My blood pressure rose with the thought. My fingers flexed with the desire to cause some serious damage. Damage to myself. Damage to the cell. Didn’t matter. My foot bounced my leg with the speed of a locomotive. Small way to release the adrenaline compounding in my body. Bounce your leg or slam your fist against the bars and break your hand. Seemed an easy choice, but I was thinking the pain might feel pretty good right about now.
Breathe, Ari. You’ve been in worse spots than this. Seven years old. Locked in a dirty dog crate for three days straight and fed dry dog food thrown through the front grate. My punishment. Foster Mom Number Two had served chicken breast for supper, completely raw in the middle. On purpose. I refused to eat it, got pinned to the floor, raw chicken shoved down my throat. Puked it right back up onto Number Two’s hand as she tried to duct tape my mouth, and the rest became just another chapter in my history. Whatever. I’d handled that small space. And I sure as hell could handle this one.
I sniffed hard and wiped at my nose, eyeing the dim light down the hall, remembering other events in my past. …
Don’t think about it.
Instead I thought of Bruce and Casey, their easygoing nature and frequent smiles; both no-nonsense and tough, but kind and loving in their own way. I thought of Crank and Violet, and the gifts that were still in my backpack, wherever that was. And Sebastian. How my stomach went weightless whenever his image popped into my head. How much I’d liked holding his hand on the way to Café Du Monde. How kissing him had erased every single thought from my mind and, for once, just allowed me to be in the moment, completely swept away.
A cough echoed from the darkness.
I lifted my head from the bars, my knee finally done bouncing. I knew I was experiencing what everyone else here had already gone through. The panic. The disbelief. The fear.
My teeth bit down gently on my lip. And they’d all probably thought of escape too.
My fingers felt along the bars, looking for the lock. It was square with a large keyhole big enough for my pinkie, which fit to the first knuckle and then could go no more. I wiggled it, feeling for the jagged ridges.
“It won’t open,” Diagonal Guy said. “Our powers don’t work down here.”
My hand stilled. “Powers?”
One syllable came out of his mouth before the door from above opened, sending a shaft of welcome light racing down the hall. It wasn’t all that bright, but when you’ve been in darkness for several hours, it seemed like the sun had come out. I shielded my eyes as footsteps proceeded down the steps.
“Good luck, girlie,” the bird voice said.
I tensed, standing and grabbing the bars, looking hard to the guy near me, for comfort, for help, for anything.
“He’ll take you to Athena,” the man said quickly. “She won’t come here. It will be over before you know it.”
The lanterns along the walls flickered to life, one by one, as the footsteps drew closer. The large black silhouette stopped in front of my cell. It was the same man who had put me here. A τερας hunter. A monster hunter. And he had my backpack slung over his shoulder. He slid the key into the lock, opened the door, and reached in.
I reacted without thinking, relying on years of instinct and a seriously strong need to get the hell out of there. I grabbed his wrist, jerking him inside with all my might, knowing he wouldn’t expect that. If anything, he’d assume I’d try to run, to get out, not get him in.
Caught off guard, he barked his surprise and stumbled inside, slipping on the grimy floor and sliding into the blackness as I snagged the bag off his shoulder.
The bird voice shrieked. Shuffling sounded. The hunter cursed loudly.
Quickly I unzipped the bag and felt for the dagger, pulling it out blade first and then flipping it so that the hilt slapped into my palm. Then I waited, heart pounding and limbs tingling with adrenaline.
My eyes were a bit more accustomed to the dark than his, so I had the advantage. My fingers flexed. Movement. I got only a one-second glimpse of him as he surged out of the blackness. I dropped to both knees, calves and feet tucked under me, as his arms reached for where I’d once been. His feet hit my knees and he fell forward as I leaned back, so far back that my head touched the grimy floor, and at the same time, thrust up with the dagger. His hands hit the bars. He groaned.
Warm drips hit my face. The scent of iron was thick and nauseating.
His blood slid down the hilt of the dagger and onto my hands, trailing over my forearms. I stayed still, breathing heavily. Not moving. The cells went quiet. My back and stomach muscles strained as he slumped his weight onto the dagger. My arms burned, but still I didn’t move. And then suddenly he twitched. Three seconds later his body transformed to smoke and disappeared into that invisible updraft. The weight was relieved from my body, and I collapsed back onto the floor.
I rolled to my side, disbelief flooding me. Quickly I wiped my bloody hands on my jeans and then shook them hard, trying to relieve myself of the trembles. It didn’t help. I shoved the dagger back into the backpack, wiggled the key out of the lock, and then eased out of the cell.
The way to freedom was lit from my cell to the stairs, but I turned away from the light to face the blackness of the corridor. Every nerve ending I had was firing, urging me to run, but I stood still, heart hammering, and said loud enough for them to hear, “I’m out.”
Lights from the cells appeared again, just bright enough to reveal the hallway. I went to the cell across from mine, but it was empty. The next held the guy who had spoken to me. He was standing at the bars, waiting, his gray eyes bright with anticipation.
I gasped when I saw his face. “Oh my God.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said, hands shaking and going to work on the lock. “You just remind me of someone.”
The door popped open. He stepped out. Tall, like Sebastian, those gray eyes boring into mine. His face was covered with a shaggy black beard and his hair was long and tangled, but there was no doubt in my mind. It was like looking at Sebastian, only aged by thirty years. He urged me down the hall.
I went to each cell, unlocking and not really looking too closely at the occupants. They all looked the same. Dirty, with wild, tangled hair and ratty clothing. Only their eyes burned. With fear. Fright. With a taste of freedom, but too scared to hope just yet.
I came to the next cell, and this time stumbled back, my heart in my throat.
“Hurry!” the bird voice hissed.
I gulped and moved to the lock, hands shaking worse than before. Its claws wrapped around the bars and its sharp, curved beak was inches from my face as I worked the key. The lock popped. I glanced up into round black eyes, ringed in yellow, but in some small part I saw humanity there. Sadness. It blinked. “Made,” it said quietly, almost ashamed.
I pulled the door, stumbling back as the six-and-a-half-foot-tall harpy walked out. There was no other word in my vocabulary to describe it. Humanoid, bird, and scary as hell.
Two more cells left.
I opened another cell, this one completely black. A woman with the body of a black spider from the waist down scurried out. All the blood drained from my face. “Thank you,” the creature said, and gave me a nod that spoke volumes.