Authors: Taylor Lavati
The fall is identical to the last time I fell into the Underworld. Only this time, it isn't just Ari and me. Ollie clings to my hand, and I've never felt safer. The opal in my pocket feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, the gravity of its power dragging me down through the black hole.
We land in just a few seconds, and I bend my knees to take the brunt of the landing. I quickly move out of the way as people start to drop at random times, nearly squishing me with their dead-weight bodies.
I walk forward, both guys clinging to my hands, and feel around the dark room, trying to decide where we are. There's a short hallway that leads to a lit-up area, and I know that that's the way we need to go. I pause, my men beside me, and wait as people drop.
"Did we all make it?" The room is dark, so it's hard for me to see past Ari and Ollie. I step into the hallway, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. All three professors of mine stand in a circle in the back with two other people with them. They must have just come in, because I don't recognize them, nor have I seen them before.
The Louisiana family is already scouting out the area, the mother and Nikias together and the father and Nikon together. They have a strategy; that much is clear. They push past me and go through the hallway, stopping in the next room.
Linus is with Alexius and Lex, and Magdelina behind them. Linus's eyebrows are knitted together, his pointer finger and thumb pinching his chin. It's almost like he's looking at a map in his head and navigating his way. My friends huddle around me, their faces eager, but also worried.
"Do we have a plan?" Martin asks out loud from behind Shane. All heads turn towards him, and then to me, as if asking me the same question. They want to know the plan, or if I even have a plan. I know some of the new people doubt me. I'm about to prove them wrong.
"Follow me," I say and lead the army towards the brighter area. It's open, the edge of the swamp colliding with the dark brown ground. The army funnels in, and we all stop and circle up.
"To get to the castle, we should be able to just follow this narrow path straight. We're going to split up into two groups, though. I have to find the Originals' blood and take a vial so Hades can't block me from protecting his curse."
"Split up?" Ollie barks out. "That's a terrible idea."
"We have no choice. Linus and I are the only people who saw where the blood was being held. Ari will escort us. I need you to lead everyone else to the castle." I stare deep into his arctic eyes, praying that for once he'll just listen to me and do what I need him to.
"I don't want to leave you," he whispers, his voice breaking at the end. He stops in front of me, our moment turning private.
"I need you to do this
for me.
" He takes my hands in his.
"Okay. I'll do it. But if you take longer than one hour, I'm coming to find you." I smile, but Ollie doesn't. His face is drawn down in a scowl. "I'm not kidding. You have one hour to find the vial or we all do a man search and ditch the entire curse thing."
"Got it." I smile again, and rise onto my tiptoes. I kiss Ollie on the cheek, noticing the tint of redness over his cheekbones, and then return my attention to the large group of powerful people in front of me once he steps away.
"You will all follow Ollie. He will lead you to the altar. and we will meet you there shortly. Hades won't do anything until I get there, so you have nothing to worry about."
Nikon and his father turn to each other and whisper. Lex mutters something to Magdelina. Everyone branches off into smaller groups and discusses what I've just told them. Ari narrows his gaze on me, questioning why he's been chosen to be our watcher, but it wasn't my doing at all. That was all Cece.
Ollie looks over his shoulder one final time before the crowd swallows him up as they begin their march towards the castle. They move just to the left of the path and then quietly walk towards the blackness that I know isn't too far off in the distance.
"We have to hurry," I tell Linus and Ari.
Both nod, and then we sprint in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
originals' blood
Linus is faster than I thought he would be. From the way Cece said we needed a protector, I thought that he would be useless and slow. I never got a good chance to watch him in the training center, so I'm going into this blind. But he's just as fast as the rest of them, if not faster than me. A few minutes pass as we all sprint shoulder to shoulder along the dirt path in a heavy silence.
The air is filled with our regrets. I can feel the sorrow and nervousness tainting the air, and it hurts me. Linus stops sprinting all of a sudden, and I run right into his back, slamming my face against his shoulder blade. Ari's arms catch me from falling backwards, and the three of us freeze in our places.
In front of us is a short black fence with a narrow gate, half the height of the fence at Demi God Academy and somehow even darker. The metal gate looks like only one person can fit through the gate at a time. Inside of the gate is a small, black building. It looks like it only has one room in it, and it's only one level high.
"The blood is in that building." Linus looks over at me as we crouch behind the dark gate, trying to hide in the shadows. "Don't you recognize the outside of it? Can you feel the power vibrating from within?"
"I recognize it." I nod in agreement. I step forward, trying to peek through the fence gaps to see into the building, but Ari's arm catches my elbow, and he pulls me backwards so my back is pressed against his front.
"There are gods patrolling this building." Ari's eyes warn me that if I mess with him, I'll be in serious trouble. I glare back, because the last thing that's on my mind right now is if Ari's mad at me for disobeying him.
"How do you know they're patrolling?" I ask him as I look around the building. I don't see a single god walking around or standing in the gate.
"I saw him walk behind the building when we stopped sprinting. I'm sure there's more. Hades wouldn't leave all his Original's blood vulnerable." Ari looks behind his back, checking in a paranoid way.
"Especially if Hermes knows we're coming," Linus chimes in, agreeing with Ari. I follow Ari's gaze behind us, but don't see anything.
"True." I nod my head in understanding, hoping that nobody jumps out from behind us and scares me. "Let's take them out then. We don't have time to waste."
"You stay right here." I start to object, but Ari continues. "In about two minutes, walk like a human towards the building. Just Eury. Play stupid. I'll take out the guy behind while you distract whoever else is around. Then I'll come help you."
"Are you sure?" I'm worried about him being one on one with a powerful god. If this really is where the blood is, then these guards are going to be strong.
"I am," he nods, assuring me. "I know you don't want to hear this, but, Eury, I love you. I will always have your back."
"I know," I answer.
"You," he says pointing to Linus. "Stay back here and only come out when I whistle towards you. Any sign of a person behind you and sprint towards us."
"I can help," he begins to say, but Ari shakes his head, cutting him off.
"Two minutes starting now," Ari says. Before either of us can object, he sprints away. I feel the wind whip against my neck with his departure. I look out from behind the gate, but I don't see him anywhere.
It feels like the lights have been dimmed in the Underworld. There's always a reddish yellow haze in the air that just clouds your vision enough to be annoying. It's like a fog emerges out of nowhere, blocking us on purpose.
I realize that I haven't been counting. I start to count in my head, not looking around me anymore, so I don't get distracted. I get to one hundred and twenty.
"I'm going now. Are you okay?" I ask Linus as I start to stand tall and show myself.
"I'm fine. Go!" he whisper-yells, his widening eyes piercing.
I walk out from behind the fence and then walk through the gate. I slowly make my way towards the black building when I notice a man step out from the front door. My heart jumps in my chest, pounding and making my breath short. He leans against the side of the building, his bulky arms crossing over his chest and one of his ankles over the other.
"Hey!" the man yells, noticing me once I'm about twenty feet away. I look behind me and act as if I thought he was speaking to someone else. I continue advancing on him, one step in front of the other, my heart pumping out of my chest. It's my acting debut, and I better pull this off before he beheads me. "What do you think you're doing here?"
"I think I'm lost. I was supposed to be meeting with Hades. I'm a distant cousin, you see. I took this path," I say as I point backwards towards the dirt path we took here. "It was supposed to take me to something called the black castle. But that's a pretty sad castle, if you know what I mean." I force a laugh and step backwards, giving him room so he's not threatened.
The man looks at me skeptically, his eyes traveling up and then down my body with a slight squint. I question my ability to lie when I notice how ripped he is. His veins pop out from his neck and forearms like worms. He's at least a foot taller than me, a few inches taller than Ari, too, if I had to guess. He's downright menacing, from his red eyes to his bulky calves, and my adrenaline spikes as I try to come up with a way to kill him.
"Come with me," the man says, and he grabs onto my bicep hard. Pain shoots up my arm at his touch, hitting my neck like a knife.
"Hey!" I pull back my arm and rub it with my other hand. "I really am lost. You don't have to hurt me. Look at you. I couldn't fight you even if I tried. There's no threat here. I promise." I try to talk the man down. I try to boost his ego and prove that I'm just a little girl who really doesn't pose any threat to him. His eyes never stray from mine and their intensity scares me, but I don't back down either.
"Listen—"
His sentence is cut off by a loud scream from behind us. It sounded female, but I fear for the worst: that it is Linus. My distraction is over, because the man whips his head towards me after looking towards the scream, and he has fury in his gaze.
He attacks me. His hand flies towards my face with unreal speed. I bend down, dodging the blow. I kick my leg out towards him, hoping to trip him up, but he's rooted into the ground pretty damn well like a hundred year oak tree. My kick barely makes him budge. I widen my eyes in terror.
I'm screwed.
I don't know what to do now. There's no sign of Ari anywhere; I can't even hear him. The livid man steps towards me, and I take two steps backwards, until I have nowhere left to go. The fence presses into my back, the peaks digging into my spine, and the man is so close I can smell his disgusting, sour breath snake its way into my nose.
He lunges towards me, both hands reaching for my neck, but I duck under them and sprint in the other direction. Luckily, the guy isn't as fast as me, so I'm able to out-sprint him towards the building. I make my way around the side black wall and don't stop until two arms catch me around the waist and spin me around.
"Stop!" I scream and claw at the arms.
"It's me." Immediately, his low voice soothes me. I look over my shoulder into my favorite green eyes on the planet. I melt in his arms. But then I remember the scream and the huge guy who tried to kill me.
"He's coming," I pant out, pointing behind me with fear. Ari looks around my head and sees the man, only a few feet away now and getting closer. Ari only has about a second to prepare for the fight.
"I'll hold him, you go for the neck, like how we taught you," Ari says as he lunges for the guy. I don't have any time to prepare as Ari tosses me behind him. Ari elbows the man right in the ribs, and the man cries out in pain, clutching his side. I watch and wait for the right time to help Ari.
The man reaches for Ari like he did for me, lunging with both arms wide open. Ari dives under his arms and pops up behind him. He grabs onto the guy's arms and pins them down to his sides like a mummy. Ari can barely get his arms all the way around the guy's waist it's so large, but he makes do.
This is my time to intervene. I jump into action and sprint to the man, closing the ten feet in half a second. I know how to kill him: we have to break his neck, so I jump up on his back, using the force from my foot hitting the ground to propel me forward.
I climb up his torso and use my legs to help Ari pin the guy's arms down, wrapping myself around him. I use all of my strength to bend his neck at a strange angle. I pull and tug, but the damn thing doesn't snap. I swear this tree man is thick as a full A-Z group of encyclopedias.
"Linus!" I scream, needing his help.
"I'm sure your friend is dead by now. Just how you'll be," the man growls. Tree man tries to push me off him, wriggling beneath me. Between Ari and I, we hold him down and he can barely move. He's pinned, and we all know that there's nothing he can do about it.
"Just twist, Eury. Give it everything you have." Ari tries to help me, but his words only make me angry and frustrated. I should be able to kill this guy. I need to be able to do this alone without the pressure that Ari places on my shoulders.
I channel my anger, my frustration, my hate. I wind up my arm, my shoulder pulling backwards, and then give it everything. The air is pushed out of me as my arms swivel, bringing this man's head with them.
The snap is loud and revolting, making my stomach roll. As the life is torn out of him, his body falls limp and with it goes me. I crash onto the ground, my head slamming against a rock under the dirt. I swear I can hear my brain shake inside my head.
My vision spots. White lights float around in front of me. I faintly hear the sound of a whistle and then Linus' face appears in front of my eyes. He crouches down in front of me, staring into my vacant eyes. Before I can stop myself, I'm falling into a vision. And the blackness takes over, blinding me.