A Pawn For Time (Daughter of the Olympians #1)

(18) Remembering

*

I cleared my throat. My parents stared at me, waiting for an explanation. Wait, when did Artemis and Dionysus get back? I avoided eye contact.

"Well? Get on with it girl," Hera growled. How long was I gone? I looked out my window. The starry night shined with luminescent light. It was afternoon when I left, right?

I sighed. "I went to meet Hades," I confessed," I needed to talk to him."

"You couldn't wait until tomorrow?" Demeter asked. She looked pretty upset. She must really not like Hades. I shook my head.

"Katherine, what you did was terribly wrong. You could of gotten hurt or lost and we can't let that happen," Athena said.

"All I did was visit him. I didn't run into monsters or anything," I mumbled.

"It doesn't matter, Katherine. Hades may be your dad, but he can't be trusted. Not completely," Poseidon paused. He looked straight at me. "How did you even get to the Underworld?"

Everyone looked at me. I popped my fingers and pursed my lips. "I shadow traveled," I stated simply.

Zeus and Athena exchanged glances. "You're kidding, right?" Hermes asked hopefully.

"Uh, no. I definitely shadow travelled there. Why is that so hard to believe?" I asked raising my eyebrows.

"To start with, we never taught you how to shadow travel. That's not our forte. Second, how did you even make it to the Underworld in a straight shot without crash landing somewhere first?" Artemis asked me. "Have you shadow travelled before? And what did you have to say to Hades that you couldn't say to us?"

I fumbled with a loose thread on my jacket. I looked down. Should I just tell them now?

Don't tell them. We can't trust them with this, Hades' voice reminisced in my head. Maybe I could just tell some of the story.

I took in a deep breath. "Honestly," I said exhaling," I don't know."

I looked up at them. They had a look of confusion on their faces. Well, besides Dionysus. He looked like he could care less.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Hephaestus asked, breaking the silence. I looked up and shut my eyes.

"What I mean is I really don't know. I'm missing three years of memory. That is what I had to tell Hades. I didn't want to tell you because," I paused, "I didn't know how you would react."

Everyone was quiet again. "How do you know for sure that you don't remember three years?" Athena asked. Her brows were furrowed. I could almost see the gears turning in her head, trying to figure out the puzzle.

"I woke up in an alleyway in Manhattan. I looked at a newspaper stand and it said 1990," I said still looking up.

"Yeah, so?" Ares asked. Artemis elbowed him in the gut and motioned for me the continue.

"Well, when I was first knocked out, the year was 1987. 3 years earlier. What I did in those three years..." I shrugged my shoulders.

"Why didn't you think to come to us with this?" Zeus asked timidly.

Because there is more to the story. "Because I didn't think you'd understand," I said ignoring my thoughts.

I opened my eyes and looked back at my parents. They all looked at me with the same expression on their faces. Concern.

Zeus nodded. "We will get to the bottom of this. I promise you we will." He said. Everyone agreed. "Now good night, Katherine. Never do that again. You could of gotten seriously injured, or worse."