Adrastia (The God Chronicles Book 4) (7 page)

"A demi-Titan. How interesting."

He stepped forward, smoke swirling around him and choking back the flames for a few seconds. Each move he made caused me to be sick with fear for some reason, dropping me to my knees as I dry heaved.

"Who are you?" I coughed out, cowering before him, unable to even look up at his face without needing to retch.

"I think I could ask you the same thing," he said, crouching down in front of me and grabbing my chin.

Terror ripped through me so desperately I began crying, my fingers tearing at his in an attempt to free myself.

"Interesting. The helmet influences your human side very strongly. The Titans aren't bothered by it, not since it's in our control."

He continued to look into my eyes, a grin on his face, before he finally released me and stood up.

"Typhon will be pleased with you, I think. Especially with this impressive display you're putting on."

He motioned to all of me, which was still burning and not burning at the same time.

"What are you talking about?" I whimpered, shrinking away from him.

"Your father," his condescending voice laughing at me.

"My father's dead."

"No."

He chuckled again, swirling smoke between his fingers as his completely blacked out eyes peered at me from under his helmet, or at least I thought they did.

Vomit gathered in the back of my throat until I finally looked away, unable to stare any longer.

"What are you?" I asked, my gaze boring into the destroyed floor.

"I am the better half of what makes up
you
."

Lurching forward he grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet, shoving me in the direction of the door, ignoring his burning hand.

Another cry of desperation left my lips as I struggled against him, trying to free myself from his unbreakable grasp. It seemed useless, as he pushed me out of the room and down the fiery hall, moving like a bat fleeing from the light.

"Let me go!" I screamed, raising my free hand to slap him.

What happened next surprised us both.

Fire shot from my open palm, scorching him square in the face, his skin instantly burning and crisping under the heat.

An agonizing scream tore from him as he shoved me away, grabbing at his skin as he hunched over.

Just as surprised as he'd been, I fell to the floor and stared at my hand. It couldn't have been possible I just did that! But I had, somehow. Surely, I hadn't hit my head hard enough to cause hallucinations like this?

The man growled as he turned to face me again, his skin cracked and black, veins seeming to be filled with fire themselves.

I shrunk back against the wall as he stared me down, feeling the bile rising in my throat again.

"Erebos!"

The voice rang out loud and fierce from down the hall, another figure joining us in the blazing and smoke filled space. This man didn't carry the same terror striking aura the monster in front of me did, but instinct told me he wasn't to be trifled with either.

The growl the burned—man?—had started addressing to me grew louder as he turned to face his opponent, a long, black sword forming out of the smoke around us. Brandishing it above his head, the monster charged the other man, murder in his every movement.

Down the hall, the challenger pulled his own sword out of a bag on his back, a bright light like lightning biting the blade as he swung it down into an attack stance. As soon as he'd unsheathed the weapon, actual lightning began striking the walls around him, bouncing off the floor and encasing him in a protective, while somewhat terrifying, cage. His own battle cry broke from his mouth as he charged forward to meet my would be captor.

Their blades smashed together, a sound just as loud as the explosion resulting. Each moved quickly, expertly, obviously trying to end the other.

Seeing my chance to flee, I scrambled to get my flaming body off the floor and ran back the way I'd come. Clashing blades rang in my ears as I sped away, through the smoke and fire still clogging the building. Eventually, the battle sounds started to fade, as did the foggy air around me. The empty halls echoed back the sound of my frantic footsteps, the tile floor reflecting my still very much on fire body. Now that I was away from the initial scene of the occurrence and whoever the heck Erebos and his enemy were, panic at my state began to fill me again.

I knew I needed to get out of the building, but I was still hotly flaming on every single piece of my body. Water was what I needed and I knew just where to get it. Turning down a different hall, I made my way to my desired destination.

The locker room was empty, as the rest of the school apparently was. I imagined everyone who wasn't caught in the first explosion had been safely evacuated.

At least, that's what I hoped.

Moving quickly between the rows of lockers, I went to the back of the room, to the showers. As the cold water started to splash down on me, making the fire hiss and go out, I wrapped my arms around my chest and slid down the pink and blue tiles to the floor. Water, mixed with some blood and dust, swirled around and down the drain next to me. There was something silver as well. It took me a moment to realize it had been the shrapnel that had been lodged into my back when the oxygen tanks exploded. I'd been burning so hot it'd melted. Now that I was cooling down, it was washing off my body, some of it solidifying and sticking to my skin.

Dazed, I started picking it off, my hands shaking so ferociously I couldn't hardly accomplish the task. Adrenaline seeped out of me quickly, leaving me in the shocked and frightened state I'd expected to come.

Tears leaked from my eyes, disappearing into the streams running over me and soaking me through. The longer I cried, the faster they came, until loud, gasping sobs filled the room, bouncing back at me from every direction. I couldn't even try to stop them, thinking only of how things had been mere minutes before.

Dimitri had been alive. We'd been working like usual.

I wasn't a monster.

Curling further into a ball, I wrapped my arms around my legs, resting my head on my knees. I didn't know if I should run away or wait for someone to come find me. Wouldn't they want to know how I'd survived when no one else did?

I sat like that in the shower for what felt like an eternity, letting my mind slip away into unconscious thoughts, preferring to block out what had happened for as long as I could rather than deal with it now.

The water continued to rain down around me, showering down on the tile in cold vigor. It bit at me after a while, causing goose bumps and a shiver to overtake me. Still, I didn't get up and leave.

"Hey," a soft voice said suddenly.

I flinched, my head jerking up to see who had invaded my space.

Arsenio was crouched in front of me, apparently untouched by any of the explosions or fire. His bullet wound was still bleeding freely, the bandage I'd been putting on him gone. In his hands were the bow and arrows I'd seen him leaving the room with. Cautious suspicion filled me as I looked at him.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

It took me a moment, but I finally managed to get out a hesitant nod, the tears I'd managed to stop starting to leak through again.

"Okay, good," he said reassuringly. "Let's get you out of here. All right?"

Carefully, he set the weapons down and extended his arms out to me, like he was going to hug me.

"Don't touch it," a cold voice snarled from the lockers.

"Cristos," Arsenio protested, still reaching for me as he looked towards the sound.

"I said don't!" the voice barked back.

Footsteps echoed through the room and its owner appeared in the showers with us.

It was the man with the lightning sword.

I flinched back, pressing myself against the wall as fear started to fill me again.

He had a cut on his cheek and through his shirt on his chest. Other than that, he didn't look like he'd been in any type of fight. His green eyes glared down at me, jaw clenched tightly as if he were looking at the lowest being on Earth.

"It's one of them," he spat out.

"She's the doctor who was stitching me up," Arsenio said, confused, frozen in his reaching state. "How could she be one of them?"

"It's a demi-Titan," the man, Cristos, said bitterly.

"A what?"

Arsenio pulled away from me some, hesitance on his face.

"Is there such a thing?" he asked, looking into my eyes as if the answer were hiding there.

"There is now."

Cristos pulled his bag from his shoulder and I flinched again, expecting him to pull the sword out and run me clean through in his obvious hatred of me. Instead, he pulled a pair of metal handcuffs out, stepping forward and roughly grabbing one of my arms, snapping one side around my wrist. The other quickly followed. He then attached another chain to them, effectively making it possible to drag me wherever he wanted.

"You really think that's necessary?" Arsenio asked in surprise, standing and backing away as he watched.

"Let's go," Cristos said, hauling me to my feet and tugging me after him.

Chapter Seven
 

"What do you want?" I asked quietly, trying to ignore the shivers rocking my still damp body.

For what seemed like the millionth time, Arsenio looked towards me, his mouth opening hesitantly. A single look from Cristos silenced him, his head turning back to the front, nothing greeting my ears.

I should have known it would be easy for them to take me in the aftermath of the attack. People barely had their heads on straight. There was no way they would notice a woman being dragged away through a crowd of injured, screaming, and dying people. Smoke had still covered the entire block, the fire still roared, emergency aid still not able to get in to help.

We'd slipped through narrow streets, my two captors looking around as if we were being hunted at every moment. If it weren't for the fact I was getting dragged around on a chain, anyone who saw us probably would have thought we were all together. I tried bringing up this reasoning and was rewarded with a slap across the face and an order of silence.

The city was far behind us now, left to deal with what I was starting to feel like might have been my fault.

Why else had I been kidnapped twice?

At least Arsenio seemed to mean me no harm, but he wouldn't break any orders the brute Cristos gave him. I had the feeling he was as confused as I was as to why I was being brought along as a prisoner.

The two men walked ahead of me, clad in warm winter gear. Cristos's long black hair, tied back with a simple band, hung down past his shoulder blades, splayed over the beat up bag I knew was holding some unearthly weapon.

Maybe they were aliens? Perhaps Moscow had become tied up in some intergalactic mess and . . .

Yeah. That was impossible.

But so was ferociously lighting on fire and not even feeling the heat from it.

Was I an alien?

My body shivered harder, trying to desperately warm up as it froze. I hadn't even been offered a towel, let alone a jacket of some kind. Snow was falling down on my frosted hair and skin, my scrubs the only protection I had against the weather.

Too bad they'd been soaked through as well. At least I still had my boots on. They were only kind of frozen, still saturated with water.

"Can I at least get a coat or something?" I asked through chattering teeth, wondering if Cristos just didn't want to talk.

"No!" he roared out, spinning around to face me, yanking me forward with the chain in his hands at the same time.

The force of the pull toppled me over into the deep snow, my shoulder knocking into one of the close trees, which piled more of the powder on top of me.

"You're going to kill her!" I heard Arsenio hiss as I sputtered and tried to get back on my feet.

"It's fine," Cristos growled, tugging on my restraints and watching as I fell back into the snow. "It's a fire monster."

"Look at her!" Arsenio yelled. "Does that look like fire to you? She's turning blue for Zeus's sake!"

"I said it's fine."

He pulled me forward again and I slipped into the tree once more, still trying to get my frozen limbs to do their job and hold me up.

Arsenio didn't argue any more, but I could tell from the grim look on his face he wasn't happy with what was going on.

Silently pleading with him, our eyes met for a moment before he looked away. Maybe he just hadn't wanted to watch me lay in the snow any more.

"Get up," Cristos grunted, walking over and hoisting me to my feet. "You're only slowing us down."

"Where are we going?" I asked breathlessly as he set our pace again, much faster than before.

"Be quiet," he spat over his shoulder.

After a few moments of silence, Arsenio cleared his throat.

"So, where are we going?"

Cristos stopped, turning and glaring at him.

"To our campsite," he said smartly. "We should be there by the end of the day."

Arsenio looked back at me and smiled apologetically, shrugging slightly before turning and starting to walk again.

Shaking, I slowly followed, resigned to the fact I wasn't going to learn anything from either of them.

The rest of the day passed in maddening silence. The longer we went on the less possible it became for me to talk, due to the chattering of my teeth. I desperately wished my hands weren't cuffed together so I could try and rub heat back into my arms. If I didn't already have frostbite, it sure felt like it. By the time the sun started to set, I'd been dragged more than walked myself to our destination. Desire to take my boots off and rub my poor chapped and freezing feet was almost all I could think about.

"We better stop here," Cristos said, looking up at the sky. "We should be far enough away that it's safe."

"S-safe f-from what?" I asked, my barely heard voice the loudest sound I could muster.

"You stay here," he said gruffly, wrapping the chain around a thick tree trunk next to me and confining me to the spot.