CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE

Finding Hope, Part 2

Sam wasn’t sure how long he stared at this strange apparition. Confusion, surprise, and doubt had flitted across his face before he managed to ask, “Are you… Serena?”

The perky, white-skinned vision of the child looked so much like his sister, but there was something in her eyes that made Sam doubt. He didn’t think Serena would have such irises, ones so bright and filled with depth and knowledge.

“No, I’m not her, Sam,” the child replied just before she reached a hand to him. “But I can take you to her if you want?”

“Okay”—Sam reached for the girl’s hand—“I want to see her.”

He wasn’t sure how long they walked side by side along the foggy path while the swirls of coiling mist enveloped them. Eventually, the fog would part like wispy gates to reveal a white-hot room just beyond them.

“This looks like—”

“The place you go to when you meet with Apollo?” the little girl asked.

Sam nodded.

“It’s similar but not the same,” the little girl replied. “We’re in Serena’s dreamscape. Not yours.”

After the fog dissipated around them, Sam could finally see the teenage girl sitting cross-legged in the middle of the white-hot room. It was Serena. Not the child who held onto his hand, but the Serena he’d met in the real world. Although the shawl that was wrapped around her head was gone.

“She’s—”

“Pandora the 8th,” the little girl confirmed. “But she’s also Serena Shepard, daughter of Adele and Steven, younger sister to Samuel… And my bestie in the whole wide world.”

Sam glanced sideways at the little girl. “Your… bestie?”

The little girl nodded toward Sam’s sister.

Serena wasn’t holding Pandora’s Box, although something white and glowing was cradled in her arms. She was staring down at it with a carefree and innocent smile that was the complete opposite of the stoic-faced teenager Sam had met in the real world.

“What is that?” Sam asked.

“That’s the cute and cuddly part of me,” the little girl giggled.

The thing wrapped in Serena’s arms unfurled its pure-white wings, revealing the glowing dove hidden underneath.

“Oh,” Sam breathed. “That’s—”

“Yep, that’s the Spirit of Hope,” the little girl said proudly.

She turned her head to offer Sam a warm, welcoming grin.

“I’m Hope,” she said. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Sam.”

“Y-you know me?” Sam asked.

He wasn’t sure why, but he hadn’t pulled away from the little girl who still held his hand. Perhaps it was because he felt no sense of fear or danger from her. Only good things.

Hope nodded. “Serena talks about you all the time. Her big brother… Her hero.”

“I…” Sam choked up. “…I’m her hero?”

“She always believed you would find her,” Hope revealed. “That’s what kept her from truly falling into darkness all these years.”

Lucky for Sam, Hope turned her head away from him or she would have seen the tears streaming down his face.

“But she doesn’t seem alright outside this place,” Sam insisted.

“The Serena you met out there is the part of her that her handlers managed to mold. The rest of her, the parts that make her Serena is in here with me. This is the one place where I could preserve her innocence,” Hope answered.

Visions of the past began to play on the walls of the white-hot room; a happy family picnic, playing video games together on the couch in their old living room, and even that time that she laughingly pushed her brother into a diver’s training pool.

“Serena’s lucky she has you. My other friends didn’t have a Sam to bring them hope,” Hope said in a tone that carried with it a smidge of sadness.

“What… what happened to the other Pandoras?”

Hope’s grip on Sam’s hand tightened slightly. “There can be no growth—no life worth living—without hope…”

Hope didn’t need to say anything else. Sam got the gist of it. But there was no way in Hades he was going to let his sister go down that same road of hopelessness that her predecessors were on.

“You said she believed I would save her,” Sam repeated. “So… how do I do that?”

His moment of true heroism was about to unfold. At least that’s what he thought. Right up to the moment when Hope dashed his hopes with a clueless shrug.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“You don’t know?” Sam repeated lamely.

“I’m not the hero here, Sam… You are,” Hope countered.

Hope let go of Sam’s hand so she could place both her hands on her hips. This helped to amplify the scrutinizing look she gave him.

“So, what’s your plan?” Hope asked. “How are you going to save Serena without breaking the universe?”

Sam’s gaze drifted from Hope to Serena to the white dove chirping on her lap and then back to Hope.

How indeed, he wondered.

***

“What if—”

“That won’t work,” Hope said.

“You didn’t even—”

“You were going to suggest taking Serena’s place yourself,” Hope cut in. “Won’t work. You can’t be my container.”

Sam wondered if all women were genetically inclined to cut men off. “Why not?” he asked, frustrated.

They’d been at this for at least an hour. With him giving out suggestions and Hope pointing out the many flaws in his plans. All the while, his sister continued to play with the dove in her lap as if she couldn’t see Hope and Sam arguing just a few feet away.

“There are no male Pandoras,” Hope answered.

“That’s sexist,” Sam fired back.

Hope shrugged. “Females are just generally better at handling hope than males.”

“It’s not a good enough reason not to try, is it?” Sam countered.

Hope sighed. “I don’t mean women know how to manage expectations better. I mean men literally go up in flames if they attempt to house me inside of them.”

Sam frowned. “Why?”

“Because the gods made it so,” she replied. “The Spirit of Hope is empowering. It is the source of miracles. In the wrong hands, it could become a tool for unimaginable destruction.”

“And the gods didn’t think a man could handle that kind of temptation?” Sam guessed.

“Could you blame them?” Hope shrugged. “My other siblings didn’t exactly have a hard time corrupting man back in the ancient days.”

Sam couldn’t argue with that logic as he was aware that a lot of bad decisions over the thousands of years of humanity’s history had been mostly made by the males of the species.

“A tool for unimaginable destruction,” he repeated.

His arms wrapped around his chest while he contemplated Hope’s words.

“Isn’t that the case now though?” he reminded Hope. “Pandora’s a villain.”

It was Hope’s turn to contemplate. She mirrored Sam’s stance and did just that. “Well, technically, I am housed inside of her but Pandora doesn’t control me. Only the relic that keeps my essence from spilling out into the world,” Hope later explained.

“She can’t use you?” Sam asked, his eyebrow rising slightly.

Hope shook her head. “Pandora’s role isn’t to set me free but to keep me contained… Even if she has to break bad so she can accumulate enough darkness to keep my essence in check.”

“Why?” Sam pressed.

“Balance,” Hope answered.

Sam frowned. “Balance? What does that have to do with—Oh!”

A look of excitement flashed across Sam’s face.

“That’s why there aren’t any male Pandoras,” he guessed.

“And Serena said you weren’t very smart.” Hope beamed at him. “You got there eventually, didn’t you?”

“Wait, she said that?” Sam asked, frowning some more.

“Focus,” Hope chided. “Now, tell me what you’ve figured out.”

Still frowning, Sam explained that he assumed balance was literal. Women couldn’t wield Hope’s power. They could only contain it. Men couldn’t contain Hope, but perhaps they could wield some of its power.

Hope clapped enthusiastically. “And it’s only been an hour too.”

“But why?” Sam asked, his brow furrowing even more. “Why would the gods allow men to wield power that even they want to keep bottled up?”

“Because some of the gods are smart enough to know that humanity still needs hope. So, they made sure it would be possible to wield my power whenever the times required it,” Hope explained.

“You’re saying… someone’s wielded the Spirit of Hope’s power before?” as he realized this, Sam’s eyes widened. “Who?”

Hope smiled knowingly. “Don’t you already know?”

And he did. Who else could wield the Spirit of Hope but those heroes who instilled hope into the world when humanity needed it most.

“Hercules,” Sam answered.

Hope nodded. “He was the first.”

“And Captain Solar was the last,” Sam guessed.

Hope nodded.

Her face turned contemplative before adding, “Superion and I haven’t met, but the way he inspires people is technically thanks to my influence.”

She nodded in Serena’s direction.

“Even if most of me is contained, a small portion of my essence does manage to leak into the mortal plane, allowing inspiration, optimism, and even love to bloom in your world,” she explained.

“But actually wielding the source of hope would be different, right?” Sam guessed.

Hope gave Sam a wry smile. “Like comparing a mountain to a boulder.”

With this knowledge, Sam finally began to understand why Hope and Serena had been waiting for him in this place. He was her counterpoint—the balance she needed to contain the Spirit of Hope more efficiently.

“If I could take some of Hope’s essence from her,” Sam began, to which Hope finished with, “It would certainly lessen the burden Serena has to carry.”

“…How much of you can I wield?” Sam asked.

Hope let out a long sigh.

“Not enough to free Serena from this place,” she admitted. “But enough that she might eventually be able to see the sun with her own eyes again.”

“That would take too long…” Sam’s hands balled into fists. “What if…”

He glanced at Serena, seeing how happy she looked and wondering if he would ever see that innocent smile of hers in the real world.

“What if we did this in doses?” Sam asked.

“You mean, you want to wield my power more than once?” Hope confirmed.

Sam nodded. “If I can only take thirty percent—”

“Ten percent,” Hope corrected. “That’s a full tank for you as you are now.”

“Okay,” Sam sighed. “What if I take ten percent now… and maybe another ten percent at a later date once I’ve used up the essence I already have?”

Hope gave Sam a skeptical look. “Gee, I don’t know, Sam… It’s never been done before. Heroes usually only get one sip of my essence. I don’t know what it would do to your body and soul if you kept coming back for more.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam insisted. “If this helps Serena… then I’ll take the challenge no matter how hard or painful it is.”

Seconds ticked by while the two of them locked gazes, each surveying the other for signs of faltering. Neither did, although it was Hope who eventually relented.

“Okay… we can try it your way…” Her gaze drifted to Serena. “I want to help my bestie too…

When her head swiveled back to Sam, a worried expression showed on her face.

“Are you sure?” she asked again.

Sam nodded. “My sister believed in me… It’s time I believed in me too.”

With doubt washing away from her, Hope offered her hand to Sam once more.

“Come on, Hero.” She grinned. “Time to get hope-full!”