Oh.My.Gods. 02 - Goddess Boot Camp

by Tera Lynn Childs

  Why am I so eager to as­su­me the worst abo­ut Griff?

  As the da­ugh­ter of a psychi­at­rist, I do not go in for the the­rapy thing. Af­ter a li­fe­ti­me of psycho­analy­sis, I'm im­mu­ne. But I'm star­ting to think that may­be I ne­ed so­me help on my trust is­su­es. I me­an, I sho­uldn't be so qu­ick to do­ubt Grif­fin, Es­pe­ci­al­ly not af­ter what we went thro­ugh to get to­get­her.

  We're fa­ted by an orac­le, af­ter all.

  If the prop­hecy says Grif­fin will "find his match in a da­ugh­ter of vic­tory"-aka the god­dess Ni­ke, aka my gre­at-grand­mot­her-then our re­la­ti­ons­hip, our fu­tu­re is se­cu­re, right?

  The red-eyed mons­ter ne­eds to ta­ke a hi­ke.

  "So what's our tra­ining plan for to­day?" he asks, in­ter­rup­ting my self-explo­ra­ti­on.

  I gi­ve him a wic­ked grin. "Steps."

  "Excu­se me?"

  I nod in the di­rec­ti­on of the sta­di­um stands. "We're go­ing to run steps."

  Hie lo­oks wa­rily up at the stands.

  The sta­di­um is a smal­ler ver­si­on of the Ro­man Co­los­se­um-or may­be the Co­los­se­um is a big­ger ver­si­on of the Aca­demy sta­di­um?- but it's still se­ve­ral sto­ri­es high. From fi­eld le­vel to the top row of bench se­ats is pro­bably aro­und one hund­red steps. I don't know what Grif­fin is wor­ri­ed abo­ut. This is not­hing. It's my dre­am to run the steps of the Eif­fel To­wer, the Sta­tue of Li­berty, and the Em­pi­re Sta­te Bu­il­ding. Sta­di­um steps are no big de­al.

  "All right," he says, wit­ho­ut ent­hu­si­asm. "Let's do it."

  After a qu­ick fo­ur-lap warm-up and anot­her ro­und of stretc­hing, we tack­le the steps. The­re are ni­nety-six, to be exact, and I know this be­ca­use we run them a do­zen ti­mes. I co­unt them alo­ud each ti­me.

  As we turn aro­und for our fi­nal climb, I be­gin co­un­ting down. "Ni­nety-six, ni­nety-fi­ve, ni­nety-fo­ur…"

  "How many mo­re?" Grif­fin gasps.

  "Ni­nety, eighty-ni­ne, eighty-eight," I pant, ke­eping my co­unt. "Last one."

  "Thank the gods," Grif­fin gasps as we ke­ep clim­bing.

  I ma­na­ge a smi­le that pro­bably lo­oks mo­re li­ke a win­ce. Grif­fin do­esn't no­ti­ce-he's too busy trying not to die.

  "Sixty-three, sixty-two…" I ma­na­ge, tho­ugh my lungs and my qu­ads and my everyt­hing are bur­ning. Every last musc­le in my body is scre­aming, des­pe­ra­tely beg­ging me to stop this in­sa­nity, to just drop down and die li­ke a nor­mal per­son.

  But I'm not a nor­mal per­son, I tell my body. I'm a run­ner. Pa­in is my fa­me. All this bo­dily re­bel­li­on tells me I've let my en­du­ran­ce go. Cut­ting back on my run­ning ti­me for the last few months to work on cont­rol­ling my po­wers has ma­de my run­ning suf­fer-and it hasn't do­ne won­ders for my po­wers, eit­her.

  A wa­ve of en­dorp­hins was­hes over me, brin­ging that fa­mi­li­ar fe­eling of in­vin­ci­bi­lity. With crystal cla­rity, I know that so­me­how- I'm not su­re exactly how, but so­me­how-everyt­hing will work out. I'll get a hold on my po­wers. I'll ke­ep my ra­ce tra­ining on track. And I'll le­arn to trust Grif­fin . . .so­me­how.

  A girl can't spend her who­le li­fe suf­fe­ring the af­ters­hocks of one bad boyf­ri­end.

  "When we re­ach the top," Grif­fin whe­ezes bet­we­en suc­king bre­aths, "just push me over the ed­ge."

  "Not on yo­ur li­fe," I win­ce-smi­le aga­in. "Ni­ne­te­en, eigh­te­en, se­ven­te­en…"

  He grunts, but ke­eps ta­king step af­ter step.

  We're so clo­se.

  The musc­le burn is overw­hel­ming. I con­cent­ra­te on the lac­tic-acid bu­il­dup in my qu­ads, emb­ra­cing the pa­in and kno­wing that it me­ans my musc­les are trying to work mo­re ef­fi­ci­ently, trying to ke­ep up with what I'm for­cing them to do. I'll pay them back la­ter with a long so­ak in a hot bath.

  "Three," Grif­fin says, pro­bably trying to hurry the co­unt­down.

  "Two." I can al­most fe­el the re­co­very that will be­gin as so­on as we re­ach the pe­ak.

  "One." He bursts up on­to the top le­vel of the sta­di­um, ra­ising his fis­ted hands in the air at our suc­cess… and then drop­ping them im­me­di­ately when the ex­ha­us­ti­on over­ta­kes the thrill.

  "We did it!" I jo­in him and stop long eno­ugh to squ­e­eze a qu­ick hug aro­und his wa­ist.

  "Let's ne­ver do this aga­in," he gasps.

  "Ne­ver aga­in," I ag­ree as he turns and starts the fi­nal des­cent. Then I smi­le. "Until next we­ek."

  I can he­ar his gro­an from a do­zen steps away.

  Be­fo­re fol­lo­wing him to the sta­di­um flo­or, I he­si­ta­te, cas­ting a glan­ce out over the pa­ra­pet to ap­pre­ci­ate the vi­ew from this far up.

  The is­land of Ser­fo­po­ula stretc­hes se­ve­ral mi­les to the east, co­ve­red in bar­ren rocky patc­hes and thick pi­ne fo­rest, in­ters­per­sed with stretc­hes of shrubby pla­ins. To the north, a lush gre­en val­ley pe­eks out bet­we­en rol­ling hills. As I turn to des­cend one last ti­me- for to­day, any­way- I think abo­ut how lit­tle of the is­land I've ac­tu­al­ly ex­pe­ri­en­ced. Sin­ce the scho­ol and the vil­la­ge are on the west end, I've only re­al­ly se­en that part. The only be­ac­hes I've run are on this end. I won­der if the be­ac­hes on the eas­tern sho­re are the sa­me silky whi­te sand?

  "I think I'm go­ing to die," Grif­fin says as we re­ach the fi­eld and he col­lap­ses on the grass. 'No. I think I want to die."

  "Don't be silly," I say, pa­cing a circ­le aro­und his car­cass. "Be­si­des, we ha­ve to co­ol down."

  "I can't mo­ve."

  "You ha­ve to." I fo­cus on my bre­at­hing as I re­ach down and grab his wrist, tug­ging him back to his fe­et. "You won't be ab­le to walk to­mor­row if you don't."

  Des­pi­te his gro­ans, he fol­lows me in­to a jog aro­und the track.

  After one lap at a ca­su­al pa­ce-and on flat gro­und-my bre­at­hing has al­most re­tur­ned to nor­mal and the burn in my qu­ads has eb­bed to a com­for­tab­le ac­he. Trust me, af­ter this many ye­ars of run­ning, a dull ac­he is com­for­tab­le. It's com­for­ting.

  "If I didn't know you ado­red me," he says as we start our se­cond lap, "I'd think you we­re trying to kill me."

  "Just ima­gi­ne what I wo­uld do to so­me­one I don't li­ke."

  So­me­one li­ke Ada­ra.

  No. I sha­ke my he­ad. I will not let her sne­ak in­to my tho­ughts, in­to this ti­me with Grif­fin. My ti­me with him is li­mi­ted eno­ugh this sum­mer, bet­we­en his job and my camp and the lo­oming test and who­ever is sen­ding me on a wild-go­ose cha­se for the mis­sing re­cord of my dad's tri­al.

  Why can't anyt­hing on this is­land be simp­le? At Pa­ci­fic Park, the most dra­ma­tic thing that ever hap­pe­ned was a so­ci­al no­body win­ning ho­me­co­ming qu­e­en. One ye­ar at the Aca­demy and sud­denly I'm a god­dess, da­ting a re­al-li­fe he­ro, and hun­ting for a Mo­unt Olym­pus re­cord bo­ok.

  "What do you know abo­ut the sec­ret arc­hi­ves?" I ask ab­sently.

  Grif­fin stumb­les, "The what?"

  "The sec­ret arc­hi­ves of Mo­unt Olym­pus," I re­pe­at. "Co­me on, I know they're not re­al­ly a sec­ret."

  "Oh, tho­se sec­ret arc­hi­ves."

  "Are the­re ot­her sec­ret arc­hi­ves?"

  "Not that I know of," He la­ughs. "What do you know abo­ut the sec­ret arc­hi­ves?"

  "Not as much as I'd li­ke," I shrug as we ro­und lap two. "I know they con­ta­in the re­cords of Mo­unt Olym­pus and the re­ma­ins of the Lib­rary of Ale­xand­ria."

  "Re­al­ly?"

  "And they ha­ve se­ri­o­usly li­mi­ted ac­cess."

  "I don't know much mo­re," he says. "What do you want to know?"

>   The­re are so many pos­sib­le qu­es­ti­ons, How far back do the re­cords go? What el­se do the arc­hi­ves hold? Who fi­les the do­cu­ments? But the­re is only one qu­es­ti­on I ca­re abo­ut.

  "I want to know how so­me­one wo­uld ste­al one of the re­cords-"

  Grif­fin stumb­les aga­in. "You don't want to-"

  "-and why they wo­uld ste­al the re­cord of my dad's tri­al."

  "So­me­one sto­le that?" he asks as we slow to a walk. "How do you know?"

  "Be­ca­use when Ni­co­le and I went lo­oking for it yes­ter­day, it was go­ne."

  "So that's how…" He sha­kes his he­ad, scow­ling, and then starts over. "That's how you knew abo­ut the arc­hi­ves."

  I'm pretty su­re that's not what he star­ted to say.

  "I don't know why so­me­one wo­uld ste­al yo­ur dad's re­cord," he rep­li­es. "The­re's a ru­mor abo­ut a sec­ret ent­ran­ce to the lib­rary. If so­me­one wan­ted to get in and out of the sec­ret arc­hi­ves un­no­ti­ced, that might be how."

  Gre­at. A ru­mor of a sec­ret ent­ran­ce to the sec­ret arc­hi­ves. How is that sup­po­sed to help me? I fe­el li­ke I've be­en drop­ped in­to the mid­dle of a Harry Pot­ter bo­ok. Next, so­me evil ge­ni­us is go­ing to be plot­ting to kill me.

  We fi­nish our co­ol­down laps and ma­ke our way thro­ugh the tun­nel to the cam­pus qu­ad. As we re­emer­ge in­to the mor­ning sun, I hang back a step to ad­mi­re Grif­fin in his fresh-from-a-wor­ko­ut glory. His ni­cely tan­ned arms and legs are glis­te­ning with swe­at, the mo­is­tu­re catc­hing the low-angle sun li­ke a mir­ror rip­pling with every mo­ve of his le­an musc­les.

  When he re­ali­zes I'm not at his si­de, Grif­fin turns, catc­hes me og­ling, and his mo­uth spre­ads in that cocky grin I lo­ve so much.

  "Enj­oying the vi­ew?" he te­ases.

  "May­be." I sa­un­ter up to him, then-unab­le to ke­ep up the coy act-wrap my arms aro­und his neck and tug him clo­se un­til our fo­re­he­ads to­uch. "You ha­ve a prob­lem with me lo­oking?"

  Sha­king his he­ad slowly aga­inst mi­ne, he hums, "Huh-uh."

  Then his hand cups the back of my neck and he pulls my mo­uth the few inc­hes to me­et his. I lo­ve the fe­el of his soft lips aga­inst mi­ne. Ni­ne months of kis­sing him whe­ne­ver I want and I still can't get eno­ugh.

  I slip my arms fart­her aro­und his neck, stretc­hing myself in­to him and up in­to the kiss. When he drops his hands to press aga­inst my lo­wer back, shi­vers ra­ce down my spi­ne and over my ex­ha­us­ted musc­les. He's mi­ne, all mi­ne. No one el­se gets to kiss him li­ke this.

  An ima­ge-a me­mory-flas­hes in­to my mind. Of Grif­fin. Of me watc­hing him ac­ross the crow­ded scho­ol ca­fe­te­ria whi­le he is loc­ked in exactly this emb­ra­ce. With Ada­ra.

  I jerk back.

  It fe­els li­ke a buc­ket of ice wa­ter emp­ti­ed over me.

  Re­mo­ving myself from Grif­fin's arms, I ta­ke a step back.

  "I. uh.,." The stab­bing pa­in aro­und my he­art is wor­se than any lac­tic-acid bu­il­dup. I know it isn't fa­ir, hol­ding so­met­hing from the past aga­inst him. But is it re­al­ly in the past? I can't think. I ne­ed to get away from him so my bra­in can re­turn to se­mi­nor­mal func­ti­on. "Got­ta go."

  "Ye­ah," he says, bre­at­hing he­avy. "You'd bet­ter hurry if you're get­ting a sho­wer be­fo­re camp."

  Right. Camp.

  I glan­ce down at my swe­at-so­aked I RUN THE­RE­FO­RE I AM CRAZY T-shirt and shorts. For a se­cond I con­si­der go­ing as is-and ta­king every op­por­tu­nity to brush my stinky self up aga­inst Ada­ra. But then I re­mem­ber my dig­nity-and her e-ma­il last night abo­ut not we­aring shorts. As much as I'd li­ke to comp­le­tely ig­no­re her inst­ruc­ti­ons, I don't want to wind up bit by a sna­ke or a hydra or so­me ot­her cre­epy-crawly just to spi­te her. With my luck, to­day wo­uld be fight-a-mytho­lo­gi­cal-mons­ter day.

  "You're right," I say be­fo­re I get suc­ked in­to tho­se bright blue eyes for a li­fe­ti­me or two. "I ne­ed a sho­wer." Pres­sing a qu­ick kiss to his mo­uth, I ask. "May­be you can co­me by af­ter you get back from Se­ri­fos?"

  "I'll ha­ve to help Aunt Li­li put everyt­hing away." He gi­ves me a lop­si­ded grin. "But I'll try to ste­al away. Why don't we me­et at the dock at se­ven for a sun­set walk on the be­ach."

  "We co­uld al­ways fit in anot­her tra­ining run." I te­ase.

  Grif­fin gro­ans. "Are you trying to kill me?"

  I glan­ce at my watch and re­ali­ze just how la­te I am.

  "Of co­ur­se not," I say, bac­king away ac­ross the qu­ad. "If you we­re de­ad, who wo­uld I tra­in with?"

  * * *

  "To­day we are go­ing to do a te­am exer­ci­se cal­led Na­vi­ga­tor," Stel­la exp­la­ins as I try to slip un­no­ti­ced in­to the gro­up as­semb­led be­hind the ma­in­te­nan­ce shed. She gla­res at me. I'm not that la­te. A mi­nu­te or two. Fi­ve at the most.

  "We ha­ve di­vi­ded you in­to fo­ur te­ams-three te­ams of three and one te­am of fo­ur." Ada­ra throws me a gla­re of her own, li­ke I in­ten­ti­onal­ly ru­ined her even di­vi­si­on of te­ams. She gi­ves me too lit­tle cre­dit for in­ven­ti­ve­ness-li­ke gi­ving her an odd num­ber of cam­pers is the worst thing I co­uld think of-and too much cre­dit for in­te­rest in her. I ha­ve bet­ter things to do with my men­tal fa­cul­ti­es than ma­ke her li­fe mi­se­rab­le. It may be a bo­nus ef­fect, but I ha­ve plenty of my own mi­se­ri­es to worry abo­ut.

  "Each te­am will be as­sig­ned a su­per­vi­sor, eit­her Miss Ori­vas, Stel­la, Xan­der, or myself." She flips over a pa­ge on her clip­bo­ard and re­ads alo­ud. "The te­ams are as fol­lows…"

  As Ada­ra re­ads the na­mes on the list of te­ams, I glan­ce aro­und at the ten-ye­ar-olds. They are all du­ti­ful­ly we­aring pants and eit­her sne­akers or hi­king sho­es. She lists the mem­bers of the first three te­ams, tho­se su­per­vi­sed by Stel­la, Ada­ra, and Miss Ori­vas. The girls li­ne up be­hind the­ir as­sig­ned le­ader.

  "The re­ma­ining fo­ur cam­pers-Tansy, Mu­ri­el, Gil­li­an, and Pho­ebe," Ada­ra says, with an ext­ra-su­gary-swe­et grin at me, "are as­sig­ned to Xan­der."

  "Each su­per­vi­sor will now exp­la­in the exer­ci­se," Stel­la says. "The te­ams are not al­lo­wed furt­her com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on un­til Na­vi­ga­tor is over."

  As Stel­la, Ada­ra, and Miss Ori­vas le­ad the­ir girls in se­pa­ra­te di­rec­ti­ons for the deb­ri­efing or wha­te­ver, Xan­der do­esn't mo­ve from the spot whe­re he's com­for­tably le­aning aga­inst the ma­in­te­nan­ce shed. My three te­am­ma­tes set­tle in­to the grass at his fe­et.

  He glan­ces at me and ra­ises a brow.

  The re­bel thing do­esn't do it for me. I mo­ve to stand be­hind the older girl-I think her na­me is Tansy-and cross my arms. As if I'm go­ing to sit at his fe­et.

  "Na­vi­ga­tor," Xan­der be­gins, "is an exer­ci­se in stra­tegy, te­am­work, and most of all, trust."

  Aga­in with the trust thing? We've al­re­ady do­ne that.

  He pus­hes away from the shed and jerks so­me pink pa­pers from his back poc­ket. As he hands them to Gil­li­an he says, "Hid­den in the wo­ods be­hind us are a do­zen te­am flags. Three for each te­am."

  Tansy twists aro­und to hand me one of the pa­pers. It's an odd-lo­oking map, with a se­ri­es of twis­ting tra­ils, bushy kin­der­gar­ten-lo­oking tre­es, and a do­zen A's mar­ked in evenly dist­ri­bu­ted spots. The­re's a map le­gend at the bot­tom and the I's are dot­ted with lit­tle he­arts. Ada­ra's han­di­work, no do­ubt.

  Altho­ugh, with Stel­la's crazy crush on re­bel boy, she might ha­ve sunk to he­art-do­od­ling, too.

  "Are we to find the flags?" the third girl on my te­am-what was her na­me?-asks.

  "Let
him fi­nish, Mu­ri­el." Gil­li­an says.

  "Yes, Mu­ri­el," Xan­der says, not a flic­ker of emo­ti­on in his la­ven­der eyes, "we will find the flags. The trick is fin­ding the right flags."

  Wha­te­ver that's sup­po­sed to me­an.

  Fif­te­en mi­nu­tes la­ter, I'm tra­ip­sing thro­ugh the wo­ods be­hind the ten-ye­ar-olds, with Xan­der brin­ging up the re­ar. This is the dum­best ga­me I've ever pla­yed. Li­ke I don't ha­ve bet­ter things to do than hunt for stu­pid flags in a stu­pid fo­rest. I co­uld be vi­si­ting Se­ri­fos with Grif­fin or hel­ping Ni­co­le with her re­se­arch pro­j­ect or fi­gu­ring out who is sen­ding me myste­ri­o­us mes­sa­ges.

  "You're fal­ling be­hind."

  I don't ha­ve to glan­ce over my sho­ul­der to know Xan­der is right be­hind me. "And yo­ur po­int is?"

  "This is a te­am ef­fort." Twigs crack be­ne­ath our steps. "May­be, sin­ce run­ning is an in­di­vi­du­al sport, you're not fa­mi­li­ar with the con­cept."

  Li­ke he has a clue. Su­re, each ra­ce is an in­di­vi­du­al run­ner aga­inst ot­her in­di­vi­du­al run­ners, but the­re's al­so the ove­rall com­pe­ti­ti­on. Every ra­ce is worth te­am po­ints. A dif­fe­rent num­ber of po­ints for each sco­ring pla­ce-the num­ber of sco­ring pla­ces de­ter­mi­ned by how many run­ners are in the ra­ce. If the­re are thirty run­ners, then usu­al­ly the first three fi­nis­hers get po­ints for the­ir te­am. The­se po­ints ac­cu­mu­la­te over the co­ur­se of the me­et, and the te­am with the hig­hest to­tal at the end wins the ove­rall.

  I'm ne­ver ra­cing only for myself.

  But I don't ex­pect him to un­ders­tand. Stom­ping har­der ac­ross the fo­rest flo­or. I re­tort. "And just what te­ams ha­ve you be­en on?"

  "I ne­ver sa­id I was a te­am pla­yer."

  "Then why are you he­re?" I ask. He se­ems mo­re li­ke the type to ta­ke a so­lo mo­torcyc­le trip ac­ross Chi­na than to spend his sum­mer baby­sit­ting twe­ens and dyna­mot­he­os re­j­ects. "You're not exactly oozing ent­hu­si­asm."

  "Let's just say I owe Pet­ro­las a fa­vor."