The director tried to pull at my arm as I was putting pressure on his throat. I had gotten myself into a hell of a mess and I was determined to at least get Mia out of it, no matter the cost for me.

“A-the-na,” the director sputtered. “Dar-ling. Let–me–go.”

His bodyguard very slowly drew a weapon, a pistol that I was certain was loaded.

My grip tightened on the director’s jaw, ready to yank it in one direction and his torso in the other.

“You’re a horrible person,” I managed. It was a struggle to manage the rage suddenly building inside of me. This man had kidnapped children, not just me, and turned them from people into death machines. And all of this, for money. The contracts weren’t cheap and when contractors were auctioned off, it was a big event. For us it had been a coming-of-age and a chance at a better existence, away from the dinge-hole we called the camp. But for him, it had always been about profits.

“Yes,” he agreed.

His bodyguard had yet to aim fully at me, aware that even if he did shoot me, I would have a couple seconds of consciousness to carry out my will.

Mia tried to speak through her gag again, and the bodyguard turned to give her another slap.

It was the only moment I had, and I gritted my teeth and pulled. Muscles I hadn’t used in a long long time engaged and stretched to fulfill their purpose.

With a satisfying pop and then a crack, bone and cartilage separated in my hands and the director’s final ragged gasp was cut short.

His guard heard the sound and turned, aimed at me as I threw the limp corpse aside and leaped.

One shot rang out and the bullet took a chunk out of the concrete behind me, and then a second at very close range. I felt a thwip against my sidebefore I made contact and rammed the larger man with all my force into the back wall. There was another crack of bone, probably a rib bone, as his back made contact. I then tried to pull him forward while he was in shock and unbalance but as soon as he started to come away from the wall, I realized my mistake.

He loomed over me, and stepped into my sense of space. It was only a split second before I was getting shoved down, backwards and with force.

I landed with an involuntary oof of my breath leaving me, followed by one of his hand clamping down on my neck while the other grabbed at my wrists to keep me from striking back.

My windpipe closed and I went limp, knowing better than to struggle.

I had no hands, and he was sitting on my legs so they weren’t able to do much either. I couldn’t roll out of his grip, he was too strong and too heavy.

This was probably going to be the end, I realized. And Mia would probably be next, though I hoped her death was quicker than this. Suffocating took time.

I heard shouting from the doorway. The other contractors had probably investigated and were shocked by the director’s death.

Darkness started to claw at the edges of my vision, wavering a tighter and tighter as my brain starved.

There was a loud bang and the weight lifted. My chest reinflated a moment before I coughed and took a real breath before rolling over to hack up a clump of frothy mucus out of my airway. 

After a moment a hand came to rest on my back and I jumped, scrambling to get back into a defensive position.

Mars took a step back and put his hands up, showing he meant no harm.

I stared skeptically, still raggedly breathing as the world started to clarify.

“Athena,” he said calmly. “It’s me.”

I reached up to touch where my throat felt like it had been run over by a truck. The skin was hot to the touch.

There was scuffling and yelling coming from the main room, a fight in there, I realized. It reminded me of old times. 

And then I saw Mia, still handcuffed and hurried over, shouldering Mars out of my way as I first grabbed the director’s corpse and turned him over to search his pockets, finding nothing, so I moved on to the guard who was also on the ground.

I hesitated on seeing the state of him. His skull was misshapen, flattened unnaturally with blood leaking from his mouth and nose. He was also completely unresponsive as I heaved his weight to roll him over and finally found the key to Mia’s handcuffs.

I dropped to my knees right next to her, ignoring the immediate burning of glass imbedding into my skin and started to unlock her cuffs. I hesitated, seeing the amount of blood on my hands before quickly wiping it away and resuming.

She pulled her hands in tight as soon as they were free and then ripped the gag from her mouth.

“Taylor,” she managed and grabbed my shirt.

I held her hands. “It’s okay,” I promised.

She shook her head and then buried her face against me.

“I hate to break you guys up but there are problems,” Mars’ annoyed voice said from behind me.

I looked back to find him scouting the hallway where the noise was coming from.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ll explain later but we need to break free,” Mars said.

I looked back at Mia. “Stay behind me, okay. If someone looks at you, run. Do you understand?”

She nodded and went to say something but I put a finger to her lips. “We’ll talk later. Follow the dirt road and at the end go left, the road will lead you to the city and there’ll be people there. Do you understand?”

She nodded again and silently clung to my arm as I stood. I grabbed my knife as I did so and then the gun from the guard’s hands.

Mars made eye contact with me and then held out a hand.

I hesitated but offered him the pistol. He shook his head. “I’ll take the knife,” he said. “Protect her with that.”

I didn’t understand what was going on here. Mars should be trying to kill me. And maybe he would but for now he wanted to get out of here.

“Diana and Tenjin are our allies and Hermes is a wild card. The others need to get taken care of.”

I nodded. That explained the scuffling out there. They had split into factions while I was gone and whether this fight was for control or for freedom, I didn’t know, but it was a welcome chance to get away amidst the chaos.

I checked the ammo in the pistol. Four shots. Not great when I wasn’t very good with them, but it would have to do.

Mars gave me a final nod and slid through the open doorway the same uncannily quiet way he had before.

I followed.