Page 30 of Blood of Hercules
A few minutes later, I lay on a pile of blankets, with an invisible snake around my neck, nuzzling my face; a husky draped across my lap; and Charlie sitting up beside me with his homework spread across his own lap.
Classical music played on our old beat-up solar-powered radio.
It leaned against the right side of my head, and the vibrations tingled through me.
Charlie gnawed on one of the jerky sticks I’d stockpiled so he could have some food daily. He was a growing boy, so he needed the protein more than I did.
Hunger flared, but I focused on the softness beneath me and the cardboard over my head.
We’re the lucky ones. The foster parents are gone. We’re free of their abuse.
The rain pattered soothingly across the tarp.
Charlie signed math questions, and sequences of numbers floated around me as I thought about the RiemannHypothesis.
Nyx’s scales were smooth against my face, and Fluffy rubbed against my legs, getting hair everywhere.
Gratitude flooded me.
I was surrounded by my family and safe. Everything was going to be okay.
If only I’d known how wrong I was.
Chapter 4
The Spartan Merit Test
Alexis
“Five minutesuntil the test is over,” the proctor announced from the front of the gymnasium. Mercenaries stood around the perimeter with their Spartan guns on display.
“Finish writing your answers,” she said. “Remember, after pricking your finger, donotpress your finger to the paper—squeeze your finger and let your blood drip into both bubbles... you only need a smallamount.”
Papers rustled as hundreds of students flipped pages.
My hand cramped around my pencil as I wrote desperately. Twelve hours of testing had taken its toll.
The clock ticked.
They couldn’t have given us another hour?
I focused desperately on finishing my essay on the physics of quantum mechanics—the answer had to be written in Latin.
As the Spartan merit test progressed, the difficulty of the questions increased exponentially.
Halfway through, every question had to be answered in Latin.From the amount of flipping the other students were doing, I was the only one on the last question.
“Three minutes left!”
Crap, what is the Latin word for “quantum chromodynamics” or “quarks”?
Sweat dripped down my sides.
A translation was on the tip of my tongue, but the time was taunting me.
“One minute left!”
I scribbled down “parva pila,” which translated roughly to “small spheres.” It wasn’t exactly correct, so I hastily scribbled out the context and hoped it would be enough to?—
