Author's Note: I know I said I'd be faster but I'm a terrible person so... I do love you guys though. And I do feel bad about how slowly I update. So there's that...
I enjoyed writing this chapter. Idk if you guys will like it but I like it.
Thanks to ShutUpPercy who beta'd this for me! Great person right here
Chapter Ten
Jimmy – the truck driver they hitched a ride from – could only take them so far. He dropped them off somewhere in Utah, which was ages away from Chicago. Octavian, Jason and Reyna wandered through the unknown streets, trying to brainstorm any kind of travel route that didn't cost a billion dollars.
"You know," Reyna mused at one point. "We're like, really lucky that trucker wasn't an axe murderer. I'm just saying, if we look at things optimistically, we're doing pretty good. We're closer to Chicago than we were yesterday. I guess that's good."
"How long is it from Utah to Chicago?" Octavian asked.
Jason paused before asking someone. "About 20 hours by car," he said.
"That's less than a day," Octavian mused. "Does anyone know how to steal a car?"
"None of us are older than thirteen years old," Reyna said, rolling her eyes. "None of us know how to drive a car." She was still annoyed at the pair of them for the argument they'd gotten into before hitching a ride. She wasn't a part of this group and they both knew it.
Jason just sighed. "I'm hungry."
Reyna paused. "Come on, I have an idea for some food."
They found a little corner store with no costumers around. It was about lunch time, so everyone was at work or at school. Octavian walked in first, pushing sunglasses on. The shopkeeper watched him like he might be trouble.
Reyna and Jason went in next, together. They'd tried to make themselves look menacing, with hoods and a spikey wristband Reyna had found for a dollar. They messed up their hair and their tired eyes and pale skin already made them look hungry.
The shop keeper's attention was turned onto them, clearly more dangerous than Octavian.
Jason found a large chocolate bar and sneaked it into his pocket. Reyna hid a water bottle under her hoodie. "Hey!" The shop keeper yelled. Reyna and Jason half turned to him. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Browsing?" Jason suggested.
"I saw you," the shop keeper growled. "Put those things back."
"What things?" Reyna asked, blinking. Jason slipped a packet of crisps under his shirt.
The shop keeper glowered at them. He moved out from behind his cashier and headed towards them, a mean snarl on his face. "That chocolate bar, that water and those crisps," he said. "Put them back before I call the authorities. You're old enough to get punished for this."
"We didn't take anything," Jason said, as Reyna grabbed a box of biscuits and hid them.
"I am watching you shop lift as we speak," the shop keeper exclaimed. "You just stole that box of biscuits. I'm not stupid you know! I'm not blind!" As his full attention was on Jason and Reyna, he didn't notice Octavian leave his store, his coat filled with food and drink.
"You're right," Reyna sighed. "I'm sorry." She took the water and biscuits from her hoodie and put them back in their place. Jason paused. "Adam," Reyna scolded him. "He's going to call the authorities. Or our parents." Jason slowly put his things back. "Again, sorry," Reyna said, as they backed out of his shop.
They met Octavian a couple streets down on a small grassy hill on the highway, as he unloaded all of the stolen goods from his coat, and handed them out. Bread and cheese along with some big water bottles and some chocolate and sweets. They laughed a little at the idiocy of the shop keeper as they passed food around.
"How did you know that would work?" Jason asked Reyna.
She shrugged. "When my sister and I ran from Puerto Rico, we didn't have anything. We met some homeless guy called Wren. He'd do the shop lifting as Hylla would 'teach' me that stealing was wrong. I was only like, ten at the time so the jig went a little differently."
Jason nudged Octavian, who rolled his eyes. "Whatever happened to Wren?" He asked. Jason had asked him to be nicer to Reyna earlier that day, and that meant taking an interest in her life. He guessed.
Reyna just sucked her teeth, looking down the hill. "There's a bin over there," she commentated, holding up her sweet wrapped. Jason and Octavian handed her their wrappers as well and she walked down the hill as they packed the rest of the food up.
"You know, when this quest is finished, we still have that family reunion party to go to," Octavian reminded him.
Jason just scoffed. "I'm not family. I'm their pet. Remember?"
Octavian just threw him a 'not amused' face. "You're my brother," he reminded him. "I want you there. Just be cool?"
"They're judgemental First-Cohort jerks," Jason said. "No offence."
"None taken; all true," Octavian huffed. "But I have to go. So you have to go."
Jason was just looking past Octavian, a confused expression on his face. "Where's Reyna?" He asked.
Both boys turned to the bin Reyna had jogged to. She was nowhere to be seen. They ran down the hill and looked up and down the street from the trash can. Nowhere. Octavian looked in the garbage can. "She left the wrappers here," he said. "You look left and I'll go right?"
Jason nodded before running left.
-0-0-0-0-0-
The Princess Andromeda wasn't that bad after the first night. Gwen actually kind of liked this place. They had deck chairs and water slides, manicurists and hair stylists. She bought a light blue bikini from the little shop and spent her time on a deck chair enjoying an alcohol-free (Luke had limitations) cocktail while getting her nails done.
Thirteen and already living the life. Gwen had style.
And all she had to do was meet with Luke and Dakota every evening to talk about their home. Luke never pestered them or even asked too many intrusive questions. He would just ask them about the routine and talk to them about some memories there. Where they lived, what they did for fun. They just talked about it. It wasn't an interrogation.
Of course, when the important information came up, Gwen lied through her teeth. She told Luke to believe it, and he did. Simple as that.
So really, the only problem was Dakota. At every little event she went to, he was there, claiming it was a coincidence. She'd visit the gym for a yoga session and see him hitting the treadmill. She'd go to the pool to laze about on a floaty to see him yelling his way down a nearby water slide. Every buffet, every dinner. They even ate at the same time. And their separate bedrooms were next to each other, so they saw each other every morning as well.
Gwen started expecting it. She handed Dakota a tray for breakfast every morning. To cut the queues, he'd grab her some toast while he made himself cereal, and she'd make them both hot chocolates on the other side of the room.
They'd only been on that ship for two days and they were already… communicating?
Gwen shuddered at the thought.
"So we got kidnapped from our home," Dakota mused one lunch, picking at a pizza in the crowded room, "and now we're about to get questioned about our home so our enemies can invade. And I'm just sat here eating pizza."
"Well are we supposed to jump into the ocean to escape?" Gwen asked. "I've watched Titanic, and I don't want to die."
"We're not in the middle of the ocean," Dakota rolled his eyes. "It's probably only a mile or two away from land. I can swim that. I think."
Gwen was leaning on one hand, the other picking bored at her food. However, at that statement, she looked up. "Well we could do the maths," she shrugged. "We swim in metres. There are 1609.34 metres in a mile. We have a 50 metre pool at Camp. I can do about two laps a minute. Do you know how many laps we'll have to do to get to land? Roughly 32.18. That will take us all day. All day for all the sea monsters on this ship to get us and rip us apart. That's assuming the freezing water doesn't kill us, or a shark."
Dakota just looked speechless. Gwen expected him to argue but he didn't. He just blinked. "You're smart?"
"What?"
"I always thought you were some bimbo who cares more about her hair than her brain," Dakota said.
Now Gwen paused. "Oh, I do," she shrugged. "I'd much rather have a nice haircut than be smart. Do you know what a burden it is to be surrounded by idiots all day?" She sighed before saying, "My dad was really big on books. He was a Physicist. He'd drill maths and Science through my head. Turned out that's all he wanted me for. I got to camp very young, and I guess learning things, drilling my brain with numbers and facts was a way to hang onto him."
Dakota sighed and chewed his lip. "I never knew my Mom," he said. "She didn't want me. I was adopted by these two rich conservative people. I guess I was spoiled. Then they told me I was adopted and I ran away. They didn't look for me. Then I found Camp and here we are. So… there's that."
Gwen just held her chin up and observed him with a cold stare. And it took her at least thirty seconds to figure out how to reply to that. "I'm sorry, are we friends?"
"No, not at all," Dakota huffed, looking disgusted.
Gwen smirked and looked all over the room, watching Luke talking to an advisor and pointing to Gwen and Dakota. She crossed her arms and watched. "I think we'll have to be," she mused.
"What?"
"Friends," she said, rolling her eyes. "I think Luke is going to try and separate us. We'd talk more without each other. I mean it makes sense. If I was going to say something dangerous, I'd want you to kick me under the table."
"Maybe it's best if we do talk," Dakota sighed. "I mean… I've never even seen my Dad. Never spoken to him or heard from him. He doesn't care. None of them do. Maybe punishing them is a good idea." Gwen kicked him under the table. "Hey!"
"You were about to say something dangerous," she defended.
He paused before sighing. "What did you say about being friends?" He asked, scowling.
"If we look inseparable, Luke may realise we won't talk without each other at all," she mused. "It's just a thought. A fake friendship in favour of the Camp. I mean we end up at the same places anyway. Might as well go together and pretend like we're not disgusted by each other's presence."
"Sounds challenging," he scoffed. "Fine."
Gwen rolled her eyes.
-0-0-0-0-0-
When Reyna woke up she instantly felt a stinging pain in her neck. She tried to sit up but she was almost entirely numb from the waist up. She blinked but her vision remained foggy and unclear. She tried to speak but she couldn't feel her tongue.
After a minute her vision started to clear. She was curled up on a hardwood floor of something that looked like a trailer. There was a bed in one corner, a little kitchenette, a small couch. A thick metal bars between the ceiling and floor, locking Reyna into that one little corner. She tried to speak again but her breath hitched and she coughed instead.
"You're awake," said a vaguely familiar voice. Although Reyna couldn't quite pin a face to it. "Excellent. Now we can get started." Reyna looked around for the speaker and found her, sat on the floor outside the cage, leaning against the wall of the trailer. She was smiling sadistically at Reyna and toying with a gun.
It took Reyna a minute to recognise her. "You're the-"
"The empousa from the train whose sisters you killed," she finished, getting to her feet. "I go by Kelli." Reyna couldn't tell if Kelli had a human form or if it was just the mist, but she looked pretty normal, without the flame hair or the fangs.
"Bitch," Reyna corrected, forcing herself to sit up and remember what happened. Her elbow was in pain; bruised even. But her knuckles were fine. She was attacked from behind and she elbowed them in the nose. That's right. Then the stinging in her neck was a needle and the numbness… she had fallen unconscious.
"Now, now, no need for the slander," Kelli sighed. "It's going to be a long night. Leila?" The trailer door opened and a girl walked in. No, this one wasn't a monster. Reyna could tell. This girl was human. She was Asian, pale with dark curly hair, about the same age as Reyna. She was slender and wore comfortable clothes that, for some reason, made Reyna think she must have been a good hugger.
"Call him," Kelli ordered.
The girl – Leila – picked up a phone from the Kitchenette and dialled a number before handing it to the vampire, who put it on speaker. "Reyna?!" Came a voice from the other end of the line, a desperate, pleading voice. Jason.
She tried to speak but Kelli pointed the gun at her so she shut up. "That depends," the vampire mused. "How badly do you want to see her alive?"
"Who's this?" Jason asked after a pause.
Kelli smirked. "Ask my sisters. Oh wait, you can't. They're dead. You killed them not two days ago."
"I didn't… oh," Jason said, shocked. Reyna had almost forgotten about the phone they'd taken with them room Camp in case of emergencies. She wondered how Leila had gotten their number. She wondered if Octavian was delighted in her absence. "You're the vampire who blew up the train," Jason concluded.
"Good job," Kelli grinned, viciously. "Want proof?" She raised the gun to Reyna and fired.
The bullet hit her leg, in the centre of her shin. Reyna had never wondered what it felt like to get shot. She'd never really been that curious. She didn't really know how to feel about the experience. On the one hand, she was glad the pain seemed minimal. Honestly, she went numb with shock, so it didn't really hurt. She didn't want to scream or anything. But the numbness spread to her eyes, her ears. Everything. She didn't feel anything for so long that she was afraid she'd never feel anything again. It scared her that she was so unresponsive and so powerless.
When she came too, only a second had past. But it felt like forever.
The numbness faded before Kelli lowered the gun again, and then the pain hit. Reyna wished she wouldn't scream. She wished to all the Gods that she could just grind her teeth and stay strong, and stand up even. But she screamed because staying strong through that pain was impossible.
"Hurt her again, and you're dead."
She heard those words come from the phone after a pause. Jason sounded breathy, as if he'd been the one screaming.
"I hurt her again; she's dead," Kelli replied, handing the gun over the Leila. "All I need is a couple of answers about your camp. My friend Luke's trying to get them the friendly way. I want to get them the real way. Now torturing a Roman for information? No go. But they're as emotional as the rest of us. So if I torture a Roman's best friend, then I think I'll get what I want."
"What do you want to know?" Jason asked, almost instantly.
"What's the best way to get into your camp?" Kelli asked.
"There's a door in a tunnel under a hill in San Francisco," Jason said. "I think it's called Caldecott tunnel or something. If your invading, then big monsters can't go through so they'll have to go over the hills is they can break through the mist. The magical barriers can be broken through simple magic."
Kelli smirked before getting to her feet. "We'll be outside." She left the trailer while on the phone and Reyna turned to Leila, who looked stressed.
When she regained the ability to speak, Reyna leaned against the bars and looked at her pleadingly. "Got any toilet paper or something?" She asked.
"Seriously?" Leila asked, looked disgusting.
"For my leg, genius," Reyna said, rolling her eyes.
"Oh," she said. Leila got up and walked to the back of the trailer, coming back a few seconds later with a roll of tissue, which she pushed through the bars. Reyna was only wearing leggings, so she pushed them up and inspected the wound. After a deep breath, she stuck two fingers in and reached around for a bullet, using the toilet paper to gag her screams. Then she wrapped the wound up as tightly as she could and tried to breathe through the pain. "Well you're tough," Leila observed.
Reyna just looked up at her and shrugged. "I get over my shit quickly," she said. "So what are you? Mortal?"
"Demigod," Leila answered.
Reyna raised an eyebrow. "Demigod working against other Demigods?"
"I work against the Gods," Leila shrugged. "It's not personal. I've never even heard from my Godly mother, who left me with my abusive mortal Dad. Wouldn't you want revenge too?"
Reyna almost laughed when she remembered her Dad. The Pirates. She never got help from her mother. "That's everybody's story," Reyna snapped. "It doesn't make you a special snowflake. Invading the home – the only safe sanctuary for kids just like you – isn't going to make your mom sorry."
"No, but raising her father will," Leila said, smirking proudly. "My Mom's Ceres. Her Dad is Saturn. The Titan? We're going to raise him up and storm Olympus, burning that place to the ground. That will make her sorry."
Reyna finished wrapping up her leg, which seemed to hold the minimal amount of bleeding, before holding the cardboard hinge back to Leila. She held her hand inside the cage as she held the piece of rubbish out. "Here you go," she sighed. Her voice was croaky, probably from her previous scream and she ached all over.
Leila just shrugged. "Keep it."
"How do you know I won't use it as a weapon?" Reyna asked, forcing a slight smile as an attempted cockiness. "You don't know what they taught us at Camp Jupiter, do you?"
Leila paused before scoffing slightly and reaching inside the bars to get the piece of rubbish. Reyna took the opportunity to grab her wrist and pull as hard as she could, as if trying to drag Leila into the cage with her. Leila's head hit the bars but not enough to knock her unconscious. Her feet fell from under her and she slipped to the floor, until she was on Reyna's – who's leg was too weak to stand – level.
Reyna reached her other arm out of the cage and shoved it against Leila's neck, chocking her between her forearm and the cold metal bar of the cage. Then she let Leila's other arm go. Leila clawed at Reyna's grip, but the trained demigod was too strong for her. With Leila distracted by not choking, Reyna took the gun out of her hand, before letting her go.
"You really think they didn't teach us Top Ten Ways to Have Fun in a Cage?" Reyna demanded, pointing the gun to Leila and scrambling further back into the cage, so Leila couldn't reach in and take the gun back. Leila stood up, rubbing her bruised neck and backing away from Reyna. "To be fair, it wasn't all me. I'd like to thank Kelli. I mean, what dumb-as-soup monster carries a frickin gun?!"
Reyna used the wall to force herself to her feet – the good one anyway. She felt as though she needed desperately to stretch, like her muscles were all compacting. But whenever she tried to stretch, the wound in her leg burned, so she didn't. "Where's the key?" She demanded, pointing the gun still.
Leila mumbled something as she raised her hands up in surrender.
"What?" Reyna yelled, trying to scare her.
"I don't have the key – Kelli has it," Leila exclaimed. "The latch us up there." She pointed to the top right corner of the cage, where a padlock sat on a flat metal slab. From every angle, Reyna couldn't reach far enough on the slap to get the lock.
"Open it," she commanded Leila. "Now!"
"I don't have the key!" Leila insisted.
Reyna took a deep breath and spoke as if the solution was obvious. "Then get it!" Leila ran out of the trailer to Kelli, who was probably still on the phone to Jason. Reyna waited a few seconds before aiming the gun at the padlock and pulling the trigger.
She preferred being on the giving end of the shot than the receiving end. The recoil made her jerk back and her arms felt slightly limp after, but she recovered quickly to look at her shot.
She'd missed.
Okay, she thought. Let's try again.
It took her three more shots to blow the padlock off like they did in the movies and she felt pretty damn proud of herself after.
Then one wall of the cage opened like a door on a hinge and she limped into the rest of the trailer. Okay, so her leg was still injured, so she couldn't be a complete badass and storm out of there, but she was still holding the gun.
She'd be kidnapped and shot, and now she was holding the gun.
As far as badassery went, she'd done pretty good that day.
She limped out of the trailer, just as Kelli and Leila were running back. Panic flared in the vampire's eyes when she saw Reyna was free, and she couldn't help but love that feeling. She aimed the gun at Kelli and yelled, "Get back!"
"That little toy doesn't work on me," Kelli replied, smirking. Leila, on the other hand, held her hands up and took two steps back. Reyna knew the bullets wouldn't work on the empousa. They weren't Imperial Gold like their weapons were. But as the vampire advance, Reyna shot her anyway. Twice. Neither shot impacted Kelli, who kept moving forward.
Reyna desperately tried to fire again, but the pistol was out of amo. Reyna contemplated hitting her over the head with the butt of the gun like they did in movies, but that wouldn't work either. She ended up dropping the weapon and looking around for another one. No luck.
The vampire was close enough to breath on her and Reyna braced herself for the strike but none came. Instead, Kelli just grabbed her arm and dragged her along. The trailer was parked in the middle of a dark forest, so they walked over branches and logs. Reyna's leg started burning again as they walked and all Reyna wanted to do was sit down and let it rest. Again, no such luck.
It was only a ten-minute walk to the edge of the forest, where, on the side of a highway, Kelli let her go. "We organized your freedom," she said. Reyna spotted Jason, standing a few feet away. He ran forward when Reyna was free and instantly wrapped his arms around her to support her. She leaned on him and let her leg relax.
Kelli just grinned at the pair of them. "You betrayed your Camp," she mused, glaring at Jason. "The only thing stronger than your loyalty to your comrades, is your friendship with this one insignificant girl."
"That one insignificant girl," Jason said, turning to Reyna, "is my best friend. So yeah, I'd do pretty much anything to save her. But I'd also do pretty much anything to save my Camp, so if that means outsmarting a monster then…"
He trailed off and Kelli's face fell in confusion. She started to speak but was cut off by an arrow being lodged into her arm. None of them could see the shooter, but the next arrow was lodged in her heart. She exploded into gold powder before she could locate her murderer.
Octavian jumped down from the trees and aimed the next arrow at Leila, who started to run for the woods. "She's a Demigod," Reyna called out before Octavian could kill her. "She didn't know any better."
Octavian sighed before putting his weapons away and chasing after her. Jason just sat Reyna down and started to inspect her leg injury. They sat on the side of the road, with Reyna's leg over Jason's lap. She reencountered everything that happened, including her fighting Leila, and the story of Saturn. He'd stolen some bandages to protect the wound properly, and gave her the ambrosia brownie. She only had a bite. She wanted to save the rest of it for the demigod they were saving – Bobby.
Besides, she didn't need her leg to be perfect. She just needed it to be good enough.
"We're good, right?" Jason asked her. "I mean, I said some stuff about you being like Gwen, and I kind of took Octavian's side in that whole argument... I'm really sorry."
Reyna just punched his arm. "We're good. I just feel… really weak at the moment. I mean, I felt utterly weak back there. I hate that. I want to feel strong, and capable. I want to have a plan and to know what I'm doing. I got some of the way, but I still needed saving. I don't want to need saving; you know? I want to be powerful enough by myself."
"Reyna," Jason sighed. "Everyone needs help sometimes. I need you way more than I'd like to admit. Besides, Octavian's wrong."
Reyna blinked. "What do you mean?"
"He thinks you're insecure," Jason said, shrugging. "Needy. Maybe a little shallow. And I think when you first arrived at Camp, you were, because you felt lost. But you grew into yourself when you got to Camp Jupiter. You changed. You got more confident. And that confidence will save your life. I mean, let's face it. You're awesome."
Reyna smirked. "Yeah, I'm pretty awesome," she agreed grinning.
Author's Note: I haven't gotten a review from any of you for ages. If you leave a comment I'll love you forever 3 -Izzy