{"id":3480,"date":"2018-01-22T00:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T05:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3480"},"modified":"2018-01-21T19:22:56","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T00:22:56","slug":"thirty-one-01-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3480","title":{"rendered":"Thirty-one – 01"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Hecate sat and stared in shocked silence for a few seconds. Her ands slowly curled into fists, her heart beginning to beat a little more quickly, emotions rising in her throat and threatening to choke her. It was the old emotions, the guilt, the anger, the fear<\/em>. Only Matt\u2019s presence, his touch, kept her in this time and place.<\/p>\n

She took one breath, then another. Her vision swam, eyes watering. He said she was dead. Said she was gone.<\/em><\/p>\n

The bastard lied.<\/em><\/p>\n

Matt squeezed her arm gently. She sucked in another breath, squeezing her eyes shut.<\/p>\n

Stay. Stay. Stay. You\u2019re all right. You\u2019re fucking all right, just stay.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then there was Matt\u2019s voice in her ear, gentle, soft. \u201cI\u2019m here, gr\u00e1 mo chro\u00ed<\/em>. I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The words came as a croak around the lump in her throat. \u201cThe bastard lied to me. He said she was dead<\/em>.\u201d The words scraped clear, painful. \u201cIf I hadn\u2019t already killed him, I\u2019d kill him for this\u2014but slower, more painfully.\u201d Hot tears welled in her eyes.<\/p>\n

Why did I believe him?<\/em><\/p>\n

Matt\u2019s arms closed around her again. She stiffened but didn\u2019t try to break free of his hold. Part of her needed him\u2014but another felt like she didn\u2019t deserve the comfort the embrace offered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she\u2019s alive, that means I abandoned her,\u201d she said. \u201cI promised her that I would protect her.\u201d Another failure.<\/em> Her fingernails dug into the flesh of her palms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no way you could have kept that promise,\u201d Matt whispered into her hair. \u201cYou know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A shudder shot through her. A small voice in the back of her mind chimed that he was right and that both she and Persephone had known that. It was the emotion behind the words that had mattered.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cared enough to make the promise,\u201d Leinth said softly from behind J.T., as if she could hear the thought that echoed through the back of Hecate\u2019s brain. \u201cThat and nothing else is what mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

The damnable thing was that she was right<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we help her?\u201d Hecate asked, her voice a bare whisper. \u201cWhere can we find her?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d J.T. said quietly, \u201cI was hoping maybe you could help with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.] Hecate sat and stared in shocked silence for a few seconds. Her ands slowly curled into fists, her heart beginning to beat a little more quickly, emotions rising in her throat and … 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":[240,281,14],"tags":[150,171,170,194,160,166,181,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-3480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-31-book-6","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-hecate","tag-j-t-mackenzie","tag-leinth","tag-matthew-astoris","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-U8","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480","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=3480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3481,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480\/revisions\/3481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}