Crow of Flame

Chapter 36

Sapphire

I think it's weird that I'm expected to process what happened to me. I've spent my whole life pushing things down, and allowing things to happen to me. I've spent so much time just trying to survive and not feel the bad things, that I had forgotten that to truly live you needed to feel the good and the bad. You needed to experience the highs and the lows because if you don't, then you're a ghost walking in a plane of numbness.

It's been a week and a half since I almost lost it in front of Erebus. When he came into my room that first day, I had been in the middle of reliving my time with Poseidon. I wasn't in a good place. But at least I got out of bed... At least I spoke and laughed and played, if only for an hour or two.

I had been getting better too. I would slip into depressive episodes where all I could feel was Poseidon's hands roaming my body like he owned it. And sometimes that thought took me over, because he kind of did own it. That was the blood bond we made. He, basically, owned my body. But he didn't own my mind, and ultimately my mind was stronger than that.

Erebus had been a nuisance this past week and a half. He was always hanging around, making short comments at me. He spoke to me like I was a child. Like I couldn't take him down with a flick of my pinky. He only really spoke to me though. It was like he wasn't comfortable around my friends. Specifically, Lynx, Eliot, Cadmus, and Aeros. I think Orion was still being fed Blacksight because he was still acting strange. Sometimes Theodore and Aeros would keep us separated. But that became a rare occurrence. Having all of the elements together felt right, no matter if one of us was drugged.

Erebus kept giving Orion the strangest looks though, like he knew that at any point Orions could flip into a monster without control. I needed to find out who was feeding the Blacksight to him, and who was controlling him, and if anyone else was affected. I worried for my friends safety. More than mine. I could take care of myself. I could fight without killing and I don't think anyone wanted me dead, but my friends would be obstacles.

Just the thought sent a shiver down my spine as I sat at the breakfast table between Hades and Erebus. Ares hadn't sat next to me since Erebus arrived. And today, he only sat and glowered at Orion across the table. I was slowly eating some French toast, and bacon, and I was just kind of staring at him. What was his problem?

Casual conversations in hushed tones filled the room. Today there was no game of insults passed around the table. I had tried sleeping without Hades last night and when he came into my room at one this morning, the entire thing was set ablaze and he could see, pictured in the fire, my worst encounter with Poseidon. And he sat and held me and told me it was alright and stayed until morning when Obi and Lynx came to relieve him of duty.

That's another routine that had developed. Obi and Lynx would watch me so Hades could take care of himself. I didn't feel right pulling Ambrose away from Theodore for no other reason than I couldn't control my mind...

So no one spoke much to me this morning. No one told Kronos, Ares, or the ladies (that's what we've begun to call Aphrodite, Persephone, and Selene), I think they just read the room and knew I wasn't much up for conversation. Today I wore training clothes to breakfast because I could barely work up the courage to get out of bed.

I was wearing a forest green cropped top with a matching sports bra beneath, and little black spandex shorts. Erebus' gaze trailed my body as I came in, but I didn't have the will to fight today. I just wanted to flow through the formalities demanded of me and go back to bed. Or bounce, or sit in my pond, or fight... Anything but be here with a bunch of people who don't know me as well as they think they do.

"You're awfully quiet today," Erebus observed, "are you well?"

I didn't look at him. I was just pushing barely eaten food around my plate. "Quite." I said quietly.