36. at last, a different perspective
A P O L L O
(this chaper is in Apollo's POV)
I'M STATIONED OUTSIDE the room, pacing about back and forth and hoping that everything works out smoothly and that Gayle will make it out alive.
My hope dwindles every time I hear her screams from behind the door. I know that she's unconscious, and that for now she has no clue what is going on but her screams are throwing me off.
"What did you do?" Ariel's voice blares through the halls as she marches towards me, brows furrowed and lips pursed into a straight line. "I gave you an order, I told you to send her home."
"Would you just cool it with the queen bitch routine? I did what's best for her." I retort. I've had just about enough of Ariel's attitude. I don't know what happened to her the year I was gone, but she's not the same.
Well, for her it was a year. For me it was an eternity. Time works differently in Tartarus, it stretches on like a loop of eternal torment.
I brush those thoughts away, pushing down the chill racing down my spine and the goosebumps emerging on my skin as flashes of my time down there surface from my memories.
I think about it often. Too often. Sometimes when I close my eyes I can still feel it, every single whip and crackle of pain I underwent in hell.
It was harder being human, needing to sleep every so often. I would always awake in a pool of cold sweats, praying that it was just a dream and that I wasn't back there.
Ariel frowns. "Do you realise how dangerous this is? She could die–"
"Don't you think I know that?" My voice cracks at the end of the sentence as my eyes meet Ariel's hazel ones. She's taken aback. "This is all your fault! You're the one who swiped her memories the first time, you're the reason she's damaged!" I growl, anger clouding my better judgement.
Ariel takes a step back, realisation dawning on her face as she tears her gaze away from me and looks down, ashamed. "Apollo, you know that if I knew that memory wiping had these consequences, I wouldn't have–"
"It's too late for all of that." I snap. Suddenly I feel cold, much like when I was a human. The thought of Gayle not making it out alive haunts me. The look in her eyes before she agreed, the pure unadulterated resolve to do what's right for a soul that tortured her, garnered her sleepless nights for days on end.
I knew something was wrong, despite what she might think. From the moment she woke up, I knew she was lying to me, I'm the god of truth for fucksakes, of course I knew... but I couldn't figure out why she was lying to me, what she was lying about. I figured it was personal. Never had I imagined that Cyrene would threaten to take over, to imprison her in her own mind.
This is all my fault. If I hadn't let Cyrene die in the first place... if I–
I pull myself out of the well of thoughts I've fallen into, realising that I've somehow wound up on the ground, leaning against the door as Gayle's tortured screams continue to echo through the halls.
I feel tears prickle my eyes, threatening to spill loose at the sound of Gayle possibly not making it. It's been hours now, she's been screaming like that for hours on end and there's no signs of stopping.
I bang the back of my head against the door, resenting Psyche for not allowing me to stay in the room with them. Maybe I could help, maybe I could do something to protect her.
The sound of heels clicking against the marble flooring forces me to glance into the distance, where wild curly locks are flowing behind Thalia, a troubled look flashing in her dark brown eyes.
Hercules is following behind her, panting heavily as another one of Gayle's screams emerge from the room.
A tear streams down Thalia's face at the sound, and she pushes her feet further and faster, eyes darting between Ariel and I.
"Wh- what happened?!" She heaves, stopping just before the door, looking down on me. Hercules stops just behind her, gripping her hand in his own to calm her down.
I force myself up from the ground and pull Thalia into a hug, feeling her arms wrap around my shoulders comfortingly.
I feel completely helpless.
A crease forms in the space between Thalia's eyebrows as she pats my back warmly. Even though she's comforting me, her face is pale, her whole body is frozen with fear and she doesn't quite understand what is happening.
So, I pull myself from her embrace and I start to explain everything. She notes every single one of my words, alongside Hercules who's lips are downturned into a frown. They both nod in understanding, and when I finally explain that Gayle might not make it, Thalia breaks. Tears are streaming down her freckled cheeks.
She hurls herself into Hercules' arms. He just wraps his arms around her as she cries. He, too has a grim expression on his face, but he remains calm for her, whispering sweet nothings in her ears to calm her down.
"I wasn't here for her." She mumbles to herself continuously on a loop, over and over.
Eventually it all calms down. I decide to take a walk to clear my head, silently hoping that Gayle is fine and awake by the time I return, that she's got some snarky remark for me when I open the doors.
I can just hear her now; I'm back, loser, and I'm starving, got any mac and cheese?
Despite her looking exactly like Cyrene, they are nothing like each other. Cyrene was always stiff and inflexible. She was always an orderly young princess with her node hiked up haughtily, looking down on everybody and everything, never at all changing it up.
While Gayle on the other hand, she's a wild spirit. She's yet to turn down an exciting new adventure and as impulsive as it gets.
She's just your average girl... yet she's so much more than that.
"Well, that isn't the face I'd expect to see on somebody who's about to get their long lost fated love back." Artemis' voice removes me from my thoughts.
Somehow, I've wound up by the bar.
My twin sister is sat on a bar stool, cradling a glass of whiskey in her hands. She's dressed in a black suit, like some kind of secret agent. I know Gayle would have a lot to say about that.
She slides a glass in my direction. I know that this is her way of telling me to sit down besides her, so I comply, taking the whisky into my hands and downing it all in one go.
We sit in silence for a while, completely soaking it up as I lose myself in thoughts of her, of Gayle.
Artemis arches a brow. "Talk to your big sister," she sighs, massaging her temples with her index fingers. "You don't seem all that excited to be seeing Cyrene again."
"Seeing her again at the cost of what? An innocent life?" I retort, filling my glass back up with whisky at the flick of my fingers and downing it all again.
Artemis snorts. "Since when does the life of an insignificant little spec of human specimen matter to you, to any of us? There are another eight billion of them just roaming around."
"She's not–" I take a deep breath, collecting myself before completely snapping at Artemis. "She's not just another human being."
Artemis' eyes widen in realisation as she takes another sip of her whiskey. "Gods, brother. Don't tell me you've fallen for her too?" She drawls tiredly with the roll of her eyes.
My first instinct is to deny it, but as I try to find the words to defend myself, my mind falls completely blank. All I can think about is her, all I can think about is how noble it was of her to sacrifice herself like that. She thought she was doing the right thing, well she was wrong.
The one that I need is her, not Cyrene.
"You know not what you speak of." I deadpan, failing to meet my sister's gaze.
"You seem to have forgotten that the last time I saw you, brother, your tongue was stuck down her throat." It feels like she's scolding me. Her brow is arched judgmentally and her lips are pursed into a stern, straight line.
Her brown eyes are lined with only one, simple, unmistakable emotion.
Disgust.
My mind drifts away from my sister's Holier than Thou expression and back to the time Gayle and I kissed, to when I threw every last bit of caution to the wind and gave into my darkest desires.
I tried to regret doing it, but every now and again my mind would drift back to that momentous night, how in that fatal moment I knew that if Cyrene was ever to return, nothing would be the same.
Artemis snorts, rolling her eyes as her usual chiseled stony expression slit back onto her face, any trace of amusement or any other emotion having left like it was never there to begin with. "What is it that the mortals say?" She thinks for a moment, placing her index finger on her chin before a light reaches her normally dark and sullen eyes. "Ah, yes... cat got your tongue?"
I scowl at her, wanting so badly to prove her wrong but finding that I am once again, unable to find the words. "We were just drunk and it happened in the moment. It was all Eros' fault, the bloody bastard."
Artemis arches a brow again, a skeptical look etching itself onto her hard face. "You and I both know that all Eros did was allow you to act on your deepest desires. You kissed her because you wanted to..." she waves her hand in the air, pushing her drink away and watching it disappear into thin air. "Apollo. You fall in love like a bird flaps its wings, and because of that you will lose the one you truly care for. I refuse to speak of this any longer– we have more pressing matters to attend to than some inconsequential mortal girl." She snarls, eyes darkening.
"While you've been running rampant with the girl, we've been recruiting armies. We've enlisted the help of every god not imprisoned on Mount Olympus to help. Hades was more than willing to offer up his army, which gives us about a hundred thousand soldiers. My hunt only consists of a hundred skilled huntresses and... and damnit, Poseidon has disappeared. We haven't been able to reach out to him." I arch a brow at her words, pushing aside thoughts of Gayle and focusing whole-heartedly on Artemis and the pressing tone in her voice.
"You amuse me, dearest sister." I reply, leaning back into my chair languidly.
Artemis grits her teeth in irritation at my words. "And why is that?" She frowns, tucking her arms into her chest.
"I thought you'd turn tale and run at the first sign of Zeus' return... yet here you are, plotting war strategies with us? My, my sister, don't tell me you've finally realised that your beloved father is a raving lunatic?" I drawl disinterestedly, hurling an unimpressed glare in her direction.
Artemis falters for a moment, her usual hard and composed facade slipping away for a moment. An emotion I've never had the pleasure of seeing on her face flashes through her big brown eyes.
Fear.
This urges me to sit up in my chair, my arm instinctively darting out to comfortable her.
In all my millennia alive, I've never seen Artemis afraid.
"No father of mine conspires with titans to bring about our demise!" She growls, sighing, she turns to me. "Apollo... you saw how badly wounded we were when we came in. The fact that the three of us were able to escape is a miracle." She turns to me, goosebumps appearing on her suddenly very pale skin. "All that damage, and all it took was one titan." Her eyes find mine. For the first time ever, a sense of hopelessness washes over Artemis' face as she utters her next words.
"And he didn't even lift a finger."