Sorry I haven't been updating as much, finals KILLED me. So the only real piece of news for this series, as well as my Harry Potter series, is that there's a Beta reader! they've caught a lot of mistakes, and hopefully everyone will be able to tell a difference in the writing. the plot will stay the same, though. I wont say who it is, because I don't want anyone asking them for spoilers. Thank you for reading, and for being so patient!
THE POLL FOR BOOK FOUR IS AT THE TOP OF MY AUTHOR PROFILE PAGE, SO FAR I'VE RECEIVED 19 VOTES. PLEASE VOTE TO LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!
Happy reading!
Charlie's car was in the driveway by the time I got back. It was dark, and rain was pelting the windshield steadily as I killed the engine. I sat in the dark truck and sighed. Somehow I doubted that Charlie would let me off the hook for this, but on the other hand I didn't think he'd mind me seeing Jake. Charlie thought he was good for me, and if there was one thing he really wanted me to have, it was normal, mostly human time.
I let myself in, and braced for the argument. "Hey," I said. He was on the couch watching a basketball game.
"Hey yourself," he said. He muted the TV and I cursed on the inside.
"I saw Jake today," I said. Please let this work, I chanted inwardly.
"Did you?" he said after a pause. "And how did that go?"
I edited as much out as I could mentally. "Good," I said after a while.
"Fine," he said. "I give up."
"What?" I asked.
"You're not grounded anymore. There's not much I could do to stop you, and besides, you're almost an adult," he said.
"Are you serious?" I asked. For some reason I was elated, but then again it wasn't as if the official un-grounding would make any difference on my actions.
"Yes, I am. But I won't change on one thing. You are graduating. Period. No exceptions. Do you understand me?" he asked sternly.
I smiled. "Course I do. And I will, I promise."
"Well then," he said. "Finish your homework."
"Fine," I said.
When I walked up the stairs of my room to start on my homework, I felt like something was seriously off. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, and there was just this gut feeling of wrongness that I couldn't put my finger on. Nothing monstrous, as the monsters were hardly known for their subtlety, but something was different. Charlie was still watching TV, and probably didn't hear the click of my pencils turning into knives. I lowered myself and slowly worked my door open with my toe. The door swung open silently, and I stepped inside the room quickly, raising my knives to stab anything if something was in my room.
"What the-?" a voice said and something cold wrapped around my right wrist from behind me. I dropped low and twisted my wrist hard to break the grip of whatever was holding me. My knife clattered to the floor, and I brought my left arm around to hold the edge of the blade against the throat of… "Edward?" I asked.
He looked like he'd wet himself. "Please get that away from me," he squeaked.
I retracted the blade and picked up the other one.
"Meda? Everything alright?" Charlie asked.
"I'm fine, Dad, just dropped my knife," I said, glaring hard at Edward who was rubbing his throat. "Oh stop it," I said as I closed the door. "Nothing even happened."
"Yes, but still," he said. He was eyeing my pencils suspiciously. "Do they all have that?" he asked.
"Weapons? Yes, we do. Magic pencil knives? Nah, that's an inside joke between Percy and me," I said blandly. "But the real question is, what are you doing in my room?" I sat down on the bed and kicked my shoes off while I waited for him to talk. He was just staring at me, or more accurately, my knives that were both pencils. "If you're not going to talk, you could always leave," I said.
"I do want to talk," he said slowly.
"Then sit," I said, gesturing to my test chair, "and talk."
He sat down awkwardly, and turned around to make sure that my door was closed. "I understand that you went to La Push today," he started. He let that hang in the air.
"And?' I asked.
"Do you think that's a wise idea?" he asked.
I groaned and put my hands over my eyes. The reminder of Athena was incredibly unwelcome. She hated me, and heavily disliked Percy. She disliked Percy simply on the principle that he was a child of Poseidon. She hated me because one time when I was eight she disguised herself as an ordinary mortal (why do they always do that?) and when Annabeth and I went to an ice cream shop, she warned me to stay away from Annabeth or else I'd be hurt. So of course, eight year old me had cursed at her loudly, thrown an ice cream cone at her, (it had landed in her face, and the shocked expression was priceless) and then ran while dragging Annabeth behind me. I didn't learn who that woman was until I was 13, and she'd made it very clear that the only reason she let me live was because it would be rude to kill me.
"What's wrong?" Edward asked me, snapping me out of my memories.
"Nothing," I said. "But why would it not be wise? Aren't you working together to get Vicky?"
The side of his mouth tipped up at the mention of the nickname. "We're not working together," he corrected. "It's more of a…uneasy alliance. They have as much claim to kill her as we do, as long as we both stay on our respective sides of the treaty line."
I nodded. I wasn't going to pretend to understand why they hated each other so much. Sometimes things were the way they were, and nothing could change them. "So why do you think I shouldn't go see Jake?" I asked.
"I'm not saying you shouldn't," he hastily replied. "I'm just saying that you need to be careful. They're dangerous, and really, at this point, young werewolves feel emotion much more strongly than humans. They anger quicker, especially."
Emily's scarred face and Paul exploding at me were both fresh memories. "I understand where you're coming from," I said, trying to be diplomatic. "But considering I practically took your head off just now, I think I'm fine."
He nodded, looking like he expected that answer. "Do they know about, your…. Um….." he waved at me vaguely.
"No," I said. Then a thought occurred to me and I glared and leaned forward while pointing my pencils at him menacingly. "And that is not your secret to tell. Any of you," I hissed.
He backed up and held his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not planning on it, I promise," he said.
"Or any of you," I reminded him.
"Nobody will," he reassured me.
I sat back. "Good," I said. "I will still see Jake though," I added.
"That's no problem," he said. "In fact it might be helpful in restoring relations."
"Are you serious? What am I, some sort of diplomat?" I asked.
"If you're up to it, sure," he with a blinding grin. "Put in a good word for us, wouldn't you?"
I yawned, suddenly exhausted. "I'll think about it," I said. "Wait, how did you even get in here?" I asked.
He tilted his head to the window.
'Seriously?" I groaned. "That's so…cheesy."
He laughed once. "Well, that was really all I came here for." He said awkwardly. "Are you going back again tonight?"
"Nah," I said. "I'm busy, that Calc class is killer."
"Is it?" he said. "I don't find it too difficult."
"Well if I'd taken that class eight hundred times I'd find it easy too," I snapped.
His cell phone rang and he held it up to his ear and talked quietly in a voice I couldn't pick up. I focused on taking out my books and supplies out on my small desk.
"I'll get going," he said.
I turned my head and watched him prop open the window and climb out, balancing on the tree branch as he shut the window. I smiled and waved as he left and then one second he was there, the next he was gone.
I woke up well rested, which was unsettling, because usually I'd have horrible dreams, nightmares, really, but I hadn't had one for weeks, not since Orthaeus left. But I wasn't going to complain about it, and when I got to school I realized that I was going to need the energy. The sun was filtering though some clouds, so obviously neither Alice nor Edward was going to come to classes today. I was looked at and whispered about all day, which was simultaneously embarrassing and beneath my notice.
When the day was finished I took a few minutes by myself in my truck to just savor the silence. It seemed like I got fewer moments to just be alone and not worry about anything. But the looming graduation and prophecy of the giants made it very difficult to not worry. Leo, Jason, and Piper were going to leave Camp on June first and come pick me up on the coast in the Argo II, and we had to get to the Roman camp by the summer solstice. One part of me felt like that was so far away and I didn't need to worry about it, but the other part was having a nervous breakdown. I wouldn't even let myself think about Percy's mental condition, the idea that he wouldn't know who I was made me feel dizzy. Shaking it off, I started my truck after the initial rush of students had abated and drove home. Surprisingly, a silver Volvo was in my driveway.
I sauntered up to it and knocked on the window, surprised that it was Alice instead of Edward. Then again, this was one of the more 'normal' cars they had. They had BMW's, Cadillac's and Porsche's that would stick out in a small town like Forks.
"Hey stranger," she chirped.
"Car theft, Alice? Is this what you've stooped to?" I joked.
"May I come in?" she asked. She looked slightly nervous, and I wondered what was wrong.
"Of course," I said, puzzled. What could be the matter?
She pulled a hood over her head and left the car. I saw she was wearing gloves, so her hands wouldn't sparkle. We went into the house quickly, and I set my bag down and got something to eat. She looked very nervous now, and I knew something was wrong. I set my fork down and faced her.
"Was anyone attacked?" I asked. After a monster attack like the one at the house, it wasn't uncommon for a few latecomers to cause trouble a few days after. But that was weeks ago, if nothing had happened, so something else must be wrong.
"The boys left on a hunting trip," she started.
"Was anyone attacked?" I gritted out.
She sighed. "No," she said. "But I have to ask you something."
"I'm listening," I told her.
"It's just…" she fidgeted.
"I won't know what's wrong if you don't tell me, Alice," I reminded her as gently as I could.
"I'm the…oracle, right?" she said.
"Yes, you were." I stressed the last word. What was the point of this? This was common knowledge, well, common to her.
"And what you did at the house, I just felt so…helpless. The other oracle knows how to defend herself, right?" she pleaded.
I understood then. But I didn't think it was a good idea. "I can't do that, Alice," I said.
"But you said at the camp you-"
I ended that sentence with one of my own. "My trainees can handle celestial bronze. You, and everyone else, can't do that."
"I know," she said. "But I mean, I should be able to do more than just run, right? I know how to deal with vampires, so I'm not completely out of the loop, but other types of…things… I don't know how to hold them off, even," she argued.
My head went into my hands. Then, suddenly an idea occurred to me. We often trained with staffs, sticks, and hand to hand combat before we graduated to actually holding sharp blades. And neither of us was particularly destructible, so if Alice got a good punch in it wouldn't hurt me so much.
"I don't have anything you could work with," I told her. "We could do staff fighting, but I don't have those anymore. I graduated from those when I was a kid. I'll teach you some hand to hand, if that's alright. Who knows, you might pick something up you can use against Vicky."
She jumped up and squealed. "I knew you'd agree and propose this!" she said.
I rolled my eyes.
"I saw that!" she said.
I scowled and rolled them again. "Come on, leave, I have homework to do," I groaned.
"No," she said. "You didn't let me finish, we're having a sleepover."
I looked at her blandly. "Repeat that."
"Sleepover. You and us. Tonight." She said this in a very determined tone of voice.
"I can't," I told her. Part of me really did want to go, get as much time with my friends as I could, but I knew that I'd need to call Charlie, and that could attract monsters, and I didn't really want to do that, not after the peaceful weeks I'd had.
"Why not? I already called Charlie, and he said yes, and you're not allowed back until tomorrow," Alice told me.
"I'm not allowed back in my own house until tomorrow?" I asked.
"Nope," she told me.
"You're serious?" I asked. "Because if I get grounded again, I swear…" I let the threat hang.
"I'm not lying, he wants you to go," she said.
"Alright," I started going up the stairs to get my pajamas and toothbrush. "I'll be down in a minute!"
"And he wants you to order your graduation gown tonight!" Alice added.
That was really all the proof I needed that Charlie had indeed given his permission for the sleepover.
When Alice pulled into the garage I saw yet another car in the lineup, a bright yellow sports car that was spotless and gleaming in the soft lights. I got out of the car awkwardly, my backpack clanging. Alice looked over at me and wrinkled her nose.
"Is all that really necessary?" she asked.
"Better safe than sorry," I said. "Where can I put this?"
"Inside should be fine," Alice said. "And since I knew you'd agree…"
I set my bag down and checked to make sure I had everything I needed. When I turned around Alice was holding two large sticks that looked like they were only a foot shorter than I was. They were perfect, almost exactly like the ones at camp.
"Where did you get those?" I asked.
"From a hardware store, actually," she said. "I did get us five each, hope that'll be enough."
Of course she already planned everything perfectly, I thought.
Rosalie and Esme had drifted down and were looking at both of us with curious looks on their faces.
"Well where are we going to do this?" I asked. "Outside?"
She looked at Esme and Rosalie. "That should work, right?" she asked.
"Don't see why not. The chances of Victoria attacking you are very low, and we'll keep an eye out," Esme said. Rosalie nodded, her eyes flicking back and forth across the perfectly kept lawn. The sun had receded a bit, so it would be safe for Alice to go outside, but then again, nobody really came this far into the woods anyway.
I stuck a short knife into the waistband of my jeans, grabbed a stick and headed out. It was mildly cool, but I took my jacket and shirt off anyway. With the speed Alice had, which was definitely an advantage she had on me, I'd probably feel warm in no time. There were soft gasps as Esme and Rosalie took in my scarred arms, although there were more under my tank top.
"Alright," I said, ignoring the looks of pity and sorrow from them both and spoke to Alice. "You cannot move at your fastest speed, I won't be able to see you and fix any problems you have."
Alice nodded, gripping the stick tightly in her hands while shifting from one foot to another.
"Don't hold it too tightly," I said, "you'll get it knocked out of your hand quicker. Let it have some wiggle room. And stop swaying. Make up your mind where you're going to stand," I snapped. "Your center of gravity is between your hips, ground yourself." I checked to make sure that she'd changed what I pointed out. "Now attack me," I ordered.
She came at me with the speed of a human, thankfully, and then we started sparring.
