Hunter: The Reckoning

Chapter 8

I wanted to feel bad for the staff that remained at the restaurant yet it was mostly their fault, because they refused to leave and I wasn't in a rush to go anywhere. I sat on a lounge that hadn't been by the window when I arrived, curled up in a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate cradled in my hands with no intention of leaving any time soon and none of them knew what to do.

Well, now they had a glimpse of what it was like to live my life.

The world before me was from another planet. A beautiful, isolated one with an endless sky of diamonds above a landscape that was glowing silver. I couldn't see the moon to know it was the source, I didn't have to as nothing else could light up the night how it did. For a while there i considered going for a walk to get completely lost in the cold to try numb some of what I was feeling, or at least scream into the abyss of the valley while there was no one else to hear but Blueberry kept me grounded enough to know neither of things were really options right now. Super hot baths are not recommended during pregnancy and icy hikes are probably frowned upon as well.

The second I felt his presence I sighed; relief or was it disappointment briefly followed before I titled my head back to see his face as he appeared.

"Do you want to be alone?" Cain asked softly, leaning down to kiss my forehead.

"Alone but with you is my favourite kind. I was hoping if I waited long enough, Hecate would come by." I admitted. "Make sense of everything or make it worse."

"It went that well, huh?" He sat beside me as I created space for him, willingly sharing my blanket as we got comfortable with each other. "Honestly, I wasn't sure how I'd find you. I sensed she'd gone, but you never came back to us."

"Sorry. Im fine enough. She said the fourth isn't what we want it to be, and that this time it would be up to me to create the balance. She, he, they, this fourth myth doesn't exist anymore and anything they left behind are just, trinkets"

"And you dont believe that?"

"No. She got a little more helpful after I, um, lightly, threatened her. Pissed her off a little. She told me about this whole, twin flame deal and get this, Hecate is like, an original soul, like one of the ones before they all got destroyed or split up."

That had him quiet, Cain's attention drifting beyond the view much like how I'd just spent the last hour and a half. "Makes a lot of sense actually, and explains most of what I've never been able to understand about her. She created the Crossroads, and no one in history has been able to do something like that."

"You made three superior human races, that's pretty impressive too. If you hadn't, I would never exist." I point out.

"That was different and you can't know that for sure." He shrugged it off, yet looked at his watch that I had never noticed before but let it go.

Cain wearing a watch wasn't something to think about when I already had an infinite amount of what if's, could haves and should have beens with everything else.

"I just keep thinking it over, trying to find the angle she was coming from, or a clue she was giving me in that unclear way they all talk. Other than Uranus really isn't someone we want to win this, they can't directly fight each other hence the need for toy soldiers to do it for them, and a heads up on why Hecate is how she is, all I can really take from it is this is a favourite restaurant of hers and they make a good mocktail. Oh and I think she's a cult leader."

"Ah. Right. Well maybe that's all you need to take away from it then and the rest, will-"

"Don't say what will be will be." I warn.

"It will work itself out." He shrugged.

"That's just as bad."

"Forget it then. Let's focus on what we do know. Ares and Artemis are off gathering our allies, we keep preparing for this battle that's coming and I did something that can take your mind off all of it, if you feel up to a class that might help prepare us for what's coming."