I twist. Yank. Drive my elbow backward into his ribs. He absorbs the blow and wrenches me around, my back slamming against his chest. His arm bands across my collarbone and drags me sideways as his other hand reaches for the syringe he dropped on the dirty carpet.
My mother sobs on the couch. "Please don't hurt her. Please?—"
I want to scream at her. I want to ask how she can beg for my safety when she’s the one who served me up on a platter. But what good would that even do?
He must have grasped the syringe because it appears in my peripheral vision, filled with dark liquid, as he brings the needle tip toward the side of my neck.
I wriggle as forcefully as I can, but he’s strong and has me held tightly.
Then—from above—I hear the heavy thud of boots on hardwood. Multiple pairs of boots.
"London!"
Oh, my god. Zeus. His voice echoes through the house like a crack of Norse thunder, and every cell in my body surges toward the sound.
"Down here!" I scream. "Basement! He has a?—"
The thug's hand clamps over my mouth. I see the syringe and convulse my whole body as much as possible to throw his aim off.
Footsteps pound down the basement stairs. Zeus appears—gun drawn, shoulders filling the narrow stairwell, his face a mask of lethal calm.
His eyes sweep the scene in a fraction of a second. Me, pinned against the thug's chest. The syringe at my throat. My mother, curled and shaking on the couch.
His gun doesn't waver. It's aimed at the thug's head, but the thug is behind me. Using me as a shield.
"Let her go." Zeus's voice is controlled but lethal.
"No, no, no." The thug adjusts his grip, pulling me tighter. "Here's how this goes, amigo. We walk out together—me and the girl. You lower your weapon. If you try anything, my thumb pushes this plunger and she gets enough Raven to stop her heart in two minutes."
Zeus doesn't blink. Doesn't move. His eyes lock on mine—not the thug's. Mine.
I see everything in that gaze. Love. Rage. A promise.
My mother wails. "My baby! Don't kill my baby! Oh god, please?—"
The irony would be laughable if I weren't about to die.
“You might think you’ve got it all figured out,” Zeus says. His voice hasn't risen above conversational volume, like he might be discussing the weather. “But there’s something you haven't accounted for,"
The thug's grip tightens. "What's that?"
"I don't miss."
The gunshot splits the air.
The thug jerks—a single, violent spasm—and the arm around my throat goes slack.
I stumble forward, my knees give. I'm going down?—
Behind me, a body hits the floor. A wet, heavy sound I'll hear in nightmares.
Strong arms catch me. Zeus. I’m wrapped in him, and he’s pressing my face against his chest. His heart thuds rapidly beneath my ear, the only sign that he felt anything at all during those terrible seconds.
"I've got you." His voice is rough, shredded at the edges. "I've got you. It's over."
My mother is sobbing on the couch—great, heaving wails that sound more like grief for her lost fix than relief that her daughter is alive. She crawls toward the dead man's body, searching the dirty carpet for the syringe he’d been holding with the single-mindedness of an addict who has lost all capacity for anything else.
Zeus's arms tighten around me. He turns us so I can't see her. So I don't have to watch my mother rob a corpse.
