Selena's Side
...I was standing in front of my house. Just standing at the front door doing nothing. The ground fell away from my feet. Chunks of pavement fell into the dark abyss below. I saw my house get ripped off by an invisible wind, shingle by shingle. But I wasn't afraid. Somehow, I was still suspended over the spinning whirlpool of darkness.
Then I saw Zach in front of me. He was on his knees, clutching at his head like he had some kind of concussion.
"Zach!" I tried to scream his name.
But it was one of those dreams where you know something bad is going to happen but you couldn't do anything about it.
When he took his hand away, there was a mark burned on his cheek. It was the silhouette of a cat. His eyes were now bright green like it had been a few days ago on the beach. His form flickered for a second and he became a tall, athletic green-gray eyed boy. Then he changed back.
He turned to me, and his mouth curved into a sneer. My palm began pulsing wildly. The mark of the flame Hestia had burned into my hand was glowing white.
"Zach!" I tried to yell again.
He was advancing slowly like he did when he was beginning a fight.
"Zach!"
Hestia's voice filled my head. "This is your chance. You can defeat her."
"I don't' care! I don't care!" I shouted wildly.
I only saw Zach in front of me. His silky blond hair was now windswept. His face was taut and his lips were pressed. My heart normally would have stopped and pounded, but his eyes were full of…some kind of anger or vengeance.
He moved at a sudden speed and twisted my arm behind my back, forcing a knife point to my throat. Our faces were inches apart.
"Zach," I whispered.
The dagger drove a little deeper into my neck.
'Do something!' I yelled at Hestia in my thoughts.
My hand moved up on its own and I touched his other cheek –the one that didn't have the cat on it.
He let go of me and screamed. It was a horrible cry. I stumbled back and fell into the spinning vortex below.
"Zach!"
"Hey, I'm here. It's all right. It's all right." A gentle voice filled my ears. Someone was stroking my hair, pushing it away from my face.
"It's all right."
It's all right…
My eyes flipped open to a shadow looming over me. I opened my mouth to scream, but instead, someone kissed me. It was Zach.
"Hey, are you all right?" His blue eyes were filled with concern. Blue eyes. Not green. Blue.
"Oh. Yeah," I breathed. "I'm fine." I was caught captive in the sky-blue of his irises.
He helped me up. "We should be getting back to our cabins," he said.
I sighed as I walked into my sunny room. The floorboards were warm. I snatched by backpack from the floor and dumped the contents on my bed. There was a spare change of clothes and, my cell phone, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and brush. I shook the bag again. Something small fell out. It was a picture of me, my mom, my dad, and Timmy, my little brother before Dad and Mom were divorced. It was in a 3 by 3 inch frame with 'family forever' written at the bottom in Dad's neat script.
My eyes teared up when I thought of my dad. A few days after he left, he was hit by a drunk driver and died. At the funeral, mom had no expression, but I was crying my eyes out.
"Hey, knock knock." Katerina appeared at my door with something in her hands.
I literally jumped three feet. "Sheesh!"
"I got some clothes for you. I was going to give them to you earlier in the morning, but you weren't in your room. I wonder why…"
I blushed furiously.
She laughed. "I won't tell. I promise. Just tell me the truth."
"I…I…"
"It's Zach isn't it? I've seen the way he looks at you."
I nodded, guilty.
"He's a great guy. Funny. But, I don't like him like that much. Just as a friend."
"Right." I grinned. "Then how about Nico?"
It was her turn to turn red.
"NICO?"
I shrugged and she punched me lightly.
"Anyway, since we're about the same size, you can pick through the clothes if you like. You want me in here?"
I hesitated. "Yeah. Sure."
She sat down on the bed and held up a turquoise top. "Like it? It goes with your hair."
I flipped through the stack. "You must be obsessed with blue," I said.
"Nah. It goes with my eyes and it's my favorite color. I do have some other ones if you want."
"I'm fine."
In the end, I now had four tops –one gray, one turquoise, and two blue- and a few pairs of shorts.
"Thanks," I called as Katerina swung out the door.
"Welcome."
I stuffed the clothes into my bag and slung it over my shoulder. Then I closed the wooden door without looking back.
Annabeth caught up with me right after I had finished eating breakfast at the pavilion and was making my way to the car.
"Hey, I've got something for you."
"You do?" Most of the campers just ignored me and didn't even bother talking. It was like I was invisible.
"Yeah. Percy said that you should have it anyway."
I followed her into the Athena cabin. The huge stone owl in the front followed me with its creepy onyx eyes.
"Here."
Annabeth was sitting on her bunk with a wooden box on her lap. It was about as big as a shoe box and didn't have any fancy decorations. She flipped open the lid and it revealed a bronze dagger sitting on a bed of crushed red velvet.
"Isn't that your knife?" I asked stupidly.
"Actually, my knife is a replica of it. This is the real thing."
"Right." I had no idea what she was talking about.
"This…this was given to me by a very…special friend a long time ago." Her voice wavered.
"Where is he?" I immediately knew that was not a good thing to say.
"He's...dead." Annabeth's face remained stony.
"Oh. I'm sorry."
There was an awkward silence between us.
"Anyway, just take care of it. Don't use it unless you really have to, okay?"
"Um…yeah…"
A few minutes later, I was walking toward the silver SUV parked on the grass. Annabeth's dagger had changed into a clay bead with the Empire State Building on it and names in white lettering spiraling to the top.
Katerina, Zach, and Nico were gathered around Chiron and another husky guy with eyes literally covering –and I mean literally covering– his whole body. They were all different colors: blue, gray, green, brown, even purple!
Zach was looking at me, his head tilted. I blushed for about the thirtieth time and glanced at the ground. Katerina nudged me and cracked a smile.
Nico was still his sullen self. His eyes had circles under them and he smelled like he hadn't taken a bath for at least two days. His skull t-shirt was rumpled and his hair was messed up.
We began to load things into the trunk of the SUV. The four of us all had a light backpack, our weapons, 500 dollars in cash, 100 golden drachmas (Greek coins) in an impossibly light pouch, 5 passports, a hotel room sheet, and Violetta's map. When we got on the car, the gazillion-eyed guy, Argus, got in the driver's seat. I was sandwiched between Zach and Nico who refused to sit next to Katerina.
Zach held my hand for the first few minutes of the ride and slipped an object into my hand. It turned out to be a little message that said:
Z + S = FOREVER
I smiled and leaned on him. Nico raised an eyebrow and mouthed 'You like him?' I nodded and he grinned. 'Interesting choice.'
I saw that Katerina was also looking over at me and Zach. She gave me a thumbs-up made a cuckoo sign at Nico.
Nico gave her a death glare.
She stuck out her tongue and made a face.
He rolled his eyes and mouthed 'Can you believe her?' Then he stuck his earphones in his ears and settled down to his music. Katerina sign-languaged 'Jerk' and plugged in her earphones. From the backseat, Argus gave me a wink from the back of his neck.
I'd like to say that the trip to wherever we were going was awesome, but that was hard to believe. Argus had to pull over five times to separate Kat and Nico even though they were so far apart. In the end, Kat sat in the shotgun. We had two bathroom breaks and almost got hit by a RV once. There was another handicapped driver that swerved around us, trying to get Argus to hit its car. If the driver was that talented to almost make us crash, I wouldn't exactly call that 'handicapped.' More like 'Alert! Dangerous driver!'
Anyway, we got through the ride without too much trouble, I think. When we crossed the bridge to get from the U.S. to Canada, it was starting to get dark. On the bridge, the water started to ripple and the bridge shook a little bit.
"Katerina!" both boys yelled at once. Kat had a smug look on her face.
"Serves you people right. Well, not you Selena. Or you either, Zach. You too Argus. Nico…different story."
I settled back into my seat while Argus passed the passports to the man in the booth. He flickered between the million-eyed guy and a blond surfer dude. The guy in the window glanced at us and let us go. Argus checked us in at the hotel and gave Zach the key.
"Good luck," he said.
"Wait, you're just going to abandon us here?" I asked.
"I'm not allowed to interfere on the quest. Good luck and goodbye." He got into the elevator and the doors closed and dinged.
Nice meeting you, I thought.
Zach let out a puff of air before looking at us. "I guess this is it. We're on our own."
"Yeah…"
"I hope we don't get killed," Nico piped.
"Shut up, idiot. There are people in this floor, you know."
"You could get killed?"
Nico nodded seriously at me. "It's true."
"Shut up, Nico!"
"You still want to join?"
Zach was looking at me helplessly.
"You…you never said that I could get killed," I stammered. My heart started to pound.
"Yeah. You could. In nasty ways you never thought of. That's why we wanted you to train, duh."
Kat whacked him good and hard on his head. I took in a shaky breath. Zach put an arm around me protectively and murmured in my ear, "It'll be all right. I'll protect you even if I have to die. I promise."
Kat was now hitting an angry-looking Nico and he was protesting loudly. Suddenly, a door across from us opened. A tired woman stood out in the hall.
"Shh! We're trying to sleep!" Then she slammed the door.
I suppressed a smile and Zach opened the door the hotel room.
Sorry about the long wait, guys. Computer problems and homework! Long story! :D
~CampHB
