The Struggle (Titan 3)

Gable burst out from the kitchen, his face pale. Fear pierced my heart, because he lived here—lived where the ground shook often—and if he was freaked out, we should be freaked out.

My wide gaze met Alex’s.

“Holy shit!” Deacon grabbed the banister, holding on as the entire house seemed to shake from its foundation.

Dust plumed into the air. A light above the door popped. Sparks flew. The thick, reinforced glass of the double doors slipped free and broke into pieces on the floor.

“This is bad, so bad.” Alex gripped Aiden’s arm as pieces of plaster dropped from the ceiling, smashing onto the tiles.

I darted to the side as another large chunk of the ceiling came down. The opulent, sparkling chandelier crashed into the floor and shattered.

Then the floor split right open.

Luke shouted as he hooked an arm around Deacon’s waist, yanking him away from the staircase. I swallowed a scream as a deep rift split the grand room, from the broken doors straight across the atrium, cutting through the scorched spot where Atlas was laid to waste. A chasm in the floor formed, several feet wide.

The shaking eased off and then the world stilled again.

“Gods,” muttered Aiden, keeping one hand on Alex’s shoulder as he knocked back several strands of wavy dark hair.

Heart pounding, I turned to the rift in the floor and took a slow, small step toward it.

“Be careful,” Gable warned. “The floor is unstable—this entire house is probably unstable right now.”

“Is this . . . is this normal?” I asked, lifting my gaze to his. “Earthquakes do this?”

Before I could answer, a strange scent filled the air. Not propane or the burning smell of electricity—scents that would be expected. No. I wrinkled my nose. It was a musty, damp, and dank smell. Like rich, undisturbed soil and decaying roots.

My heart tumbled over.

It reminded me of the way the shades smelled.

“I have a really bad feeling about this,” Alex said.

Aiden took a step back from the rift, pulling her with him as Deacon gasped out, “No shit.”

“I think we should leave,” Gable announced, walking backward, toward the kitchen. “I really think we should just leave.”

Movement stirred from the break in the ground. It sounded like rocks falling, bouncing off one another. Air caught in my lungs as a faint shiver skated over my skin, and instinct roared to the surface, forcing me to step back before I even realized what I was doing.

Silence fell, and the only thing I could hear was the pounding of my heart. A dirt-stained hand appeared, reaching out from the chasm and smacking down on the broken tile.

Chapter 3

Something or someone was hauling itself out of the hole in the floor and that had “nope” written all over it. Nothing good could be climbing out from deep within the ground. I’d seen enough horror films to know that.

Spinning around, I scanned the floor for the dagger I’d dropped and couldn’t see it in the mess that covered the tiles.

Crap.

Alex stepped to the side, blocking Gable, and her stance widened, shoulders squared. Even though she wore nothing more than leggings and a tank top, she looked badass and ready—prepared for anything. Alex was a demigod now, but she was first and foremost a Sentinel.

The same went for Aiden and Luke. They took up the same stance, effectively continuing to force Deacon and Gable behind them.

I saw all of this because somehow I was on the other side of the chasm.

Another hand appeared and then a head—a dirt-covered bald head broke the surface, and I distantly heard someone gag.

“Oh my gods,” I whispered, eyes widening with horror.

Ripped and flayed skin peeled back from the head. Entire chunks of skin were missing from the hollowed cheeks. The skin on the arms was no better. Strips of flesh hung from the chest. One of the eyes was nothing more than an empty, rotten socket, and some kind of cloth was wrapped around its hips, a cloth that might’ve been white and pristine at one time, but was now covered in mud and singed with soot.

The scent of sulfur misted the room.

The one good eye met mine, and its iris was a milky blue.

“Holy daimon babies,” whispered Alex. “Is that a zombie? Like a real zombie?”

“That wasn’t an earthquake.” Aiden reached to his hip, but he was empty-handed. They’d been sleeping and had come downstairs with no daggers.

“I think that’s obvious,” Deacon muttered from behind Luke.

All of us were immobile with disbelief.

The head on the thing swiveled from me to the other side, and then it pulled itself out, hitting the crushed tile on its hands and knees. A great shudder rolled through the wrecked body and it doubled over, opening its mouth and coughing violently, spewing clumps of soil and small pebbles.

The thing spoke, rocking onto its knees, back bowing as it threw its arms out. “Δωρε?ν.”

It was a tone of voice so guttural that it sounded like its vocal cords had been destroyed, spoken in a language I didn’t recognize at first, and wouldn’t have if my demigod abilities hadn’t been unlocked.

“Free,” I repeated, looking across the rift. “It said ‘free.’”

Upon my voice, it turned its head at me again.

“Free from what?” Deacon asked. “The set of The Walking Dead?”

Any other time I would’ve laughed, but that thing was rising to bare feet that were nothing more than gnawed muscle and bone. It took a step toward me.

“Don’t come any closer,” I warned, having no idea if it understood a single thing I said.

The thing shuffled another step forward.

“I think it likes you,” commented Alex, from the other side of the room.

Power built in the center of my chest, right behind the mark of Apollo, reminding me that I didn’t need a dagger to fight. I lifted a hand, hoping that whatever this thing was, it was a friendly and would listen to me. “Stop.”

Stretching out a gnarly hand in my direction, it opened its mouth in a lipless snarl, revealing ragged, broken teeth.

Okay.

Probably not friendly.

I reacted, tapping into the power—into akasha. Summoning the element of air, I felt the energy whip down my arm. A gust of wind hit the thing in its chest.

It flew backward.

Alex let out a strangled sound as she and Aiden dropped to the floor. The thing shot across the chasm, slamming into the opposite wall in a way that reminded me of a fly hitting the windshield of a car going about 100 miles per hour. A gruesome sound burned my ears as it exploded like a tick full of blood.

“Oh my gosh.” I dropped my hand.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Gable moaned. “Seriously. I might vomit.”

Alex and Aiden rose, their eyes wide as they looked over the rift at me. Aiden’s dark brows rose halfway up his forehead. “Whoa,” he said.

“I . . . I didn’t mean to do that,” I said, swallowing hard. “I mean, I meant to stop it but not make it go splat.”

“I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t accidentally set one of us on fire,” Luke commented.

My head snapped in his direction. “I only did that, like, once!”

Luke grinned.

“That was kind of impressive.” Alex looked over her shoulder, cringing. “I can control air, but not with that kind of force.”

“Well, that’s because she’s a real demigod,” Deacon said.

Alex rolled her eyes. “We’re real demigods—”

“Guys. I think we’re about to get more visitors.” Luke pointed at the chasm. More hands had appeared. “Let’s argue about being real demigods later.”

They came out of the rift faster than the lone one, all in the same rotting, decaying shape. Their bare-boned feet clicked off the pieces of tile.

There were almost a dozen.

I’d never seen anything like this.

Their jaws snapped, exposing ragged teeth that could easily tear through skin.

“Zombies are all fun and games until they’re standing right in front of you,” Deacon said.

One of them, a tall one, broke free from the pack, lurching toward Alex. She hopped back as she threw out her arm. A second later, the zombie-looking thing skidded backward, falling into the fissure.