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“What was in that room?” I ask, not caring if it’s risky to bring it up or not. This fucker thinks I’m dying today anyway. “Were those the profiles of the people you’re targeting? People like me?” I push, but he ignores me as he cuts through the mini kitchen space through another door, only this one is locked and requires him to lift his thumb to the pad on the wall before it opens.
“Do you want the answers or do you want to see your mother?” He quirks a brow at me as he waves his hand in the direction of the unlocked door before heading inside. He knows he has me with that question, and despite my intrigue in the prior room, the thought of seeing my mom, of making sure she’s safe, outweighs everything else.
Rushing into the room after him, I gasp when I see my mother sitting on a bare mattress in the far corner. She’s still in the same clothes as when I last saw her with her hair tousled and straggly around her face.
“Mom.” Her name falls from my lips like a gut-wrenching prayer as her tired, puffy eyes find mine and a sob breaks past her lips.
“No, Harmonia. No, no, no,” she cries, and I cut the distance between us, wrapping her in my arms and squeezing her tightly. She shakes in my hold, sobbing into the crook of my neck as I rock her soothingly from side to side.
“It’s okay, Mom. I’m here, you’re not alone. I’m so so sorry this happened to you,” I whisper into her hair as tears threaten to prick the back of my eyelids.
“You shouldn’t be here, Honey. It’s not safe, not with that mark on you,” she cries, leaning back and bracing her hands on my shoulders as she looks into my eyes.
I shake my head at her, a soft smile on my lips as I tuck a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. “It’s okay, Mom. Everything is going to be okay,” I repeat, reassuring the both of us with hope. I glance back over my shoulder to stare at Basil, who is tapping away on his phone, completely ignoring the pair of us. “I’m going to need you to release her now,” I state, my gut furiously clenching around the magic swirling in my stomach now I know my mother is safe.
I can’t believe she’s here. It could have been a lie, a ploy to get me here, but the way Noose said it so confidently told me I couldn’t risk it. At least she doesn’t seem injured, but I can’t guarantee that completely right now. I just need to remain focused on the present if I want to have any chance of getting us out of here.
“That’s not how this works,” Basil says with a scoff, not even bothering to look up from his phone, and it pisses me off.
“Then tell me how it works.”
I squeeze my mom’s hand on my shoulder before placing it in her lap as I rise to my feet. Turning to face him head on, I watch as he sighs, tucking his phone back into his pocket before meeting my gaze.
“It’s simple. You don’t make any demands and die with that mark on your arm and we continue to fuel Styx.” He shrugs like it’s really that simple, but I’m still locked on the details he just dropped so casually.
“Styx?” The word passes my lips before I’ve even processed everything he’s saying.
“Yeah, Styx. You’ve heard of her, right? I bet if you were at Saints Academy like Noose said you were then you might have heard of her blood relative, Zellus.” Wow. He really does drop fact bombs like he’s describing the weather. The smirk on his lips tells me he’s expecting me to quiver in fear at the mention of Zellus’s name, but I refuse. Even in death, that guy is a pain in my ass, and I can’t deny that I’m surprised.
“Zellus.”
“Stop repeating everything I’m fucking saying,” he grunts, sweeping his hand through his cropped hair as he glances at the watch on his wrist.
“None of this makes any sense,” I mutter, almost thinking out loud as I look at my mom before turning back to him. Her eyes are wide. She’s as surprised as I am by that fact. It seems they’ve kept her locked away in here without giving her any details either. Assholes.
“It makes perfect sense.” Basil grins as he tucks his hands into his pockets and my nails dig into my palm once more as I ball my hands into fists. “To overrule the Keres we have to fuel Styx enough to tip the balance between them. Then we can taint the world with her hatred, slaughter the great Keres, another offspring of Nyx’s on the death list. Good riddance.” He fist pumps the air like he’s already achieved it, while all I can do is stand and gape at him in surprise.
This man needs to give me a minute to process all of the shit he's blowing in my direction. I’ve gone from knowing nothing to everything in a split second.
Wiping my hand down my face, I turn to my mom, seeing her mouth wide open in shock as she glances between the two of us. I know he definitely said what I think he said.
I turn back to him with my hands on my hips as I take a deep breath. “Keres is Nyx’s child? Children? Whatever,” I ramble, acting like I have no fucking clue, making Basil roll his eyes at me as he claps his hands.
“Okay, this history lesson is over. It’s time to head back to Noose so we can add to our growing pile of dead bodies,” he says with a sinister grin pulling at the corner of his mouth and my mom cries out.
“No! Harmonia, don’t go anywhere with him. Please, leave her alone,” she begs, rising to her feet and stumbling to my side. She clings to my left arm, struggling to stand, her body in need of nourishment, and that only makes me angrier.
“And shut that bitch up before I do it for you,” Basil bites, pointing a finger at my mom. And I’ve had my fill of him now. Fuck this asshole.
Slipping my right hand into my pocket, I search for the object that was with my phone earlier. Once I have a grasp on it, I start to shake my head at him. “I’m sorry,” I start, taking a step to place myself in front of my mom at the same time I pull the object from my pocket. “That’s not going to work for me, Basil.”
At the sound of his name on my lips, I rub my thumb over the face of Medusa on my pendant and watch as he transforms before me. Inch by inch he turns to stone, the shock still visible in his eyes right until the last second.
My mom clings to me from behind, another sob falling past her lips as I place my hand over hers. “Don’t worry, Mom, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to get us out of here.”
She doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t need to. I just need her to be okay. That’s all that matters here, nothing else.
Digging my hand back into my pocket, I swap the pendant for my phone, turning it in my hand so I can see the screen and I sag in relief. We don’t have a lot of time. The Medusa pendant will wear off eventually, it’s not permanent. If it was, my mother would still be at home turned to stone in the kitchen.
Fuck.
Wrapping my other hand around my mom’s trembling fingers, I lift the phone to my ear before I speak.
“Hey, did you get all that?”
