Marcus DimascioThe Hurricane Throne

CHAPTER NO.12

We waited for what felt like hours.

Hermes continued to stand, holding his caduceus like a spear. He created a small fire and smoke wafted into the air. Ventus had left a couple of minutes earlier, promising that he would be back when I needed him. Chloe went to sleep, laying her head on my lap. Her skin felt as cold as ice, so I took my army jacket off and lay it on top of her. I kept my sword at my side, in case any trouble came, but Hermes assured me that nothing was there.

"Is she okay?" he asked me in concern.

I shook my head slightly. "She's not doing well at all. She told me that her whole body felt like it was on fire. I don't know what's wrong with her, but whatever it is, that antidote you gave her made it worse."

Hermes lowered his head. "I'm sorry. I thought I was helping."

"Don't be so hard on yourself – you were," I assured him. "Don't worry about it." I looked at my sleeping sister. "I knew she was in pain, because, even though she kept it quiet, she's been very private about what Proculus and his Strom Guard did to her. I'm worried that all that torture has finally taken its toll."

Hermes then looked up and gripped his staff even tighter. "Marcus."

I turned my head to where he was looking, worried that it was the police coming to arrest us. When I saw what was in front of me, my heart leapt with relief.

A white van had pulled up on the street and several teenagers poured out of the back. At first they looked around in confusion, but then they saw the smoke rising into the air and saw us right in front of the building flames of the campfire. They rushed down the beach and stopped right in front of us. One of them came forward and knelt next to Chloe, checking her forehead and placing blankets after blankets on top of her chest.

"Has she gotten worse?" he asked me.

I looked at my sister, who was shivering in her sleep.

"I don't know," I answered. "She passed out five minutes ago, because she said she was tired. I don't know if she's gotten worse at all."

"Did she say that something didn't feel right at all?"

"She said that she got some sort of burning sensation all over her body, but that was it," I admitted. "After that, she just passed out cold and I fear her conditioned has gotten worse."

The teenaged medic looked at his friends. He had bushy brown hair and grey eyes. He was dark skinned and didn't blink at all. He nodded at a couple of them and they came forward with some sort of stretcher. They carefully lifted Chloe onto the stretcher and carried her away with Hermes and me following behind them. We reached the van and the driver opened the back doors, allowing the medics to carry Chloe inside. Once, she was placed on a medical bed, they started extracting a vile of her blood and analysed it.

"You're hurt," one of them told me. She reached for a first aid kit and brought out several wipes and tissues. She started cleaning the cut on my head, which I forgotten had dried blood over it, from the day before. She gently scrubbed all the red away from my forehead.

"Thanks," I told her. I looked at my sister. "Is she going to be alright?"

The girl looked at the patient. "Your sister had some sort of toxin in her blood. The antidote that Hermes gave her aggravated the toxin to some extent. But we managed to extract it out of her bloodstream. She'll be fine."

Proculus poisoned my sister? That freaking, idiotic, son of a–!

The nurse frowned. "Did you know she was poisoned?"