Granted, this fear is more than I’m used to, and it’s not coming from me, so I take the extra time to breathe through it. To let the adrenaline of it fill my muscles and instead of paralyzing me, galvanize me.
“Lyra?” Diego asks.
“I’m okay. I’m going to keep moving.”
“Okay.”
I position my body so that I can surge to my hands and knees and move fast. And when I do, that adrenaline is there, pumping through my veins, driving my muscles, and dulling the pain from all my bumps, bruises, and electric burns.
I keep crawling, and I don’t stop until I burst into the light. I still don’t stop, giving Diego enough room to get all the way out before I collapse to the ground, shuddering. I can see him as he drops next to me—he must have removed his ring.
The fear hasn’t stopped, even now that we’re safely out of the cave, resting in a small clearing. But I can contain it. I still have control. Sort of. I mean, my hands are in fists and my chest feels like there’s a boulder on it, but I’m not screaming or in a fetal position, so I consider that a win.
I guess if I had to lose a flag, that was the best one for me.
I roll my head in his direction. “You okay? Lose any flags?”
Diego shakes his head, then breaks out in a huge grin. “That’s two!” He holds up two fingers.
I laugh and groan at the same time, then roll to high-five him, only to grunt when he smacks one of my scorch marks.
He frowns. “I’m sorry.”
Come to think of it, every time that tunnel lit up, it was because I got zapped. “Did you get shocked at all?”
He gives a sheepish shake of his head.
We push to our feet and take one look at the next obstacle, and I have to pitch forward, hands on my knees, to contain the unnatural fear all over again.
The next obstacle appears to be a giant scrapyard with an obvious path right down the middle. Piles and piles of junk of all kinds. Metal scraps, crushed cars, tires. Mountains of them. There is a rusted metal arch indicating the entrance to this part of the challenge.
Something bad is going to happen the second we step inside. I just know it.
Honestly, if death wasn’t the result of not finishing this Labor, I’d cop a squat right here and wait until it’s all over. Tempting. Really tempting. But not today.
“Let’s keep going,” I say.
Diego nods.
I take a deep breath, readying for whatever horror is going to jump out at me from the billion hiding places in the junk mountain, and a swath of deep purple catches my eye from behind a rusted-out truck hull. Careful not to enter, I walk to the left leg of the arch to get a better view of Amir crouching behind the truck as he stuffs something in his mouth. Something white. He’s rocking as if he’s in horrible pain.
But before I can call to him, he jumps to his feet and sprints down the path. I guess I was wrong about the pain. He’s moving just fine, even with his boot on.
“Let’s go.” Diego tugs on me, and we enter the obstacle together.
I knew it. The second we pass through the arch, there’s a terrible screech like metal on metal. Not one screech…hundreds coming from all around.
Birds. They’re crawling out of the metal all over the junkyard, sort of the way my tattoos leave my arm, only they are peeling away from the scraps, leaving gaping holes. And not just any birds…
Stymphalian birds.
Not as big as recorded history says—maybe the size of crows. The metal of their snapping beaks catches the sun in a hundred flashes of light, as do their tails and longer wing feathers that they can turn into bronze at will.
As they break loose, they take to the air, then, in unison, dive straight for us.
An extra shot of adrenaline fires my blood. Thank fuck.
“Run,” I scream.
Heart pounding, I sprint down the path between the mountains of scrap until my legs burn and my lungs ache. I almost lose my footing as I look back over my shoulder to see how close the birds are, but I catch myself and come to a stop.
They’ve vanished.
“That was close,” I say to Diego between gasps. Not that I can see him, thanks to his ring. But I realize in the silence now that I can’t hear his footsteps or his breathing like I could before.
“Diego!” I call out softly, and then again when he doesn’t answer.
Maybe he passed me. “Great,” I mutter. I’m on my own now.
Wait a minute. When did I start to need other people to get through shit?
The metal around me screeches as more Stymphalian birds struggle to break away from the scrap.
Not my flags. Not today. Pumping my legs, I sprint between heaps. But a flash of a green uniform and red hair snags my attention as I dash past, and I double back, scanning for the birds, who haven’t caught up with me yet.
I find Neve huddled by a heap of crushed cars.
She’s on the ground, knees drawn up to her chest and rocking, whimpering in pain and babbling the same thing over and over. “Nora dies if I don’t win. She dies. She dies.”
