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It’s not nothing.
I do as much as I can lying down. I stretch my legs and my arms and my neck. It works for about five fucking seconds.
My heart starts to race.
If it keeps going in that direction, I might have a heart attack and die, and then I’d be letting Daisy down in the most fucked-up way possible. The one thing I’ve never attempted to survive is major organ failure. And If I can’t dieforher, then screw it. I’m not letting it take me by surprise.
Like any mission, I plan it out. I need to get out of the bed and stretch. I’ll walk down the hall to the bathroom. My phone is on the charger there. I’ll check to see how much of the night we have to get through. I’ll come back.
Two minutes at maximum.
Before I make a single move, I scan the space as objectively as I can, given that we’re dealing with killer nightmareson top ofan unknown hostile party who could make an attack at any moment.
Nothing seems out of place.
Waiting too long is as dangerous as moving without a plan, so I count to three and go.
I ease myself off the bed, touching Daisy until the last possible second, and head out of her bedroom, into the silent hallway.
It’s steps to the bathroom. I shut myself in and feel for the switch that turns on the emergency lights. They’re a faint red glow, and even that seems bright after so many hours in the dark. That’s enough to get my phone. The screen’s brightness is already down, thank fuck.
It’s a minute before three in the morning.
My stomach drops at that 2:59. Three in the morning has no meaning. It’s not a special time. It has nothing to do with life or death.
All it means—allit means—is that we’re not far from dawn. Daisy’s almost made it through the night.
I splash water on my face, dry my hands, and step back into the hall.
A scream obliterates the silence.
It’s the most harrowing sound I’ve ever heard—at home, on the battlefield,ever. It overrides all the instincts the Army drilled into me and all the ones from living on the streets, too. I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t tell which direction it’s coming from until the person screaming takes a huge, wretched breath and screams again.
And then I understandwhoit is, and I’m nothing but terror and adrenaline.
It’s Hades.
There must be a curtain open in the main bedroom, because I can see his outline through the door. Persephone’s, scrambling out of the bed.
“Hades.” She’s too loud. I’ve heard fear in a lot of people’s voices in my life, but never like this. “Hades.Hades.”
Footstepsthudon the stairs as Conor starts barking.
Hades’s scream cuts off into an even worse silence, and then heruns.
I can’t see his face at all. He’s all shadow, and I slam my back against the wall in time to get out of his way. Conor’s with him, barking and barking and barking.
He collides with someone at the end of the hall.
“Hades,” Zeus says. “Hades—Hades, stop—”
Somebody throws up.
“Fuck,” says Poseidon. “Both of them? Or just him?”
Conor’s barking gets muffled, like he’s biting at someone’s pants, and light glows.
It’s one of those balls, in Poseidon’s hand. Zeus has Hades’s shirt in his hands, a syringe held in his teeth, and Hades pulls himself away from Zeus and stumbles into Daisy’s room.
