I nodded. “I know, but I’ll feel like an idiot if I climb over the top and fall into a pile of stinking dog poo only to find out that there was a gate.”

We made our way down the other end of the fence, slowly, nothing stopping us.

And that alone made me nervous. So that meant either we’d outdistanced all the monsters—which I seriously doubted—or they were afraid of Cerberus. I was guessing the latter.

I paused at a section of fence where the wire was pulled back at the corner, small with jagged edges, just big enough to crawl through. “Bingo.”

I crouched and pulled the wire back, bending it easily. I held it, and Remo went through first, then I dropped down into a crouch and followed him through. I was on my knees, and Remo stood in front of me, his very nice rear end blocking my view. “See anything?”

“Alena, this is bad,” he whispered.

I made myself peer around him, though my heart hammered and my body wanted nothing more than to run. I stared up, way up at the three-headed dog that stood over us, silent as a statue, saliva and blood dripping from his mouth.

Remo had understated the situation. This was far worse than bad. This was epically bad.

Cerberus didn’t move, but he didn’t have to in order to scare me. Neither of us really had anything to face him with. No power, no strength of a monster, only our wits.

His three heads were trained toward us, each one with a maw filled with teeth, as though someone had just kept adding teeth until there was no more room and then added a few more for good measure. I’d seen the effect once when an employee had overstuffed a cream puff at my bakery until it spilled out the edges. But I highly doubted Cerberus was anything as sweet as a cream puff. Two of his heads had short ears that stood straight up, and the middle one had no ears at all, like they’d been cut off. He stood easily over twenty feet at the back, his three heads higher yet than that, and I had no doubt he could snap us each up in a single bite. But all he did was watch us. Or at least that’s what he seemed to be doing. Every once in a while one of his heads would swivel to the side, swaying back and forth . . . like he couldn’t hear us. I looked at him more closely.

“Are those scorch marks on his heads?” As in lightning-bolt scorch marks. If Zeus had blasted him, maybe he couldn’t hear us. “What if he can’t see us when we hold still? Like T. rex?”

“That was a movie, Alena. And this is a giant dog. He should be able to smell us, right?” Remo kept his voice pitched low, but I noted that he didn’t move either. We were as frozen as Cerberus. I dared to slowly lift my hand, putting it on the back of Remo’s belt. Just in case I had to yank him out of the way fast. My heart hammered, sweat flowed freely down my spine, and I had no idea what to do. How to get past this big monster and how to make it all the way to Hades was beyond me.

The oversized mutt swiveled one of his heads again, tipping it as if he could almost pick up on us. There were more scorch marks down the side of his neck.

“I think Zeus nailed him. It would hamper all his senses. I think we just have to make a run for it,” I said as I jerked to my feet.

“I can’t run as fast as I used to,” Remo pointed out, but I was already moving. I tightened my hand on his belt and bolted straight toward Cerberus. The middle head locked eyes with me, let out a snarling bark, and lunged. I dodged to one side, dragging Remo with me, as the middle head snapped where we’d stood only seconds before. I spun, like dodging Tad as we played basketball when we were kids, my back against the right head of Cerberus. I rolled with my back against his mouth, so close, and yet he missed me except for a flick of his tongue. I yanked Remo, and we were under the three-headed dog and running for the far side of the compound.

The place was a full-on junkyard with strange machinery and broken-down metal in piles everywhere.

“Let’s split up, he can’t take us both.” Remo pulled my hand from his belt and pushed me in one direction as he headed in the opposite.

“No, we can’t split up!” I yelled, but it was too late, and Cerberus was rushing between us. I held my ground; I couldn’t let him go after Remo. I waved my arms at him. “Come on, dumb dog, I’m just standing here waiting on you.” Cerberus took one look at me . . . and swerved after Remo.

His huge paws dug into the ground, churning up dirt and metal, flinging it every which way. He swept past me, and I did the only thing I could think of—I grabbed his one long tail and yanked it backward. I didn’t know how much strength I truly had left in me, so I gave it all I had. The tail gave way at the base, tearing partially off as I pulled and Cerberus ran. He howled and spun as the pain finally reached at least one of his brains. I was flung into the air like a kite with its string snapped loose. At the peak of my flight, my hands slipped on the slick fur, and I flipped through the air . . . and landed on his back. I dug my hands into the mangy fur, realizing that his body was covered only in patches. Sections of his back were indeed burned off like Zeus had really given it to him.

I felt bad for him. “Cerberus, stop this!”

One head turned around, and he snarled at me. I realized he could actually reach me from there. I held on tighter. “Zeus shouldn’t have hit you with the lighting.”

He grunted and shook his head. I blew out a breath. “Look, I just need to talk to Hades. Can you let us go through?”

He shook his head again.

“Not even if I say please?”

He snapped his teeth at me, missing me by mere inches.