Dead Lines

37: Enter the Corn Maze

Unedited

Chapter Thirty-Seven

"The first time I went through one of these, they dragged me."

"Kicking and screaming?"

Like he had to ask? "I'm not one to be taken quietly." I looked over at Chris, long and hard. "What does he know? About me? How badly did you betray me?" I asked.

There were a few things I wanted to clear up. Caelus was one of them. And maybe I should've asked these questions before but now or never sounded good with the shimmery portal to hell waiting to sweep us off.

The reflected light looked like sunrays coming off a pool and made weird patterns on his face. They meshed with his life lines and cast shadows, reminding me of the night I found out he was Elite. How angry he looked.

"He knew about you before I entered camp. When I offered up information, he said there was nothing I could tell him that he didn't already know. Said he'd been watching you since you were born. I think it might've been longer."

"How—"

"They've rigged both of our lives, Natalie," he said with anger. "Don't you get that? We are the product of what they wanted. Is it so hard to believe they kept an eye on us? Made sure they learned every detail. They get into your head, tell you what you want to hear, make you believe things that aren't true. Caelus led me to believe you were nothing more than a sacrifice. The past didn't matter, nothing we went through together mattered."

"I think you know more than you're telling."

"There is plenty I know and not telling you. Most of its useless though."

"Like what?"

He was opening up a bit and I would be stupid not to find out whatever he cared to share. But what he shared wasn't what I expected.

"How New York City looked before electricity came. How to plant a field and make it grow." He stared into the swirling glow of the portal. "When you've lived as long as I have, you pick up tons of useless knowledge. Remember things others don't."

Something occurred to me and I couldn't help but ask, "What is your real name?"

He glanced over at me. "My parents were German immigrants, new to this country a few months before I came along. I was born Christoph Adolf Schaefer in New York City. They wanted their sons to be American and so we were. But then we moved from the city to the country and were considered outsiders. To prove we were just like them, my oldest brother and I enlisted in the army when we were old enough. I saw him fall to a British bayonet a year later. Saw friends butchered by the Indians—war is not pretty, no matter what century you're in or who you're fighting. His loss stays with me through every lifetime Persephone stole for me. His death haunts me."

His jaw was clenched as a solitary tear traced down his face. His life lines were still, hiding the fact he was Elite but the emotion blaring from his eyes as he stared was obvious. He'd lived lifetimes, felt pain beyond imagining, but—

"You miss him."

"I've had countless siblings and even more families but my first family—they were mine. I came from them. You said once, that I turned my back on people who loved me but to me they never loved me. They loved the boy who was supposed to live that life, a soul who was condemned to the Underworld so I could live. It made it easier to think of it like that, that they weren't my true families. None of it ever felt real once the real me surfaced."

"You became disconnected."

He nodded. "I was able to shed those lives like a second skin and become who I was supposed to. But this last life—everything stayed with me. All the emotions. Everything that happened. I wasn't able to forget, set this life aside. I was adrift since my first family, Natalie, and this life anchored me once more, refused to let me go like I always did when Persephone showed up to reveal the truth. And I know it's because of you. You make things different. This life is so unlike the others and it's how I knew, deep down, this would be the last. I both hated and loved you for it. I've done terrible things in the name of love but this last time, I get to do one final, great thing."