Chapter Four

Death?

I expect an icy coat of fear to drape over me, or for my heart to pound like it's desperately attempting to escape my chest. After all, death stands before me, and she's both everything I expected and nothing I anticipated. Like her sisters, she's equal parts beautiful and terrifying, but now I realize the uncanny silver of eyes was meant to rattle me. I am quite literally staring death in the face.

And yet, the pragmatic portion of my brain starts spinning, the cogs turning. Any fear that might surface is swallowed by logic. Atropos dispenses death. Surely, she can stop it.

"Then you can save him." My voice is a whispered plea .

Atropos blinks, clearly confused by my reaction. She was no doubt expecting me to quiver in fear, to shrink underneath the weight of her lethal gaze.

But she doesn't know the lengths I will go to save him. She doesn't know just how ruthless, just how relentless I can be when it comes to the people I love, so much so I'll stare death right in the eye and demand she reconsider.

"She won't," Lachesis says.

"Won't but not can't, " I argue, my stare pinned on Atropos.

"Mortals always attempt to bargain for more time and never succeed." Clotho twirls a golden thread through her fingers, the strand slowly unraveling from the spindle clutched in her right hand.

An idea sprouts in my mind. "Probably because they have nothing worth bargaining for."

"And you do?" Atropos raises a silver dusted eyebrow and leans into me. "Let me be clear, Scylla, your kind has grown up on the wrong side of story-telling. I've seen your films. Read your books. Hades is the god you believe controls the dead, and it is he who the stories claim you plead with to return your loved ones." She grins again, running her tongue over her small sharp teeth.

"Just as you discovered how wrong the stories are about the gods being benevolent in that they cursed your brethren to their monstrous forms, you should know the stories are wrong regarding death, too." Atropos straightens, and although my tongue is heavy with a bargain I'm aching to pitch, I don't dare interrupt her again.

"Hades can't help you, nor any other god of another spirituality. It is us and us alone that decide the Fate of every mortal, including their death." She raises those crude, metallic shears. "When it is time for me to cut a Thread, even the gods themselves can't sway me. The Moirai answer to no one, let alone a half-breed monster such as yourself."

Ouch. Atropos turns from me to join her sisters, a mollified grin on her face at delivering her final insult. The words roll off my back easily. My brain and my heart have much more important things to focus on as my mind sifts through her words and breaks them apart. For one, I didn't miss that she doesn't refer to me as Rhiannon, but I can come back to that.

Atropos made her point. The sisters are the be-all and end-all of everything . The myth I've grown up believing and watching on television that Hades can relinquish a soul from his realm is just that - a myth - much like the fact that our pop culture paints the gods as peaceful, considerate entities, when I well know the majority of them are nothing but callous, vengeful pricks.

But Atropos has forgotten one thing: I do have something to bargain for.

"Don't you fucking touch Nick's Thread," I snarl.

Two sets of eyes, one pale blue and the other lilac, grow wide. Atropos stiffens, her back still to me, then twists her neck at an impossible angle, the sight enough to finally have fear crawl up my spine.

"You dare threaten me? " She hisses. The rest of her body twists to join her neck so The Cutter faces me once more.

I shrug, feigning indifference. "What are you going to do? Cut my Thread?" My own lips curl as heat blooms high on Atropos's cheeks. I struck a nerve. "You can't cut Nick's Thread prematurely, because you only dispense Fate. You don't orchestrate it. You carry out the whims of your sisters."

The grip on the shears tightens, and if she were allowed, I'm sure Atropos would stab me with them. I also know that everything I'm saying, everything my brain picked apart, is one hundred percent accurate.

"Which means you aren't actually Death, are you?"

"I never said I was," she replies through clenched teeth.

The unturnable, she'd said. Atropos is the one I have to appeal to the most, because as that name suggests, nothing will sway her. Not tears or begging. Even if I offered to trade my life for Nick's, that wouldn't work.

But something else might.

"What if I can unveil my Thread?"

Both Lachesis and Clotho suck in a breath at the same damn time, but Atropos just cocks her head. "Go on."

I suck in a breath of my own, carefully choosing my words. "I promise I will do whatever it takes to find out who is cloaking my Thread and have it removed, if you give me your word Nick will live."

"Impossible," Lachesis says, though the tone of voice drips with intrigue.

"Nicholas's fate is sealed." Clotho's voice mimics her sister's - just a hint of interest.

I look at Atropos, anticipating her to speak next. Instead, The Cutter holds my stare, those sterling pools both menacing and curious.

"Swear to me you can change Nick's fate, that he won't die by my hand. That he'll live well beyond twenty years and then some, and I will do whatever it takes to unveil my Thread."

Atropos turns and shares a considerate look with her sisters. With the way their expressions change and their eyes narrow and widen, I can only assume they are speaking in each other's minds.

Well fuck me, that's a neat trick.

Atropos once again faces me, but it's Lachesis who steps forward. She unfurls a lengthy piece of the thread on her spindle, holding one end between her thumb and forefinger. "We make no guarantees, Rhiannon. Your kind are still subject to free will, and Nicholas' time on this earth, as well as his death, is largely dependent upon yours and his actions. As those change, so does the outcome."

"With your Thread being cloaked, it is impossible for us to determine what course you will take, and how that will affect Nicholas's Fate," Clotho continues.

Hope flares in my chest. "So, there's a chance he will live? That I won't kill him?"

Atropos is quick to strike it down. "Nicholas will die by your hand, Scylla. No way around that. But as for living…" She shrugs, a coy grin on her face. Lachesis cuts a searing glare in her direction.

I don't miss that exchange.

"There are many ways to live," Atropos finishes.

"Care to elaborate on that?"

Silence greets me from each of the sisters.

I heave a forceful sigh. "Fine. I will do what I can, within reason to unveil my Thread. If I succeed, you won't cut Nick's Thread."

The sisters do that creepy thing where they stare intensely at one another, which I now know means they are speaking telepathically. Finally, Atropos counters, "Should you succeed in unveiling your Thread and give us the name of the person who cloaked it, Nicholas' Thread will remain intact."

"And what will you do to the person who cloaked my Thread?"

This time, Lachesis speaks, lavender eyes narrowed in interest. "Why would you concern yourself with that, as long as Nicholas' Thread remains Untouched?"

I fold my arms across my chest. "Because I don't know if I can willingly condemn someone to a punishment just to fulfill my end of the bargain."

"Even if this bargain saves the man you love?" Clotho asks.

My heart flutters.

"The fact that your Threads are entwined means there will never be anyone else." Lachesis chimes in. "Not for you. Not for him. In this life, or the next."

In this life, or the next. My breath stutters. Tears gather in my eyes. I blink once to clear them, but one slips and rolls down my cheek.

"I know," I admit .

Atropos' holds up three fingers, silver eyes luminous and foreboding. "Do you accept the bargain?"

I inhale sharply.

One finger drops. A countdown.

My thoughts race. The Moirai have me backed into a corner. There has to be a way for me to counter, for me to save Nick and still spare the person who, I believe, was attempting to save me.

Another finger drops.

I lick my lips, wracking my brain, still coming up short with answers.

Atropos holds up only a single finger.

It's a simple question really: does my love for Nick outweigh my guilt for condemning an innocent person to an unknown Fate?

There will never be anyone else. Not for you. Not for him. In this life, or the next.

The Cutter's single finger curves downward…

I'd face all the dangers of Hell to find you before I'd choose peace in Heaven without you.

"Deal!"

Atropos clenches her fist, and for a terrifying moment, I fear I'm too late. She reaches toward me. "Give me your hand. "

I approach her tentatively, eyeing Lachesis and Clotho. The other two sisters wear the same solemn stare, their expressions revealing nothing of what's to come.

Atropos takes my hand, her icy fingers turning it palm up. She traces my palm with the tip of her finger, and I shiver. A sinister smile turns her lips. "We seal our bargains in blood, Scylla."

My eyes widen as I take in the metal shears she grips in her other hand, but before I think further on it, she turns my open palm so that it's facing her, and clasps her fingers within my own. Our hands are entwined together, suspended between our two bodies.

Then plunges the metal shears into her hand and mine.

Searing, white hot agony ricochets through my palm. I let out a piercing scream as the blade tears through bone and flesh. I attempt to wrench away from Atropos, but she grabs my arm with her free hand and holds me in place.

And gods, she is strong.

Silver glints through another flash of lightning. The tip of the shears protrudes through the middle of the back of my hand. Blood streams beneath them.

Atropos leans into me, those unsettling eyes like silver flames. "By blood and bone, this bargain is sealed."

With that, she tears the shears from our joined hands. I drop to the floor, clutching my right hand, my face soaked with sweat and tears.

A burst of light causes me to shut my eyes, and at first, I mistake it for another blaze of lightning.

"Rhi? Oh my God - what's wrong?" My mother's shrill voice hits my ears.

"Rhi, honey, tell us what happened!" My father's thundering voice follows hers.

I open my eyes, my right hand shaking uncontrollably in my left. The Moirai have vanished, unsurprisingly, but how the fuck am I going to explain this stab wound to my parents? I stare down at my right hand.

It's gone. I examine my right hand, turning it over, to find there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. No evidence that I had just been stabbed with crude metal shears. Not even a fucking scratch. Nothing.

Oh, except for the pain. The tormenting, agonizing bolts of pain that shoot down my entire arm, as well as the feel of something still piercing my hand.

My mother's arms wrap around me and guide me upright. I blow out a breath and face them.

Gods . They look so distraught. Cheeks reddened. My father's blue eyes wide with fear, my mother's dark brown ones glistening with unshed tears.

"I'm - I'm sorry," I stutter, still clutching my hand. "I had a nightmare."

My mother's shoulders drop, and she releases a relieved sigh. But my father eyes me warily. "What's wrong with your hand?"

"Nothing. I slept on it. Can't feel it right now." That's the farthest thing from the fucking truth.

I drop my hand, biting my tongue to keep from whimpering at the lingering pain. "I'm sorry, really. Jesse and I were -"

My mother's eyebrows shoot up. "Jesse was here?"

I nod. "Earlier. We watched a horror movie. It must have given me a nightmare."

"What did I tell you about having boys in the house when we aren't home?" My father says sternly. My mother lightly taps him and rolls her eyes. I resist the urge to snort. He'd shit a brick if he knew there had been two boys in the house. In my room. Together .

"Yeah. Uh. Sorry. He came to see if I wanted to go to the Solstice Party, and I told him I'd rather stay here instead. So, we just watched a movie on Netflix."

He scoffs. "Yeah, well don't forget that I remember you two dated. And I know all about you kids and your ‘Netflix and Chill' -"

"Dad," I groan. "Can we not do this? It's three-thirty in the morning." And I am in blinding pain, and just made a life or death deal with three very terrifying and powerful sisters, because I am so catastrophically in love with another boy that I am destined to murder.

My father shakes his head, then fixes me with a no-nonsense stare. "Fine. But we will discuss this tomorrow, then."

"Ok."

My mother reaches for me and plants a kiss on my forehead. "Goodnight, sweetheart."

"Night," I reply to both of their backs.

Once the door closes, I sink down to the floor, allowing tears to spring free. The incessant pain in my hand steals the breath from lungs, and I release raspy, ragged sobs. Though it continues to burn and throb beyond the point of comprehension, my mind is consumed by one soul-shredding thought:

There will never be anyone else.