Page 30 of Hercules

And he couldn’t stop any of it.

Light and dark, cruelty and chaos, torn flesh and ripped mortality were a mad jumble in Herc’s mind. He peered around, seeing pictures on the walls and furniture in the room, but they weren’t what was really there. In the frames, he saw pictures of the kids at the beach with Meg, tromping through the snow with him. The furniture wasn’t modern and black but white and squished because of pillow fights and movie nights.

But it was all covered in blood.

His precious family’s lives…now over. Because of him.

No. No.

Not there. You’re not there.

And you’re okay.

With gritted effort, he forced himself to believe it. With a more massive surge of pain, commanded it to power up his limbs and push him through the doorway.

One step in, and he leaned to whisk Lois off her feet. Only two motions on the outside, but a thousand battles to win in his soul and spirit.

Somehow, thank all the forces of Athens, he did it.

She was back in his arms, cradled as tight as he’d tugged her at the club, except facing him. And this time, despite the tremors throughout her body, refusing to let go of him. Her arms were desperate clamps around his neck. Her legs were steel talons around his waist.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you,” he soothed, though she had to feel the terrified thuds of his heart too. What the hell had happened? Perhaps what was still happening?

He battled the dread, refusing to be deterred.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Because it was going to mean something different this time.

No matter how much it cost his sanity.

No matter how many memories he had to push through.

No matter how much he had to relive the minutes in which he’d recited the same thing—while stalking Meg and the kids through the house.

Not. This. Time.

“Hercules?”

And somehow, through every note of the shaking terror in her rasp, Lois Lance was his lifeline to that mantra. Like a fireman from her realm, he confronted the flames of her fear—and, from every pore of his skin and edge of his nerves, told them they wouldn’t win.

“Hercules? Wh-What—”

“Lois,” he husked into her ear. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Hercules!”

This time, it was a full roar. Not hers. As if they were in a vast concert hall and not a cavernous mansion, his brother’s shout was a delayed resonance. Too delayed.

Though his peripheral caught the swoop of unexpected motion from ten feet over his left shoulder, there weren’t enough seconds to process if it was a bird, a plane, another screaming chinchilla, or even his brother.

Any or all of those boxes would’ve been just peachy compared to the reality.

The invader, a femme D’Artaganan-meets-Punisher-meets Cirque du Soleil trapezist on crack, who flew at him with one elbow hooked around the entryway’s chandelier—

And the other helping to brace a rifle.

Much like the weapon she’d used on him in the patio back at DeLux.