Read Online Hades by Alexandra Adornetto - Free Book Online Page B

again when the motorcycle hovered a
    moment in midair. Jake cut the engine just before we
    plummeted soundlessly into the void. I turned around to see
    the aperture close behind us, shutting out the moonlight, the
    trees, the cicadas, and the earth I loved so much.
    I had no idea how long it would be before I saw it again.
    The last thing I was aware of was fal ing and the sound of
    my own ragged screams before the darkness consumed
    us.

    6
    Welcome to My World
    I looked around, disoriented, and shivered in my flimsy
    satin shift. I remembered nothing about how I’d come to be
    here. My hair was damp with sweat and the fluffy costume
    wings I’d been wearing were gone. I figured they must have
    come loose and been wrenched off during the turbulent
    ride.
    There wasn’t anything about this place that was even
    vaguely familiar. I was standing alone in a dark and
    cobbled laneway. Fog swirled around my feet and the air
    was pungent with a strange odor. It smel ed like decay as if
    the very air itself were dead. It looked like the derelict part
    of some urban landscape because I could see the smoky
    outline of skyscrapers and spires in the distance. But they
    didn’t look real—more like buildings in a faded old
    photograph—blurry and lacking in detail. Where I stood
    there were only brick wal s covered in crude graffiti. The
    mortar had fal en out in places, leaving openings that
    someone had stuffed with newspaper. I heard (or imagined
    I heard) the scuttling of rats coming from behind them.
    Overloaded Dumpsters were scattered around and the
    wal s were windowless apart from a couple that had been
    boarded up. When I looked up, I found that there was no
    sky, only a strange expanse of darkness, dim and watery in
    some places and thick as tar in others. This darkness
    breathed like a living thing and was much more than the
    mere absence of light.
    An old-fashioned lamppost shedding a milky light
    al owed me to identify a black motorcycle propped just a
    few meters away. Its rider was nowhere in sight. Seeing the
    bike made my mind reel and forced me back to my current
    predicament. I fought to make sense of what had just
    happened but memory failed me. Random images flashed
    through my mind in no apparent sequence. I remembered a
    rambling house off a highway, a grinning jack-o’-lantern,
    and the laughter and banter of teenagers. Then the harsh
    sound of an engine being revved and someone cal ing my
    name. But these images were like the pieces of a jigsaw
    puzzle that I’d only just begun to assemble. It was as though
    my mind were denying me access to the memories for fear
    I wouldn’t be able to deal with them. It was dishing them out
    in fragments that made little to no sense. Suddenly one
    vivid image crashed through the barrier and the recol ection
    caused me to gasp aloud. I was back aboveground,
    immobilized by fear, as a motorbike driven by a raven-
    haired boy recklessly pitched itself through a slash in the
    highway. How was that even possible?
    I had the feeling I’d been standing in the deserted al ey
    for a while and yet had no sense of how much time had
    passed. My thoughts felt thick and sluggish, and trying to
    navigate my way through them was arduous. I massaged
    my throbbing temples and groaned. Whatever happened
    had also taken its tol physical y and my limbs felt shaky as
    if I’d just run a marathon.
    “It takes a day or two to adjust,” said a honey-smooth
    voice. Jake Thorn materialized out of the shadows to stand
    by my side. He spoke to me with such lilting familiarity, as if
    he and I had known each other long enough to dispense
    with formalities. His sudden appearance put my senses on
    high alert. “Until then you may experience some
    disorientation or a dry throat,” he added. His nonchalant
    tone was astounding. Despite my confusion I felt like
    screaming at him, and if my throat hadn’t felt as parched as
    a desert, I would have.
    “What have you done?” I croaked instead.