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The grass is dotted with thousands of tiny daisies, and the sun is above the trees. The air is sweet and fresh.
On the other side of the door, Daisy’s alive.
17
DAISY
The door slamsin my face, and I’m awake.
I’m awake?
I’m awake.
Breathing hard, like I’ve been running, and not an ounce of pain anywhere in my body. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have at least the suggestion of a headache. I can’t remember the last time I felt this good.
Am I still dreaming?
There’s light.
Light in the room, and that should be—I should be screaming. It should hurt. I cover my eyes with my hands, but light leaks in past them.
It doesn’t hurt, but it will. I know it, it feels like being…new? Like maybe this is what it was like to be a baby. Before everything was so fucked up.
Before Hercules loved me.
I love you, he said, and the kitten was so warm and small in my arms, and shadows pulled at his clothes and his legs and his hair and the door slammed and—
I suck in a huge, unholy gasp and lunge for him.
Hercules sprawls on the pillow, one arm out like he had it around me, perfectly still. Like someone made a statue and let it rest on my bed. His eyes are open. He stares at nothing.
“No.” I climb over him and lose my balance. My knees hit his ribs, but he doesn’t move. “Hercules.Hercules.”
He can’t be frozen like this. He can’t be unmoving like this.
He can’t be dead.
Not like this.
Not when he loves me.
Not when I lovehim. Not when I want him with me forever, absolutely forever, until all the days in the universe.
“Hercules.” His name comes out in a broken scream. What am I supposed to do? I’m the one whose brain shuts down at the worst possible moment. I’m not the one who saves anyone else. I make life scary and hard, and I don’t know what to do. I push at his chest. Punch at it.
Grief rolls over me like a rockslide. It hurts in such a pure way. I don’t think I’ve ever felt pain like this before—pain that couldn’t be compared with what I already felt. This is new, like every muscle is bruised, but underneath, my body is fine. It keeps breathing even though it shouldn’t.
I keep breathing, but he’snot. That’s wrong. That’s nightmare-wrong. That’s seizure-wrong. That’s earth-rending wrong. I can’t be breathing if he’s not.
“Daisy.” Someone puts a hand on my wrist. I think it’s Zeus. I throw him off. “Daisy. We need—”
“Shutup,” I scream at him. There’s noise in the room behind me. I have no idea what it means, or who’s in here with me, or what happened before. I remember a field and the sun in Hercules’s hair and his huge hands cradling a tiny kitten. “Help me.Helpme.”
The voices blur together. Poseidon shouts. I don’t know what he’s shouting. I can’t understand anything. CPR should crack ribs. I read that somewhere, but I don’t know where to push. I pick a spot on his chest and drive both hands into it, throwing all my body weight behind it.
I know right away that his ribs won’t crack.
It’s physics. I’m not big enough to do it, and he’s too strong. He’s always been this strong. This is how he survived.
