mental whiplash. I had the strange knowledge he was seeing, hearing, and feeling everything I was.
Weirdness. I pushed Hades’ mental presence away so I had room to think and shoved the kid off me. Or tried to. Instead I coughed, water spewed from my lips, and the kid helped me roll to my side.
“Annie, are you okay?” The kid shouted in my ear over and over again.
Gods, he was loud!
I caught my breath and turned to face the mysterious stranger. He looked twelve or thirteen with streaked blond hair hanging haphazardly in his face. A Metallica shirt and jeans with all kinds of holes in them hung off his lanky frame.
I stared at him in complete shock. Where was I? Who was this kid?
“Are you okay, Annie?”
“That’s not my name.” I took a quick look around the cave we were crouched in.
Despite the darkness, every detail was illuminated, just like in the Underworld where there was no sun but it was somehow always light. Water filled most of the cavern, leaving us in the only dry spot. My skirt had turned a dingy gray with black streaks from the slick rocks below me, and I was soaking wet.
He was completely dry.
The kid shrugged and showed me his phone. “It’s one of the steps.”
I stared at the video through the thick, bulky, waterproof case, now more confused than ever. A woman performed CPR on a child-sized dummy on the screen.
Well, that explains what he was doing.
Had that been my thought or Hades’? The fact I didn’t know bothered me, but I pushed my concerns aside. There were more important things to worry about.
“Where am I?” Touching my necklace, I took a mental inventory. I didn’t feel good, but nothing screamed life-threatening injury.
The boy’s eyes flicked back and forth over my face with frank curiosity. “The ocean.”
Gee, that narrows it down. That time I knew the thought came from Hades. It seemed our connection was restored even outside of dreamwalking.
Thank the gods, I thought before turning my attention back to the kid. I opened my mouth to demand a more specific answer, then noticed the kid’s eyes churning blue and green with streaks of brown and white swirling like tiny waves around his pupils.
“You’re Poseidon’s son.”
He tensed.
“He mentioned you—said he had a son about my age.” My age? Apparently the god of the sea couldn’t add.
You’re closer to his age than Poseidon’s, Hades pointed out.
The kid brightened and puffed out his chest. “If he told you that, he must trust you a lot. No one’s supposed to know he has a son.”
That made sense. The more people who knew he existed, the greater chance of his name getting out there and people killing him with worship he wasn’t old enough to handle. I grimaced as my ribs knit themselves back together. I was glad to have been unconscious for the bulk of the heal from the fall.
When the pain passed, I returned my attention to the kid. “You saved me.”
He didn’t save you. It takes more than drowning to kill you, Hades pointed out.
I’m awake, I’m breathing, and I’m not at the bottom of the ocean. Kudos to the kid. Turning my thoughts away from Hades, I focused on the conversation at hand.
“Thank you so much.”
He turned bright red. “Aw, it was nothin’. Triton.” He stuck out his hand.
“Persephone.”
He hadn’t taken his eyes off me since I woke up. “You’re like me, right?”
“A god, you mean?” I climbed to my feet and glanced around the cave. There wasn’t much to see.
He nodded.
“Yes.”
“Wow!” The way he stared at me, like I was some sort of new and interesting species, made me uncomfortable.
I pressed my fingers against the wet wall of the cave. It felt odd beneath my hand. Normally when I touched stones or dirt or plants, I felt connected to them, like I’d tapped into some kind of energy. But this…felt empty. Foreign. It wasn’t my realm. “Surely you’ve seen a goddess before. What about your mom?”
He looked down, fidgeting with his phone. “You’re different.” Clearing his throat, he looked up at me through his messy hair. “Why are you here? No offense, but you’re not supposed to be here. I can feel it.”
I knew exactly what he meant. Since I wasn’t invited to this realm, it felt like it was trying to push me out. The menacing water lapped on the rocks and the walls of the cave felt like they were bearing down on me. “I escaped from another god.