I would just like to say that I am so glad I'm rewriting this, after I look back on the way I used to have Eli and Raven act and the things they said I'm just like how in the fuck did I ever even write this, but I suppose that's part of the process. If you're reading this, be thankful you didn't read the original version, sure the idea itself was awesome and the storyline was great, but the layout and everything in between weaving the events together, it was almost like, at times, you could tell I had no direction with the story. Really, what happened was I got to a point where I had no clue where I was gonna go with it so I decided to rewrite the story and rework some stuff to kill time until I could figure something out.
Chapter 4: Mr. Steal yo bitch
Eli:
After drill was over, I headed to the archery range to blow off some steam. Despite how many people were present in Camp Half-Blood, the archery range was completely empty, except for one girl. Even as I entered, I had to stop and stare, fuck it I won't even lie, I was checking her out from the moment I laid eyes on her. She had a sleek, slender figure although I could see the muscle tone from years of doing demigod stuff. Her blonde hair fell down past her shoulders, and even from a distance, I could see her piercing blue eyes as they locked onto me, almost assessing how big of a threat I could be.
I kept walking towards the range, drawing my bow as I did so. She had stopped and was recovering arrows from her target, but I could see her stealing glances at me as I took my place at the range and notched an arrow. I steadied my breathing, the way Amber had taught me, before letting the arrow fly, scoring a hit on the stomach of the human shaped target. I silently cursed to myself and notched another arrow, this time missing completely.
"Straighten your arm a bit," A voice said from behind, causing me to jump "And use your pointer finger to hold the arrow steady."
I turned to find the blonde girl standing behind me, eyeing my form. Her voice had a sort of hypnotic quality to it, like when she talked you didn't feel obligated to listen, you just wanted to. I found myself, for the first time in my entire life, utterly speechless. I considered myself to be one of the smoothest guys I knew, back in Bompton, I was known to more than a few as (Pardon the language) Mr. Steal yo bitch, we used to take bets on which girl I could get into bed and how fast, but this one was different. She was intimidatingly beautiful, with a look in her eye that said she'd sooner knock your teeth out than talk to you. I took note of her tan skin, curvy in all the right spots type of figure, and a few other key things.
"Hi." I managed to stutter out
"If that was your attempt at hitting on me," She said, raising her eyebrows "You'd better step your game up, I've heard better opening lines from three year olds in the grocery store."
"What makes you think I'm hitting on you?" I asked her "Maybe I was just saying hi."
"Oh please, drop the act," She said, rolling her eyes "Even as you're talking, I can literally see your eyes moving up and down my body."
"Eh," I shrugged "I'm a guy, what can I say?"
"I suppose I'll take that as a compliment," She said "Look all you want, but you touch and you lose your hand, comprende?"
"I got it," I laughed "Now what were you saying about my arm?"
"Keep it straight," She said, her tone softening a bit "Like this."
She drew back her bow, pausing and giving me enough time to see exactly how she stood and everything she was doing immediately before she fired. I was nothing if not observant, I took note of her stance, the way her foot seemed to turn to the side a bit as she aimed, the way she used her finger to position the arrow exactly where she wanted it right before she let it fly and scored a head shot.
"Think you can manage that?" She asked, mockingly as if she were speaking to a little kid
"I'm the son of Diana," I laughed "Damn straight I'll manage it."
I stepped up and took aim at the target, doing exactly as the girl had done. She was right, and I felt much more confident in my shot, my bow was steadier than it had been. I let the arrow fly, striking the neck rather than the head I had been aiming for, still lethal either way.
"Not bad," She shrugged "Could use a little improvement, learn to compensate for the drop of the arrow especially at a distance."
"Maybe you could help with that?" I asked, raising my eyebrows
"Maybe I could," She said, suddenly examining her nails with interest "Depends, what's in it for me? You're the son of Diana, you say, and you're a member of the legion? You ought to have plenty of training."
"True," I admitted "But, ya see, the way I figure it, there ain't a thing wrong with a little extra help."
"Question remains," She said, stretching and turning to walk away "What's in it for me?"
As she turned, I couldn't help but look at her ass again. This time, I noticed something sticking out of her back pocket I hadn't before, it looked like one of those little wooden cases, dugouts I think, that holds your one hitter and a bit of bud. Suddenly, I got an idea. Mr. Steal yo bitch was about to nail it home, metaphorically of course, I didn't figure this girl for the type to drop her pants immediately for the first dude who came along.
"I'll smoke you out," I said as she stopped walking "Meet up, teach me some stuff about the bow, and then we can smoke after each time. C'mon, it's the same color as money at least."
She turned to face me again and regarded me for a moment, unsure of what to do. Finally, she let a small smile come to her lips before she shook her head. She took her one hitter case from her pocket and opened it, getting ready to pack a few.
"I suppose you have a deal, the name's Kayla Whitaker, daughter of Apollo" She said, shaking my hand and offering me a onie "I guess you owe me for one lesson."
"I suppose I do," I laughed, taking it "Eli Alistair, son of Diana."
We smoked a few onies before continuing, Kayla really knew her stuff, and I could tell she had been at this for a while. A few hours later, Kayla decided we should call it a night, and I figured I should pay her the fee. We sat down on some benches in the corner and I went to work rolling a joint, at one point I was staring so intently at Kayla that I didn't realize I had torn the paper, that's when she took matters into her own hands.
"Gimme that," She laughed, taking the small tray from my hands "Unbelievable, can't roll a joint."
"I can to," I protested "I just...got distracted, is all."
As I said the words she grabbed another paper and had rolled it in less than twenty seconds, wiggling her eyebrows at me as she lit it. We sat in silence for a moment, neither one of us really sure what to say. Now that we weren't discussing archery, the two of us had no clue what to talk about.
"So," She finally said, breaking the ice "Son of Diana, huh? Hear you and your brother are pretty powerful."
"Raven is," I admitted "I'm not very good at this yet, but I'm learning."
"Nobody's good at this when they first arrive," Kayla told me "When I first got here, I could barely hold a bow right, much less fight with it."
"How long have you been here?" I asked her as she passed the joined
"Give or take, four years," She shrugged "Satyrs found me, my mom wouldn't let me go."
"Why not?" I asked "Don't they say this is the safest place for us?"
"My mom was on drugs, hardcore drugs," She said coldly "She didn't care that I was leaving, she just didn't want anybody running off with what, in her eyes at least, belonged to her."
"I'm sorry," I told her "I didn't mean-"
"I know you didn't mean anything by it," She said, waving it off "You seem like a sweet, clueless guy, so I won't hold what you say against you."
"I don't know about sweet," I laughed, handing the joint back "Or clueless for that matter."
"All guys are clueless," She laughed "Anyways, what about you?"
"What about me?" I asked her
"Where'd you grow up?" She asked "What's it like being the son of Artemis...er, Diana, I mean?"
"I grew up in some orphanage down in Southern LA," I told her "Owners hooked on anything that got them high, most of the kids there ended up being dealers or users, the place ended up being a drug den."
"Rough," She nodded her understanding "What about you? What did you do?"
"Me?" I asked, half laughing half scoffing "I was a dealer. Wasn't nothing else for me, I lived on the street most of life, slept there a few times too. Eventually, a friend of mine that was a Blood got me in, and it was all uphill from there, at least, that's what it seemed like at the time."
"What do you mean?" She asked me
"Me and Santo, we were unstoppable," I said, remembering my friend with sadness that never truly went away "Thirteen years old, we were making more money than anybody else our age. He was a bit older than I was, so he had a head start when it came to plugs and getting everything we'd need."
Kayla was quiet, nearly hanging off the edge of her seat. I noticed that the joint had burned out, but neither one of us attempted to relight it. I was too focused on telling the story and she was focused on listening. I didn't know why I was telling this to somebody I'd only just met, but Kayla had that vibe to her like you could just tell her anything and not have to worry about her judging you or thinking any less of you, sort of like Annabeth, Amber, or Piper, except, lucky me, she wasn't taken (that I knew of) or a Hunter.
"He got me started, fronted me a few zips and a ki," I remembered "We was young, in love with the gangster lifestyle. I'm not talking pimping hoes, shacking dice, or bumping a bunch of ghetto tunes from big ass subs in a fancy car. Nah, I mean real gangsters, we wanted money, power, respect, we wanted to take over California, we were gonna be the next Pablo Escobars, we wanted it all. Problem is, ain't nobody gonna respect a couple of teenagers with no reputation or anybody to vouch for them."
"So you made a name for yourself?" She guessed
"One way to put it," I shrugged "We made a lot of friends fast, but with those friends came enemies too. We started moving as much weight as we could, I remember a time for almost three months straight where we did nothing every night except rob somebody or make a drug deal, and the more we did it, the bigger the jobs became."
"How big time of a criminal could you possibly have been at sixteen?" She asked, a hint of doubt to her voice
"We moved it all. Coke, heroin, weed, meth, you name it," I continued "Pretty soon, most of the criminal underground in southern Cali knew who we were. We met with mobsters, arms dealers, even went all the way down to Texas for a job paying almost thirty grand. Some guys were paying to have a bunch of illegals brought over the border, they all turned out to be carrying drugs but we didn't know that at the time, turns out that's why the job was paying so much."
"So where did it all go wrong?" She asked, confused
"A few years ago," I began "When we were first starting out, Santo managed to talk one of his cousins who was running jobs out of Chicago to throw the two of us a bone. After making sure we understood these guys would kill us if we fucked with their money or tried to pull a fast one of them, he hooked us up with a contact of his in the mob out in Vegas. We headed up there, met with this guy who was needing a few younger guys to just pose as two teenagers taking a road trip."
"Don't tell me you ran off with all of the drugs?" She said, automatically assuming it was a drug smuggling thing
"No and the van was full of guns, not drugs," I corrected her "We did the job, everything was cool, we got paid, went our separate ways. About nine or ten months ago, the guy has this contact in LA who gets ahold of us and tells us he's got another job for us to do, told us this was a big job, and the score was huge."
"What was it?" She asked
"A diamond heist."
3rd person: March 5, earlier that year
"So let me get this straight," Eli said, looking to Santo as he pulled away from the red light "Jeff hooked you up with these guys?"
"Yep, said we were about to start making the big money," Santo confirmed "These guys are legit, man. Real gangsters, we play our cards right and get in good with these guys we're gonna start moving up. They do real work, I'm talking bank robberies, selling enough weapons to arm entire countries, moving drugs for the cartels."
Santo, the Italian word for Saint, an ironic nickname. Vincent "Santo" Andretti was one of the most feared people in southern Bompton, ruthless, quick to fight, and an ability to draw trouble wherever he seemed to go. At fourteen, he had already been in and out of jail since he and his father had arrived on the boat from the old country at the age of eleven. By the time he had turned seventeen, he was sitting on enough money to buy himself a house and at least two cars, but he wouldn't stop there, it just wasn't his way.
Eli was his only true friend, the one had his back no matter what, the one who had helped him fight off his father when he came home in one of his drunken rages, the one person in the entire world he knew wouldn't turn his back on him for anything, not even his own life.
"With that kind of money, we could run the city," Eli said, amazed at their fortune "We could even start running our own jobs if we wanted."
"Exactly," Santo nodded "And with the connections we've got, it's only a matter of time before we're on a beach house in Miami, we'll run this world."
"Don't get ahead of yourself." Eli warned him
"I'm not, Fratello." He said as they pulled up to a small bookstore in downtown San Jose
"You sure this is the place?" Eli asked suspiciously "Walking into a bookstore and asking names ain't exactly the best plan."
"Hold on a second," Santo said, waving him off and dialing his phone "Hey, we're outside man, but the address you gave is just a bookstore."
He paused for a second, listening to Jeff, who Eli knew he had called, on the other end. Jeff was a friend they had made in their few dealings with the mob. Even for as young as the two were, they had impressed him, and he had liked the way they handled themselves. But, most importantly they had proven themselves capable of getting the job done, and if mobsters liked anything, it was money ill gotten and well spent.
"Alright, good deal, we'll head in, stai attento," He said hanging up the phone "He says head in and ask the owner if they've got a copy of 'The Goblet of Fire' and he'll take us to the back."
"You think he actually does though?" Eli asked as they got out of the car "My copy's all warn down and falling apart."
"In all honesty, fuck that one," Santo said "Whole thing could've been prevented if Cedric had listened to Harry in the first place, he would've been alive and everybody wouldn't have thought he was a liar."
"If we're getting technical, whole school should've been shut down years ago," Eli countered "But, it wasn't a bad book, actually the best one, I think. Either way, if we grabbed something and teleported somewhere you wouldn't start looking around?"
"In that graveyard?" Santo scoffed "Hell no, I'd have grabbed that cup and been gone in a second."
The argument continued until the pair of them entered the store. The inside was old and dusty, completely empty except for an old man sitting behind a counter towards the front. He was frail and thin, almost as if he was simply a skeleton who's skin hadn't decayed yet. Santo wondered, for a moment, if he was even still alive before he spoke.
"Can I help you?" He asked, his voice soft and raspy
"We're looking for a copy of 'The Goblet of Fire'," Eli told him "Do you have one?"
"Come on to the back," He said, rolling his eyes "There may be one or two."
They went behind the counter and followed him to the back. As they passed through the hallway and finally went through a door on the far end, they noticed three others already seated around a table, drinking scotch and smoking cigarettes, they all looked to be about late twenties or early thirties. Another thing Santo noticed was an old, black and white picture of three men standing in front of a church, each one wearing the uniform of an American soldier and carrying M1 rifles. There was jacket lying on the desk, an old Army jacket with the patch of the Big Red One on the sleeve, the thread on the name patch had been pulled away and another name was sewed onto it: Red.
He shuddered to think how they had threatened the old man to get him to agree to this, and what they told him they'd do if he ratted.
None of your business, Santo reminded himself You've got a job to do and money to make.
"Who the hell are they?" One of the guys demanded "Why did you bring them back here? What's wrong with you, lousy fuckin' old man."
"They knew the code," Red shrugged, his old eyes filled with hate "Kiss my ass, your problem now."
"Jeff sent us," Eli told them as the old man left the room "We're the last two members of your crew."
"What?" The same one, a tall guy that seemed as if he were built of muscles, demanded in shock "Shit, Frank, I know Jeff said they were young but I don't know about this."
"Jeff also said they'd proven themselves capable of getting the job done," Frank, a much smaller, dark haired guy, said in a brooding tone "Said they'd handled themselves well in past jobs, I trust Jeff, might be more to these kids than we see."
"Don't be worrying about us," Santo told them "We'll pull our weight, now what's the score?"
"Straight to the point, eager to get down to business, I like that," A tall, black guy laughed, showing us a builtin board with a bunch of different maps and routs outlined on it "The score, gentlemen, is four hundred and fifty thousand dollars in diamonds."
Holy shit, Eli thought Jeff wasn't kidding when he said big money.
"Now these guys lifted the diamonds from somebody somewhere," He continued "Don't matter who, point is they've got em. They're transporting it by truck to meet with a buyer, we've got valuable Intel that says they're meeting somewhere in the mountains outside the city. If the route is correct, they'll be coming up this road right here."
He pointed to a long and narrow road leading outside of the city and into the mountain ranges, the distance was almost fifty eight miles.
"So what's the plan then, David?" Frank asked him
"James and I will take a helicopter and follow them out of the city," David said "Frank, you'll take these two...sorry, I didn't catch a name?"
"The boys call me Hunter." Eli said simply
"Hunter?" James asked "The hell they call you that for?"
"Because if you ever get the privilege to watch this motherfucker fight somebody," Santo spoke up "It's like watching a wild animal take down it's prey, the name's Santo by the way."
"Nobody asked for your ghetto rat nicknames," Frank said, rolling his eyes "What's your actual names? These fuckin' kids these days, man."
"Eli." Eli said, giving a small chuckle
"Vincent," Santo said "Call me Vin."
"Alrighty," David said clapping his hands "Frank you'll take Eli and Vin and drive ahead of us, there's a point on your map where you'll head, at least an hour or so ahead of them, that's where we ambush them and take the diamonds."
"How much are we talking?" Santo asked
"Fifty thousand in cash for each of us as soon as the diamonds are sold." David told them
"Woah," Eli whistled "That's a lot."
"Kid, that's petty change," Frank said dismissively "You do good on this, there'll be even bigger jobs for you."
They all laughed and Frank poured the two of them a drink. They had about a half hour to kill, during which time David bragged about how many jobs he'd pulled off and told the story of his first job he'd ever pulled.
Kayla:
Eli suddenly stopped talking, looking up at the moon and yawning.
"Well, I suppose it's getting late, I should be headed to bed." He said
"What?" I laughed "I want to hear the rest of the story."
"Maybe some other time," He teased, walking away "See you tomorrow night, same time."
I knew exactly what kind of game he playing, trying to make me want to see him again, to make me come back if not just to hear the rest of the story. I had to admit, he wasn't exactly try to hide the fact he was hitting on me, but he was pretty cool.
"You're not even gonna finish this?" I asked, holding up the half smoked joint
"Keep it!" He called over his shoulder as he grabbed his backpack and left the arena
He's not bad to look at, either. I thought to myself as I lit the joint again
