The Academy

  And then I saw him again—my brother. Standing before me with a dripping, bloody stump and a shattered look on his face. “Why Kris?” he whispered, “Why did you tell? How could you?”

  “I’m sorry!” I ran forward, trying to stop the flow of blood but it was useless—he was bleeding to death right in front of me. Staggering, he fell to his knees. And he kept asking, “Why…why…why?”

  “Kris, wake up now! You have to wake up, damn it!”

  That’s North calling me, a half awake corner of my brain informed me. And Kristopher’s not even here. He’s far away-safe. As long as I don’t say anything. As long as I don’t tell.

  The thought brought me completely awake at last. I opened my eyes and saw North staring down at me. The bright sunlight pouring through the window showed a worried expression on his face. “Was it that same dream again?” he asked softly. “The one you had that night I held you?”

  “Yes,” I whispered and burst into tears.

  “Hey, hey—it’s okay. Everything is going to be all right.” North gathered me into his arms and I buried my face against his chest, sobbing miserably. It wasn’t just the dream that had upset me—it was the message it carried, which was now completely clear to me.

  I couldn’t tell North. No matter how much I wanted to or how bad I felt about my deception, I simply couldn’t. Not without talking to Kristopher first. I couldn’t risk my beloved brother’s future without his knowledge or consent. North would simply have to remain ignorant of my true identity for a while longer.

  But I couldn’t keep stringing him along, couldn’t allow myself to have a relationship with him under false pretenses. With a sinking heart, I realized what I needed to do.

  Blotting my eyes on the sleeve of my pajamas, I crawled out of North’s lap. He let me go but tried to keep an arm around me when I sat beside him on the bed. Though there was nothing I wanted more than the comfort of being near him and feeling him hug me, I made myself push the arm away.

  “Kris?” He looked at me uncertainly. “Are you all right?”

  “No.” I looked up at him, trying to steel myself for what I had to say. “No, I’m not.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I…I…” I tried to make myself say the words that would drive us apart. Tried to sever myself from him, but somehow I couldn’t.

  “It’s all right.” North patted me on the back. “I know what you need—something to clear the nightmares out of your head. C’mon, let’s go for one last swim.”

  “A swim?” I glanced at the chronometer on the wall. “But we don’t have time, North. We’ve already slept later than usual and our shuttle leaves in an hour.”

  He shrugged. “So we’ll take a later shuttle. As long as we’re in by DLO we’ll be okay.”

  “But—” I started to protest again but he shut me up by throwing my trunks at my head.

  “Hurry up and get them on. We have to hurry if we’re going to get any swimming in before the big swells.”

  I went to the fresher and changed as he asked, though my heart was still in turmoil. I needed to tell him that we should put some distance between us, that I couldn’t go on being his…what was I? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Or maybe partner was the best word—the word he had used last night. I had to tell him I couldn’t be that to him—I couldn’t lead him on one minute more.

  And yet, when I emerged from the fresher and saw North standing there, his broad chest bare and the low slung trunks clinging to his narrow hips, the words died on my lips. He looked so perfect—so beautiful with his golden hair a tousled halo around his head. I still couldn’t believe that it was me he wanted.

  He doesn’t want you, a mean little voice in my head pointed out. He wants Kris—the boy he thinks he knows. And when he finds out you’re not really that person—

  “Come on.” North’s deep voice interrupted my bout of guilt. “What are you just standing there staring for—let’s go!”

  Mute and miserable, I followed him out of the house and down to the beach. Somehow I just couldn’t summon the courage to speak. Couldn’t make myself say what had to be said.

  In the two weeks I’d been on Apollo, we had been swimming every day, morning and evening just as North had promised. In that time, I had made amazing strides, learning to trust the water and my own ability to move in it without sinking. North said I swam like a pinkrel—one of the tiny, coral-colored fish that inhabited Apollo’s seas. I truly enjoyed the exercise along with the feeling of pitting myself against the ocean and feeling the water currents fight back.

  So when we reached the blue-green waters of the ocean, I threw myself into it with no hesitation at all. North was right—I needed to clear the cobwebs out of my head and think. The chilly water lapping at my chest as I struck out into the waves helped. I swam far out, farther out than I ever had before, trying to make sense of the thoughts that churned inside my head.

  “Kris, be careful!” North gave me a worried look as he kept pace beside me. “I’ve never seen anyone learn to swim as fast as you but you’re still a beginner.”

  “I’m fine.” I ducked my head under the water for a moment and came up dripping. “You don’t have to worry about me, North.”

  “I do worry, damn it! Don’t go out so far—you’re getting too close to the breakwall.”

  I threw a glance to my left and saw that the reddish stones with their bright blue barbs were indeed much closer than I had thought. “I’m fine,” I said again, trying to sound calm. Still, I began angling my body away from the wall. North was probably right—my arms and legs were getting tired and when I threw a glance over my shoulder, the shore was much farther away than I’d expected. Turning toward it, I struck out for the silver sands of the distant beach.

  North seemed relieved that I was turning back toward land. “Good, let’s go in,” he shouted, over the increasingly loud roar of the waves. “Might have enough time to grab some breakfast if we hurry.”

  I started to reply but a surprisingly large wave suddenly slopped over me, filling my mouth with salty water and making me choke. I floundered for a moment, surprised, and then I spit it out, coughing and churning the water with my arms and legs to stay upright, treading water as North had taught me.

  “Hey, you okay?” He gave me a worried look.

  “Fine,” I gasped, although that was farther from the truth than I liked to admit. Some of the salt water had gotten into my lungs and I couldn’t seem to stop coughing.

  “Let’s get going again. I think the swells may come in early today and we don’t want to be in the middle of the water when they do.”

  “They come…early sometimes?” I panted as we went back to swimming.

  He nodded. “Not often but every once in a while. But I think—” He threw a glance over his shoulder, looking back at the open sea, and the words died on his lips.

  “North?” I turned my head to see what he was looking at and gasped. Coming straight for us was a wave like nothing I had ever seen.

  “Swim!” he shouted but his voice was nearly drowned out by the roar of the approaching wave. It grew higher and higher, towering like a great glass wall as tall as a building above us. I swam as hard as I could but my limbs were heavy with fatigue and my entire body seemed stiff and frozen with fright.

  This is how I die, I thought and then a huge, heavy hand was pushing me down, shoving me through the water as though I was nothing more than a scrap of paper caught in the tide.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  I’m sure I would have drowned if not for the breakwall. The huge wave dragged me up from under and pushed me against it. There was a battering impact and I felt something sharp pierce my side. I cried out at the crushing, piercing pain, which earned me another choking mouthful of salty water.

  I spat it out and gasped as the traitorous current dragged on me, trying to suck me under again. But though my legs felt like they were gripped in a huge hand, I somehow stayed where I was.

  “Kris! Kris!” N
orth was suddenly right beside me, his face white with fear in the dark water. “Are you all right?” he demanded. The waves heaved him up and down—he was struggling to stay close to me without running into the wall.

  “I…I think so.” I coughed and spat out more water.

  “Thank God! I saw that wave take you under and slam you against the wall—I thought you were gone.”

  “Still here,” I managed and coughed again.

  “We have to go.” He glanced behind us, surveying the open sea. “There’s another one coming. It’s far out on the horizon but the swells move quick. Can you still swim? If not, I can tow you.”

  “I…I think so.” I tried to move toward him but for some reason I couldn’t get more than a few inches away from the breakwall. “I can’t move,” I said, trying not to panic. “I’m stuck, North.”

  North swam toward me, much closer to the breakwall than was safe. “Your shirt’s snagged on the sea thorns,” he said, after a quick inspection. “Don’t know how you managed to keep from getting impaled in the process but that’s the problem.” He started tugging at the soaked fabric, trying to get it over my head. “Come on—take it off.”

  “What? No!” I gasped, tugging back.

  North frowned. “This is no time to be modest, Kris. That swell is coming in fast. Now take it off!”

  “No!” I struggled against him, trying to get my soaked shirt out of his hands. “I can unhook it, just give me a minute.”

  “Damn it, Kris, we don’t have a minute!” North shouted above the waves. “We have to go now.”

  We were in a tug of war now, with North trying to pull my shirt over my head and me hanging on stubbornly, determined not to let him expose the secret of my bound breasts. Suddenly, with a low ripping sound, the shirt tore free of the sea thorns and I was sinking beneath the waves.

  I heard North shout my name and then a strong arm was hooked around my neck. “Don’t struggle,” he instructed me. “Just relax and let me tow you.”

  I wanted to protest that I could swim on my own but to be honest, I didn’t think I could. Swimming out so far and trying to keep my head above the water while fighting the raging current had sapped my strength. I worried that I was slowing North down but I was also afraid that if he let me go I would sink like a stone. So I tried to hold still and go limp in his grip as he swam us both back to shore.

  It was hard to relax, though—I was facing the open ocean and could see the next swell coming. It was rolling in slower than the one which had swamped us earlier but I could see it moving, like a growing mountain of greenish-silver glass getting closer, ever closer.

  “North,” I said, uncertain if he could hear me. “North, it’s coming.”

  “I know.” His voice was grim.

  “Are…are we going to make it?” I couldn’t help the quaver of fear in my voice. Up until now, I had never experienced anything but the very calmest ocean when we swam. I had seen the water as a giant, friendly hand that wanted to hold me up. Now I was seeing another face of the ocean—a hungry monster that would much rather drag me down and eat me.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” He sounded so calm I couldn’t believe it.

  “What?” I started to struggle in his grip.

  “Hold still!” he barked, glancing back briefly to give me a stern look. “We’ll be okay even if the swell catches us. They always push you first, before they try to drag you back. When it pushes, we’ll go with it—try to ride it in to the shore.”

  “Ride it in?” I squeaked, still not believing what he was saying. The swell was growing bigger and bigger, towering over us, about to break.

  “Ride it in,” North repeated. “Then grab for some sand and hold on to me—I won’t let you go.”

  “I—” I began but then the massive wave broke, pounding down on us, pushing us toward the shore just as North had said it would.

  I somehow got twisted in North’s grip but he held me tight, just as he had promised. I tried to hold my breath but salt water got down my throat and up my nose anyway. For a second I was afraid that it was going to fill my lungs and drown me after all. Then I felt North and myself lifted and shoved forward with incredible force. Suddenly the silver sands of the beach were rushing toward us at an incredible rate.

  The wave crashed down, taking us with it. The side of my face smashed into the sand and the rest of me followed. The bruising impact knocked what little air I had left out of my lungs, but still I remembered what North had said. Reaching forward, I dug my hand into the wet silver sand, trying to hold on and not be dragged out again.

  I felt the pull of the current and my feeble hold on the sand wouldn’t have been enough to save me if North hadn’t been holding on to me too. He’d managed to grab hold of a half buried stone that jutted out of the ground with one hand and with the other, he was holding my arm like grim death. At last the rushing wave subsided, leaving both of us gasping for breath.

  North didn’t waste any time recovering. “Come on—get up.” He got to his feet and dragged on my arm. I, however, remained face down in the sand.

  “Hurts, North,” I groaned. “Everything hurts. Need…need to catch my breath.”

  “You can catch it from higher ground.” He yanked on my arm again. “Come on, there’s another one coming up fast. Unless you’ve suddenly learned to breathe underwater, you need to get up.”

  Groaning, I staggered to my feet. My left side—the side that had been rammed against the breakwall—ached and stung at the same time. My lungs still felt half full of water and I was so exhausted I could barely move.

  North couldn’t have been feeling much better than me. After all, he’d exerted a lot more energy than I had, towing me in. But he pulled at me tirelessly across the shifting sands to the steep stairway cut into the rocks.

  It was a climb I had made dozens of times since coming to stay with him and yet now I could barely make myself put one foot in front of the other. Twice I stumbled and would have fallen if North hadn’t held and steadied me. Once I had to stop and retch, but only a little seawater came out. I was thankful we hadn’t stopped for breakfast before our morning swim. I couldn’t imagine going through what we had just experienced on an uncomfortably full stomach.

  I don’t know how, but somehow we finally made it to the top. “All right,” North said. “It’s safe. The tide never reaches this high.”

  “Good,” I whispered and collapsed.

  North was beside me at once, holding my head in his lap and looking down at me anxiously. “Kris? Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” I made an effort to get up but I couldn’t quite manage it and had to content myself with just lying there, my head resting on his thigh. “I mean, I will be…in a minute,” I added and coughed out some more water.

  “I’m so sorry.” North had a remorseful expression on his face. “I was so stupid, insisting that we go swimming. I thought we had an hour at least before the swells came in.”

  I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have swum out so far. You tried to warn me but I wouldn’t listen.”

  “I shouldn’t have let you swim so far.” North was obviously still intent on taking the blame on himself. “But I’ve never seen the swells come in that early before. Or that big—those waves were monsters!”

  “You’re not kidding,” I whispered and coughed again. It was a deep, wracking cough that seemed to come from the base of my lungs. The violent motion tore at my wounded side and I cried out and grabbed at myself, trying to keep my body from breaking into a million shards of pain.

  “You’re hurt, aren’t you?” North bent over me, his face concerned. “Is it the side that got smashed against the breakwall?”

  I nodded and coughed again, still clutching at my side. God, would this never be over?

  “Let me see.” North’s fingers probed delicately at my side, as though feeling for broken bones. “Do you feel like anything sharp is stabbing you from inside?” he asked anxiously. “Because that could mean a
fractured rib.”

  I shook my head. “I had a sharp…sharp pain when I first hit the wall. But now it just burns.”

  “Burns? What do you mean?” His fingers started to creep up, under my sodden shirt. “Where does it burn?”

  “Stop!” I suddenly found the strength to pull away from him. I hadn’t risked my life to keep my secret, while pinned against the breakwall, only to have him discover it now.

  “Why should I stop? You need to let me see,” North insisted.

  “I’m fine!” I scooted away from him.

  “You are not—look!” He held out his hand to me and I saw that the fingertips were bloody.

  My blood, I thought sickly. I’m bleeding.