Wanda frowned, too, as she smoothed a hand over her trousers.“I can.It smells old.Like when you open a box that’s been sitting in your basement in the damp and it hits you in the face.”
Dom sniffed the air as she rose to her feet, but she didn’t smell anything except for her papa’s Ben Gay.“Okay, so what does this smell that only you guys with super smellers can smell mean?”
Harvey rose, too, with a long, raspy sigh, jamming his hands into the pockets of his puffy black vest.“It means the Jötnar.”
Oh, all these crazy words.How would she ever learn them?And why didthe Jötnarsound like a curse word?
Her heart shot straight up to her throat.“Thewhat?”
“Giants,” MC replied.“They’re gods of chaos.”
And?
The first picture that came to mind was the Jolly Green Giant, a happy guy on a can of vegetables.“Why do I get the impression they’re not like the guy who says, ‘Ho!Ho!Ho!’in all those commercials?”
Marty held up a hand, setting her purse on the credenza where her papa’s TV sat.“Okay, say no more.First course of action, make sure the staff and patients are safe.Ladies, let’s do some hunting.Harvey and Darnell, you two stay here with Dom and her grandfather and keep them safe.”
Safe?From?
The ladies exited the room with haste, while Dom clenched her hands together, licking her dry lips.“What does giants mean?Giants as in big guys with clubs who stomp all over unsuspecting towns, crushing them to oblivion?Those giants?Or Goliath giant, and is there even a difference?A giant’s a giant!And why are they here at my grandfather’s memory care facility?”she squeaked, her brain abuzz with questions she wasn’t sure she wanted answered.
“Let’s make sure everyone is safe before I explain any further, Dominique,” MC soothed.
She narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion, planting her hands on her hips.“Translation?Before we explain to Dom the trouble we’ve laid at her doorstep, let’s be sure the trouble we laid at her doorstep hasn’t already made trouble?”
Harvey winced, his handsome face sheepish.Grabbing her hand, he held it, making her instantly feel safe—which was weird.
“Sort of.”
His answer left her incredulous, but not speechless.
Yanking her hand from his, she waved a finger under his nose.Spikes of anger sizzling along her spine.“Sort of?My grandfather and his friends are in danger and all you can say issort of?I’m here to tell you right now, Thor’s overly large, weird offspring, if anything, and I do meananythinghappens to my grandfather or any of the people here, if one hair on their heads is out of place, I’m coming for you, and I’m going to use your little friend the talking hammer to wreak havoc!If you think what happened in my apartment was bad, wait until you have to wipe the remnants of your brain matter up off the floor with a damn mop!And then?Then I’m going to merrily march your little friend to the scrapyard and have him melted down to the size of a charm on a bracelet!”
With that, she decided to make a break for the bathroom down the hall, where she fully intended to empty the turmoil captured in her stomach into the nearest toilet—in privacy.
She pushed her way out and began to head down the quiet hallway when she was bulldozed by what could only be described as something gargantuan and akin to the side of a brick wall.
Crashing to the ground, Dom wheezed, fighting to catch her breath, the impact was so violent.Her back stung with a sharp pain, as if she’d been stabbed with a hot knife.
She didn’t have time to process what was happening before a hand—and she knew it was a hand because the fingers, massive and long, curled around her jaw and covered her mouth—hauled her up against its wall-of-granite chest and squeezed until her eyeballs bulged.
Then there was the smell, described perfectly by Wanda.Damp, old, like a box that had been closed up in a basement.
Someone, someone so strong she couldn’t move an inch, whispered in her ear, sinister and deep, “Hand over Mjölnir, or you’ll suffer the consequences!”
ChapterSeven
“Dom!”she heard Harvey bellow, before he was scooping her up off the floor.
She hung in his arms for a moment, hating to admit it wasn’t a bad place to hang, if hanging was what you were into.He was strong and warm, his chest broad and muscled, and listen, it wasn’t the worst place to catch your breath.
Whatever that had been, it had knocked the wind right out of her.But then she remembered she was angry with Harvey and his stupid hammer.Her grandfather was in danger and all because the “universe” deemed she was the one to protect the world.
Pushing her way out of his arms, Dom dropped to the ground.
Make no mistake, shereallydropped to the ground, her legs like a bucket of marmalade.But when Harvey tried to help her rise, she pushed him away and shook her head.
“Nope.I don’t need any more help from you, pal.I think you and your little friend have done enough.”
