Bonds of Hercules (Villains of Lore, #2)(20)
I dug my nails into the “C+A” tattooed on my forearm.
Everything about Sparta was convoluted.
“Three words,” Helen whispered.
I squinted, confused what—
“Mutually assured destruction.”
Paralysis stiffened my limbs. Rigor mortis.
Helen fell asleep first, whimpering and kicking under the covers. When I finally joined her, I dreamed of a cloaked grim reaper watching me.
“Be careful, darling,” Death whispered darkly into my ear, twirling one of my curls.
It’s just a nightmare.
A mouth brushed softly against my forehead, lips warm and disturbingly real. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
The grim reaper stared down at me.
All night, he didn’t move.
Death stood hunched over my side of the bed, staring without blinking, hovering inches from my face, his breath hot against my cheek.
Watching.
Mutually assured destruction played on a loop inside my head.
6
GUNS AND OTHER FOREPLAY
ALEXIS: SIX DAYS UNTIL THE FIRST TITAN ASSIGNMENT
Nyx was a heavy, snoring scarf around my neck.
“Holy Kronos, I can’t do this,” Helen said as she sat on her bed, waving one of her bedazzled “emotional support” guns in the air.
Dragging my hands over my face, I closed my eyes and imagined Carl Gauss praising me for my work on the Riemann Hypothesis. Emmy Noether smiled as she looked over my calculations. Tension melted out of my shoulders at my heroes’ approval.
“What in Kronos’s land am I going to do with Ceres?” Helen wailed despondently. “What have we done?”
My eyes shot open—Carl and Emmy were dead.
Welcome to Hell.
“I did it, technically,” I said. “Not you.”
“We’re both in so much trouble.” Helen waved the gun at me.
At least everyone’s staying calm.
I took a deep steadying breath.
Knock. Knock.
I jumped and Helen pointed the gun at the door.
“Alexis, we have to go right now before Augustus murders us!” Drex shouted from the hall.
Funny story, Drex, you’re actually in more imminent danger than you think.
Helen stared up at me, face contorted with pure panic. She didn’t lower the gun.
“It will be fine,” I lied.
“We can do this,” she lied back.
Nothing in life was more powerful than two women affirming each other’s horrible life choices.
A few seconds later, I ran out into the hall.
Drex grabbed me. “We’re supposed to meet in the villa’s training complex right now. If we don’t hurry, we’ll be late.”
“How far can it be?” I asked.
Our eyes widened with terror as we both realized I’d just cursed us. Crap.
We sprinted out of the villa into the rain.
Nyx sputtered on my neck. “Ughs—I’m melting.” She slithered underneath my clothes.
Lightning flashed.
The electric fence towered thirty feet into the air. Small silver boxes protruded from its base. Spartan solar-powered generators. Sparks sizzled.
Drex pointed at a rock-colored hatch.
Fluffy Jr. pushed his wet nose against my leg. I glanced down at him. What?
He picked up a twig and held it in his mouth.
Don’t you dare. I don’t have time for this.
He choked it down.
Wagging his tail, his tongue lolled out of his mouth—it was covered in bark.
Drex opened the door, revealing a dark stairwell that led into the earth. My kidneys twinged with phantom pain—bomb shelters in Montana were infamously used to store harvested organs.
Drex grimaced. “Ladies first.”
Fluffy Jr. sprinted down the dark creepy steps, tail wagging as he gagged.
I made the sign of the cross and followed him down.
Finally the dark stairwell opened up and I stumbled to a stop.
Drex ran into me. “What is it—”
He gasped.
A cavernous concrete bunker bigger than multiple football fields spread out before us.
Flickering overhead lights covered everything in shades of green, as a chrome Spartan generator sputtered loudly in the corner.
Pockets of fake trees, mimicking a dense forest, were positioned around piles of junk cars, and a quarter of the room looked like an old movie set, crumbling brick buildings standing as tall as the trees.
It was a training course, designed to kill (literally).
Case in point, on closer inspection, the dotted pattern covering everything wasn’t a design choice—they were bullet holes. Oh nice.
Five masked figures stepped forward from the fake trees.
Each of them held a short dagger.
White tank tops, white exercise pants, and white ski masks completed their ridiculous ensembles. If they were trying to disguise themselves, it didn’t work.
Agatha crossed her arms, propping up her boobs, one of which was bigger than both of mine combined (a devastating observation).
Next to her, Poco sat on Augustus’s shoulder, eating his long two-toned hair.
Kharon’s skeleton tattoo stretched across his right arm, and gruesome chest scars peeked out from beneath the scoop of his tank.