[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]
Hecate stiffened, her eyes growing momentarily wide. Matt’s arms loosened and he pushed himself up on an elbow to get a better look at her face, finding her expression stricken, as if she were about to be sick all over their bed.
“What is it?” he asked softly. “What’s wrong?”
“Powers above and below,” she breathed, her eyes still wide and one hand fisting in the covers.
“Hecate?”
Her gaze snapped to his, her jaw tightening. “I’d hoped he was lying.”
Matt’s brows creased. “What?”
They were on the bed, laying side by side but still fully clothed. The first drops of rain had begun to spatter the windows with the approaching storm, one whose rolling thunder rattled the house’s timbers and the window in its casement. She’d grown calmer over the last few hours as they’d carefully avoided discussing how to solve the problem of Leviathan. It wasn’t that it wasn’t a concern, it was just that he recognized that she was in no state of mind to have a logical approach to any of it—the fear was too great, too strong.
He was seeing that same fear in her face now, but worse.
“Hecate?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled a shaking breath. “He was right,” she whispered. “I can feel them.”
“Feel who?” Matt asked, his mouth going dry. “You’re not—”
“I know. I know I’m not making sense and I’m sorry. I’m still trying to process—to process what I’m feeling.” She took a few deep breaths before slowly sitting up. She drew her knees up and hugged them against her chest, resting her cheek against them. Matt sat up, too, sitting cross-legged and meeting her gaze.
She bit her lip. “I haven’t told you everything,” she said. “And I’m sure there are things that you don’t remember, that you’ll never remember and it’s probably better that way because sometimes it feels like they were worse to Cíar than they ever were to me.”
“That’s not true,” Matt said softly before he could stop himself. “He knew that.”
Hecate closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“You’re talking about the people who hurt you,” Matt said softly. “About—”
“The ones who broke me,” she said, cutting him off. Hecate opened her eyes and stared at him unflinchingly, her expression grim. “The ones who time and again ripped me away from people I cared about and people who cared about me as a person until I finally found a way to break free of them, until I was finally able to recover some semblance of an identity independent of what they made me into. It’s not easy and sometimes I slip but it’s damned better than the alternatives are.”
Matt touched her shoulder gently and she sighed.
“There was a part of me that had hoped Yam was lying about them being back.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“No,” Hecate said. “No, he wasn’t. I can feel them and…” She took a deep breath before continuing. “Powers above and below, I hope they’re not looking for me but I know that they are and I don’t know what I’m going to do about that.”
Ahhh, stop doing this to me! This is the second “villain” who has fallen into grey territory and become a multi-dimensional character instead of the simple evil archetype that they initially present. I love the development and the illustration to them – it’s never just black and white with many of them. They all have their reasons and they’re people too, godhood aside. It’s a wonderful portrayal and gods be damned, I have another favourite starting X-D
Sorry, not sorry <3