Page 38 of My Fated Minotaur Hero

"Quick!" Mia hisses. "Go around the other side and block her escape!"

I nod, adrenaline surging as I dash around the bushes.

It would be so cool if we found her cat!

Suddenly, two blurs of fur burst out - one calico, one tabby. My breath catches.

Oh my god. No ...

It’s a coincidence Liv. Please.

Hope blooms in my chest, fragile but insistent. I want to laugh at the absurdity. Here I am, chasing cats when my whole world's been turned upside down. But what if itisOthrix?

Yeah, cause he’s the only tabby in the known universe.

Shush you. It’s possible ...

"This way!" I call out, surprising myself by taking charge. We race after the felines, who dart inside a perimeter fence around a run-down university building ahead.

Perfect.

But whatever, after everything I have been through in the last twenty-four hours, I’m definitely not going to let a little “No trespassing sign” stop me. Vaguely I am aware that I barely feel the need to make a list, before I push open the gap between the gate and squeeze through after the cats.

“You are in big trouble when mamma gets you home, Miss Poppikins!” Mia squeezes right in behind me.

"Mary Poppins?" Mia calls in a more inviting soft voice as we follow the felines through a basement door that is ajar. "Here kitty, kitty..."

I scan the room, my librarian's eye for detail kicking in despite the circumstances.

“What the hell is this building anyhow?”

“Ah the university wants to turn it into student housing, I think. It’s been like this forever.”

As we creep in, only a little moonlight plays though a broken window.

“No freakin’ way,” I stammer half aloud and half to myself. There on a big wall over an old fireplace is the now familiar seal. My heart leaps.

“What is it?” she calls, as she enters the room behind me.”

But there are no cats to be seen.

Then everything happens at once.

I turn and see Mia running her hands over a detailed relief carved in an adjacent wall...

But before I have a chance to register the possibilities, she is already reading aloud ...

'Hear the call of the wild ... all who yearn to be free,'"

“Mia, wait!"

But it's too late. That familiar wind picks up, and the last thing I see before everything goes white is Mia's shocked expression as we lock eyes ...

CHAPTER 14

OLIVIA

Iblink rapidly, trying to clear the spots from my vision.

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