Milo protested. He claimed that I needed to tell him more, that we needed a plan. He was probably right. The entire plan had gone belly up. The rest of the team had fled to safety but he and I were still here. And he thought Keiko and Ajax were currently tearing apart every speck of dust in search for me. now, I was leaving him behind all over again.

Ryder didn't hesitate when I plead with him. He rose to his feet and offered me a hand which I ignored, rising to my own shaky legs. Milo only got up in an effort to convince me to stay and tell him more. His words drifted past my ringing ears without being heard. I shuffled to the front door and pulled on my shoes.

It wasn't until we got into the car that I realized how badly I was shaking and how blurry my vision was. In the silence of the vehicle, every breath seemed so loud.

"Georgia," Ryder whispered.

I said nothing, just continued to stare at my quaking fingers.

"Oh George, come here." His arms were extended towards me, moving to embrace me despite the awkwardness of being crammed in a vehicle.

My skin crawled at the thought. "Don't touch me," I hissed.

"George—"

"Don't."

How could I let him put his hands on me at a moment like this? It was falling apart, all of it. The things I had told myself while balancing in that stupid tree had been nothing but lies. My parents were not being taken care of. My team was not safe. All the years of sacrifice had not been worth a single thing. It was all crumbling beneath my feet. And Cassey, sweet Cassey. She was nothing but a shell now. The light and love that had filled every syllable she spoke was gone. sucked out of her.

Because of them.

Because of creatures just like him.

"Take me home," I ordered, my voice cold and robotic.

Ryder's mouth fell open once, twice. Then he clamped it shut and started the car. Like a grumpy child, I kept my arms folded over my chest and my knees facing the window. But this wasn't about pouting. This was so that I could give myself little squeezes to soothe some of the chattering in my lungs and to keep my gleaming eyes hidden from him. I tried to tell myself that I would figure it out, I always did. Everything would be alright in the end. But right now, this felt like the end. We drove through a town that didn't feel like mine, turned up roads I felt like I hadn't seen before, even when we ended up outside of my little rental.

"Why did you bring me here?" I managed.

"You wanted to go home," he stated.

"You were afraid that I would have dozens of weapons to kill you with in there," I pointed out, but I was already undoing my seatbelt.

Ryder didn't answer, but he did follow me up the cracked concrete path to the front door and inside of the place I called home. I could have slammed the door in his face and maybe I should have, but I didn't have the fight in me.

"Do you want to talk?" he asked gently.

"To you?" I spat.

"I don't think you have a lot of options, Georgia."

I stubbornly kept my back to him and strode into the kitchen. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what I needed. Everything felt so wrong. Being here, at the home I never thought I would come back to, with a man I thought I knew, knowing that my friends were all gone. It was horrible feeling brewing in my gut and it was impossible to wrap my mind around.

But not quite as horrible as the smell that slapped me in the face when I opened my refrigerator. My stomach heaved immediately. Apparently cleaning out my fridge before my final assignment had not been a priority.

"You go relax for a minute. I'll order some takeout and if you feel like talking in a while, I'll be here."

I assessed him then, running my eyes over his form. This was the same man who said he didn't know if he wanted me dead or alive only a couple short days ago. This is the man who hadn't been pleased when Hades announced that I was not to be slaughtered. Now he was here, letting me wear his flannel, offering to order food.

I didn't know if I should slap him, snarl obscenities at him, or fall into his arms like a sobbing mess.

Unable to decide which route to take, I created a new one. "You let Milo go, why?"

"Letting go implies that he was my captive to begin with, which isn't exactly true."

"You could have thrown him to the ground the second he opened that door. Surprise was on your side."

"I doubt it would have turned out well if I had tried to put my hands on him. You told me that he was trained. Besides, I'm not sure if this is way I want to go about this issue anymore. The whole flies and honey thing might have some validity in this situation."

It was a limp excuse. He knew it. I knew it. Milo was fast and he was agile. He was the kind of person that you could lose in a mall if you blinked. Good for weaving in the trees and being unsee, not great for hand-to-hand. The second Ryder saw his thin form, Ryder could have thrown him down, tied him up, and carted him off to the beloved king and queen without leaving a second for pleading.

But if he wasn't going to tell me his real reasoning, I wasn't going to pry. Without a second glance or another word, I left the kitchen and went to my bathroom. I tried to take comfort in being surrounded by my own belongings. My hairbrush was designed for wet, unruly hair. My conditioner smelt just the way I liked. I had a chai and pumpkin scented lotion on my counter year round because I loved it. these were all things that I knew, things I could control.

They didn't matter. I was spiraling.

I ripped the flannel off me like it was scalding my raw skin. I debated throwing it in the toilet or turning my curling iron all the way up and seeing how the material would react with such extreme heat. The flannel just ended up on the floor, along with the rest of my clothes. I climbed into my shower, thinking that I would allow myself five to ten minutes of...whatever I was feeling.

It must have been much longer than ten minutes, because, eventually, Ryder knocked on the door.

"Pizza is here, G," he announced.

I said nothing, kept my head bowed and my legs pulled to my chest. I don't know at what point I sat down, but there had been a moment when I felt I couldn't even bear to stand.

"Georgia?"

I blinked against the water spraying down on me. it was boiling. I would surely be pink all over when I did finally climb out.

"Georgia, are you okay?"

If I ever got out. The world was out there. Reality was out there. Here, there was only warmth and stillness. My bare skin and hot water.

"Georgia!" There was a rattle of a handle now, then a slap of a palm against the wood when he realized I had locked it.

"I'm coming," I croaked out, fearing he would break the door down. As if I had anywhere to escape to right now. There were no open arms I could just run into anymore, no safe places to lay low.

So, I shut off the water and dried myself off. With a towel wrapped around me, I skittered across the hallway to my room and comforted myself by pulling on clothes that were mine. Just mine. Things I had bought by myself, for myself, that didn't smell like a man. And when I finally felt strong enough, I went to the living room where Ryder was sitting on the couch, a plate of pizza already in his lap and a controller balancing on his knee.

I knew the he had ordered the pizza from the fridge magnet I had. It was my favorite. But I doubted he was a man who had magnets on his fridge like I did, all those little mementos from moments long passed. Now, looking at the pizza made me physically ill.

"I don't want to play video games with you," I said hotly.

"Do you want to be left alone with your thoughts?" he challenged right back.

I said nothing, narrowing my eyes at him.

"That's what I thought, now come sit down and get some food into you."

~~~Question of the Day~~~

If you had to change your name, what would you call yourself?