“You know the place,” Gus said to her with a soft smile. “I told you about it, even if I didn’t tell you why I loved it.”
“There’s another way,” Eric insisted, desperation choking him.
“I don’t think there is,” Gus said. “Go, now, and remember me for the man I could have been.”
The bomb beeped.
“No!” Gus looked horrified. “I can. I’ll…”
1:00
One minute wasn’t enough time to make it out of the castle.
0:59
“Go! There’s still time,” Gus shouted, bent over the bomb. “You can get out.”
0:58
There wasn’t time. Wasn’t a way out.
Nikolett laced her fingers with Eric’s. She looked utterly defeated.
He remembered her words from earlier.I’m weary.
0:57
0:56
“I’m going to go in and get them,” Grigoris murmured, knowing his earbuds would pick it up and Nyx would hear him.
“Trust her,” his wife insisted. “She texted you to stay out until she gave the all clear. That’s what you need to do.”
Grigoris suspected that Nyx, who rarely followed orders unless she agreed with them, was motivated less by respect for the office of admiral or obedience, and more out of a desire for him not to run into a building that may or may not have a bomb in it.
Especially since Nyx was pregnant.
She’d taken the test only four days ago, while he’d been in Paris, and had reminded him several times it might be a false positive.
He couldn’t wait to get home to her.
And so he stayed, Regina at his side, her phone to her ear as she coordinated stalling the fire brigade who desperately wanted to come hose down the exploded Spartan Guard building. For now, the closed gates and assurances that they had several “gas leak” experts here already were holding back the authorities.
The ground heaved, throwing Grigoris first up and then back. He almost somersaulted in the air, but instead landed flat on his back, the air forced out of his lungs. All around him, people were thrown like dice tossed across a table.
The first ripple through the earth was powerful, but silent.
What came next was loud and shocking. Triskelion Castle lurched, almost seeming to hop into the air, as if punched from underneath. It suspended there for a moment, cracks appearing between the stones at the apex of this improbable, impossible jump.
And then Triskelion Castle collapsed. The sound of stone striking stone, over and over again, was deafening, just barely masking the sound of the bomb’s shock wave. The earth that had first heaved now vibrated ominously.
“Get back!” someone shouted. It might have been him.
On hands and knees, they scrambled back, away from the still-collapsing castle.
The rumble of the earth didn’t abate. It got worse. The sound warning those still on the surface that there was more happening below.
A massive chunk of the cliff sheared off, falling down into the sea.
