Face of Death (5 page)

He nodded.

I motioned for the group to follow me, putting some distance between us and Chase. I could’ve used the life-restoring power in my blood to heal him in seconds, but I didn’t want to. He needed to feel pain. He needed to know he couldn’t mess with us. I’d let him control me for too long, and I was done.

We moved through the Fields, walking off the events of the day—or days. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been here. I would’ve killed for a hot shower. It was the only thing that really calmed me down. Since learning I was an Ophi, I’d taken more showers than I probably had my entire life.

Leticia grabbed my arm, bringing me to a sudden stop. “Jodi.”

“What?” I looked at her, but her eyes were focused off to my right. “Did you see something?”

I figured it could’ve been any one of our victims. Someone she’d accidentally killed and now they were roaming these Fields for all eternity. I knew, if I saw the hiker or any of the other poor people I’d killed, I’d need more than a moment to freak out and regroup.

“I’m not sure, but isn’t that—?” She pointed to a group of souls, wandering aimlessly. At first I had no idea what she was trying to tell me. There were two women and an older man with them, but none of them looked familiar.

“Leticia, I don’t see—” They parted, and I saw who Leticia was talking about.

Matt.

No. There had to be a mistake. Matt was a good person. He was perfect. He’d never hurt anyone. If anyone should end up in the Elysian Fields, it was him. I moved toward him, determined to prove my eyes were deceiving me. It had to be someone who looked like Matt. Looked like him but wasn’t him. That was the only explanation that made sense to me.

“Jodi.” Alex reached for my arm as he followed. “Don’t. Please, don’t.” He gently tugged on my arm, making me turn to him and breaking me from the spell that had taken hold over my body.

“It can’t be him.” My words shook with the threat of tears. “He was too good to end up here. I have to prove to myself that it’s not him.”

Alex pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me. I buried my head in his chest, breathing in the scent I knew so well. Alex. My Alex. He was home to me—even here. When I was with him, everything else seemed to fade away. Nothing else was important. He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head.

“Don’t torture yourself. Hades is doing enough of that. These Fields are supposed to be a break for us. A place where we can rest for a little while.”

His words didn’t completely register. All I was hearing was that he didn’t want me to go to Matt. Not because he was jealous. Not because he worried I still had feelings for him. Alex didn’t want me going to Matt because then I’d see it really
was
him. It wasn’t a mistake. Instead of being happy in his afterlife in the Elysian Fields, Matt was living like a zombie, wandering around the asphodels.

I pulled away from Alex, looking him in the eyes. “This is my fault, isn’t it?”

“What?” He shook his head. “Jodi, no.”

“Yes, it is. Matt’s judgment, the one that placed him here, it was based on me—his connection to me. I’m sure of it. Hades is punishing me by punishing him.”

“Can he do that?” Leticia asked, coming up behind us with the rest of the group following her.

I looked to Tony, hoping he knew. He shrugged. “He’s the god of the underworld. There’s nothing he can’t do here. I mean, he raised Matt that night in the cemetery, and from what I was told, Matt wasn’t anything like the last time you’d seen him.”

No, he wasn’t. When I’d killed him with my kiss, I’d raised him without knowing what I was doing. I’d brought him back wrong, as a bunny-eating zombie. Hades had brought Matt back human again and very much alive. Until my tears killed him again. Now Matt was here. It had to be my fault.

“Do you think he was in the Elysian Fields when Hades raised him?” I stared at Tony, but he looked away. “Tell me! I need to know if I did this to him.”

Tony sighed, and when he raised his eyes to meet mine, they were full of sympathy. “No one can say that for sure. Only Hades knows.”

“No, someone else here would know. Victoria, maybe.”

Alex rubbed my arms, trying to ease the tension that had worked its way through my entire body. “Victoria and the others are in Tartarus. Believe me, they didn’t see Matt.”

I turned to Alex for a moment before looking in Matt’s direction again. “Abby came here to get us. If she can leave Tartarus, the others probably can, too.”

Alex turned my chin back toward him, taking my eyes off Matt. “Abby only came here to get us. Hades sent her. I doubt he does stuff like that often. He hates Abby and the others just as much as he hates us.”

“Does he? Because they seem to be having a great old time punishing souls. They don’t seem to be in much pain at all.” I looked toward Matt again. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

Alex’s shoulders dropped when he realized I wasn’t letting this go. “He’s not going to be able to talk to you, Jodi. Look at all the souls here. They’re completely spaced out. He won’t even know who you are. He probably doesn’t even know who
he
is.”

“Alex is right,” Tony said. “Going to Matt is only going to torture you more.”

I didn’t care. I had to see him. I had to make sure he wasn’t suffering here. “I need to do this. I know you don’t understand, but I just have to talk to him. Even if he doesn’t respond, there are things I need to say. I won’t have closure until I do this.”

Alex closed his eyes, exhaling loudly and nodding. “Go.”

I reached up on my toes and kissed him. “Thank you.”

He squeezed my hands. “I deserve serious brownie points for this.”

He was right. He deserved credit for a lot of things. I reached up and kissed him again. “Major brownie points. Got it.” I let go of Alex and took a deep breath, bracing myself for the worst. Matt wasn’t going to recognize me. He might not even acknowledge me.

I forced my feet to move in his direction, which wasn’t easy considering Matt was walking in a strange circular pattern. I wasn’t sure what to do, how to approach him, so I fell in step with him, making the crazy pattern.

“Matt?” I kept my voice gentle, not wanting to startle him. He didn’t respond. “Matt, it’s me, Jodi.”

At the mention of my name, he stopped. He did remember me! “Can you look at me?”

He was almost in a trance, staring out over the asphodels. I gently reached for his arm, and he jumped at the contact. I pulled away, afraid I’d scared him, but he turned and faced me. His eyes were glazed over, and he seemed to be looking through me rather than at me.

“Matt? Do you know who I am?”

“Jodi.” My name was so quiet coming from his lips, like a distant memory, which was all I was to him now.

“Yes, Jodi.” I choked back tears. “I was your girlfriend before you came here.”

He didn’t say a word. His head cocked to the side for a second, like he was trying to understand, but his brain wouldn’t process the words. He shook his head in frustration.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to remember. I just want to tell you that I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I really did care about you, and I think I even could’ve loved you if we’d had more time together.”

“Where?” he mumbled.

“Where what?” I looked around, wondering if he was talking about this place. “Where are we? Is that what you’re asking?”

He didn’t respond, but I went on anyway. “This place is called the Fields of Asphodel. You’re in the afterlife, Matt.”

“Gone. Happy. All gone.”

My insides twisted at his broken speech. This place was turning him into a mindless soul. It wasn’t just his speech that was broken.
He
was broken. A shell of who he once was.

“Warmth. Light.”

Was he talking about before he died? Was he wondering why everything was so colorless and cold here? “You aren’t alive anymore, Matt. You…died. I’m so sorry.”

“Not here. Somewhere else. You.” Finally his eyes found mine—really connected. He was seeing me now. “Then gone. Now here.”

“Yes, Matt. I’m so sorry. We were in my backyard. You kissed me, and now…this is your afterlife.”

“No. Found happiness. Gone now.”

Alex had crept up on us, probably because he noticed Matt was actually talking to me—not that I was making any sense of what he was saying. He waved Tony over with a strange look on his face. Did he know what Matt was talking about? The two of them whispered for a moment before Tony approached Matt and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Matt, my name is Tony. I’m a friend of Jodi’s.”

“Jodi,” Matt said.

“Yes, that’s right. Can you tell me if you were somewhere else before you came here? Were you in another afterlife?”

Matt nodded. “Warm. Happy. Not here. Can’t find it.”

My throat closed. Matt was wandering in circles, looking for the Elysian Fields. I knew it. That was where he’d been when Hades brought him back to the cemetery that night. He’d ripped him out of his own version of Heaven, and when I killed Matt again, Hades had sent him here. It wasn’t fair. I had to fix this.

“Matt, I’m going to make this up to you. We’ll find your Heaven again. I promise.”

Tony shook his head at me. “Jodi, you can’t promise that. How do you intend to convince Hades to move Matt to the Elysian Fields? If he’s really using Matt to torture you more, he’ll never listen to reason.”

He was right, and I had no idea how to get to the Elysian Fields anyway. Every time we’d traveled from place to place down here, Hades had us covered in his swirl of black smoke or took control over our bodies, so we only went where he wanted and saw what he wanted. I didn’t even know which direction the Elysian Fields were in.

“I’m not leaving him here. I can’t. This is too much.” My blood boiled under my skin as it mixed in anticipation of using my powers. Only I had nothing to use my powers on. Did I? Then, it hit me. If I wanted Matt to get out of here, I was going to have to do it myself. I was going to have to raise him.

“Jodi, please calm down. I know this isn’t what you wanted, but we have enough to deal with right now. Matt isn’t hurting here.” Alex was trying to reason with me, but he was missing one key thing. Matt
was
hurting.

“He is, Alex. He’s in pain because he used to be in Heaven. He used to be happy. Hades took that away from him because of me. If I can’t get him back there, then I’ll get him out of here.”

Alex wrinkled his brow. “You’re talking in riddles.”

Great, a little trick I’d learned from all the Ophi prophecies about me, no doubt.

“Jodi.” Tony was trying to use kid gloves on me, talking slowly and keeping his voice gentle. “This is one thing you are just going to have to accept, to let go.”

“No.” My mind was made up. I wasn’t letting this go. I wasn’t going to accept this. Matt deserved better, and I was going to give it to him.

Alex took my face in his hands. “That part of your life is over. I know that hurts sometimes, but you have to move on.” His eyes pleaded with me. I knew how this looked to him. Like I was worrying about yet another guy who wasn’t him. I didn’t want him to feel that way. I loved Alex. He was everything to me. But Matt was in here because of me, and I had the power to do something about it. I couldn’t just ignore that to keep Alex from getting his feelings hurt. We were talking about eternity versus a moment of unhappiness. I wouldn’t damn Matt to this place for the rest of time to keep Alex from a little discomfort. It wasn’t fair.

“Tony, can I have a minute alone with Alex, please?”

He looked back and forth between us and then at Matt, who obviously had gotten tired of standing there and had wandered off again in his circular pattern. “I’ll be right over there if you need me.” I wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Did he think Alex would need help getting me to listen to reason?

As soon as he was out of earshot, I hugged Alex and said, “Do you trust me?”

He pulled away slightly. “Don’t make this into a trust thing.”

“When you hear what I have in mind, you’ll understand what I mean.”

“Let me do one thing before you tell me, because I have a feeling I’m going to get royally pissed, and I need to do something first.” He leaned down, pressing his lips to mine. My blood tingled throughout my body in response to him. I knew he didn’t need it, and I hoped he wouldn’t think I was using my blood to sway his opinion at all, but I allowed my power to transfer to him. He instantly deepened the kiss, pulling me closer.

I didn’t want him to stop, but I had to talk to him. I had to say this before I lost my nerve. When he kissed me like this, my mind became mush. All I could think about was him, and I could already feel thoughts of Matt slipping away.

I pulled my mouth from his. “Alex.” He tried to find my lips again, but I turned away. He found my neck instead, trailing his lips down to my collarbone. I couldn’t think straight. I shivered from the chills he was sending down my spine. My lips found his. The more he kissed me, the more power I sent him. It was my body’s natural reaction to the pleasure he was causing me.

I was losing this battle of wills. I forgot about Matt. I forgot about my plan to get us out of here. My fingers found Alex’s hair, weaving through his unruly and totally sexy dirty-blond locks. His lips found my neck, making me moan. The world stood still. I may have been in the underworld, but I was in Heaven with Alex.

Something bumped into me, and I turned slightly to see Matt. He’d broken his pattern and walked right into me. Alex continued to kiss any part of me his lips could find. I gently pushed him away.

“Alex.” He tried to pull me to him. “Alex.” I was firmer this time, but he still wasn’t stopping.

“Jodi,” Matt said. I nearly fainted. He’d said my name, without me talking to him first.

Alex stopped, jolted back to reality by the sound of my name coming from Matt. Alex looked at me, completely confused.

“He walked into us.” I felt my cheeks redden. Matt may not have been totally coherent, but having my ex-boyfriend walk into me kissing my new boyfriend still felt awkward as all hell.

“He recognized you again.” Alex wasn’t happy about this. Part of me wanted to go back to kissing him and make him forget about Matt and the way he held onto my memory. But if Matt was reaching out to me, it meant my plan might actually have a shot.