Deep in the words just outside of Forks, Washington, a dark haired girl leaned heavily against a tree. Sweat had gathered on her brow and she found herself breathing hard, the air escaping in puffs of white vapor. The night air was cool against her skin. She had been running. Gods knows how long and where she was now. It felt like weeks since a pack of hell hounds had caught her scent.
The pack was down to one or two now, as she'd been slowly picking them off. She stilled for a moment, ears straining for the telltale signs of the giant beasts dashing through the woods, and was met with silence.
With a breath of relief, she turned and slid down the tree so that she was sitting and resting her back against the rough bark. She closed her eyes for a second, hands rubbing at her wrist which she had fallen on earlier. It wasn't broken, at least she hoped to the gods it wasn't. She didn't have any ambrosia, hell, she barely had any water left. She shook the canteen, hearing what was rest of the water swish around for a bit before taking a sip. If she doesn't hit another town soon, she just might die out here.
Well, she just might die anyways. The gold coin in her pocket burned, as it had been since she fled Mount Othrys. She took it out, the scythe of Saturn glinting in the soft moonlight that filtered through the trees.
"Hold the Mountain and we will win. The world will be ours." Luke had promised. He had promised her it would be better. A flash image of the boy ran through her mind, his scar dragging down the side of his face, his eyes not yet colored by the hard golden of Saturn.
The battle had gone downhill fast. Golden Boy Jason Grace had shown up in all his thunder and lightninged glory. They never stood a chance. So she fled. Diana and her hunters would find her eventually. Track her down and kill her. She was, after all, a traitor.
Her eyes drifted down to the mark seared into her arm, which was marred by where a pink scar ran across her skin. Luke had made her prove she was loyal to him, not the gods. She ran her hands across her face, the sweat now cooled and the chill setting in on her now that she wasn't moving anymore.
The sound of a branch snapping somewhere in the woods hit her ears, and she slid the coin back into her pocket. She was on her feet in a second, withdrawing a toothpick sized golden stick. A wolf howled, and she expanded it onto a full sized bo staff. It was made of high grade imperial gold, and engravings of grapevines twisted from the edges. A symbol of her father, Bacchus.
Two hellhounds emerged from the trees, growls rumbling from their bared teeth as the stalked in a circle around her, red eyes tracking her every move. The last two from the pack that had found her somewhere in California.
The two mutts circled around, pawing the ground as she switched her gaze between them. With a snarl, the one to her right leapt towards her throat. She swung the bo staff upwards, wacking the hound in the jaw with a satisfying yelp. The second hell hound jumped in after the first, and the girl kept with the circular motion landing several solid blows on the second hound before the first snapped its jaws near her.
She swung at the first again, backing it away from her a few feet, before bringing her staff down wth a crack in it's head. The monster collapsed, and turned to dust within seconds. She neglected to pay attention to the remaining hound, as it barreled towards her.
She jumped aside, barely enough to avoid the mouth of the beast, but tripped, hitting her head on a rock. The hound pounced, the girl reacting just in time to wedge her staff between its snapping teeth. Hot breath wafted over her face, as the beast struggled to pull the staff away. Her head felt fuzzy, blood dripping from a scratch on her forehead. She had to end this.
She held strong, though her strength was waning. She kicked at the hounds underbelly, enticing a whine from the monster as it released its hold on the staff. With her remaining strength, she swung the end on the bo staff up, smacking the hell hound across the snout twice before it collapsed and dispersed. The staff shrunk back to toothpick size, clenched in her hand as her vision faded to black. The distant sound of footfalls not enough to keep her awake.
Nearby, a large black wolf was tracking the strange scent he'd come across on his patrols. He padded through the forest until he reached a clearing that seemed to glitter with gold specks. In the middle, surrounded by a small puddle of blood, lay a dark haired girl. The scent surrounding the area pervading his instincts, making his hair bristle, but he swiftly changed and clothed, gathering the girl in his arms and beginning the trek back to his house where he could find out more when she awoke.