Page 43 of Tainted Blood

Sam’s mocking laughter is right there in my slipstream again. Despite my best efforts, I can’t shake him loose. He’s tucked himself in behind me and he’s cruising. He’s saving his final sprint to the end so he can be a dirty, fat show-off in front of everyone.

My lungs are on fire. Unfairness burns harder. I’m eleven, and he’s fifteen, which means the race was rigged from the start. But pápa’s watching alongside Ella today, and this makes me want to drown those stupid odds in the ocean.

We’re only twenty feet out. My eyes are blurry. My fingertips are itching to reach out and claim what’s mine. Ella’s screams of encouragement are getting louder. In my head, I can picture my father’s stern expression catching light to a rare smile.

Fifteen feet out, and Sam makes his move.

“So long, sucker,” he hisses, breezing past me in a blur of black and blue. “Go back to playing ponies and dolls like the little kid you are.”

What a shithead!

Before I know it, I’m shoulder barging him. Knocking him off balance.

It doesn’t matter that I’m half a foot shorter. The move is so unexpected he doesn’t have time to check himself before he goes down in a crumpled heap of hurt boy pride and outrage.

“What the f—?”

I falter for the next couple of steps, caught off balance myself—my legs finding nothing but air before I’m hitting my stride again.

I can’t hear Ella screaming anymore. My only focus is a line in the sand that’s more precious to me than the one I just crossed with Sam.

In five strides, I’m there.

I won.

I freaking won.

Punching the air in delight, I collect my applause from the sand dunes, my heart thundering with happy beats. Even my father is clapping—though rules never mean much to him anyway.

“Cheat,” Sam yells, picking himself up from the shoreline and brushing the beach out of his hair. His handsome face is stretched into a grin, and there’s a glint of respect in his eyes that wasn’t there ten minutes ago.

“You’re just sore you didn’t think of it first.” I lift my eyebrows in a taunt. “Gotta be smart when you’re playing to win.”

“You were born to win, Thalia Santiago,” he says with another laugh. “That’s the kind of shit you’ll never be able to trip up or outrun.”

Does that go for fate too, Sam? I think wildly, remembering our race on the beach eight years ago in hazy snatches as I hit another dead end.

Cursing, I throw myself at the wall of yaupon holly hedge in despair—finding comfort in the way the needle-like branches bite and scratch at my skin.

I’m still alive... I’m still alive...

Just.

Tonight, my lungs are burning more than they ever did that day. Fear has added a new fuel to the cage. It’s like all my oxygen is being held hostage.

Dusk fell hard when I wasn’t paying attention. The long shadows have turned Il Labirinto into a warren of dark hallways. I’ve been running for my life for hours. Spader’s dogs are still straining at their leashes.

“Run, Thalia! Don’t let him catch you!”

I try a different path, cursing again in frustration when I have to double-back once more. That’s when I hear rabid barking from the path running directly parallel to mine.

Too close.

He’s too close.

“Come out, little lamb,” he growls, turning my blood to ice. Meanwhile, his dogs are going nuts, sniffing and pawing at the thick hedgerow between us. “Fun fact time. The oldest maze in the world was built as a refuge for rich courtiers in eighteenth century England... Are you still seeking refuge, Thalia, or are you close to defeat?”

Never.