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I can’t try to break his ribs and stop myself from sobbing, but when the first one tears out of me it makes mefurious. How can I be sobbing while he’s dead? How can I be strong enough to cry all over him while he’s dead?
How could he die?
He didn’t think he could die, but then—
He never went through those gates. How would he have known?
“Damn it, he knew. He knew. That’s why he said he loved me.”
“Daisy—” My dad puts his hand on my arm. Soft. Like he might stop me, if he has to.
I whip around and meet his eyes. “Daddy.Help me. Help me. Save him. Please.”
I’ve never felt this helpless in my entire life, and I’ve spent the whole thing at the mercy of indoor lighting.
My dad can be less than all-powerful later. Not now. Right now, he has to go back to being the man I always thought he was, andfix this.He’s the only one who can do this. The proof is in his eyes. He’s the only one who’s ever understood what that’s like, and he has to be the one who can help me. We’re the same. We’re thesame.
Poseidon’s talking again, so fast he’s tripping over himself. My dad turns his head to listen, but doesn’t look away from me.
Zeus answers.
Their voices are getting clearer, and that means the gates are slipping away.
“You have to do it now,” I sob at him. “You have to save him right now. Daddy. Please.”
“It might—”
“Don’t tell me it’s too late. It’s not too late. I can feel it. I can feel the gates there. He’s in there, and you can go through and get him out, but I can’t—I can’t. He took my necklace, and I think that means—I think—you have to save him. You have to do itnow. Just help me. Please, help me.”
Poseidon, again. I get more words than last time. “—yousaw—battle on Haven Island, around you—chance, it has to be—fucking prick and do—hurry.”
If he waits long enough for me to hear a full sentence, this is over.
Every one of my heartbeats is another second closer totoo late.
Every single one means I’m alive, and Hercules is closer to being permanently dead.
“I can’t do this without him. Daddy. I can’t. You have to bring him back to me. You have to tell him he can’t stay there. I donot accept his trade.”
He takes a deep breath. Lets it out.
“It might not work.”
The sound that comes out of me isn’t a word. It’s a furious, frustrated scream through my teeth, because we’re running out oftime.How can they not see this? How can they not at least try? If it doesn’t work, then we’ll know in ten seconds. If it doesn’t work—
“Okay.” My voice is going. Tearing itself apart. My heartbeat is so heavy in my chest that it could burst through and kill me, and wouldn’t that be ironic.
“Okay.”
Calm covers up the terror and grief, but so light, like sunshine on water. It ripples like waves. It’s not steady, like Zeus must not be steady, but this is all he can give. It makes my sobbing less violent, at least. I’m less likely to throw up all over Hercules.
My dad moves closer and takes my wrists. He moves my hands gently, gently into a slightly different spot on Hercules’s chest. Below the calm, I get another jolt of fear—there should be a heartbeat under my palms, but there’s not.
I need him to have a heartbeat.
I need him to be here.
My dad puts his hands over mine, and I could die of relief. It’s premature, and I know that, but if he’s trying, there’s hope.
