Our Soul Divided

18| Home

Athena

My breath is shaky and stuttering. I can't focus on anything but the sounds of chaos coming from above me. My ears are zoned in and waiting for the sound of someone moving the mattress, but there is only gunfire, and screaming, loud rumbles of destruction.

I feel like I can't breathe. Even though I'm trying to avoid thinking about what might be happening up there, I am trying even harder to avoid thinking about what might be happening to Stetson. I can't lose him, not now, I can't lose both of them.

I close my eyes and start to count to focus on anything else. One, two, three, four...

A loud band startles me and I screw my eyes shut.

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen...

More sounds of mayhem invade my ears and I squeeze my knees in a hug and keep going.

Three hundred and fifty-four, three hundred and fifty-five...

I think I can hear his voice and a tear rolls down my cheek.

"Take him..."

I hear soft footsteps above me and my breath catches, but the mattress doesn't move.

I hear Ridley's deep voice above me, but I can't make out what he says. And then Ryder's.

"Wha–where is he going?"

Where is who going? Stetson? Where is he going? What's happening?

Counting. I have to keep calm. Where was I?

Three hundred and fifty-seven, Three-hundred fifty-eight...

Somewhere in the four hundred range the sounds of wrecking stop and there is almost silence with the exception of a voice every now and then.

Closing in on five hundred, I hear footsteps again. This time heavier, and there is more than one set. I start to lose control of my breathing again, and then I hear the mattress slide away. My heart is beating so hard that it hurts and I think it might burst right through my chest.

When the hatch opens to let in the light from above, I realize that I feel like I've been down here for days. I wait for a voice or something before I move from the dark corner.

"Athena?" I hear Stetson call. And before my name is fully formed I am scrambling from the corner to the hole above my head.

His face appears, suffused with specks of blood, sweat, and dirt. He looks like a traumatized Peter Pan who's just come home from a war with pirates, but strangely... he's smiling.

I reach up to grasp his extended hand with both of mine and he lifts me from the hole with ease until I am able to climb over the lip of the hatch. We are alone in the room, but I hear voices outside.

I get a better look at him and there is, in fact, blood splattered all over him. "Stetson, are you okay?" I reach for his face.

He hauls me into his body with both arms and kisses me as if I'm all he needs. I kiss him back until he breaks away. "It's not my blood, I'm okay, but I have something to show you. And it's... it's a lot."

My heart starts beating faster and it seems like the world is moving in slow motion...

Stetson's eyes blink, and when he opens them, they are refocused on the doorway to his room. I hear footsteps, and then a red-clad arm pushes the tattered curtain back. He ducks and enters the room and stands straight.

Time stops and his green eyes widen as they clash with mine. His lips part and a lock of nearly black hair falls over his forehead. A breath rushes from his lungs and it's the loudest thing in the room. My arms slip from Stetson's midsection, and he releases me slowly.