Free Bad Blood: Latter-Day Olympians by Lucienne Diver Page A

fought the urge to tense and instead played limp as if the fight had gone out of me, hoping not to telegraph my next move. In the following instant, I flung my head back, bracing against his very body as I smashed his face.
    I felt something give and the arms went loose, just long enough for me to twist, to try to bring my arms up between us. It brought me face-to-face with Circe’s killer. No time to dwell on the insanity of what I was seeing as his coal-black eyes met mine—or maybe those were spots swimming before me. Deep, dark, depthless. Already I felt myself slipping away from lack of oxygen. I hoped to Hades the family legends were true and focused everything I had into freezing my attacker in place with the glare.
    Nothing moved. Nothing. We were sinking before my sputtering brain realized that meant it had worked . No treading was keeping us afloat. He was frozen.
    Galvanized, I shrugged out of his arms and kicked for all I was worth in the opposite direction—up! My arms felt like lead and my legs like they were encased in cement, but I kept moving.
    The urge to open my mouth, to breathe, became nearly unbearable. Spots became my landscape. I wasn’t going to make it.
    It was as if the surface rushed to meet me as I poured the last of my strength into one final kick. I hit the air coughing up water and taking oxygen in great gulps.
    All I wanted to do was lie there floating, recovering my strength and just breathing, but somewhere below me that thing waited. I didn’t know how long the paralysis would last—still couldn’t believe my whammy had worked at all.
    It seemed the hardest thing I’d ever done to make myself move . My arms and legs were stiff with cold and refused to bend. It was as if I beat the water with sticks. Only fear propelled me. Every time I bobbed upward I focused on the beach, but it never seemed to be any closer. Finally, my movements slowed almost to nothing except for the shaking. Tremors racked my whole body now. Hypothermia—or something. Something I was supposed to remember. I nearly sank before I thought to turn onto my back. To float. Sun blind. Helpless.
    Something grabbed for me— again ? I thought—but I didn’t have enough energy to fight or figure out why that should be disturbing.
    The world had contracted to my palsied limbs and the unexpected warmth of the grip. Dimly I realized that I was moving again, then I lost the fight with consciousness.

Chapter Eight
     
    “All things being equal, I prefer life over death, ’cause, you know, I never have thought of a suitable comeback for that.”
    —Tori Karacis
     
     
    I awoke to a slight pressure on my chest and lips on mine—vaguely, um, mushy—with breath definitely garlic-tinged pushing its way into my mouth. My gag reflex kicked in and the pressure disappeared as I curled onto my side in a fetal position and coughed up a noxious cocktail of saltwater and bile. The heel of a hand bruised my back several times, presumably to encourage the purge. It certainly did that—each time my head would swim and the vertigo caused me to heave-ho.
    I was about ready to take a whack at the hand’s owner when I realized something terribly important: I was alive. Pain was just a side effect.
    “Ulg—” I managed as the hand hit me again.
    A moment of blissful silence was observed. Then I rolled over only to be captured by the rapt stare of my green-haired, barely post-pubescent rescuer. Sure , I thought, it couldn’t have been Orlando Bloom or Hugh Jackman. Oh no, it had to be a refugee from Green Day. It wasn’t a thought I was particularly proud of, but apparently my inner censor hadn’t yet recovered her equilibrium.
    “You okay?” he asked earnestly.
    Since the poor boy was still dripping wet, I was guessing I owed him for more than a little mouth-to-mouth.  
    When I didn’t answer immediately, he added, “Jill called 9-1-1.”
    It was the first I noticed that there were other people around as well. Enough to