Page 50 of Martyr
Therewasa face impression in it earlier.
His face.
Now, there’s only some bumps and ridges remaining.
I release him, and he barely catches himself on his forearms. A face-plant would’ve been a good laugh. I rock back on my heels, considering him.
Blood leaks from his stomach, staining his wet gray shirt. Nasty wound.
“I wonder if I punctured your intestines,” I muse. “Then I wouldn’t have to drown you. I could wait for your body to poison itself.”
He focuses on me and misses the rushing wave. It slams into his face, submerging him. He raises himself higher, but these waves just keep coming. He’d have to sit up to clear it.
I don’t think his legs work anymore, though. I made a few slices. Cutting through muscle is surprisingly easy if you have a sharp enough blade.
He struggles to raise his face and fails. Instead, smart man that he is, he heaves himself over onto his back. The water now works with him, his face angled to the sky, even as another wave rolls over and makes him sputter. Still, he gets the reprieve.
“Hedoeshave brains,” I whisper to myself.
When the water rushes back once again, he’s left flat on his back in the sand, staring up at the starless night, dazed.
Thewrongnessprickles at me again.
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” I fist my hand in his shirt just under his chin. “Next wave is coming, so you’ve got about thirty seconds. Do I hold you under or lift you up and you tell me what I want to know?”
He gapes at me. There’s saltwater and blood on his lips. A blood vessel burst in his eye, giving his stare a ghoulish feel.
“Oh, right. You don’t know what I want to know.” My gaze rises. “Oops, too late.”
The water pours over him. His arms flail, knocking into my legs, but I am less moveable than a boulder. My muscles tense, holding him under. In less than a minute, he’ll be able to breathe again. He just needs to not fight it.
Artemis didn’t fight me on it. Of course, it wasn’t the rush ofwaterthat dragged her under—it was heroin. She let it sweep her far, far away.
The man chokes and coughs when he can take in a lungful of air.
“Right, now, what I wanted to know…” I lean in. “Tell me about the Hell Hounds.”
His face contorts.
Fury.
I tsk. “Did you not thinkthatwas what I wanted? Did you think I was going to ask you about Olympus, perhaps? That’s where I found you creeping like a spider through the shadows…”
He gurgles out a sound. A word.
“Try again.” My patience runs thin. “Clearer.Enunciate. You’re trying to save your own life, aren’t you?”
He wets his lips. His gaze bores into mine, and he manages two clear-as-day words. They’re just not the ones I want to hear.
“Fuck off.”
I unfold my knife. His gaze goes to the gleaming tip, and he tries to push me off or away. It’s no matter. I’ve broken most of his body, and now comes the rest of it. I drop his shirt and straddle him, batting at his hands. I sit hard on the wound on his stomach. A deep grunt releases from his chest, more pain than he thought possible.
“This was my own fault,” I say sadly. I carefully slide the blade between his ribs. “You took such a full, deep breath. Alungful. It made me think what would happen if your lungs just couldn’t hold air anymore.”
He feels it right away. The puncture. A pneumothorax, as they call it.
“Please,” he wheezes.
