Escape (Book 1 of the Gods' series)

Chapter 7

I swam, and swam, and swam. Around and around trying to escape the huge jaws of the alligator, fish, giant monster, thing. What was bigger than this monster? I could be a great white shark, that might work, no, the thing was bigger. A whale? It wouldn’t be able to kill. Ooh! A Megalodon, it was at least 2 times the size of a great white shark, with jaws that were bigger than a human, it first appeared about 60 to 65 million years ago (Yeah, yeah, I like dinosaurs, so what?)

I concentrated on being the Megalodon, concentrating until my head hurt, then everything grew small, good thing the pool was really big, I was at least 40 feet long, I turned and looked at the now tiny ‘monster’, it looked at me with big eyes and cowered away, but I wasn’t going to leave it there. I chased it’s retreating body, when I was close enough I opened my huge jaws and bit some of it’s flank, blood seeped out of the large wound and into the water, I took another bite, half of it’s body was gone, it died automatically.

I swam to the surface and jumped, I nearly reached the ledge just by jumping, I still had the key behind one of my colossal sized teeth I moved it forward with my tongue, and mid jump turned into a golden eagle. I flew onto the ledge and squawked at Dylan and Aaron’s turned backs, they turned and cowered back from me (They probably thought I was one of Nyx’s animal minions, like the one I just killed) I dropped the key from my beak then formed back into a human, I crouched and bared my teeth letting out a savage growl, they whimpered and I laughed, I picked up the key and walked to them. “Seriously, I would have thought you would be stronger than me, tougher, less afraid.” Dylan ran up to me and asked, “Where were you?”

“Oh just killing a monster that was bigger than a great white shark, not much really.” I said as I picked a green scale out of one of my teeth, they gasped and ran to the side of the ledge, the sight of the floating green body made Dylan go nearly the same shade, I laughed and grabbed them both by the shoulders and turned them to face me, “About before, thank you.” I pulled them both them into a hug, “I owe you.”

“Not me, you already saved my life once.” I smiled at Dylan when I let them both go. Aaron gave me a playful punch when I started to blush, hurting me more than was probably meant to, (hopefully, he didn’t want to break my shoulder, if that’s possible, did he?).

A sudden scream knocked us all off course, we spun to face the scream, falling into one of the pools was Jess, from above I saw Nyx sneering at us, “Don’t try to join me, I work alone.” She shouted, she spun to the door and walked in, next to her in the shadows I saw a figure walking with her, when the figure walked into the light, I saw it was female, her hair was black, it tumbled down her back like a waterfall, her skin was the colour of ebony, she wore a leather outfit similar to mine, except it was way darker, she looked like an African warrior. I took all this in pretty quickly, as by the time I had finished examining the mystery girl Jess was only about 7 feet away from hitting the water, I shouted to her, “Water! Control the water!” as I dived into the pool and speedily swam as a black marlin to her, she landed directly on my back, to calm her tense body, I turned into a dolphin (everyone loves dolphins right? Wrong.) She screamed and jumped off of my back, I dived underwater and told the piranhas that were staring at Jess with red eyes, “Leave her, I still hold on to my threat. Stay away from me and my friends, or else.” I swam after her, she was losing breath, I could tell by the way she strained to keep her body moving, I nipped the hem of her dress and pulled her up to the surface, where I leapt and turned into an eagle again, my talons gripping her dress.

I gently laid her onto the floor, turning human and kneeling beside her, she coughed and spluttered water all over, she scowled up at me, “Why did you do that? I knew how to stop it.”

“Really, then why didn’t you, why did you leave it to me to help you?”

“Because, if you try to join Nyx, that’s what you get, death. I didn’t know that, and I don’t want to help, or be anywhere near you lot. You’re all just freaks with some weird derangement, especially you, Charlotte. What is it with you? Why do you have so many powers, and the rest of us have one?”

“I don’t know why, I just do! I didn’t want this! None of us do! You act like you’re the only normal one here!”

“Because I am!” She shouted at me, I could see anger simmering in her eyes. “You’re not though! You control the sea! You are just as ‘deranged’ as us! We don’t want you’re help, we are doing just fine as we are, but we are thinking about you’re family. How would they feel if their daughter died because she was jealous of something as petty as a relationship? That’s what this is about isn’t it? Because you can’t get with the person you love, ‘cause they’re in love with another, all you can do now is deal with it. All you need to do if you are going to be so selfish as to help us all die is stand over there and watch us.”

I was so angry with her! She was being so self-centred! Thinking she was the normal one! Yeah, right. I was glaring at her, watching her babble on about something, but I wasn’t listening, “So, now you say I’m selfish?”

“Jess, I don’t have time for this, we don’t have time for this, so if you don’t mind, please, shut up.” I turned to walk away and before I knew what I was going to do, I was soaking wet, dripping with water, salty water that stung my eyes and tasted bitter in my mouth.