I gasp when I hear it, and images fill my mind. My eyes fly open, remembering his family at the funeral. His little sister with dry eyes. His mom shaking with sorrow, leaning away from his dad, not touching him. And his dad, with a black aura of anger pulsing through his veins. I see his dad’s anger in Randy’s sorrow. Anger his dad can’t control. Anger which makes Randy’s dad hit his wife and children.
Tanni’s words pound into my head.
“It’s my fault.”
I don’t even realize I say them aloud.
“No, Piper.”
The bubble pushes again below the water and disappears. My fault. Randy Conner’s death is my fault.
“I made you save Chloe.”
But Shayne grabs my shoulders and turns me to him. “No, it’s not your fault. You can’t think that way.”
“Then why?”
Shayne narrows his eyes and glances to the side. “The Fates determine who will die next. Not you. Not me. Chloe lived, and they chose Randy Conner.”
It’s all tumbling around in my mind. “But if Chloe had…” I can’t even bring myself to say it. I don’t want her dead. More than anything, I don’t want her dead.
“Randy may still have died.” His eyes shift back to me. “It’s all a game to them, watching lives fall apart.” His eyes have narrowed to slits, but the brown irises inside start to stir with flecks of red.
“And you do whatever they say?” I know it comes out harsh, but he’s just taken Randy and delivered him for eternity to the wrong place.
His defenses go up. “What do you mean?”
“When they die. You take the soul away from whoever the Fates say.”
An icy look runs across Shayne’s face, and his arms tense. “I don’t take anyone’s soul away.”
I motion around with my arm. “But this is your world.”
Shayne is holding anger just under his skin. “Yeah. My world. And my responsibility. But not my doing.”
“But I thought—”
“—wrong.” Shayne’s eyes won’t meet mine. “My job is to judge and maintain control. And trust me, that’s a big enough job.”
I feel like I’ve slapped Shayne. My cheeks burn, and I wish I could take it back. “I’m sorry.”
Shayne’s face softens, and he gives my shoulder a gentle caress which sends a shiver down my spine. “I’m the easy person to blame.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
His lips curl up in a smile. “It does get a bit old having every single death in history blamed on me. But it goes with the job.”
“So why is Randy in Asphodel?”
“It’s not so bad there, Piper,” Shayne says.
Bad or not, if I’ve fated Randy to die and doomed his family to suffer under an abusive father, then at least I need to see the product of my actions. My choice to save Chloe. “I want to see.”
Shayne rubs my shoulder and pulls me close. “I know.”
I hardly remember Charon is on the boat. His presence seems to evaporate when Shayne and I argue. When the boat bumps against the dock and Charon jumps out, I remember him, and my heart sinks; I’ve hardly spoken a word to him.
But he’s the one who helps me out this time, and when his hand grabs mine, he gives it a quick squeeze. Something stirs inside me, and I reach out and hug him. He lets go of my hand and grabs me in a bear hug so fierce, my lungs feel like collapsing. When he lets go, his weathered face cracks into its smile, which, even after two visits, I love.
“Have a wonderful time.”
I smile back, and Shayne gets out of the boat behind me. “I will.” The Underworld feels more welcoming than my real home back at the Botanical Haven, even with all its scary river monsters and haunting sorrows.
Once our feet hit the swampy shore, Cerberus runs over, weaving through the trees, tail thumping so hard it’s like his lower half is another head with a mind of its own. He jumps both front paws up onto Shayne, and they wrestle around until Shayne finally falls to the ground.
“Does he wait for you every time you leave?”
Shayne reaches over to rub Cerberus’s belly which causes him to flop down, roll over, and expose every bit of his giant stomach. Even with three heads, he’s just a dog.
“Pretty much. Man’s best friend, right?”
I laugh. “You mean god’s best friend.”
“I may be a god, Piper, but I’m still just your regular, average guy.”
All it takes is one look at Shayne to know there’s nothing average about him.
We turn and wave a final goodbye to Charon. He’s already far away from the dock, out in the reeds and cattails, but the warmth of his smile even at that distance broadens my own.
“Charon likes you,” Shayne says.
“I like Charon.”
Shayne laughs. “Now that’s one thing not many people will say. Most people aren’t happy about dying. Everyone knows they don’t live forever, but when it’s actually their time, they almost never want to go.”
I think of Randy Conner. “Randy didn’t want to go, did he?”
Shayne shakes his head. “No. I crossed with him. It was pretty rough going at first. But once he got to the other side…well, it always changes.”
We reach the end of the tunnel, and ahead, I can already see the flickering from the fireplace inside Shayne’s home. Cerberus curls in front of the fire, and instead of sitting next to Shayne on the sofa, I plop myself on the ground next to Cerberus and start scratching between a couple of his ears. I feel Shayne’s eyes on me though I don’t turn to look at him.
“Did you miss me?” He tilts his head and pauses and waits for my answer.
I move my hand, scratching a different head. “I missed your dog.”
Shayne laughs and comes down to sit on the ground next to me. He touches my earlobe which causes a tingle somewhere which is definitely not my earlobe. And he pulls my ponytail holder out, letting my hair escape from its bonds.
“I’m glad you came back.”
My chest is tight, and I don’t dare look at him. I know I could melt into Shayne and let him absorb me forever. “I am, too.” I lean my back against him, and we sit there, me still scratching Cerberus, and Shayne running his hand through my hair. The fire never dies. It crackles and spits sparks into the air, and with the burnt aroma, I feel more like I’m in Heaven than Hell. And I never want to leave.
“Are you sure you want to see Asphodel? We could go back to the Elysian Fields. Rhadam’s been asking about you.”
Shayne’s words snap me out of the paradise I’m living. It’s not that I want to see Asphodel. I need to see it. I look at Shayne; his lips have pressed into a smile. “I’d take paradise forever,” I say. Here with him.
“Most people would, when given the choice.”
“But they don’t get a choice, do they?”
He shakes his head, and orange embers from the fire reflect off the blackness of his hair. “If they did, no one would choose Tartarus, would they?”
I consider this. “Maybe the really bad ones would. They might want a lifetime of torture.”
His eyes shift to the side for only a second, but I notice. “No one would choose that life, Piper. Trust me. To end up in Tartarus is like picking the short stick in life. Or death, as the case might be. And the worst part is it lasts forever. There’s no getting out.”
I sit up. “Never?”
“Never. There are two basic rules down here. Once a person has been judged, they stay where they are placed forever.”
Like Randy Conner. Stuck forever in Asphodel. But I’m not ready to accept this yet. “And the second?” I
