It wasn’t as though she could kill him, but he definitely felt pain, and he cried out with a screech nothing short of demonic. He turned on her and unleashed his darkness, wrapping it around her, using it to suffocate her like a straitjacket.
Her eyes rolled in their sockets, and she gasped for air she wouldn’t get. Panic latched on to my chest, squeezing me. X was going to kill her, and even if she bounced back, it would be the last death she could recover from. That was his plan.
I couldn’t let it happen and cracked my knuckles.
“No!” I cried out. “This isn’t part of me.” I attacked X, and we fought each other. Our power flared, growing around us. We shrouded the top of the building in darkness and energy. A storm of Underworld magic.
“Get out of here!” I shouted to Elyse, wherever she was. “He’s going to kill you!”
X chuckled, the sound forced and bitter. “Too late, little Hades. You think you can stop this, but you can’t. When you drew the short straw, this became your inheritance, your legacy. Nothing follows you around but death.”
Then, suddenly, X was gone. He disappeared, and I was alone on top of the building. I looked around.
“Elyse!” I called, frantic. She wasn’t here, and she was supposed to be standing on the rooftop. I’d told her to leave, but she was a human and she would’ve used the stairs. And that door remained shut.
When I couldn’t see her, my stomach dropped. She could only be in one place. I ran to the edge of the building and looked down. The street was horribly far away, since this building was tall. I ran around, looking on each side. On the third side, I saw her, and my blood ran cold.
She lay at the bottom of the building, her legs twisted at unnatural angles. People scrambled on the street. They must have seen her fall.
I disappeared and reappeared at her side, not caring who saw me. Blood seeped from a crack in her head, ran out of her nose and ears, and her lifeless eyes stared into the distance. I grabbed her lifeless body and let out a cry that had everyone in the street looking at me in shock. Grief expelled with every breath, smothering me, clawing at my heart. Time stood still, and icy tendrils embraced me.
I told her I wouldn’t help her, but I never wanted this for her. I’d tried to stop X, but somehow she still died. I hadn’t been the one who’d killed her—I’d kept him busy. Elyse must have tripped and fallen off the edge, unable to see with all the darkness cloaking her.
After everything she’d been through, this was almost ironic. I’d killed her before, then she’d taken her own life, but in the end, her third death—the last she could recover from—had been a pure accident. Though I still blamed the fuckhead X because she wouldn’t have been in danger if not for him.
