Authors: Taylor Lavati
"Do you want to do it?" I look over at Shane, who's concentrating hard on holding onto Hermes' arm. His biceps shake beneath his skin, and I know we don't have much time. I offer him the chance of a lifetime. He can kill the evil man who killed Megan. I don't know who needs this more, but I think it's him. Giving up Hermes will be the most selfless thing I've ever done.
"No." He shakes his head, and I'm honestly surprised by his answer. "You need this. As long as he's dead, I don't care who does it. Only that he's gone from this world forever."
"I can switch sides." Hermes looks up at us, his dark eyes drawn together and glassy. The air is filled with the scent of burning flesh. Hermes' entire midsection is covered in blackness and deep pools of dripping blood.
I nod to Martin. The fire dies down, and Hermes looks back up at me.
"Please. I'll come protect you. You can own me. Punish me for eternity. Don't kill me. Don't end me," he pleads, and it proves just how pathetic he is. I want to spit in his face. But on the same hand, I want to torture him for eternity. I want him to feel pain every single day of his life.
But the fact that he'd take that over a swift kill fuels me to kill him right now on the spot. Martin comes to my side, and we quickly and perfectly switch hands. Martin now has a hold on Hermes's left arm, while Shane clings to his right. I know that I only have a few seconds, maybe a minute to kill him before the boys lose their strength. Hermes may be weak, but he could easily get out of their grasp.
I stand in front of his legs as the boys have him kneel before me. They kick the back of his knees, and he crumbles. His eyes plead again, but it doesn't faze me. An image of Megan appears behind my eyes, and I know that I have to do this for her.
I punch him in the jaw, with every single ounce of strength I have. I channel my anger, my frustration, my sadness, my hatred, and shove it right into Hermes' face. Energy cracks as I hit him again. Blood trickles from the corners of his mouth.
Five more punches to the face, and I still don't feel better. Megan wasn't able to die peacefully. He made it long. He let her die in my arms after stabbing her in the stomach. She suffered because of this heartless man. I can't just snap Hermes' neck.
I wrap both of my hands around his neck. I don't use all of my strength because I want him to feel it. I want him to feel the life as it is sucked from his body. I want him to know what hell is really like.
Slowly, I push on his Adam's apple, restricting the air from his lungs. Suddenly, he jerks forward trying to get free. It's his last ditch effort to escape. He kicks me, and I stumble backwards, his neck falling out of my hands.
Nikias appears behind Hermes and she grabs his shoulders and pushes him down, rooting him into the ground. Surprisingly, Nikias nods at me and smiles, letting me go on.
"Nice try." I laugh at him, just as manically as he did to me. I replace my hands around his neck and go faster. I wring his neck, twisting his skin just to make it that much more painful.
"Fucking kill me," he mutters. He hangs his head, his body going completely slack.
"Oh, I plan to." His body starts convulsing, shaking, and lurching forward, but I don't stop my slow torture. I want to make sure that this demon of a man is completely dead before I stop. I want his pain to be visceral.
Once the tremors stop, I let him go. He's gone. The boys drop his arms, and he falls face forward onto the dirt ground. We all stand in a circle around him in silence, as if waiting for him to come back to life.
But he doesn't.
Martin leans forward and picks up Hermes's limp hand. Hermes doesn't move a muscle; he doesn't pull in a breath. I pray that he's actually gone. He feels for a pulse and then when he pulls back, he shakes his head, his mouth drawing into a straight line.
I can tell Martin isn't as ecstatic as Shane and I are to see Hermes die. I immediately walk over to Shane and wrap him in a hug. I feel a weight lifted off my chest, and I hope that Shane feels it, too.
I want to cry, I'm so happy. But, my stomach hurts from being so vicious. I don't get a chance to think farther. I let go of Shane as someone screams in the distance. We turn towards the center of the canyon. My heart drops as I see us losing terribly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
father son bonding
I find the source of the scream and run for her. Magdelina has blood gushing from a cut in her forehead. I sprint towards her and drop beside her. I rip the bottom of my shirt off and push it onto her head, applying pressure to stop the bleeding.
"What happened?" I ask her, searching for the attacker. There's so much going on around me that it's hard to find my friends. I can't tell who's who, and there are so many bodies on the ground.
"Ari. Save him." She can hardly speak, her words throaty and mostly air. "I've got this." She grabs the small piece of fabric from my hand and pushes it onto her head. Then she pushes me away from her.
"Kara!" I scream as I see her zip by me. She hears my voice and whips her head around, finding me. I run to her side and grab her shoulders as we clash. "I have to find Ari. Have you seen him?"
"No…watch out!" She yells, backing us both up. I duck and turn as a man grabs me from behind, clutching my hips. Kara digs her hands into the man's shoulder and kicks his feet out from under him.
I run around the man and grab his neck from behind. Kara holds him in place by his shoulders while I turn his neck, ending his life for good. As I let go of the man's body, he falls to the ground, revealing Ari's body right behind him.
I jump over the dead and sprint to Ari's side. He's unconscious, his head lying over the bottom of the wood altar. It's angled upward awkwardly and to the left. My stomach bottoms out as bile rises in the back of my throat.
I drop to my knees in front of him and pull his head onto my lap. He can't be dead. No. We can finally be together. He can't die now after all we've been through.
I feel around his neck for a pulse. I find a very weak one, but it reassures me that he at least has one. He's not dead yet. Someone can fix this. A heavy tear escapes my lid and falls right onto Ari's pale cheek.
"What happened?" Kara asks as she stops beside me as I am taking off Ari's shirt. The gash on his arm is still gushing with blood, refusing to let up. If he's been bleeding this whole time, he must've lost a lot of blood.
"I found him like this. I think it's the cut." I point to his wrist as I cover it with the black t-shirt, trying to stop the bleeding. Kara bends down and squats in front of Ari and me.
"It doesn't look bad."
"He's going to die before I even get to be with him." A sob takes over my body, and I can't control the water works. I can't lose him now.
"I can feel his heart in me." She touches her chest. "Something is happening." She places her hand over his heart and shuts her eyes. Her eyebrows pinch together, and she purses her lips, squinting harder and harder in silence.
"He's dying." I pull his head into my arms and cradle him. I can't feel the normal energy he exudes. I pray that he will live. I try to bargain for his life to whatever god is listening to me. I rest my head on his shoulder and kiss the vein on his neck. I love you, I love you, I love you. Please don't leave me. I chant over and over.
And then all of a sudden, I hear it. A deep thud hits me in the face. A quick beat rumbles against my lips. I pull back from his neck and look down at him. I wipe the tears out of my eyes and widen my eyes in amazement as I stare down at him.
Ari's eyes spring open, the green dimmed, but still there. A small smile cracks from his lips, and I want to scream, I'm so happy. I don't understand. I lift him up in my arms and pull his head to my chest, hugging and squeezing him so hard.
I notice Kara is crying as well. She's smiling from ear to ear, covering her mouth and watching us. She's still holding Ari's hand, squeezing it, but she hasn't let go.
"What did you do?" I clutch Ari, but stare at her with amazement.
"I think I healed him." She laughs. Her voice is airy, like this discovery has just changed her life. "I think I can heal people!"
"Oh my god, Kara. You saved him!" I reach over Ari and wrap her small body in a gut-wrenching hug. "Thank you," I whisper over and over again. I can never repay her for saving him.
"You have to go." Kara's voice is suddenly serious. Her eyes are trained behind me, and they move side to side as if following something. I look behind me and instantly spot Ollie sprinting towards his father.
"I'll watch her back," Lisa says as she comes into view. She looks pretty badly hurt as she limps towards us, her left leg unable to hold up her weight. She nods at me, and I know I have to trust her. I smile back at her and then stand, facing Ollie.
My blood turns cold at the sight of him. He's taking a beating, but he's no longer alone. Heron and Myron are to the left of him, fighting off the demons that swarm in a circle, trying to break through the barrier.
Dimitri has Apollo from behind, twisting his arms and tugging on the back of him while Ollie takes him on from the front. Suddenly, I see Cristos transport in front of Apollo and slam his fist in his face.
Everyone is so bloody, I can't tell who's winning or losing. I feel like Ollie has the upper hand since there are five of them, but Apollo is holding on. Every punch Apollo lands sounds like an explosion booming though the high ceilings.
"This is the last time you control me." Ollie's voice is hard and cold. Long gone is the emotion it was filled with after revealing my soul mate. I hardly recognize him.
Ollie punches Apollo in the jaw and then steps back, surveying the damage.
"I'm surprised you even have a mind of your own." Apollo laughs as I see Dimitri's hold on him tighten. Apollo winces as his arms are pulled backwards behind him and shoved up. "Did you ever even consider the possibilities?"
"You told me it was me! You lied to me my entire life!" Ollie slams another fist to his jaw, and then elbows him in the gut. Apollo hunches forward, his head hanging as his arms are held up. He looks back up and his eyes clash with mine. Just the look on his face has me take a step backwards.
"At least you get a happily ever after!" Apollo yells to me, staring me down with fury in his eyes. I stand frozen. "I have to admit, that move up there, priceless. No wonder you don't love my spineless son." He spits onto the ground, coating the dirt in thick, red blood.
Ollie emits a growl from deep in the back of his throat as he lands another uppercut to his father's cheek. My stomach twists as Apollo's face gets more and more disfigured.
"You're a pathetic excuse for a son." He spits again. More blood on the ground. It drips from Apollo's face like a waterfall, landing in thick, vile puddles by his feet.
"Well, you're a sad excuse for a father." Ollie nails him in the ribs, making Apollo's body crumble. Apollo falls onto his knees and lands face first in a pile of dust and rocks.
"We can't hold them back much longer." Heron's voice carries from a few feet away.
"They keep replenishing. More demons come by the second. We have to run," his wife Myron says. I look past them as a group of ten demons sprint towards us. But, I can't stop watching the scene unfold in front of me. I can't move from my spot.
"You deserve all the pain in the world." Ollie bends down and picks his father up by the throat. He holds him in the air, Apollo's feet dangling as Ollie lifts the Original high in the sky.
"Give me the knife." Ollie drops his father again, but he isn't released. Dimitri puts one foot on each of Apollo's hands, the heels of his heavy boots digging into the skin of his palms.
Cristos disappears and then reappears with the knife from the altar in his hands. Cristos doesn't stay. After giving Ollie the knife, he disappears, and I don't even see where he goes.
Ollie takes the knife in his right hand and wipes the bloody blade on his thigh, leaving red streaks up his leg. The metal flickers in the low lighting, and a chill runs up my spine. I've never seen Ollie like this before.
"This won't be slow." Ollie leans forward and gets onto his left knee. He runs the blade up Apollo's shirt and cuts it right off his body. But no blood is drawn.
"You're my son," Apollo stutters. His breaths come out ragged. He looks like half the man I saw the first time he entered the valley. His face is sadly misshapen, cuts and bruises already tainting his perfect complexion. He's not even close to dead, but the life is gone from his pale face.
"You can't call me that anymore." Ollie lifts the blade and slashes it across Apollo's cheek. As if it were possible, a stream of blood spills from the perfectly straight gash that goes from his ear to his chin.
"This was all for you."
"How could this be for me? You lied to me my entire life. You played me just like you played mother. I'm not useful to you anymore." Ollie laughs to himself as if just discovering a joke. "And you're not useful to me."
"I did this to save us. Could you imagine if the outcome was different?" Ollie pauses, and Apollo takes it as his chance to continue. "You and I, we'd be ruling the world. We could do anything we wanted when we came into power."
"I didn't want power."
"We would have used the Originals' blood to create a dynasty. With Hades on our side, we'd conquer it all. You would have your choice of women on Earth. They would beg you to look at them the way you did with that whore."