{"id":3021,"date":"2016-10-24T00:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T04:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3021"},"modified":"2016-10-23T11:03:53","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T15:03:53","slug":"forty-three-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3021","title":{"rendered":"Forty-three – 01"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Hecate stiffened, her eyes growing momentarily wide. Matt\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is it?\u201d he asked softly. \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPowers above and below,\u201d she breathed, her eyes still wide and one hand fisting in the covers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHecate?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her gaze snapped to his, her jaw tightening. \u201cI\u2019d hoped he was lying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt\u2019s brows creased. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s timbers and the window in its casement. She\u2019d grown calmer over the last few hours as they\u2019d carefully avoided discussing how to solve the problem of Leviathan. It wasn\u2019t that it wasn\u2019t 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\u2014the fear was too great, too strong.<\/p>\n

He was seeing that same fear in her face now, but worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cHecate?\u201d<\/p>\n

She squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled a shaking breath. \u201cHe was right,\u201d she whispered. \u201cI can feel them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFeel who?\u201d Matt asked, his mouth going dry. \u201cYou\u2019re not\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know. I know I\u2019m not making sense and I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m still trying to process\u2014to process what I\u2019m feeling.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

She bit her lip. \u201cI haven\u2019t told you everything,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m sure there are things that you don\u2019t remember, that you\u2019ll never remember and it\u2019s probably better that way because sometimes it feels like they were worse to C\u00edar than they ever were to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not true,\u201d Matt said softly before he could stop himself. \u201cHe knew that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hecate closed her eyes and took a deep breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking about the people who hurt you,\u201d Matt said softly. \u201cAbout\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ones who broke me,\u201d she said, cutting him off. Hecate opened her eyes and stared at him unflinchingly, her expression grim. \u201cThe 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<\/em> 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\u2019s not easy and sometimes I slip but it\u2019s damned better than the alternatives are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt touched her shoulder gently and she sighed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a part of me that had hoped Yam was lying about them being back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Hecate said. \u201cNo, he wasn\u2019t. I can feel them and…\u201d She took a deep breath before continuing. \u201cPowers above and below, I hope they\u2019re not looking for me but I know that they are and I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.] Hecate stiffened, her eyes growing momentarily wide. Matt\u2019s arms loosened and he pushed himself up on an elbow to get a better look at her face, finding her expression stricken, as if … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,232,14],"tags":[150,171,170,194,181,149,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-3021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-5","category-chapter-43","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-hecate","tag-matthew-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-MJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3022,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3021\/revisions\/3022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}