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A car horn blared, stopping me dead in my tracks. My pulse quickened. What now?

"INTRIGUING... MY BLOOD IS BOILING... HERE I THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST A F**KING PUSHOVER..."

His voice cut through the air, venomous and unhinged. Just another psycho I happened to stumble unto.

"THIS DOESN\'T HINDER THINGS... IT MAKES IT MORE INTERESTING. A RACE AGAINST TIME. TO BEAT ME, YOU NEED TO KNOW WHO I AM. BUT YOU DON\'T EVEN KNOW THE BASIC S**T, WHICH MEANS YOU\'RE NOT FROM THIS WORLD..." Keep the adventure going with m|vl-em|p-yr

I clenched my fists. What was this? A game to him? Another lunatic with delusions of grandeur.

"SO WHAT DO I CALL YOU...? A FOREIGNER...! LAST PIECE OF ADVICE, YOU WON\'T WIN. I\'LL FIND YOU MYSELF, CARVE YOU OPEN A MILLION TIMES, AND YOU\'LL BEG FOR DEATH. YOU\'LL WATCH OLYMPUS BURN AS I RAIN DOWN THE HELL YOU SO DESPERATELY TRIED TO PREVENT!"

"Bring it on," I snarled under my breath, teeth clenched as I continued toward the hotel. His arrogance seeped through every word, yet he made one mistake. Or did he? Maybe revealing his plans was intentional, to shake me up. Either way, the knowledge that someone like him was after me made my skin crawl.

The "hell" he mentioned—it could only mean one thing. Hades kept Tartarus sealed. Their goal was to unleash the Titans. My stomach tightened at the thought.

"?!"

I felt a tug on my collar. Glancing down, I saw Talos\' silver eyes gleaming at me, her face as expressionless as always—calculating, unreadable. How long had she been awake?

She didn\'t seem in a hurry to get down either, just staring up at me, silent. "How long have you been conscious?" I asked. She didn\'t even flinch. Typical.

"I was never asleep," she replied coldly.

Now I felt wasted, like would it kill her to help me when I was running from that killer? Well maybe it might have killed her but still--

I let her fall to the ground with little ceremony. No need to carry her like some gentleman anymore, not when she could stand on her own. I was the god of the underworld, after all. "You have an habit of getting into trouble detective" I asked, annoyance lacing my tone.

Talos glared at me, her hand pressing against the wound on her stomach. Blood oozed from the gash again. Right, I\'d forgotten. Maybe I shouldn\'t have dropped her.

"You\'re different," she said, her voice flat. "On an intellectual level. Off the charts, even. Able to keep up with me just barely." What sort of half assed compliment was that. "Not to mention, you\'re an otherworlder. Is Hades still in the good \'ol game box?

I doubt it, considering you\'re always you."

The weight of her words hit me like a hammer. She knew. But if my secret was out to her, the one person most eager to see me rot in a cell, what was I supposed to do now? Kill her, obviously. She was already bleeding. One more cut would finish the job.

Or... I could tell her the truth. But what if I was wrong? She didn\'t act like one of us—one of the reborn. No, that couldn\'t be. I was the only one worthy of such privilege.

She had to die else she would be a problem.

My hand moved slowly toward her neck. She hadn\'t noticed—yet. She was too busy rummaging through her pocket. Good. Strangling would suffice. "Goodbye, Talo—"

My hand hit something hard halfway through— The book. She was holding it out to me. The same one we\'d risked everything to get tonight. What was her game? Was this a bribe? A distraction?

Did she anticipate I\'d try to kill her and thought she could buy her life with this?

"Take it," she said, her voice as cold as ever.

"Why?" I asked, my hand still trembling in midair. She\'d already lost. Why give it up now? Why not fight?

Talos met my eyes, and for the first time, I saw something there—a flicker of something I couldn\'t place. "I think you\'re a lot like me," she began, her voice soft but clear. "That dead look in your eyes, the one that doubts everything and everyone. I have it, too. It\'s what made me a master detective. But when you went back to save that girl...

I don\'t understand. How can you trust people so easily?"

My heart skipped a beat. I was just about to kill her, and here she was, trying to understand me. What kind of twisted game was this? With a growl, I ripped off my jacket and tossed it around her shoulders. "Let\'s go inside, before you bleed out."

She eyed the book again before looking up at me. "You\'re weird. I would\'ve taken it if I were you."

I shrugged, leading her toward the hotel entrance. "I can always find you."

She chuckled softly, though there was no warmth in it. "Fair point. But what about our \'mad informant\'?"

I sighed, the weight of everything settling on me as the sun began to peek over the horizon. "For now, we rest and recover."

After getting back to my room I haddle everything quite well if I might add. I bandaged her wound as best I could, drawing on the first aid classes I\'d taken back in my old world. Talos didn\'t say much, though she winced a few times. Eris, however, nearly went ballistic when she woke and found Talos in the room.

After the chaos settled, I leaned back in my chair, a can of beer in hand. "Alright. Here\'s the deal. I\'m deciding what to do with the two of you. It should be clear by now that I\'m innocent."

Talos scoffed. "I\'m still not convinced, especially now that I know you\'re not from around here."

When I mentioned alliance I had in mind her only response was. "This alliance you are proposing is against my jurisdiction, ya\'know this is the longest conversation I\'ve had in a hundred years or so."

Jurisdiction my ass, I crossed my arms and looked at them both. Eris had no reason to refuse me since she needed my protection, Talos also needed my protection but she was a tough but to crack.

Her stubbornness was expected. An alliance with me was the last thing she wanted, but I needed her on my side, even if only temporarily. "If you don\'t join me," I said, crossing my arms, "You will both die today."

Eris nearly jumped out of her skin. "I\'m in!" she cried, desperation seeping through her words.

All eyes turned to Talos. She was the real hurdle.

"Well," she said, standing and brushing herself off, "I don\'t respond well to threats. And I know you can\'t kill me. You need me alive, so... your loss."

She started toward the door, her expression unreadable. "Just don\'t do anything stupid, Hades."

She called me by name. That was new.

As the door slammed shut behind her, Eris turned to me, biting her nails nervously. "Are you really going to let her walk away with the book? What if she loses it?"

I smirked, watching the door for a moment before turning to her. "Do you really think I\'d risk losing my only clue to stopping this disaster?" I asked, my voice calm but firm.

She blinked in confusion. I let the silence stretch before I added, "The book she\'s holding is a fake."

Talos had no idea. If she really had been awake the whole time, she would\'ve noticed. But she didn\'t.

The real book was safe with me. And now, there was only one thing left to do—find the Apple of Discord. To do that, I\'d need to confront Aphrodite herself. The apple was a key item to preventing this catastrophe.

And nothing, not even the gods, would stand in my way.