Hi everyone! I'm so sorry for the month long absence! School keeps me so busy I only have time to check my notifications sometimes. I've actually had a portion of this chapter already written for a couple weeks now, but it needed much work and editing done to it before I posted. 

That said, after this chapter, things will begin picking up pace again! I hope my writing hasn't been too boring up to this point! I apologize in advance if this chapter doesn't live up to expectations... I wrote it half asleep, lol!

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Samantha

Everyone is silent as the dust around the small stone settles... 

The water seems to still, the wind halts in its abrasiveness, and the expressions of the men surrounding me grow stagnant for a half second-- right before they erupt into an uneven session of harsh, belly-reaching laughter. 

Their guffaws and sudden movements cause their supplies to rattle and brush up against each other, disrupting the previous peace surrounding the enclosure and amplifying the silence enveloping my idle standing shadow. It makes me feel helpless. Pathetic.

I've never felt such powerlessness. I'm used to always having something I could fall back on, whether it was my looks, my father's money, or Thanatos and Hecate's influence when I was in the Underworld. But here in this closed environment, surrounded by armed men in a timeline I'm not familiar with, none of those things are valid or even remotely helpful. 

My currency here is worthless. 

I scowl, because there's nothing else I can do. I consider accepting defeat and just letting them take me back to the village where there's warm food and clean water, but the memory of dark tendrils and intense irises force my gaze beyond the green bushes behind me. I search for any signs of a black cloak or hooves, but my eyes come up empty. My savior is nowhere to be found. It seems that in this universe, I'm completely on my own. 

And after a while, when my abductor's voice breaks the sounds of laughter and mocking, his voice contains remnants of his own amusement even as --I assume-- he addresses me a second time and asks me something. 

But, of course, I stare at him blankly, not understanding a single thing.

 If my eyes could physically see language, everything he's saying to me would look like colorful puzzle pieces my brain would be unable to organize... pretty, but otherwise meaningless. 

I let out a shaky exhale, trying my best to conceal my fear. What else can I do? It's not like any of them can understand me. Especially not the guy I almost barbecued.

Running isn't an option when you're knee deep in a river surrounded by creepy men you've never met before, and neither is bargaining when you can't even communicate through gestures  with any of them. Even leaving with them might have some unforeseen gruesome consequences. What kind of kidnapper is okay with forcibly marrying someone who might kill him in his sleep?

None. At least, not a smart one.

Suddenly feeling exhausted, I look down to my toes. They're hidden beneath the reflection of the evening skies rippling over the water's surface, but they're there. Wiggling in anxiousness.

What's going to happen to me? Is this how it ends-- again? Alone, trapped in an alternate dimension surrounded by people I'm not familiar with? 

Feeling an overwhelming blanket of sadness envelop me, I unconsciously take a step back, letting the burning sensation prickling my eyes to overtake my entire face again. My heart hurts. My head hurts. My arms and legs feel like heavy potato sacks. 

Is this what love is supposed to be like? Always running, always fighting, always ending up in dangerous situations? 

A stinging wave of doubt strikes my heart, causing shivers to erupt all along my spine. It physically pains me to think about it, but what if Hades and I were doomed from the start? Two people too different and stubborn to admit they don't belong together? Hasn't Fate shown us over and over again that it is not their will for us to last long? 

 What if they foretold the arrival of a girl he hasn't met yet? And what if that girl is Persephone herself? It's not like they told him who she was or what she looked like when they delivered their message. It could be anyone. Whatever it was that led me to waking up in the Underworld that one time was an accident. Or a mistake.

Teardrops spill over the rim of my eyes, falling onto my cheeks before making contact with the Cupid's bow of my lips. 

I don't want to know what my abductor would have done if I hadn't set him on fire when I did. Was it worth it? Was staying in the Underworld the right choice? Every decision I've made in the past year has led me here. What if I'm fighting a current that will eventually threaten to drown me?

A small shift in movement in front of me forces my gaze upward, leaving my pondering to disappear into the back of my mind.

A couple of his friends are still laughing, but the abductor himself soon settles down and drops his laughter to a smile-- moving around as he turns to grab something from on top of his horse. He makes a gesture with his hand as he does so, trying to emphasize something before coming to take an offensive stance at the shore, no doubt thinking he'll coerce me into approaching him by angling his body towards me. 

It has the opposite effect.

His facial features are too rigidly set to successfully create a friendly expression, so his attempt at appearing approachable ends up seeming creepier than anything else. His lips move, uttering something soft, but instead of moving toward him, I take a second step backwards. 

With only the water to separate us, distance is the only other weapon at my disposal. 

Calling out to me, the man looks to the still water hesitantly before deciding to wade into the river, an eerie sensation of being in this position before suddenly overwhelming me as he raises a palm. 

A river, men surrounding me, feeling alone and trapped. Have I dreamt this before? 

Willing away the feeling and the goosebumps snaking a path up my arms, I feel anxiousness and desperation raise my heart beat as something in the man's expression changes. He goes from coercive to irritated in a half second, and he drops his false smile the instant I take notice and scramble to splash my way to the other end of the river. 

He shouts something, but I ignore him. Rustling and sounds of movement follow his voice, but I'm focused on reaching the other side, even as the river unexpectedly becomes deeper and deeper. At some point, I know I'll have to swim, but I'm so anxious to leave that I don't realize I've waded onto the tip of my toes until silence from the shore awakens my curiosity.

I brave a look backwards from above the water behind me, but I instantly regret it the second I catch an arrow pointed at me. Gasping, I dunk beneath the mild ripples trying to escape the arrows, but not before one of them grazes the skin on my upper right arm.

 Burning soon laps at the place beneath my shoulder, but I refrain from tending to it as the fear of being pierced by more arrows spurs me into retreating into the river's safe embrace. It accompanies me as I near the other side, protecting me from the other flying arrows. Even as the injury stings every time I wave my arm, the river acts as a shield from the men pursuing me. 

They wait on the other end of the shore, weapons in hand, waiting to lay claim to what their leader deems his. I hesitate in turning around once I successfully reach the opposite shore, not wanting my abductor to know his arrows caused me pain. But as the burn intensifies and the cool evening breeze saws at the lesions, I bring a palm to the area, turning around to face them anyway. 

 To my surprise, they've become still, making anxiousness bubble up within my gut again. 

I look around behind me-- a small part of me hoping it's Hades' appearance that's caused them to grow two shades paler, but when my eyes find no such man, I return my gaze to them, disappointed and unsettled. I'm about to make a run into the bushes behind me when something warm and thick bleeds into the curve of my elbow-- staining my forearm and eliciting my scrutiny. 

A dull, golden substance seeping from my wound catches the setting sun's remaining light, somehow capturing and maintaining the men's attention from a considerable distance. 

Something about their expressions and the golden liquid stimulate the previous feeling of déjà vu into returning, and as I stand lost in thought for a second, the sounds of their movement fade into the woods behind them.