Goddess Boot Camp (3 page)

“What were you saying about Goddess Boot Camp?” Griffin asks as I tie my laces into bows. “Why are you going?”

“Damian’s making me.” I let out a rough breath. “He’s afraid I won’t be able to pass the test.”

“What test?”

“The one the gods are making her take,” Nicole explains.

Griffin scowls, his dark eyebrows scrunching together over his bright blue eyes in an adorably concerned way. “I was afraid something like this would happen. What with your powers still so unpredictable—”

“Hey!” I smack him on the thigh. “It’s not for lack of trying.”

“I know,” he says, reaching down and pulling me to my feet. “It’s not your fault. Not with such late-onset powers.”

“And the fact that you’re only three steps down from Nike,” Nicole adds. “They’re stronger than most.”

I feel a little better. I mean, most of the kids at the Academy are several generations or more removed from their ancestor god. The closer your branch is to the trunk of the tree, the stronger the powers. Mine are colossal strong. Which makes them colossal hard to control.

Clearly, the gods aren’t taking that into account.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.” Sometimes I open my mouth and my emotions spill out before I can check them. “It’s not your fault I’m a complete failure at the whole powers thing.”

“You’re not a failure,” Griffin insists. “Just . . . inexperienced. Like training for the Pythian Games. Even though you already know how to run, you still need to train hard and in a different way for the marathon-length race than you do for cross-country. Right?”

“Of course.”

“You just have to keep pushing yourself harder, further, until it becomes as natural as what you’re used to.”

One of the reasons I adore Griffin so much is his ability to speak my language. Runner-ese.

“What do you think will happen if I fail the test?” I ask. “Damian wasn’t exactly forthcoming about the consequences.”

Griffin shakes his head. “I don’t know. Has anyone else ever taken a test like this?”

“There are rumors,” Nicole says. “No one’s ever proven them.”

“Damian told me there has been one other student tested since he became headmaster. But he didn’t tell me who it was or what happened.”

Nicole snorts.

We all know Damian’s big on secrecy. The man makes the CIA look like a gabfest. He is Mr. Need-to-know. As in, students never need to know.

I close my eyes. It’s either that or give in to the despair. Of course I’m one of only two
hematheos
in recent history forced to take a powers test—and likely to fail that test. Life would be too good if I weren’t about to be made a horrible outcast. I mean
more
of a horrible outcast. It’s bad enough I’m already the girl who didn’t know about her powers—and the entire
hematheos
world—until she was seventeen, and the girl who is so close to Nike she makes the other kids nervous and resentful. Now I’ll be the girl strung up on the rack for the next seven or so centuries.

Rather than focus on something I don’t have control over at the moment—exactly my problem, by the way—I focus on something I can control. Running.

“I can’t think about this anymore right now,” I announce. I ask Griffin, “Are you ready to run?”

“Of course.” He flashes me a brilliant grin.

Turning to Nicole, I offer, “You’re welcome to join us.”

“No thanks.” She climbs off the bed and grabs her messenger bag from the floor. “I’m allergic to exercise.”

“So I’ve noticed,” I tease. She and Troy have that in common.

“I was thinking we could run the north shore today,” Griffin says. Then to Nicole, “You could walk with us as far as the village.” He dips his head a little and lowers his voice. “If you’re heading that way.”

My fears of smoting and embarrassment and being turned into a goat are instantly gone. I’m so proud of Griffin for making inroads with Nicole. They’ll be back to best friends in no time.

“Thanks,” she says. “But I’m heading to the library for a little extracurricular research.”

Or maybe their friendship will take a little more time to heal back to pre-incident levels. I’m not concerned. They’ve gone from mortal enemies to friendlies in under a year. It will all be behind them by the time we graduate.

“We can walk with you to the school,” I say, snagging an elastic off my dresser and pulling my hair into a ponytail. “Since it’s on the way to the village.”

As we head through the living room, I hear Damian’s voice coming from the master bedroom. “We will be gone for less than two weeks, Valerie,” he says. “Is it really necessary to take three suitcases?”

“I’ve never been to Thailand before,” she replies. “I’m not sure what to pack. Besides . . .” Her voice takes on a kind of purring tone. “We only have
one
honeymoon and I want to make it special.”

Mom and Damian have been married for months now, but their lovey-dovey talk is still going strong. An image of what exactly my mom is packing in those three suitcases is about to pop into my mind. It has lace and sequins and—I shudder—feathers.

“Let’s go,” I say, grabbing Griffin and Nicole by the arms and hurrying them out the door. “With any luck, they’ll be done packing when I get home.”

As Griffin and I round a rocky outcropping on Serfopoula’s north-shore beach, I’m thinking about Dad. That’s not so unusual. I think about Dad a lot when I run. Lately, though—ever since I found out I was a descendant of the goddess of victory and exactly how Dad died—my thoughts have been a little different.

Before I found out, running usually brought back memories of training with him. Of running on Santa Monica beach in the early-morning hours and getting ice cream when we were done. Of him shouting encouragements: “Feel the victory inside you, Phoebester.” (Yeah,
victory
has a completely different meaning now.)

Since finding out, running makes me think about how he died. About how, even though he knew there would be consequences for using his powers, he loved football so much he was willing to risk it. To risk
us
.

I still can’t believe he loved football more than me and Mom.

“How we doing?” Griffin asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I shake my head back into the moment.

“That’s our halfway mark for today.” I point at a low-hanging tamarisk tree at the edge of the beach.

“What’s our time?”

Lifting my wrist, I check my watch. It reads 1:42 P.M. Not good.

“Crap.” How could I be so stupid? “I forgot to start the stopwatch.”

“No problem.” He flashes me a quick smile. “We can start logging our pace tomorrow. Today can be a warm-up.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I say, matching his strides with every step. It’s not like me to mess up a training session like this. “Every time I get to the starting line lately, it’s like my brain goes to mush.”

“You’re worried about your powers,” he says as we reach the tree and turn to run back the way we came. “Understandable.”

“Yeah,” I agree, although he’s only half right. “I know.”

I am worried about my powers . . . but not for the stupid test. Whatever consequences I’ll have to face if I fail the test are pudding play compared to smoting. That’s irreversible.

“You’ll pass,” he insists. “Just like you made the cross-country team last year. Just like you got your B average. Just like you master everything you go after with your whole heart.”

“This isn’t exactly the same.” It’s not at all the same. “I can’t pass this test by running faster or studying harder.”

“You’ll find a way.”

“But what if I—” Aargh, I’m tired of worrying about this. “Forget it. Let’s just focus on the running, okay?”

He’s silent for a long time and I think he’s going to let it go. Which is what I want. Right? Except something inside me is willing him not to forget it. Then he asks, “What’s really bothering you, Phoebes?”

“Nothing, I—”

“It’s your dad, isn’t it?”

My shoulders tense. I haven’t really talked about this with anyone since I found out. Not even Mom. She seems just as willing to keep the topic buried as I am. But maybe I need to talk about this. About him.

Finally, after what feels like hours of tension, I say, “Yeah. Kind of.”

“Tell me.”

As our sneakers push into the pristine sand, I try to form the sentence. Try to figure out how to express what I’m feeling. How can I tell him that I’m terrified every second that I’ll cross some invisible line and pay the ultimate price for my mistake? Everything I come up with sounds wrong, childish. Like a scared little girl.

“I—” I want to tell him. Really I do. I want to bare my soul and have him tell me everything will be all right and I won’t get smoted to Hades if I screw up. But what if? What if he can’t reassure me? What if he can’t make a promise he knows he can’t keep? I don’t think I can face a confirmation of my fears. “I can’t.”

“That’s okay.” His voice is soft and quiet, like our footfalls in the sand. “I’m here when you’re ready.”

And just like that, with one little promise, I feel a million times better. Knowing he’s there for me makes the fears fade into the background. Even if it’s only for a little while.

Thanks.
I don’t have to say the words out loud for him to know.

“So,” he says, in a cheerful, let’s-get-past-this-dark-moment tone. “Tell me more about our training schedule.”

I flash him a quick smile, thankful for the distraction. Knowing my luck, the more I worry about the whole smoting thing, the more likely I am to accidentally smote myself.

“It’s a tiered program,” I explain, launching into the more comfortable topic. “We build up our mental and physical stamina on an accelerated schedule, increasing the workout a little each day. By the time race day is here, 26.2 miles will feel like no big thing.”

Because the long-distance race in the Pythian Games is marathon length—and the trials are just two weeks away—we have to train hard and build our endurance quickly. Griffin has never run anything longer than a cross-country race, and even though I’ve run in marathons before, I’ve never
raced
a marathon. Running to finish and running to win are two totally different things.

Per Pythian Games rules, Coach Lenny can’t actually train us until after the trials, but he helped me develop this training strategy. If we don’t make the cut, he’s promised to make our lives miserable when cross-country season starts up in the fall.

“Sounds good.”

I’m glad Griffin and I are going through this together. Even though I’ve been running all my life, the idea of actually
racing
those 26.2 miles is a little scary. That’s like running a race from downtown L.A. to Malibu. It feels less intimidating knowing he’s by my side.

“Wanna stop by the bakery on our way back?” he asks. “Aunt Lili made some
loukoumades
she wants you to try.”

“Mmm,” I say, my mouth watering at the thought of the decadent little doughnut balls. “I think your aunt is trying to fatten me up.”

Griffin’s aunt is a descendant of Hestia and, true to her goddess-of-the-hearth heritage, operates an amazing bakery in the village. She makes more varieties of bread every day than most people have ever even heard of. Walking into the store is like walking into a fresh-baked dream.

Lately I’ve been her favorite taste tester.

“She’s just relieved that you eat,” he explains. “Adara wouldn’t even go near the bakery in case the carbs could seep into her body by osmosis or something.”

I fall silent.

Adara is still a dangerous subject. Not only has she not forgiven me for “stealing” her boyfriend—go figure—but Griffin is still friends with her. I’m not jealous or anything, I just don’t understand how he can actually like her. She’s never been anything but an evil harpy to me.

Griffin, clearly unaware of my mood swing, says, “Aunt Lili is excited that our nutrition plan requires lots of carbs. She thinks that means we’ll be in there to taste-test every day.”

“Hmm,” I grunt noncommittally.

“I didn’t have the heart to tell her we need
complex
carbs, like pasta and potatoes.” He sounds completely unconcerned by my silence. “Breads, maybe. If she uses whole grains. But sugars and sweets are not exactly ideal training fuel.”

When Coach Lenny asked us to try out for the Pythian Games, we agreed to divide up the training prep work. I’m in charge of physical training sessions—running, weight training, stuff like that. Griffin is in charge of our nutritional program. Which is probably a good thing, because I have a major weakness for things like Aunt Lili’s treats, the occasional Twinkie shared with Nicole, and—the worst weakness of all—ice cream. I’d eat ice cream at every meal if I could.

It’s definitely a good thing Griffin’s the diet dictator.

More silence as we both fall into a contented run.

My mind drifts back to the Adara comment. I realize I’m being hypersensitive about the whole ex-girlfriend thing. I mean, I’m
not
jealous. Really. He’s totally, one hundred percent into me. And the fact that he’s still friends with his on-again-off-again girlfriend of like five years is not completely surprising. They have a history.

That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

“You’ll pass the test,” Griffin says as we get within sight of the village.

I sigh. It’s better to let him think I’m stressing about the test than confess that I’m really dwelling on his relationship with his ex.

“I know,” I say, trying to sound convincing.

“I mean it,” he says, slowing our pace to a light jog. “If anyone can learn to control insanely strong powers in the next two weeks, you can. You can do anything.”

I love that he’s my strongest supporter, my own personal Phoebe cheerleader. He sounds totally certain that I’ll succeed . . . but I’m not.

“Listen,” he says, pulling me to a stop as we reach the outer edge of the village. “Think about how much you’ve accomplished in the last few months. A weaker girl would have collapsed under the pressure of starting over at a new school populated with descendants of the gods. Not you. You thrived and proved to every last one of us that you deserve to be here. And you do.”