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CHAPTER 3 - TOR

“T he warden said what?” I tugged at my hair. “Say it again.”

My mind went on the fritz at the fresh orders Serena delivered. Every hour that Supergal was missing decreased her chance of survival, and I went a little madder, unable to focus, breathe, eat, or function.

“He denied our request to rescue Astra.” Serena repeated the words as gently as she could. “He wants us to retrieve every last prisoner and lock them up before they escape or harm innocent humans.”

My scalp stung from where my fingers wrenched too hard. “We gave the warden intel on Supergal’s location.”

Serena set her hands on my shoulders and squeezed. “He said the evidence was circumstantial, and he won’t waste resources on that.”

Circumstantial, my ass.

He didn’t want her back. He wanted us all dead, and almost succeeded with Pascal, with Astra on her way, and any one of us next. There was no other way to look at this.

“What are we going to do?” I covered my eyes, losing my shit.

My leader’s palms fell from my shoulders.

Knoxe threw an arm over me, but I couldn’t stand it and shook it off.

Serena went on, reciting what she was told like a soldier who lost all hope and just gave in, following orders. “The warden believes catching the deserters is the more pressing situation.”

“Fuck.” Something in my mind snapped, and I went into full meltdown mode, my body shaking, lungs locking, vision spinning, knees losing juice, and stumbling sideways.

“Tor? Are you okay?” Serena caught my arms, steadying me.

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, the pounding in my chest so hard it threatened to tip me over. Pain splitting across my ribs threatened to break me in two. This was what dying felt like.

“Tor, listen to me.” She forced me over to the wall, pushing my shoulders, causing me to slide down it. “Breathe for me. One, two, three, four.”

I did as best as I could despite the agony in my chest from panic and the idea of losing Supergal. She was the best thing in my world besides my family, and I couldn’t contemplate a future without her. We had to find a way to get her back, even if it meant disobeying orders. I’d rather spend a month in The Hole if she lived.

“This is bullshit!” Loco’s face reddened and he twitched. “One minute, the warden needs all the resources he can get to round up all the deserters. The next minute, he leaves my fucking daughter to God knows what horror at the hands of the vampires!”

Knoxe went to calm him down.

Thank Mads that Pascal wasn’t here to witness this argument when it set him on edge. Our buddy was still holed up in the medical bay where they patched up his wounds. A knife went through me that the vamps almost took my buddy from me... and from our girl.

“Let’s regroup, team,” Serena cut through breakdowns and outbursts.

“Regroup?” Loco was going out of his mind with panic too.

His task to extract intel from the captive deserters failed miserably because he couldn’t concentrate on anything but saving his daughter. His mood lifted when we told him the good news about tracking down Astra. He and Serena promised to ask no questions in exchange for the information.

Now, he clutched the neckline of the white shirt beneath his orange jumpsuit and gasped as if he couldn’t catch his breath. Shit, Dad looked like he went into cardiac arrest.

“This isn’t helping anyone.” Knoxe came to Serena’s defense. “Everyone calm down, breathe, and relax, and we’ll figure it out.”

Loco and I took a moment to fall apart before we gathered ourselves. What a fucking pair we were. Pitiful superheroes and rescuers. Not the kind Supergal wanted on her side when we fell apart the moment she went missing.

Knoxe caught Loco’s shoulders, rubbing his back, urging him to focus on slowing his breathing and calming down, whispering that we’d get Astra back.

“I know it’s not ideal.” Serena rubbed her weary forehead. “It doesn’t mean we’re giving up.”

No way we were leaving Supergal behind. We’d do whatever it took to rescue her. At that exact moment, an even more elaborate idea came to mind. Knoxe would kill me if I enacted it, but fuck it, I wasn’t taking any chances when it came to my girl. First, we lost Raze from the team, Pascal came this close, now our woman, and I would do anything to fix this.

“Are we good to leave?” Serena asked, stepping up to each of us, checking us over like a mom would. “The sooner we round up these chumps, the quicker we get to Astra.”

We all muttered our compliance, trailed behind her and Knoxe, going to suit up and getting the hell out of here. I had to get out of these walls to carry through on my plan. And what a doozy it was.

Our leader swept a critical eye over the team, inspecting our weapon belts, then our faces, the reflection in her eyes not promising. We must have looked like an unconvincing wreck.

Loco fished his knives from their sheaths and twirled them anxiously on his fingers. Knoxe kept checking his weapons. And I clicked the button on my grenade pouch open and closed, earning Serena’s frown.

“Everyone, move out.” She swiped her fingers military-style to order us to depart.

We went through the rigmarole, the sentries processing our weapons, signing us out, approving us to leave, marching us to the portal room, seeing us off. The blue-white light dumped us six hundred feet from our target, where another team reported the weather anomalies I detected. CCTV footage showed deserters emerging from the row of commercial sheds for cigarette breaks and food runs.

An unkind breeze tugged at my hair and swept down the neck of my uniform. Glare from the cloudy day stung my eyes, and I squinted, orienting myself, scanning our surroundings. Vehicles parked along the road of the commercial area, made up of factories, showrooms, car dealerships and service centers, and warehouses. The bay of ten sheds we were headed for glinted in the distance like sunlight reflected on steel. A hideout for a group of ten traitors. Prisoners more important to collect than a loyal member of our team that didn’t run. The fucking irony.

“Make it quick, team.” Loco swirled his knives on his fingers with a precision that rivaled Pascal’s bullseye shots. “I want my daughter back.”

He marched full steam ahead without waiting for Serena’s order.

“Hold on a second there, Dad!” I called out after him. “Don’t be hasty.”

The knife came to a stop in his palm, and the glare on his face said he wanted to slice my hand off for daring to call him the D-word again against his warning. I didn’t care. He was practically my father-in-law.

Once we got out of the shithole known as the Guardians, I’d pop the question for real with Supergal. I already gave her a candy ring as a sign of my commitment. I didn’t give her a real ring because some asshole might steal it, or she might lose it on a mission. But she was the girl I’d marry.

I raised my palms to stop the order about to fall from Serena’s mouth to keep moving. “Does anyone else feel this is off? The warden claims we’re low on soldiers, yet he abandons Astra?”

Loco went back to flipping his knife. “The same question I asked myself.”

I crossed a few paces to lay an arm over his shoulder, hugging him, forcing him to get used to son-in-law cuddles. “We’ll get her back.”

“What did I say about the dad talk and touching me?” He tossed his knife into the soil at my foot, and it twanged from impact. I lived for threats. Lived to torment the guy.

Time to put my next phase into operation. Make another bargain and ensure no one died in the process.

Knoxe’s eyes flashed with disapproval as if he sensed my plan.

“Hades, Lord of the Dead, I summon thee.” I didn’t have a clue if it worked and waited.

We were three hundred miles from Supergal’s location and could open a portal and march into the vampire’s location or a possible trap. If the warden or the prison sentries noticed we navigated off course, they’d activate the button at his desk to activate a function in our bracelets that incapacitated us. This way guaranteed we got in and out alive.

Knoxe tensed and rubbed his knuckles. “Tor, not this bullshit again.”

“What the hell is wrong with you, boy?” Loco smacked me on the back of the head. “The gods have forsaken us and left us to rot in the Guardians.”

Serena went to order me to stop and move out when I made the call again.

The ground thundered, and a hole opened up, marble steps rising from the soil. A tall man with jet-black hair and equally as dark eyes climbed out of the hole. His skin glimmered with the same faint gold of his character in the Cupid’s Vengeance comics.

Serena drew her weapon faster than I’d ever seen before. Loco’s knife ceased swirling in his palm as he readied to throw it. Knoxe grabbed me by the shoulder as if to force me to return the Death god back to the Underworld.

Oh, man. Of all the times Pascal lucked out meeting a second god and a comic character.

“Why do you summon me, criminal?” Hades boomed, impatience at being bothered burning his voice. “Why don’t you call the god of Thieves for whatever deception you’re up to?”

Been there, done that. We got a location but no approval. Typical of a trickster. My fault for not adding that condition. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight at the time, just like I wasn’t now, summoning a god of Death to bargain with. Yep, definitely losing my marbles.

Serena and Loco’s gazes darted between us like they couldn’t believe their eyes. In all fairness, Hades was a god in the flesh, a walking block of marble and probably just as hard.

“Because you owe us.” At my reply, the Lord of the Underworld broke into an irritated snarl as if I wasted his time and he had more important things to do, like judging souls in the Greek Underworld.

“I owe you nothing, criminal.” Hmm. Testy.

Maybe I should have called his wife, Autumn. She seemed friendlier and nicer in the comics. Too late.

I stumbled over to him, nudged past, and blocked him, earning the coldest dark eyes reaching into my soul. Chilled to the core, I didn’t let it deter me. I was my girl’s Superguy and advocated for her life, even if it meant pissing off a god and sacrificing my own.

“Yes, you do,” I started my argument.

Hades rumbled with outrage at me, a mere mortal, for daring to address him when he dismissed me. Fuck him. He wasn’t leaving until I got what I wanted.

“Who the hell is this bozo?” Loco, the mad bastard, crept forward, knives raised at a literal god.

“Cut it with the insults, Dad,” I warned, trying to stop this from getting out of hand when I had one shot at this. “He’s a god and can send you to the afterlife.”

Hades turned his unforgiving gaze to Loco, spinning his knives like a man with a death wish.

“Remember the Horn of Chrysomallos, Lord of the Dead?” I brought the god’s attention back to me before we lost a second member of team in a day. The cold burn of Hades’ gaze blistered me. “You know? The one that won your war with Zeus?”

Hades’ eyes opened wide at my question, as if he didn’t anticipate my knowledge of the event.

The war featured in a special edition of Cupid’s Vengeance, which I suspected Mads played a hand in publishing. I mean, who else knew about that turn of events?

“We found it and gave it to Mads,” I said. “We saved your kingdom and your ass, and you owe us.”

Yep, Hades was definitely not happy about this fact or that he was indebted to us dirty criminals.

“I owe you no such thing, criminal.” He shoved me aside with ease, and I tripped on a stair, falling on my ass.

This guy was a real pain in the ass. Why did Mads admit to liking him? I began to seriously doubt the story Knoxe gave me. No one in their right mind would befriend a grumpy asshole like this.

From what I read of the Hades myths, he liked to wager bets, and I was about to hedge one with him. “Then bargain with me, Lord of the Dead.”

Hades tipped his head to me, one brow raised, prompting me to broker with him. “What do you want, criminal? Besides to pester me.”

“For you to repay the favor we did for you. Help us save our girlfriend.” I gave him the story, his disapproving brows weighing down by the second. “She might die and come to your Underworld if you won’t save us. Trust me, you don’t want that. She won’t shut up about chemistry, comics, romance books, or monster dick.”

Hades’ eyes switched from a glare to outraged at the d-word.

I ended on, “So I suggest you help a guy out.”

“And what if I send you to save her and you die?” Hades growled. “You are bound for my Underworld. If you fail your mission, will you promise not to carry on and blame me for an eternity?”

An eternity? Hell to the no. I didn’t plan on dying anytime soon, and when I did, I wasn’t dallying in the Underworld with a guy like this. I opted for reincarnation straight away. Lots to do. The world to see. Rockstar dreams to achieve.

“Fine. I’ll promise not to annoy you, but only if you agree not to cheat us.” I wasn’t having any tricks from the Lord of the Dead. “The place is infested and surrounded by vampires. Possibly too many for us to battle our way in. Get us all in and out alive, and you won’t have five whiny souls on your hands.”

Hades sighed like he gave in. “Very well, criminal. Where is your beloved being held captive?”

I gave him the coordinates Mads shared with us and prayed like hell this worked, and he didn’t click us into the fiery pits of Tartarus.

“Don’t call on me again,” Hades warned, a green fog curling around his shoulders. “Or I’ll send you all to the Underworld and torture you for an eternity.”

A shiver tripped down my spine as the same magick encircled us, sucking us through time and space, ejecting us into the heart of the laboratory the vampires used as a hideout. Nothing moved, no flashing on the computer screens, no bubbling of chemicals on the Bunsen burner, no vampires snarling and leaping at us. Time appeared frozen.

“It worked,” Loco whispered. “Tor, I have no idea what just happened, or who that bozo was, but you’re a fucking genius.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Dad.” We weren’t out of the clear yet, and I got my gun ready for when time cranked back into action.

Knoxe waved a hand in front of a still vamp.

Serena didn’t waste time, stabbing the bastards in the armpits, getting them in their heart, killing them before they reanimated.

I inched deeper into the lab, searching for our girl.

Loco thumped me on the shoulder. “I’ll gladly give my life if my daughter lives.” He glanced at the sky. “You hear that, you rude, grumpy bozo?”

I clamped a hand over his mouth before he said something to offend Hades and cast us prematurely into the Underworld. When I let him go, he moved away and backed our leader up.

“She’s here!” Knoxe hurried over to two vampires at the back of the lab, looming over Supergal and Raze, who on their knees.

Fuck. Styx raised a gun at our brother’s forehead.

Knoxe snatched the gun from the vamp’s hand, grabbed his wrist, and snapped it back, making a loud crack. Then he blew a hole in the bastard’s stomach. Justice and revenge were about to be delivered at long last. Two years of fucking hell culminating in this moment.

Fingers on the soldier at his side jerked, telling me our gig was almost up, and time was about to kick in again. And when it did, we had the fight of our lives to save our girl.