XLI ‖ tethys

HILVERSUM
June
Location: Myerscough's Mansion

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Time Elapsed: 34:58:33 | 02:33:32 AM

Everyone looked as damaged as each other the moment we gathered at the last meeting point. The only ones almost unscathed were Micah, Porter and Jax, while the rest of us were bandaged up here and there. Veronica seemed to have sustained the most serious injury from the look of those blood-soaked bandages wrapped around her abdomen and she was almost dragging her feet when she walked.

"Leave me behind," Veronica spoke weakly, trying to remove herself from Nash's hold.

"Are you fucking stupid?" Vivienne whispered harshly, slinging her other arm over her shoulder and supported her. "We're not leaving anyone behind."

"When we enter, Micah, Jax and I would be at the front dealing with the Titaness," Porter began. "Nash, Esme and Viv, the three of you would stay behind, supporting us as back up. And lva, we're leaving Veron to you. Both of you would be our last line of defence. Is that clear?"

"Yes," I turned towards Veronica and said in a low voice, "Time to be nice and don't bite, alright?"

"Bitch." Veronica glared in my direction.

"Thanks for the compliment," I breathed out a laugh.

Jax traced an apotropaic symbol and faint glyphs appeared on our arms, disappearing right after a brief moment. I felt the warmth of energy coursing through me and drawing a deep inhale, the door was pushed open.

I took Veronica from Nash and Vivienne, positioning ourselves in the sequence that was planned. As we moved deeper into the room, our feets sunk into the shallow pool of water and right ahead of us was an otherworldly beautiful lady. Under all the silvery moonlight, her ivory hair and pale skin gleamed. She leaned lazily by the edge of the pool, donned in a gauzy white tunic and chains of silver accessories that did almost nothing to conceal her body.

"Tethys," Micah was the one who called out to her.

The Titaness fluttered her eyes opened and look at the eight of us. Her eyes were pure white — no pupils and no irises. A slight smile shone in her expression and she laughed, faint and sonorous like wind chimes. "Children of Elysium."

A sudden force rippled through the room and orbs of water floated around the Titaness. She enthused, "My dear nephew, Hades, decided to send me eight playthings this evening. It wouldn't be nice of me to leave all of you hanging, would it?"

Everything turned frantic in an instant as Micah, Porter and Jax went toe to toe against Tethys. Powerful, brutal moves were swung towards the Titaness and shots were fired continuously but Tethys remained virtually unaffected.

I stayed at the back with Veronica, as her body dropped to the ground due to weakness from her blood loss. Firing my pistol, I prevented any attacked in our direction. The fight continued and my eyes were struggling to keep up with all the movement because Micah, Porter and Jax, especially Jax, were moving in an insanely fast speed and I was beginning to doubt that the three of them were even human.

Unlike Lillian, Tethys didn't take the form of a monstrous shadowy monster. She remained in the appearance of her ethereal beauty and moved together with her enemies like she was in a sort of a beautifully choreographed dance. She remained graceful and undisturbed despite the growing intensity of the battle.

On the other hand, Esme, Nash and Vivienne continued to fight the influx of cacs that had spawned out of nowhere and flooded into the room. They were struggling to handle to numbers and I stood where I was, arming myself with the rifle and helped them out at a distance.

"Just go ahead and help them," Veronica panted breathlessly to me.

"I'm helping," I frowned, my finger still pulling on the trigger. "If you're going to tell me something dumb like leaving you behind, I'll seriously whack you unconscious."

Veronica didn't say anything in return, and I assumed that she was tired enough to even try arguing with me. I continued to assist in clearing the wave and defended us from those cacs who had spotted us in our direction. However, I had to admit that I was also growing weaker as time passed.

The bleeding from my own injury worsened with each passing moments. Warm, sticky liquid drenched the length of my arm and dripped towards the ground. Running out of ammo, I attempted to wield my dagger but a moment of weakness caused me to falter and drop it. Fuck. I bent down to pick it up and my blood dripped from my arm, smearing the blade in scarlet.

"Iva!" Veronica screamed from behind me.

Startled, I was horrified when I felt something whizzed past me. I held tighter onto my dagger and swung it in the direction of the incoming threat. When I managed to focus through the blurriness in my mind, my eyes widened at the Titaness ahead of me. She clutched onto her abdomen with gold flowing in between the gaps of her fingers. Right, immortal beings really bled in gold. I suddenly remembered learning that fact in mythology class.

All of a sudden, everything seemed to hit a pause when Tethys choked, "H-How is this possible?"

Her closeness caused fear to seize me and I slashed towards her with the dagger in my hand again. At this opportunity, Jax appeared right behind her and drove his dagger right into her. Biting hard on his finger, he traced another symbol on her back with his blood and the Titaness dissipated into gold dust right in front of me.

I lifted my gaze towards Jax and he smiled at me, with heavy relief etched in his expression as he praised, "Well done, sweetness."

In the next moment, I felt my brace shuddering against my wrist and everyone dropped their heads to read the few lines of words.

The weight and pressure finally lifted from my chest and I felt like I could breathe again. All of us survived this mass mission and the eight of us are returning, together.

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Esme and Nash supported Veronica as they headed out of the mansion. The girl lost too much blood and was hanging on the last thread of her consciousness. On the other hand, Porter held onto Vivienne as Micah wrapped a few rounds of bandage to cover the bad gash on her thigh. I wanted to move towards her but my own head was spinning. Jax wrapped his hand around my waist and prevented me from falling, saying reassuringly, "Vivienne is fine, let's head out first. Your arm is still bleeding."

Without a second thought, he carried me in his arms and for once, I was glad that he did. Closing my eyes, I rested in the comfort of his embrace as he brought me near our vehicle. I heard a loud wince and my eyes fluttered open to the sight of Nash trying to stitch Veronica's abdomen up. She clenched her jaw so tightly and her expression paled from the struggle as she endured through the pain of stitching without proper anaesthesia. I felt a little sick on my stomach and looked towards Jax warily. He only sighed, "I promise, I'll be gentle."

He rested me under the large tree and slightly away from the vehicle so that I would be less affected by Veronica's groans of pain. He was about to head to get supplies when I quickly grabbed onto his arm with my uninjured arm and panicked, "Jax, wait—"

"Trust me, sweetness," he comforted and looked towards me with a confident gaze to show me that he was capable of stitching me up properly. I gulped, my mind once against fixed on the image of Veronica's pained expression and I shuddered. But before I could say no, Jax already left me and went towards the vehicle.

I wanted to escape, but I stayed still in the position he left me at. I just stared at the silhouette of our vehicle and felt myself growing dull from all the weariness and bleeding. When I decided to close my eyes, I didn't know that I would drift a little too deep away from my consciousness.

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Light seeped through my closed eyelids and I scrunched my eyes reflexively before peeling them open slowly. The blinding light above me was hurting my eyes and I tried to raise my arm but my action was impeded. That was when I realised that my wrists were cuffed to the railings of the bed on each side.

Fear and confusion squeezed in my chest and I lifted my head off the pillow. Around me was an unfamiliar surrounding and I was no longer dressed in my tactical clothes anymore. Instead of slick and sweat, my skin felt dry and clean. I was clad in a thin hospital gown — but not the ones that I was familiar with in Elysium.

"She's awake." A voice sounded from behind me and I immediately threw my head back.

A face hovered right in front of me and through my blurred vision, I made out the facial features of someone that caused my breath to hitch and my heart stopped altogether.

"Isabel." The voice called in a familiar haunting tone. 

Words formed at the tip of my tongue but my lips wouldn't move. I simply stared at the face right in front of me, blinking harder each time as the features get clearer, and clearer. And eventually, when I finally willed myself to speak, I uttered his name in disbelief.

"Sebastian."

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End of Book One, Elysium

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