Chapter 54 Making my way back to you

Chapter 54 Making my way back to you

Daphne
It is easy to feel overwhelmed in the presence of not just a god, but the ruler of the heavens. Alex radiates with a surge of unbelievable power. When he fixes those eyes on me, I shiver with fear. I couldn’t dare look back at him. I keep my head lowered.
He glances behind me. “Where are you running off to now?”
I wring my fingers in fear. I get very tongue-tied around him. He has the ability to reduce me to a whimpering pathetic little girl.
“I was just getting some air,” I lie.
He laughs, a deep-throated sound that rumbles through the sound barrier. “Really? You weren’t just getting away from your mother there by any chance?” he asks.
I shake my head uncertainly.
Alex draws closer to me, his lightning bolt in his hand. “I understand this is a little bit too much for you. You want to return back to earth?” he asks.
I glance up at him, surprised he knew that. “How’d you know?”
He spreads his arms around. “This is Olympus. It is my job to know everything,” he says sarcastically.
“I just need some time to think. It feels like I leapt from one hell into another. I need time to figure out my life and know what I want to do. I keep being forced into making decisions and I don’t even know if they’re the right ones. I want to be free.”
Alex shrugs. “That’s understandable but I think you have not truly grasped who you are. You are Dalia’s daughter, a powerful goddess. That makes you one of the most powerful goddesses in our realm. But you’ve also been shielded for a long time. Leaving now makes you vulnerable. Are you sure you can handle it?”
“Yeah, I can.”
Alex peers at me with shocking intensity. “Yeah, I can handle it.”
“This time, there won’t be anyone to take care of you and protect you. I won’t be sending Eros to look after you. You are on your own. Are you sure you can handle it?”
Why does everyone keep talking about what could happen? What’s the worst that could happen? “I can handle it!”
Alex picks up his bolt. Pointing it in the distance, he makes a portal for me. “Well, there you go. Have fun!” he says.
I hesitate. “Just like that?”
Alex nudges me along. “Yeah, just like that.”
I take one last look back at him before I step into the portal. I come out on the other side onto my campus’s giant soccer field. I am alone, naked, shivering with cold. It’s the middle of the night. No one else’s in sight.
I cover my sensitive parts with my hands as much as I can, breaking into a run all the way to the closest building I can find. I make my way into the janitor’s closet and grab the first uniform I find there.
After putting it on, I begin the long walk back to my dorm. The campus is eerily quiet and dimly-lit. I don’t know how long I’ve been away from here. My life has taken a strange turn since I decided to return to what I thought was my hometown for a break from the chaos of my romantic life.
Who knew when I left that I’d find out I’m a goddess? It still doesn’t feel real. By returning here, I am hoping that my life would just go back to what it used to be. Maybe I would wake up and realize all of it had been a dream. Hell, Heaven, my mother, the goddess, Randy, Eros, none of it is real.
“Oh my God, it’s her! she’s back! Daphne is back! Where have you been? We’ve been looking everywhere for you?” I hear someone’s voice as soon as I step into the dorm.
It’s Esther, my next-door neighbor. She comes running over and throws her hand over me.
As I’m hugging her, my eyes glance over to the announcement board nearby. I see MISSING POSTERs with my face on them, announcing my disappearance.
“You’ve been gone for weeks. We looked everywhere for you!” Esther continues.
The entire dorm lights up with excitement over my return. Soon, I am surrounded by girls I didn’t even talk to before I left. What happened?
“I was going to see my parents in my hometown of Meadowbrook. I didn’t mean to alarm anyone.”
“Yeah, well, turns out there’s no such thing as Meadowbrook. We looked! The dean, everyone was worried. The school administration was so worried that you might have…” Esther pauses, concerned.
“What?” I ask.
“Well, they were worried you might have killed yourself because of the affair? You know? They were getting ready to expel you when you disappeared and so did Hades. We thought you guys ran away together or??” another girl chimes in.
I roll my eyes. “I wish.”
What I did add is… I wish I never met Hades. He has turned my life into some giant mess and the worst part? I can’t even be with him. I shiver just thinking about the frigid, cold, cruel Hell. I can’t get the voices of those perishing souls out of my head.
“You need to speak to the police. They’ve ben coming around every other day asking about you.”
“Yeah, I’ll speak with them tomorrow. Right now, I just want to get into my room and rest. Thanks guys,” I say, trying to escape from the mob of girls still pilling up to witness the return of a missing girl.
I snatch some of the missing posters and rumple them up, tossing them into a nearby poster.
The girls line up along the corridor, touching me as I walk by. I finally make my escape into my room. Empty, dusty, dark. I switch on the light. The rays flood into the room, revealing the presence of…Hades sitting on my reading desk.
I startle.
Hades climbs out of the table, stalking toward me. “You left Olympus. You made your way back to me.”