AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ButthisHades? This Hades has taken full ownership of the lower city in the last year, guarding it possessively and making the hard calls to ensure his people stay safe.ThisHades has a pregnant wife who he will commit untold acts to protect. He’s not going to balk at pulling the trigger this time.
There’s a part of me that mourns the man he used to be, but I can’t deny that he’s a much more effective ruler this way. He’s become the boogeyman that they always accused him of being. Ironically, it’s not hate that made him this way. It’s love.
That, I understand intimately.
I check my gun, ensuring there’s a bullet in the chamber. “Let’s go.”
There are ten on our team, including me and Hades. We split and wait for several precarious minutes while the other team reaches the second exit. I motion at Arai. “Take care of the doors.”
They nod and scurry off. They’re a lean white person, with close-cropped red hair and a penchant for getting into places theyshouldn’t. I’m nearly one hundred percent sure they’re a cat burglar in their time off, but they are loyal to a fault, so I don’t question how they spend their evenings as long as it doesn’t bring any heat from the upper city. They’re also a genius when it comes to explosives.
The next few minutes are tense and seem to last forever. Arai works best alone, and when they don’t want to be seen, they’re practically invisible. That doesn’t stop the worry worming its way through my stomach until I hear the faint, “Got it. Doors out of commission in three…two…one.” Faint pops sound in the afternoon air, almost like fireworks going off.
“Move.” Hades doesn’t raise his voice, but he doesn’t have to. No one would dare disobey him when he speaks in that tone.
We move.
We hurry down this side of the warehouse in single file. Hades pauses so that I can move ahead of him and kick down the door. It’s reinforced, but I have a lot of strength behind that kick. I duck out of the way immediately, just as gunfire erupts.
Hades takes a slow breath that I can barely hear, and leans around the edge of the door and jerks back before a hail of gunfire erupts. “Just the one.”
“Let me.” He looks at me. Just looks, not saying a single word. It’s enough for me to lift my hands in surrender. “Fine. Be careful.”
He shifts into a crouch and angles his hand around the doorframe. He pulls the trigger once. There’s a pained cry and the gunfire stops. Hades peers around the corner again. “There. Let’s go.”
We rush inside.
Most of our time is spent on security and ensuring the people ofthe lower city are protected. But Hades is a paranoid motherfucker, so we’ve practiced drills like this ever since Persephone came to the lower city. First, it was because he worried Zeus might come for her. Then, it was because he had something particularly special to protect.
We move like clockwork. We have already pulled the blueprints, so we know the floor plan. It’s a large open space with a rickety-looking staircase leading up to offices. In the warehouse proper, there are half a dozen vehicles and several large pallets of boxes.Thoseweren’t in the blueprints.
I catch Hades’s gaze and motion at the pallets. We don’t know what’s inside them, so we can’t risk them catching a stray bullet and blowing us the fuck up. He nods and relays the information through my comm. “Don’t shoot unless you know you’ll hit your target.”
We circle the perimeter, and I’m doing my damnedest to see everything all at once. It’s too quiet. They left one person at each door, apparently to guard their retreat, but there’s nowhere to retreatto. They’re trapped in the warehouse itself. There are at least three enemies left. Why hide when they must know we’ll find them?
Hades must be thinking the same thing. He straightens slowly and looks around. “This doesn’t feel right.”
“They should be here, fighting for their lives.” My attention shifts up to the door at the top of the stairs. “Do you think they’re holed up in there?” That doesn’t make sense either. In fact, it’s sloppy as fuck that they let us track them back here…
Oh, fuck.
“It’s a trap,” says Hades, echoing my train of thought. “They drew us here on purpose.” He speaks so calmly, almost resigned. “And fools that we are, we blocked off the most readily available exit.”
I grab his arm and start dragging him toward the door, barking orders. “Everybody out. It’s a trap.”
We’re the first ones to reach the door we entered through…only to find it barricaded. “Fuck!” I kick it and kick it again, but it’s no fucking use. “We’re trapped.” I thought not promising to come home to Eurydice and Orpheus tonight would make the possibility of failing easier. It isn’t. I want that future more than I want anything. And I made a vow to keep Hades safe. My carelessness is making a godsdamned mess of this. I made a vow that I’d keep Hades safe. Two promises I’m going to break with my carelessness. “Fuck, fuck,fuck.”
Hades seems to snap out of the strange mood that took him when he realized that we misjudged the situation so thoroughly. He shakes his head sharply. “The hinges. Now.”
My frustration boils over, but it’s a relief to have something todo.We have to get out of here. I have to gethimout of here. I pull a knife from each of my boots and hand one over. Then we get to work hammering the hinges with the hilts. Too long. It’s taking too fucking long. “No guarantee this will work.” I move faster, putting more strength behind each strike.
“Probably won’t.” One last slam and the top hinges pop off.
I finish on the lower hinges just as two of our people rush up. And that’s when I hear it. It’s almost like a sharp inhale that pulls every bit of oxygen out of the room. I have the space of two seconds to throw my body over Hades, pinning him to the door, before the explosion roars through the warehouse, and heat sears my back.
It blows the door right through whatever barricade had been set up on the outside. We’re airborne for one breathless moment, and then hit the ground with bone-crushing force. My whole world is pain andfire and heat. I command my limbs to move, and for a moment I think I’m okay, but I’m not the one moving my body. It’s Hades beneath me, rolling me carefully onto my side. He’s bleeding from a cut along his hairline but seems otherwise okay. “Charon! Charon, talk to me.”
I tried to speak up. Really, I do. But all that emerges is a pained sound.
