dragged her easily into the water where her weight mattered not at
all.
Hector walked right into the water and trudged down, down,
down until they were both completely submerged under what
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seemed to Helen like fathoms of dark water. She struggled uselessly.
This was Hector?s element and he had complete control. He
could even speak and be heard underwater.
?You aren?t the only one with talents, Princess,? he said.
There were no bubbles streaming out of his mouth, just clear
speech. He could breathe, he could talk, he could walk on the
seabed as if he was walking on firm ground. Helen finally understood
why Hector terrified her so much. He was an ocean creature,
and she was deathly afraid of the ocean.
Ever since she?d almost drowned as a child, Helen had suspected
that the ocean had it in for her, but she?d never told anyone that
because she was pretty sure they would think she was crazy. Now,
almost a decade later, as she looked into Hector?s blank blue eyes,
she knew she had been right. Helen bucked and squirmed under
Hector?s relentless grip. Great gouts of bubbles flew from her
mouth as she screamed in soundless panic. She scratched at his
face and kicked her feet, but there was nothing she could do to
make him let her go. She was going to drown.
Acid fizzed in her veins and the edges of her vision smudged as
she started to black out. As her eyes closed, she felt him tug on her
legs as he towed her back to shore. He hauled her out of the water
by an ankle and swung her over his head and down onto the sand
like a mallet, hard enough to dislodge the liquid from her lungs.
She puked burning salt water and coughed until her inner ears
stung and she could hear the blood thumping in her head.