He motioned with his hand, beckoning me. I bit my lip and ran forward. He wrapped his hands around my hips and hoisted me above his head. This time I didn’t forget to pose. The room fell silent. The only sound was my steady breathing while suspended in the air. He lowered me, letting our bodies slide against each other until the tips of my toes touched the floor. I stared up at him, my gaze dropping to the thin shape of his lips. I couldn’t be sure if it were the dancing or the intensity in his stare, but with shaky hands, I touched my lips to his. He tensed before reciprocating, sliding his lips against mine. He tasted like charcoal.
I gasped and pulled away. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He licked his lips.
I forgot who he was. What he was. He seemed so human. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Kiss me, you mean?”
“I mean—we can’t.”
He glared. “Why? Because I’m a god or specifically because I’m the King of Ash and Bone?”
His words felt like lemon juice in a papercut. “That’s not what I meant, I—”
“It is. I knew this was too good to be true. Who put you up to this?” He snarled. “Zeus?”
My sinuses stung. “What? No. I—” I couldn’t get the words out. A tear rolled down my cheek.
“I’ll do the contest with you because I already promised, but rest assured, once it’s over, you never have to see me again.” The skin above his nose creased, and his jaw tightened.
When he turned for the door, I took a step forward. “Hades.”
His forearm tensed, holding the door open, and he tossed a scowl over his shoulder. “What?”
“Rupert’s acting strange. I’m worried that—"
His grip tightened on the door, and he interrupted me to say, “I’ll take care of it.”
“Okay—” The door slammed. “Bye.”
I flopped onto the couch and sobbed.
If there was one thing I knew about myself, it was the inability to leave work at work. I snuck out of our hotel room first thing in the morning in my PJs and went to the computer lab. That and I could hardly sleep given the way things ended with Hades. The disappointed look on his face haunted me. A face I’d put there.
Sara had a knack for making me feel guilty, and if she caught me, it’d be like I stole her last Cinnamon Bun Oreo. I secured myself in the corner of the lab, making sure to keep my head low. The light from the monitor glinted in my glasses.
The file slack. I can’t believe I didn’t think to check it before. Or I’d gotten so burnt out with the case it slipped my mind. Wouldn’t be the first time it happened nor the last. Examiners were human beings as much as we’d like to think of ourselves as robots. Essentially, files are never entirely deleted. Instead, their data is moved around the hard drive as it makes space for other files. It could get tricky when less and less of the file was available, or if it became so fragmented, piecing it all together from varying points on the drive. For anyone trying to hide something, deleting a lot of data was usually a first step in covering their digital tracks.
Making sure to keep my head level with the monitor, I started processing. The sound of the door opening made my head dip lower.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sara said, standing at the end of the row with her arms crossed.
I chuckled, sitting straight up. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Stephanie Rose Costas. You. Promised.”
“Sara, I know, but we only have two more days here, and I didn’t want to waste them wracking my brain over this working or not.”
She stomped over, glaring down at the screen. “You know this is confidential evidence. Sifting through it on a public domain could get you in some deep shit.”
I drummed my fingers against the desk. “Not if I’m logged into a virtual private network.”
“Stephanie.” She loomed over me. “You would’ve had to set that up at work.”
“Look at you, knowing how VPNs work.”
“Which means you knowingly set it up before we left. You had every intention of logging in before our plane left the tarmac, didn’t you?”
I blinked. “I may have a serious problem.”
“I know you’re passionate about your job and want to help people, but you need to start putting yourself first, Steph.” She stood up with a sigh.
I traced a fingertip over my lip, remembering the kiss with Hades. The scowl that creased into his brow when I’d stupidly said it shouldn’t have happened.
“Did you at least find something?”
I jolted in my chair. “Hm, what?”
“The process is finished.” The word “complete” flashed on the screen.
“Right.”
After scrolling through the broken data, it wasn’t looking good. I sighed, leaning back in my chair with a humph.
“From the way this data is patterned, it’s as if he knew the possibility and added meaningless files to override the data continuously,” I said.
“Is that why I keep seeing the filename: catmeme.jpg repeatedly?”
“Exactly. And I already checked. That file is an actual cat meme. Son-of-a-bitch.” Swearing meant I was on a whole new level of frustration. There was always a shred of evidence. Something. I pressed my face into my palms and started crying.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s not as if the physical side of things was any better. He knew what he was doing. He didn’t get messy, as so many other serial killers do. Committing suicide was probably the smartest thing he could’ve done.”
It wasn’t about the case. The crying turned into full-on sobbing.
“Steph, my God. What’s the matter?” Sara said, taking a seat next to me and rubbing my back.
“Hades.”
“Did he do something? Say something?”
I sniffled. “No. It was me. Me.”
“Sweetie, you’re going to have to give me a little more here.”
“I kissed him.”
She stopped rubbing and dipped her face into mine. “Was it bad?”
“No.” I started sobbing again. “It was perfect. Beyond perfect.”
“Stephanie.” She turned my chin to look at her. “Are you going to tell me or what?”
“It was a great kiss that shouldn’t have happened.”
“Why?”
“Because we can’t be together, and it’d just hurt more in the end.”
“Why can’t you be together?”
I rubbed the back of my hand across each cheek, wiping away tears. “Do you remember the movie Labyrinth?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I remember David Bowie’s codpiece and her name being Sarah mostly, but yes.”
“Sarah is pulled into the Goblin King’s spell. Like it starts as a wicked ploy on Jareth’s part at first, but then Sarah really does start feeling something for him.” I pinched my eyes shut, remembering Hades call me “real.” “He’d been known for wicked deeds and ill intents but went through everything to lure her into the labyrinth. Seduce her, to make her his.”
All Hades wanted was to feel normal for a short time while he was on the surface. With one action and few words, I ripped that way from him.