The Chosen Goddess

Chapter#2

Alecia's POV

“Um…”

Just when I was about to be swallowed up by the darkness, Slade, moving faster than anyone else, came to my rescue. When I look into his eyes, I can see that he was worried about me.

“I’m sorry. I can’t believe you saved my life twice.”

After rescuing me and bringing me back to the living room in the mansion, he lets go of me. He glares at me, his eyes daggers.

“We’re gods. You’ll never be able to run away from us. It’s unthinkable. Whether you live or die depends on me… Never forget that.”

I’m struck by the cold, authoritative tone in his voice. For some reason, those words strike fear into my heart. My legs give out beneath me, and I collapse on the floor.

“Are you okay?” Dion asks me.

“That door isn’t connected yet.” Says the un-named man. “I’m Izra, by the way.”

“What do you mean it’s ‘not connected’?” I ask him.

“The door to this mansion can connect to anywhere we want. Be careful not to get close to it from now on, okay?” Izra flashes me a smile and pats me on the head like I’m a little kid.

When I get out of here, I’m never coming back.

“Hey…” Slade speaks up.

“Yes?” I look up at him from my pathetic position on the ground.

“This isn’t funny. Quit messing around and absolve me of my sin.”

If doing that will get me out of here, I guess I’ve got no choice. I stand up and face him again.

“Okay. What should I do?”

“I sure as hell don’t know.” Slade narrows his eyes at me.

The five gods abruptly fall silent.

“Hey, do you three know?” Izra asks the other three, minus Slade.

“If we knew, we would have already done it.” Percy smiles dumbly.

“What about you? I thought you were supposed to be so damn smart.” Slade addresses Dion.

“Is that any way to talk to someone when you’re asking for help?”

“Dion, don’t let him bother you.” Izra shakes his head.

“You don’t know s**t anyway.” Slade scoffs at the rest of the ‘gods’.

“What did you say?!” Kazimir glares daggers at Slade.

“Stop, please. You too, Kazimir…” Dion tries to calm the two raging gods.

It looks like things have taken a turn for the worst because of me…

“Tch.” Slade scowls at me. “You’re useless. Get out of my sight.”

A chance I hadn’t even dared to wish for appears before my eyes. I’d better get out of here before this jerk changes his mind. I start to briskly stride towards the door.

“Wait!” Dion tries to stop me. “I know Slade told you to leave, but he doesn’t really mean it.”

“You understand that I can’t do anything for you guys even if I stay here, right? I have to get back to work. Please let me go!”

I’m sure the people I work with, as well as Hannah and Brittany, are worried about my sudden disappearance. Just then, a surly-looking Slade glances my way.

“Dion… I’m going out.” Slade says, exhausted.

“Where are you going out at a time like this?”

Ignoring Kazimir, Slade snaps his fingers.

*SNAP*

We all wait but nothing happens.

“What happened to your powers?” Dion asks. “You were able to use them up until just now.”

“Shut up.”

Slade snaps his fingers again, but he doesn’t disappear. The last time he made that noise, I was transported here from the planetarium. I notice Slade glaring at me. Then, still glaring, he steadily inches closer.

“What is it? You’re scaring me…”

Why is he looking at me like that?! It’s freaking me out! I quickly raise my hands and press them against his chest to stop him from getting any closer. But the instant I do, Slade shoots a hand out and grabs me hard by both wrists.

“Ow!”

Holding my wrists, he lifts my hands up high above my head. He pins them against the wall behind me.

“That hurts!”

Now it’s my turn to glare daggers at him. How dare he?!

“Come on, Slade,” Izra pleads with him.

“Shut your mouth.” Slade snaps at Izra.

All the remaining gods awkwardly shift their weight around as if they’re afraid to help me. What is he going to do? He presses my arms against the wall with his forearm, so I can’t move. My heart pounds inappropriately in response to his unexpected touch. My nostrils fill with his musky but clean scent.

“You really don’t know anything?” He suddenly asks me.

He looks down at me, observing me from above. He’s so much taller than me that I have to strain my neck.

“Uh…”

“If I ask you a question, answer it, scum.”

“I don’t know anything.”

He silently glares back at me for a few seconds before answering.

“You don’t sound like you’re lying.”

He raises his free hand. The instant he snaps his fingers, the lights in the room go off.

“What…? Did the power go out?”

I hear Izra’s voice.

“No.” Kazimir says, sounding annoyed.

Slade snaps his fingers again, and the lights come back on.

“I see… It’s this stupid woman.”

“Oh-ho… So that’s how it works.” Dion observes in shock.

Slade abruptly lets me go.

“What do you mean?” I ask everyone. “Did you do that with your powers just now?”

“That was nothing. I wouldn’t call something that basic ‘power’.” Izra argues and does little finger quotations with his hands.

“Um…” I start to say.

“Regardless… It looks like I can only use my powers if I’m touching you. And even touching you, I can’t use 100% of my power.”

At first, he’s glaring at me but then he looks down at the ground.

“So, the goddess holds the key. She can temporarily weaken the seal on your powers.” Dion concludes.

Looking displeased, Slade nods. Now that a few moments have passed, my wrists are starting to ache where he was holding them. Why did he have to squeeze the hell out of my wrists if just touching me would suffice? There’s nothing I can do to fight back when he uses brute force against me like that. I’m surrounded by a bunch of strange men claiming to be gods. When I consider the predicament I’m in, I’m suddenly scared. Slade touches my red wrists. He’s not going to erase the pain, is he? This guy would never do that.

“Erase the pain? Erasing things is your job. The first step to completing an objective is to subdue the enemy. With your hands pinned above your head, I didn’t have to worry about you resisting.”

“Wait, what?!”

Did I accidentally say what I was thinking out loud? What he said just now was definitely an answer to my thoughts.

“You’re obviously infinitely stronger than me… and-“

“Shut up. If you want to go home, quit talking back every chance you get.” He snaps at me. “What a f*cking pain…” He mutters.

He roughly releases my hands again. What is this guy’s deal? Is this really what gods are like? What happened to make him this twisted…? This guy is the worst. Overbearing, and intimidating… He does whatever he wants without telling anyone what he’s thinking, and without any consideration for anyone else’s feelings.

“So, you can only use our powers when you touch her. That means we have to keep Alecia around here all the time.” Izra smiles at his suggestion.

“What? No… he just said I could go home. I mean, come on, I just disappeared from work in the middle of my shift. I’m going to be in big trouble if I don’t show up tomorrow.”

Slade doesn’t say anything.

“Please! Let me go home already!”

“’Home’… ‘Work’… You say?” Kazimir raises an eyebrow at me.

“We’ll make it so you don’t have to go to those places. Why don’t we just erase the memory of everyone in the world has of this girl?” Izra says with a grin on his face.

“It would be a problem if word got out about us anyway.” Dion contemplates with Izra.

They’re joking, right? They may call themselves gods, but there’s no way they can REALLY erase people’s memories… Right? Maybe they’re saying that to scare me… Because they don’t want me to go home… If that’s the case, I decide to try my best to negotiate with them.

“What if I promise to cooperate with you when you need to use your powers…? Will you let me go home then…?”

“Hey, you...”

“Yes?”

Slade stares at me, his expression cold and detached. Under a gaze like this, I should be scared, but I feel my heart begin to pound for a reason other than nerves.

“If you swear to keep your promise, I’ll let you go home for today. I would never normally want to spend any time with a filthy human like you anyway.”

I want to bite back, but I hold my tongue for the sake of negotiating my way out of here.

“Really?” I ask.

“In exchange, you must swear to offer your body to me when I need my powers.” His tone is decisive, leaving no room for argument.

It scares me a little.

“Oooh! ‘Offer your body to me’! That sounds kinda sexy, dontcha think?” Izra grins.

“No, Slade doesn’t mean it like that.” Dion looks at Izra in shock. “He’s cold-blooded. He’ll do whatever it takes to fulfill a goal.”

“Yeah, you’re right. You’d have to be a fool to disobey him.” Izra nods in agreement.

“Shut up, you blabber-mouthed little prankster.” Slade snaps at Izra.

“Ouch! That was mean!” Izra pouts.

“What do you say, stupid woman?” Slade turns back to me.

He DID save my life twice, and I haven’t properly thanked him. I make my final decision and give him a definitive nod.

“Okay, I promise to cooperate.”

I’ll hurry and erase his sin, then he can go back to his star kingdom or outer space or wherever. That’s the most important thing. After I give him my answer, Slade touches the large, heavy door.

“I’ll summon you when I need you and only when I need you. Don’t EVER come around here otherwise. Got that?”

That sounds ideal for me too.

“Yep!”

The thick door squeaks slowly open. For some reason, my condo is on the other side of the door.

“How did it connect to my front door?!” I ask, unable to hide my shock.

“Quit asking about every little thing and get the hell out of here.”

“I was just leaving anyway…” I huff.

When I turn around, I see Izra looks unhappy for some reason. He stops Slade to ask him a question.

“Hey… Why are you sending her home?”

“You really do hate humans...” Kazimir looks at Slade and then me.

“Of course he does. Being exiled to Earth is harder on Slade than anyone.” Dion explains and looks down at the floor.

“Man… I really wanted to live with her…” Izra whines.

I don’t pay any attention to what Dion or Izra says. On the contrary, all I can think about is that I’m finally free of this mysterious group. I don’t think anything of his words… now.

~

“Sorry I’m late!” I pant as I run into the restaurant where I’m meeting Hannah for dinner.

“It’s okay!” She smiles. “I heard you went home with that guy from work today!” She winks at me.

“What? No, no… no. Nope!” I repeat too many times.

She looks at me quizzically.

“Are you sure nothing happened?”

I hesitate to respond, and she immediately gets the wrong idea.

“Nothing like THAT happened, I promise!”

“Okay…” she says slowly as if she doesn’t believe me.

She can believe whatever she wants but I can assure, nothing like what she’s insinuating will ever happen with HIM! I shake my head to clear my thoughts and order a glass of wine. I think I need a couple glasses to forget about what happened today.

~

The next day, I’m worried when I walk into the planetarium. I expect to be scolded for disappearing yesterday. However, much to my surprise, none of my coworkers seem to be angry. I vanished in the middle of a shift. Why aren’t they mad? Is it possible they didn’t even realize I had left?

“Alecia!”

“Brittany, I’m really sorry about leaving early yesterday! Were the customers angry?”

“Angry? No way, they were overjoyed. I wish you’d told me you had such an amazing event planned. I would’ve helped you.”

She thinks it was part of the event?

“Oh yeah, but it WAS no fair the way you left in the middle of everything. I made up a good excuse for you, though.”

It looks like she didn’t see the exact moment I disappeared.

“You’ve gotta tell me. What’s with you and that one guy from the event yesterday?”

Well, apparently, he’s a god, and I’m a ‘goddess’, or ‘filthy human’… I don’t know… I can’t exactly tell her that, though.

“You guys seemed like you were hitting it off. Is he…? Could he be the guy Hannah had an inkling about?”

“What… No! There’s absolutely no way! Wait, she told you about that? And don’t you remember how rude he was? We didn’t ‘hit it off’ AT ALL!” I defend.

He threatened me! He calls himself a god, but he acts like a demon.

“Brittany, Alecia, can you come here for a second?”

“Coming! Ready, Alecia?” Brittany asks, ignoring my freak-out.

“Oh, yeah…”

For some reason, Slade’s unfriendly face pops into my mind. The man I was supposed to meet…? There’s no way. No, no… But still, I wonder what’s going to happen to me… Could meeting that rude, inconsiderate god really change my destiny? I can’t even imagine it…