Hecate's Spell (Monsters and Gargoyles #7) - Lacey Carter Andersen Page 0,27

my shoulders and draw the top over my head. My heart races as I stare at the unlocked door.

Surely none of this is real. Surely we won’t actually escape.

Andros returns a few minutes later to promise me it will happen soon and kiss me again, his face surprisingly happy. He leaves the door unlocked, but closed, again, and comes to stand beside me. His hand curls around mine, and his gaze connects with my own.

“We’re going to escape. But remember, you can’t look back at me once we reach the tunnels on the other side of the Underworld, or my soul will be trapped down here forever.”

I nod, but I’m confused. “Andros, we’ve tried this before. What’s different this time? Hades and his guards are just going to catch us and drag us back.”

He looks away from me. “Forgive me for what I’ve done.”

“What have you done?” My heart starts to race.

A roar rips down the hallway as if in answer. I try to race forward to see, but Andros grips my hand tightly, keeping me beside him. I hear the sounds of metal ripping and then smashing. A prisoner runs past my room, screaming in joy. Another horrible ripping of metal, then another, and another. More and more prisoners run past us.

“What’s happening?” I ask, heart hammering. “The prisoners are getting free.”

“I know,” he says, his expression blank.

“But some of these people are bad, Andros. Really, really bad.”

“I know.”

The earth shakes as heavy footsteps pound toward us. The face of a monster is suddenly at our door with gleaming red eyes. He looks at Andros, smiles, and walks past us. We stay where we are as the halls fill with screaming and the sounds of metal ripping. As the sounds get further and further away, I look at Andros again.

“Do you have any idea what that thing was?”

He won’t look at me. “That thing was our ticket out of here.” Then he tugs on my hand, and we start running.

My thoughts are torn away. Horrified thoughts of what Andros did, the deal he must have made to get us out of here, float through my mind. Along the path we have to jump and climb over ripped off cell doors and the smashed bodies of skeletal guards. But the way out? It’s clear. There’s no one to stop us. No door in our path. We rush until we break free from the prisons. In the direction of the great wall, the monsters and dozens of prisoners are fighting harpies, shades, and guards. Andros tugs me away from it and to the river.

We pause at the edge, and he looks at me. “Ready?”

I nod, but my whole body shakes.

We leap into the water, and the souls whisper around us to hurry, hurry, pushing us forward to our escape. I swim with all my might, fear tugging at my soul. We’ve tried this before. Too many times before. Most of my escape attempts were made before Andros came here. Some were made with his help, while he quietly tried to help just me escape. But our relationship since then has changed, so that I never again would try to escape without him.

Only, our attempt to go together had resulted in a terrible consequence. I couldn’t let that happen again. Andros is a plaything to Hades. I’m a prize to keep on his shelf. But even the twisted god has a limit.

We reach the other side and climb out, then start to run in the direction of the only escape.

“Andros!”

Ice runs through my veins at the sound of his name. But Andros stops.

“No! Keep going!” I grab onto Andros’s arm, trying to haul him forward, but he seems rooted in place. The thing is that there could be no one worth stopping for and even a few extra seconds could cost us everything.

Andros turns around, his entire body tensed. “Orion?”

I look back and a gargoyle who looks so similar to Andros it makes my heart stop is standing beside a smaller man with glowing wings...a phoenix.

“This has to be a trap,” I whisper, a shiver rolling down my spine.

“No,” Andros says with a huge smile spreading his face. “He finally came.”

Andros races back to him and the two embrace. I follow slowly after, feeling like I’m in some kind of nightmare. We have to go. We don’t have time for this. None of it makes sense.

They pull back from each other.

“I came to save you,” Orion says, staring at his brother as