Bonds of Hercules (Villains of Lore, #2)(133)

I grabbed at the wall, leaving a trail of blood across the stone that had strange skeleton symbols drawn on it.

“Do you know … where we are?” I asked, unsure if I wanted to know the answer.

Fangs clicked together. “Prison.”

“What kind of—”

“The Underworld,” Nyx hissed.

I tripped.

A woman screamed at the top of her lungs.

Men laughed.

“We should help her,” I whispered, not sure what I was even saying.

Scales coiled around my leg. “Hug the wall.”

I followed Nyx’s instructions, my bloody nails dragging along rock for support.

The cries were getting louder.

There was a dull light ahead, a break in the shadows where the stones opened up—steel prison bars were halfway up, like a gate had been raised.

I peered around the rocks.

A woman was strapped in chains to a titanium table. She wore a blue hospital gown. A metal box sat over her forehead and hair—a clear mask with a tube covered her mouth, attached to a strange beeping machine.

Green letters flashed across it: Age stasis: twenty-one years old.

The woman opened her mouth and screamed into the device, eyes squeezed shut, the rest of her body unmoving.

Two men stood at her midsection.

I swallowed bile.

They both had blond hair and short beards. Green fish were embroidered on their guard uniforms—the House of Hermes.

“Are you sure she can’t feel anything?” one man asked as he grinned. “She sure screams like she can.”

The other shrugged as he reached for her chest. “Who cares? The CTE has already begun.”

Nyx coiled tighter around my leg, her fangs clicking together.

The woman whimpered and the men laughed.

I’d seen enough.

“Kill them,” I said, but Nyx was already gone.

There was a clattering as one of the guards stumbled back, gripping at his neck.

The other brandished a Spartan gun and swung it.

He turned around wildly.

I took the opening.

Running forward, I drove my shoulder into his midsection. We slammed to the rock floor and the gun clattered free, but neither of us went for it.

Clawing at his face, he grunted as he used his larger frame to pin me to the ground.

It was too late for him.

My sternum was already exploding with pain—there’d been blood on my hands. Die. Die. Die.

He convulsed on top of me, foam dripping from his lips. He mouthed words as he choked, silently begging for my help.

I shoved him off me and climbed to my feet.

The guard pleaded for help, his twitches slowing.

I stood over him and watched.

A tumultuous nothingness welled inside my sternum.

He took his last breath and a dark satisfaction filled me, one I didn’t even know I was capable of.

“They’re dead,” Nyx hissed, her scales sliding along my leg.

The room was splattered with blood.

A soft feminine wail filled the room, a hopeless fractured sound.

“I’m not leaving her here.” I felt like my head was underwater as I bent down and pulled the keys out of the guard’s pocket.

Nyx hissed, “Kid … there will be consequences.”

A strange feeling gripped me—fuck the consequences.

“I don’t care,” I said, because I didn’t.

“Then I support you,” Nyx said confidently. “Move quickly.”

The guard’s key unlocked the woman’s chains, and they fell free. Cautiously I removed the last constraint—the metal box at her head.

Rattles echoed.

Three pale snakes slithered out.

I stared at them.

A part of me had known exactly who she was.

There was only one infamous Spartan so powerful, she was incarcerated using Olympian age-control technologies. Excess measures were taken to keep her from maturing. To keep her from breaking out of the Underworld.

Medusa.

A violent criminal.

A traitor.

Synonymous with evil.

But the guards had been violating her, and my gut was telling me that she was just a victim of circumstances. I was too exhausted to question it.

Hades said I needed to claim my destiny.

Well, I was making my choice.

“Hello,” Nyx hissed as she became visible, hovering in front of Medusa’s snakes.

They rattled and hid under long tresses of black hair, shaking with fear.

I grabbed the tube of the mask, and yanked it off her face.

The machine beeped, its green lights flickering off. The screen went blank, and the whirring sound stopped as it powered down.

Medusa took a deep breath, her chest rising.

Long dark lashes fluttered open, pastel lavender eyes met mine, and her mouth opened—she slumped back, unconscious.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I put my arm under her shoulders and hauled her off the table.

Grunting, I staggered, carrying her out of the cell, down the stone hall.

She was just skin and bones in my arms, but my legs still wobbled. I could barely support myself.

“Follow me,” Nyx hissed as she led the way through the infamous prison.

We turned a corner, and strange beasts flung themselves at titanium bars, roaring at us.