Chapter 48 Medusa
MEDUSA
ALEXIS: MAY, ONE MONTH EARLIER
I swiveled my head, vision blurring.
Before me, a tunnel forked.
One side led to a light; it looked like an exit. The other was dark—a woman’s screams echoed down it.
“We need to get out of here—run, Alexis. Now,” Nyx hissed as she slithered down my legs onto the floor.
With a deep steadying breath, I made my choice.
Stumbling forward, I half ran, half limped through the humid rocky corridor. Blood gushed from the bullet wound in my leg.
I ran toward the woman’s wails.
“Do you hear that?” I whispered. “Or am I imagining—”
“I hear it,” Nyx said.
Fear wrapped its fingers around my heart.
The floor was slanting downward, torches spaced out further, darkness rising. Pain throbbed through my calf, my knee, and my head.
I grabbed at the wall, leaving a trail of blood across the stone that had strange skeleton symbols drawn on it.
“Do you know … where we are?” I asked, unsure if I wanted to know the answer.
Fangs clicked together. “Prison.”
“What kind of—”
“The Underworld,” Nyx hissed.
I tripped.
A woman screamed at the top of her lungs.
Men laughed.
“We should help her,” I whispered, not sure what I was even saying.
Scales coiled around my leg. “Hug the wall.”
I followed Nyx’s instructions, my bloody nails dragging along rock for support.
The cries were getting louder.
There was a dull light ahead, a break in the shadows where the stones opened up—steel prison bars were halfway up, like a gate had been raised.
I peered around the rocks.
A woman was strapped in chains to a titanium table. She wore a blue hospital gown. A metal box sat over her forehead and hair—a clear mask with a tube covered her mouth, attached to a strange beeping machine.
Green letters flashed across it: Age stasis: twenty-one years old.
The woman opened her mouth and screamed into the device, eyes squeezed shut, the rest of her body unmoving.
Two men stood at her midsection.
I swallowed bile.
They both had blond hair and short beards. Green fish were embroidered on their guard uniforms—the House of Hermes.
“Are you sure she can’t feel anything?” one man asked as he grinned. “She sure screams like she can.”
The other shrugged as he reached for her chest. “Who cares? The CTE has already begun.”
Nyx coiled tighter around my leg, her fangs clicking together.
The woman whimpered and the men laughed.
I’d seen enough.
“Kill them,” I said, but Nyx was already gone.
There was a clattering as one of the guards stumbled back, gripping at his neck.
The other brandished a Spartan gun and swung it.
He turned around wildly.
I took the opening.
Running forward, I drove my shoulder into his midsection. We slammed to the rock floor and the gun clattered free, but neither of us went for it.
Clawing at his face, he grunted as he used his larger frame to pin me to the ground.
It was too late for him.
My sternum was already exploding with pain—there’d been blood on my hands. Die. Die. Die.
He convulsed on top of me, foam dripping from his lips. He mouthed words as he choked, silently begging for my help.
I shoved him off me and climbed to my feet.
The guard pleaded for help, his twitches slowing.
I stood over him and watched.
A tumultuous nothingness welled inside my sternum.
He took his last breath and a dark satisfaction filled me, one I didn’t even know I was capable of.
“They’re dead,” Nyx hissed, her scales sliding along my leg.
The room was splattered with blood.
A soft feminine wail filled the room, a hopeless fractured sound.
“I’m not leaving her here.” I felt like my head was underwater as I bent down and pulled the keys out of the guard’s pocket.
Nyx hissed, “Kid … there will be consequences.”
A strange feeling gripped me—fuck the consequences.
“I don’t care,” I said, because I didn’t.
“Then I support you,” Nyx said confidently. “Move quickly.”
The guard’s key unlocked the woman’s chains, and they fell free. Cautiously I removed the last constraint—the metal box at her head.
Rattles echoed.
Three pale snakes slithered out.
I stared at them.
A part of me had known exactly who she was.
There was only one infamous Spartan so powerful, she was incarcerated using Olympian age-control technologies. Excess measures were taken to keep her from maturing. To keep her from breaking out of the Underworld.
Medusa.
A violent criminal.
A traitor.
Synonymous with evil.
But the guards had been violating her, and my gut was telling me that she was just a victim of circumstances. I was too exhausted to question it.
Hades said I needed to claim my destiny.
Well, I was making my choice.
“Hello,” Nyx hissed as she became visible, hovering in front of Medusa’s snakes.
They rattled and hid under long tresses of black hair, shaking with fear.
I grabbed the tube of the mask, and yanked it off her face.
The machine beeped, its green lights flickering off. The screen went blank, and the whirring sound stopped as it powered down.
Medusa took a deep breath, her chest rising.
Long dark lashes fluttered open, pastel lavender eyes met mine, and her mouth opened—she slumped back, unconscious.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I put my arm under her shoulders and hauled her off the table.
Grunting, I staggered, carrying her out of the cell, down the stone hall.
She was just skin and bones in my arms, but my legs still wobbled. I could barely support myself.
“Follow me,” Nyx hissed as she led the way through the infamous prison.
We turned a corner, and strange beasts flung themselves at titanium bars, roaring at us.
I barely heard them.
Each step sent agony shooting through my bullet wound; I dragged us both forward.
Clawed hands stuck out between the bars. Gruesome fangs flashed as creatures bellowed.
We were causing a commotion.
Crack.
Smoke filled the hall.
“Who’s down here?” a male voice echoed, bouncing off the rocks. He sounded furious.
Mentally screaming, I looked around hopelessly.
There were prisoners reaching on either side.
Nowhere to go.
Nowhere to hide.
A spiky silver crown, glinting with rubies, came into view.
“Daughter—what … are you doing?” Hades stepped out of the shadows, eyes widening as he looked from me to the woman hanging limp with her arm draped across my shoulders. “Is that—”
“Medusa.” I nodded jerkily, struggling to keep my balance.
The name hung explosively in the air.
We both waited for the detonation.
Hades tilted his head to the side, as if sizing up something he’d never seen before.
“She’s the property of the federation,” he said slowly. “She’s held in their section of the prison. I have no jurisdiction over her. There’s nothing I can do to—”
“I don’t expect you to help.” I cut him off, arm straining as I held her up. “This is all me. I’m making a choice.”
I stared down at the floor, waiting for his censure.
The shouts.
The fists.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Hades said quietly as he raised his hand toward me. “The House of Hades is known as the House of Death because when we feel passionately about something … we wage war. Always.”
Nyx slithered up my leg.
It took me a second, then I realized he was reaching his hand out for me to take.
“Welcome to the family, daughter.” Hades’s voice brimmed with pride.
I grabbed his outstretched hand.
“Domus,” he said as the Underworld disappeared and we leapt to Crete.
The roaring villa fireplace burned bright on the far wall, and the sparkling night sea glittered with moonlight behind the couch.
Charlie and Persephone greeted us with expressions of shock. They immediately started tending to my wounds, as Hades laid Medusa down on the plush couch.
“I’ll cover for you,” Hades said. “We’ll take you back to the training center and I’ll say I found you here.”
“What about … Medusa?” Persephone stared down at her with a tender sadness. “I remember when she was just a little girl.”
“The federation will search here first.” Hades’s eyebrows lowered with worry. “We’ll need to find a place to hide her that they won’t expect. The safe houses will all be searched.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said quickly. “Just give me a little time to come up with a plan. Please—I’ll come back for her as soon as I can.”
Persephone, Hades, and Charlie all stared at me. Concern was written across their faces.
“I’ll h-handle it,” I whispered. “Please, trust me.”
The moment stretched.
Persephone nodded first. “Okay—I’ll prepare a room for her. And if the federation comes before you do …” She smirked and pet the dragon on her shoulder. “The island will attack them. Violently.”
My mother was beyond ferocious.
Even now, there was a strange energy rising from the floorboards, as if the island was sentient and welcoming me back.
“Be safe, daughter.” Persephone smiled at me, and I leaned forward, gratitude filling my heart as I hugged her tightly.
She smelled like lilacs and something fruity, pomegranates.
“Thank you,” I whispered into her curls.
She squeezed me three times, in quick succession. “Anything for you, my sweet Alexis.”
When I pulled away, Charlie was waiting for his hug.
I embraced him.
Hades cleared his throat, his eyes full of moisture. “We have to go.”
With one last look at the sleeping woman on the couch, we leapt away. This time straight into the Chthonic medical center. Jars of body parts lined the walls.
Hades spoke in a hushed tone to the doctors, and I made myself useful by flopping onto a medical gurney and passing out.
Time spiraled after that.
I chose my mentors as my hunting partners.
The next day, I woke up in the villa.
It was the middle of the night, but I couldn’t sleep because I needed to find a solution to the problem I’d just created.
A woman’s wails echoed—and for a second, it sounded like Medusa—in a blind panic I followed the sound.
I stopped when I realized the woman in the dungeon was Ceres, the traitor who’d worked with Theros during the crucible.
As I stood in the damp dungeon, an idea struck.
A horrible, brilliant, awful idea.
“Did you … help Theros kill all those children?” I asked softly.
Ceres went still, eyes widening.
“Did you help Theros?” I repeated. “Yes or no?”
She didn’t answer, her silence a damning omission.
Gathering my courage, I sliced my forearm open on a jagged stone, grabbed Ceres’s chin roughly, and dripped blood onto one of the open wounds on her face.
Pain exploded in my heart and my fingers tingled with the strange pain.
“Did you assist Theros in killing all those children of the House of Zeus?” I asked.
She grunted in pain, twitching as my blood poisoned her.
“ANSWER ME!”
“It was my pleasure,” Ceres spat as she writhed in pain. “They deserved to die the—”
Sharp pain flared in my sternum, and I let the rage free.
She gurgled, unable to speak as foam dripped from her lips.
Seconds later, Ceres lay limp.
I backed away.
It was all over in seconds.
“Fantastic work, kid,” Nyx hissed on my shoulders.
I waited to feel … anything. This time, there was no satisfaction, only emptiness.
Regret welled up.
I shoved it back down—I couldn’t afford distractions—I needed to stay out of my head. I was making choices.
Turning, pulling at my hair, my thoughts raced.
The dungeon was shadowy and ominous, magnifying the feelings of doom.
Tingling fingers pressed over my chest as I tried to physically slow the racing beat of my heart.
“Breathe,” Nyx coached as I gasped in the dark.
“Alexis?” Helen whispered.
Jumping, I screamed.
Helen was kneeling on the stairway in a sparkly nightgown, holding a bedazzled Spartan gun.
“Do you need help? I woke up when you left and was worried. I saw you …” She looked from Ceres to me, mouth opening in shock.
I tried to tell her to go back to sleep, but all that came out was a pained sound.
“Let me help,” Helen said.
I pressed blood-streaked fingers to my mouth.
“Uh,” I whispered hoarsely. “I n-need t-to—” I took a deep inhale and tried again. “I need to remove the cuffs … and dispose of a body. I’ve done something—big. Bigger than this.” I gestured at Ceres. “If you don’t want to know, I totally unders—”
“Tell me. I want to help. You saved me from Theros … I’m forever in your debt.” Helen pulled up her nightgown, revealing matching pink shorts. She tucked her gun in her waistband.
A few minutes later, Helen finished picking the locks on the manacles.
Ceres’s body crumpled to the floor.
“Now what?” Helen asked.
“Now I’ll dispose of the body and get Medusa,” I whispered. “We have to make it look like we broke her out of the dungeon.”
Helen nodded. “I’ll get a wig and dirt to conceal Medusa’s face.”
“Will that be enough?” Copper flooded my mouth as I bit down on my cheek. “She’s so much shorter and her eyes are a different color. The men will notice that—”
“Men never notice.” Helen smiled sadly. “Trust me.”
We hugged each other.
Reluctantly, I stepped back and hauled up Ceres.
“Domus.”
Just like that, I was back in the House of Hades palace at Crete.
Medusa was sitting next to Persephone in front of the fireplace. Classical music was playing. They dropped their books and jumped to their feet.
My arms gave out—Ceres dropped to the floor with a thud.
Medusa’s eyebrows rose.
“I n-need to get rid of a body,” I said, feeling faint.
Persephone walked toward me.
I flinched.
“I’ll handle it, daughter,” she said gently, her amber eyes bright with power. “Don’t worry. You came to the right place.”
A long heartbeat passed.
Persephone opened her arms.
I collapsed against her, tears streaking down my face, as she rubbed my back soothingly.
That night I returned to the villa with Medusa disguised as Ceres.
The deception was complete.