Free Seven Wonders Book 1: The Colossus Rises by Peter Lerangis Page B

“It’s calmer…farther out.”
    Aly leaned over the side of the boat and threw up. I pulled until the skin on my palms hurt. A bright stroke of lightning rent the air. For a moment the scene in front of me was bathed in a ghostly greenish white. Marco’s arm muscles were a ropy tangle as he pulled.
    “Something’s wrong with Aly!” Cass shouted. She was convulsing in his arms now.
    “Seasickness!” Marco shouted. “She’ll be better in a minute!”
    Now I was rising nearly vertically. Cass screamed, his voice now below my feet. I held tight as the boat slapped back down, wrenching my stomach like a roller coaster.
    “It’s getting worse, not better!” Cass’s cry was cut off by a crack of thunder.
    “That was about ten seconds between the light and the noise!” I shouted. “We’re two miles from lightning!”
    “ Where’s land? ” Cass cried out, holding tight to Aly, who now appeared to be unconscious.
    “Got to…get farther out…” Marco grunted.
    “I can’t navigate without a shore, Marco!” Cass said.“Sea is different from land!”
    Marco dug in extra hard. “You’re the genius—figure it out! I have to get the boat out of this—”
    A black curtain rose up to the starboard side, as if the sky itself had been swallowed up in the storm. Marco lifted one of the oars and rowed with the other, trying to change the boat’s position. “ Hang on! ” he yelled. “Get low and hold on to the boat!”
    I let go of my oars and grabbed tight on both sides. I could see Aly sinking to the floor. And then she and Cass were sliding…colliding with Marco…
    Marco lost control of his oars. They swung away from him, flailing against the side of the boat. His hand was bleeding. He lunged forward, trying desperately to grab them again.
    The wave lifted us upward like a roller-coaster car. We paused at the top, nearly sideways, suspended for a brief moment…
    And we flipped silently into the sea.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
S INK OR S WIM
    M Y LEGS LURCHED over my head. My arms flailed as if they didn’t belong to me. My body bent backward and I thought my neck would snap. I was traveling in directions I didn’t know existed. I felt the grit of seaweed against my skin and had no idea which way was up.
    I willed myself to be still. Soon I was floating. Upward. My lungs were about to explode from my chest. I began swimming desperately. Kicking hard.
    “Geeeeeahh!” I broke through the surface with a desperate sucking of air. My body spasmed. Seawater rushed into my mouth and I thought I would choke.
    “ Help! Help me! ”
    Cass.
    His voice was to my left. Not far. I took three crazy deep breaths. Swimming blindly, I called out, “ Where are you? ”
    But my voice was lost in the spindrift. I fought against the swells and whitecaps, taking my direction from Cass’s screams. But now his voice was getting weaker. “ Hang on! ” I shouted. “ I’m —”
    My arm hit something solid.
    It was Aly, facedown in the water. I yanked her head up but she was motionless, eyes rolled back into her head. I pulled her against me, my front to her back, and squeezed her abdomen hard. Nothing.
    I turned her around and put my lips over hers, inhaling as hard as I could. Then exhaling. Pumping her system with oxygen.
    Her body seized up. She jerked back and coughed a gob of seawater and long-digested quail.
    Marco’s voice boomed from my right. “ Is she okay? ”
    “I don’t know.” He was swimming toward us, his arms chopping through the rough water.
    “Let me take her,” Marco said. “You get Cass.”
    As he pulled Aly away, I tried to scan the area. The rain seemed to be coming horizontally, right into my eyes. “ Cass! Where are you? Say something! ”
    A tiny moan was my only answer. I swam furiously until I saw a black lump emerging from the water’s surface.I reached below and grabbed an arm.
    Cass’s head bobbed upward. He spluttered weakly. But he was alive. “Hold on to me and I’ll tow you in!” I