The Greek God

Chapter 13

Alex hadn't had a nightmare in months. It was always the same. She was ten years old and living with a family that took lots of foster kids in for the paycheck.

They were pretty much left to their own devices once they crossed the threshold.

One would think that being a foster kid, you would bond with other foster kids because, well, you were all in the same boat. Not true.

Kids in the system had to be tough or it would crush you. You had to be in survival mode all the time.

Alex had survived mostly because she looked like a pubescent boy. She was painfully small and thin, which helped to hide the fact that she was a girl. She tucked her hair into a trucker's cap that was too large for her, so it hid most of her face from view. That was also when she officially became Alex instead of Alexi.

She'd had a bad feeling when she went to bed that night. An incident at dinner began her unease. She tried to barricade the bedroom door but her foster "mother" saw her trying to push a heavy bureau in front of the door and put an end to it. She should have spoken up about her fears but she didn't know how to voice them and besides, she was pretty sure they would have been met with disbelief.

Her bed was in a corner farthest from the door. She woke up to the covers being pulled down and she began to struggle.

The boy was older and stronger but she managed to get to the floor and crawl under her metal bed. She made her body flush with the wall so as he waved his arm under the bed, he couldn't quite reach her.

Until he lifted the bed up and managed to snatch a handful of her flannel nightgown and pull her out from under the bed.

That is where her dream stays on a constant loop until she is woken up, usually by Kris.

And today was no different. In the midst of her struggles Kris gently brought her out of her dream by cupping her face and telling her she was safe.

It was always the same, she would gasp awake and Kris would always insist on staying with her until she fell back asleep.

Only on this day, she didn't wake up in her own bed; she woke up in an opulent bedroom of a private jet.

She couldn't make this stuff up if she tried.

Alex sank back onto the pillows, exhausted and sweaty. Kris lay beside her until she fell back into a dreamless sleep.

When she woke up again, Kris was gently snoring beside her. She crawled off the bed and used the large and spacious bathroom and made her way to the front of the plane.

Apollo's eyes whipped up from his computer.

"Are you well?" he asked with an urgency in his voice that she hadn't heard before.

She nodded and sat down beside the window, across from him on the couch.

"Yes ... oh, the nightmare. I'm fine. It doesn't happen often," she said, looking out the window at the blue-green water.

She touched the window. "The water is so beautiful," she whispered.

"Do you swim?"

Alex looked at him and smiled. "Yes, I adore swimming. I haven't had much opportunity through the years but when I was eleven, I spent the summer at a lake in Maine. A retired teacher and avid swimmer taught me to swim and dive," she said, smiling at the memory. "She would have me stand on the edge of the float and curl my toes over the edge and get into my dive position and fall into the water. She was a wonderful teacher."

There was an awkward silence so Alex turned to look out the window again.

Apollo cleared his throat.

"Well, you will have plenty of opportunities to swim while you're in Greece. Everyday, in fact."