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Sin and I exchanged knowing glances. She noticed it as well. The absence of sound set me on edge, more so than I already had been. Still, it could be explained. If some wild dog had just taken down a smaller creature, it would be eating nearby, and it would be a while before any others felt safe to come out. That is what I told myself to slow my frantic heartrate, but it didn’t stop the unwelcomed foreboding that something bad was going to happen at any minute.
We slowed our steps, hunching down and keeping vigilant as we moved closer to the plaza. If we somehow hadn’t noticed the deafening silence, red flag number two would have stopped us dead in our tracks.
The portal was just ahead, a swirling mass sitting on the edge of the broken fountain, and there were no guards.
“Bathroom break?” Sin whispered, shrugging her shoulder in question.
I shook my head, trying to listen for any sound. “No, once Nog gave Styx the slip, they put two to three guards on it around the clock. Oberon is lead, but I don’t know his rotation.” And Styx was no longer involved here. Once she had returned to Tartarus, she resisted coming back to this side. Resisted was a nice way of putting it. She flat out refused and told Caius she’d rather die. “I don’t know who is supposed to be there right now, butsomeoneis supposed to be there.”
“Well, it’s not a shift change,” she said, considering other options.
Sin and I ducked down, positioning ourselves behind overgrown bushes, waiting to see if something happened. If someone returned after sneaking away for an unsanctioned rendezvous with a local, or even sneaking off together. Two guards in love. It could happen. Hell, I waited for a buzzard to fly over and pick at a guard’s dead body if there was one. That would at least have given me some information to go on.
We got nothing. Not a sound. No movement. Not a cricket chirp.
“Something is very wrong,” I said in a barely audible whisper, peering over the hedge.
“This place is like a ghost town. I don’t even hear bugs.” She scanned the park, looking for signs of life. “What do you want to do?”
I struggled with the knowledge Caius may be in trouble, but I wasn’t going to run through the portal, guns blazing. Not when my better judgment was telling me to stop. To wait. Assess the situation and make a plan.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I pinched the bridge of my nose and cursed.
“What?” Sin whispered.
“I don’t know who is on Abyssian’s side. Is Pol part of it? Legion?” Not Styx. She wouldn’t . . . I hoped not. “If the guards were his, he had them pulled.”
“Well,” she said, pressing her lips together and raising her brows. “Then that means there’s an ambush on the other side and that’s kind of a problem.”
“Okay, look. When you go through, you end up in this atrium. There’s a lot of plant life. Giant ferns with big fronds. If we go in low, maybe we can hide and observe before making any other moves.
She raised her brows again like I’d lost my mind. “They set a trap for you. What’s your plan if they’re just waiting on the other side when we come crawling through on our bellies?”
“Tuck and roll?” I tried to smile, and she did too, but neither of us pulled it off well.
“Wait, you just said they set a trap for me.”
She stared at me. “Yeah?”
“He would think I’d be coming alone.” The wheels began to turn as I tried to form a plan.
“So?”
“So, I go through, get captured, but then you come through right after. They won’t be expecting two of us. As long as their backs are turned, they won’t see you coming.”
My sister looked at me like I was crazed. “Have you lost your mind?”
Eres shoved herself forward, interjecting no matter how hard I tried to keep a wall between us. “Don’t concern yourself with what’s on the other side?—”
“Why wouldn’t I? We can’t just waltz in there. I’m guessing strategic warfare wasn’t a skill the god of death needed.”
“Infernal human.What do prey do when a predator is close by?”she ground out.
“We already noticed.”I mentally tried to bat her way, but she persisted. “That’s not important right now.”
“On the contrary, it’s of the utmost importance.”
“They stay silent and hide. Happy?”
