Page 276 of Bonds of Hercules
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.
