𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬 ²

Chapter 58

I I - Two
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Y/N

THE THING ABOUT PLUMMETING DOWNHILL at fifty miles an hour on a snack platter—if you realize it’s a bad idea when you’re halfway down, it’s too late.

  (y/n) narrowly missed a tree, glanced off a boulder, and spun a three-sixty as he shot toward the highway. The stupid snack tray did not have power steering. He heard the gorgon sisters screaming and caught a glimpse of Euryale’s coral-snake hair at the top of the hill, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. The roof of the apartment building loomed below him like the prow of a battleship. Head-on collision in ten, nine, eight…

  He managed to swivel sideways to avoid breaking his legs on impact.
The snack platter skittered across the roof and sailed through the air. The platter went one way. (y/n) went the other.

  As he fell toward the highway, a horrible scenario flashed through his mind: his body smashing against an SUV’s windshield, some annoyed commuter trying to push him off with the wipers. Stupid sixteen-year-old kid falling from the sky! I’m late!

  Miraculously, a gust of wind blew him to one side—just enough to miss the highway and crash into a clump of bushes. It wasn’t a soft landing, but it was better than asphalt.

  (y/n) groaned. He wanted to lie there and pass out, but he had to keep moving.

  He struggled to his feet. His hands were scratched up, but no bones
seemed to be broken. He still had his backpack. Somewhere on the sled ride he’d lost his sword, but (y/n) knew it would eventually reappear on his arm in bandage form. That was part of its magic.

  He glanced up the hill. The gorgons were hard to miss, with their colorful snake hair and their bright green Bargain Mart vests. They were  picking their way down the slope, going slower than (y/n) but with a lot more control. Those chicken feet must’ve been good for climbing. (y/n) figured he had maybe five minutes before they reached him.

  Next to him, a tall chain-link fence separated the highway from a
neighborhood of winding streets, cozy houses, and tall eucalyptus trees. The fence was probably there to keep people from getting onto the highway and doing stupid things—like sledding into the fast lane on snack trays—but the chain-link was full of big holes. (y/n) could easily slip through into the neighborhood. Maybe he could find a car and drive west to the ocean. He didn’t like stealing cars, but over the past few weeks, in life-and-death situations, he’d “borrowed” several, including a police cruiser. He’d meant to return them, but they never seemed to last very long.

  He glanced east. Just as he’d figured, a hundred yards uphill the
highway cut through the base of the cliff. Two tunnel entrances, one for
each direction of traffic, stared down at him like eye sockets of a giant skull. In the middle, where the nose would have been, a cement wall jutted from the hillside, with a metal door like the entrance to a bunker.

  It might have been a maintenance tunnel. That’s probably what mortals thought, if they noticed the door at all. But they couldn’t see through the Mist. (y/n) knew the door was more than that.

  Two kids in armor flanked the entrance. They wore a bizarre mix of plumed Roman helmets, breastplates, scabbards, blue jeans, purple T-shirts, and white athletic shoes. The guard on the right looked like a girl, though it was hard to tell for sure with all the armor. The one on the left was a stocky
guy with a bow and quiver on his back. Both kids held long wooden staffs with iron spear tips, like old-fashioned harpoons.

  (y/n) internal radar was pinging like crazy. After so many horrible days, he’d finally reached his goal. His instincts told him that if he could make it inside that door, he might find safety for the first time since the wolves had sent him south.