Chapter 9
Theresa silently cursed as her pain pill that the doctor had given her began wearing off and the pain from her wrist came back, and she had forgotten the remaining pain killers in her purse upstairs in Neil and Krista's room, now she was outside the hospital waiting for Jay to finish putting extra money in the meter so that he wouldn't get a ticket, and she didn't really want to go back upstairs alone, since Atlanta and Archie were both still suspicious of her, and she still wasn't sure what to tell them, luckily Herry was at home with Gisele and their son so she didn't have to deal with him, and Neil and Krista were too wrapped up in their new daughter, Taylor, so they didn't really notice anything was amiss either.
"Theresa, are you alright?" Jay asked running back over to her with a concerned expression on his face, and Theresa began to wonder if the pain and worry she was feeling was written all over her face.
"Fine." Theresa lied.
"I know you better than that," Jay said disapprovingly, "now tell me what's wrong, if we're going to be forever for the rest of our lives we can't keep secrets from each other."
Theresa's heart skipped a beat as she thought of spending the rest of her life with Jay and then to her surprise smiled, "I love you, Jay."
Jay chuckled tilting Theresa's chin up until their lips touched, "I love you too, but you're still going to tell me what's wrong."
Theresa sighed "the pain killers are wearing off."
"Well come on let's get you some more." Jay said as he began walking back into the hospital.
"Jay wait," Theresa called after him causing Jay to stop walking and turn to face her, "there is one more thing."
"What is it?"
"What are we going to tell everyone, Neil knows that he was attacked by a vampire…" Theresa said trailing off.
"Chloe and Krista are getting discharged today; once they're out we're going to have an emergency team meeting." Jay said sounding so sure.
"You've already thought about this haven't you?" Theresa asked surprised.
"I am still technically the leader; I have to be prepared for anything." Jay said smiling and walking into the hospital, Theresa watched him disappear dumbfounded for a moment before smiling and chasing after him.
When Jay and Theresa reached Neil and Krista's room they were surprised to see that Archie and Atlanta were in the room with their new "adopted" daughter, Chloe.
"Wow full house." Krista said as she saw Jay and Theresa walk into the room.
"She's so cute!" Atlanta said cooing over baby Taylor.
"She really is!" Archie said patting Neil on the back, "congratulations buddy."
"Thanks." Neil said smiling down at Taylor proudly; when Theresa and Jay saw how happy everyone was they looked at each other not sure of what to do.
"Are you guys alright?" Atlanta asked as she looked over at Jay and Theresa.
Jay and Theresa looked at each other again before Jay sighed, "we need to have a meeting once Krista is discharged."
"Meeting?" Atlanta asked confused.
"What kind of meeting?" Archie asked equally as confused.
"I can't explain right now, due to all the nurses and doctors running around, and the fact that we're missing Herry, but please know that it's important." Jay said feeling guilty that he was messing up the happy moment, but unfortunately if they wanted to have more happy moments then they were going to have to talk about what to do since Cronus was going to try escaping from Tarturas again in three months.
"Well I'm getting discharged in an hour, does that work?" Krista asked unsure, "if it doesn't then you guys could all go and I could just hang around here until afterwards."
"No we're going to need everyone there, including spouses and children." Jay said looking at Theresa, "after you take a pain pill can you call Herry?"
"Where are you going?" Theresa asked as Jay began walking to the door holding his car keys.
"I need to run to the school to talk to Hera and Zeus quickly."
Theresa wanted to ask Jay why on earth he would need to talk to Zeus and Hera, especially since they about Cronus but before she could call after him he was walking into the elevator.
"Theresa what is going on?" Atlanta asked confusion evident on her face, Theresa sighed turning to face Archie, Atlanta, Neil and Krista who were all staring at her, Theresa wanted to tell them but Jay was the leader and what he just told her and everyone else to do was what needed to happen.
"When Chloe and Krista get discharged meet me downstairs in the lobby, we'll head to the school then." Theresa said as she walked out of the room and into the elevator, after she got off on the main floor she walked outside taking out her cellphone she scrolled down to Herry's number, hesitating for a moment before pressing "call," Theresa wished that she didn't have to call and ruin their happiness.
"Hello?" Herry answered after the second ring.
"Hey Herry."
"Theresa!" Herry said happily, "what's up?"
"Listen I hate to ask this but Jay needs everyone at the school."
"Um Ok," Herry said a little bit surprised, "when?"
"In the next couple of hours."
"Really?" Herry asked, "I don't know if I can make it, Giselle is exhausted from being up with Tim all night."
Theresa sighed in exasperation, she needed Herry and Giselle at the school tonight, would it be worth telling him about Cronus now? And how would Jay react if she did?
"Herry, we have a problem." Theresa said.
"What kind of problem?" Herry asked nervousness evident in his voice.
"I can't come tell you right now, please just come to the school."
"OK Gisele and I will be there." Herry said and Theresa could hear the confusion in his voice.
"OK thanks Herry." Theresa said hanging up her phone
An hour later Theresa was in the car with Archie Atlanta, and Chloe on the way to the school, but even though the school wasn't that far away from the hospital Theresa could feel the tension, and every once in a while Atlanta would turn around and look at her, and Theresa could see the hurt and confusion on Atlanta's face, Theresa hated to keep secrets from Atlanta, but she would know what was going on soon enough, and hopefully Atlanta would forgive her after she knew.
"Atlanta?" Chloe asked after a few moments of awkward silence.
"Yes?" Atlanta asked turning around to face her.
"After we're done at your school can we go get some food?"
"Of course." Atlanta said smiling.
Chloe smiled back before looking out the window and leaning her head against it.
As Archie turned into the school's parking lot they were greeted by a frantic Herry who ran over opening the driver's door, "guys what is going on?!" He demanded.
"That's what I'd like to know." Atlanta said looking at Archie and Neil and then at Theresa.
"Jay will explain everything," Theresa said as Jay walked outside, with an odd expression on his face that Theresa couldn't place, guilt? Fear? Anger? Maybe all three.
"OK guys come on; we have to have a very important meeting." Jay said turning and walking back inside, everyone looked at each other, before rushing and following Jay.
As Jay lead the way to Hera's office, he stopped walking just outside of it turning to face his friends, and their families sighing he looked at Theresa who nodded at him, Jay turned and opened the door revealing Hera, Zeus, Persephone, Artemis and Ares standing around Hera's desk, Jay and the others all crowded around the table as well.
"What is going on?" Atlanta demanded annoyed.
Jay looked at Theresa, and then at Hera taking a deep breath, "Cronus is going to try escaping from Tarturas in three months."
"What?!" Archie and Atlanta both said at the same time.
"Who's Cronus?" Chloe asked confused.
"We'll explain later." Atlanta said as she put a hand on Chloe's shoulder.
"The one you guys fought in high school?" Gisele asked Herry, who just nodded unable to speak.
"How do you guys know he's going to try and get out of Tarturas?" Krista asked confused.
"I had a vision." Theresa admitted.
"So you're physic?" Krista asked.
Theresa nodded, "Yeah."
"But how could he manage to even attempt escaping, Campe would never allow it." Neil said shuddering slightly as he remembered the threat Campe had made to Cronus that he would never get out of Tarturas again.
"My vision didn't pick that up." Theresa admitted.
"Some things never change." Archie said sarcastically to Atlanta earning a death glare from Theresa.
"We also have another problem…" Jay said a few moments later.
"What kind of problem?" Herry asked.
"Odie's a vampire."
"But Jay, Odie's dead." Atlanta said her voice breaking slightly.
"No he's not he attacked me." Neil said turning his head slightly revealing the two bite marks from when Odie had bitten him.
"Oh Neil, are you alright?" Krista asked noticing the bite marks for the first time.
"Yeah I'm fine now." Neil said giving Krista a small smile.
"Oh so that's why you brought Krista to the hospital and why Jay brought Neil to the school," Atlanta said as realization hit her, "you guys didn't want to have to explain how Neil has two bite marks on his neck."
"Exactly." Theresa said cringing as her wrist began hurting worse than before.
"So what happened to your wrist then?" Krista asked noticing Theresa cringing.
"After Jay took Neil to the school, I waited behind with Krista, who was still unconscious, and while I was waiting with her, Odie jumped on me and tried to bite me as well," Theresa said trailing off as she remembered the pain that she had felt as she punched Odie and felt her wrist get dislocated and broken, "I punched Odie trying to get him off of me but it didn't work."
"So how did you get him off of you then?" Jay asked.
"There was someone else there," Theresa said trailing off.
"Who?" Jay asked curious.
"Her name was Anna, I think, and she must have been a female vampire since she pulled Odie off of me and threw him against a tree breaking it." Theresa said remembering hearing the tree snapping in half.
"How come she didn't try and bite you?" Chloe asked confused.
"I don't know," Theresa admitted, "but as Odie disappeared he yelled to me that it isn't over," Theresa shivered as she remembered how harsh the words were coming out of Odie's mouth, Jay noticed and put his arm around her.
"So Odie and Anna are going to try and help Cronus escape from Tarturas?" Herry asked.
"That's what it's sounding like." Hera said looking at Zeus who nodded.
"So what do we do?" Gisele asked.
Jay looked at Hera and Zeus who nodded before looking at everyone else taking a deep breath, "Herry, Archie, Atlanta, Neil, Theresa and I need to practice fighting so that if Cronus does escape then we can be ready to fight him."
"But Jay I won't be able to fight for a while with my wrist the way it is." Theresa said.
"That's fine you can practice your telekinesis and shapeshifting," Jay said before looking at the others, "unfortunately for now we all have to stay at the school…" Jay said trailing off.
"What?!" Everyone said at the same time.
"But Neil and I just had a baby!" Krista said as she began rocking Taylor in her arms trying to calm her as she began crying.
"And Archie and I just adopted Chloe; we need to give her a good life."
Jay put up his hands up trying to silence everyone, "Guys I understand that we're all trying to move on with our lives, Theresa and I are engaged, and now we'll have to put the wedding on hold, and I understand that you all want to be at home with your children, but we can't let Cronus take over the world, and this is the only place in the world that's safe for us to get ready in case Cronus does escape."
"What do you mean the safest place in the world?" Neil asked.
"Persephone put a spell on the school; anyone who isn't invited in can't come in." Hera said.
"So we need to be careful about who we invite in?" Atlanta asked confused.
"Exactly," Jay said, "no one can come in or out of the school without getting either one of the gods or my permission."
"So we have three months before Cronus is going to try and escape, what do we do?" Neil asked.
"We need to contact Campe, to have her on standby, plus we need to all practice with weapons since it's been five years since any of us have used one, and yes that includes Chloe, Gisele, and Krista."
"What?" Gisele asked shocked.
"But I've never even touched a weapon." Krista said nervously.
"Ah it's easy!" Neil said putting his arm around her.
"Neil, you've never really even touched a weapon either." Herry said snickering.
"Um neither did you!" Neil said crossing his arms and smirking.
Herry cracked his knuckles before picking up the table that Hera and the other gods had been standing around spinning it around, "who needs a weapon when you have muscles?" Herry asked smirking back at Neil.
"Enough!" Hera yelled clearly getting annoyed, "you're not teenagers anymore, grow up, and Herry put the table down." She demanded.
Herry laughed nervously putting it down, "sorry Ms. Hera."
"Anyways," Jay said trying to stiffen a giggle, "Gisele, Krista, and Chloe we'll help you with the weapons." Jay said facing all of them, "now go and get some rest tomorrow is when we will begin to start our training all over again."
Everyone nodded before walking out of the room, leaving Jay, Theresa Hera, Zeus, Persephone and Artemis and Ares who all stood around quietly for a few moments.
"I was hoping we'd never have to go through this again…" Jay said sighing.
"We were as well." Hera said, "If Cronus does escape and he has help from two vampires then we're all in serious trouble."
"There has to be a way to turn remind Odie that Cronus is the bad guy." Jay said.
"I'll talk to Persephone maybe between the two of us we can think of something, or a vision will come to us." Theresa said sounding hopeful.
"Good idea." Zeus said.
"In the mean time you two had better go and get some rest as well." Hera said looking at them.
"Alright." Jay said as he took Theresa's good hand as they walked out of the room hand in hand and down the hall.
Anna wasn't sure how to tell Odie that they had to go see the Oracle so that he could tell them whether the prophecy still called for seven heroes, or if six could defeat Cronus after he was out of Tarturas. Granted Odie was on board for breaking Cronus out of Tarturas, but because he was such a new vampire all he wanted to do was feed, not that Anna blamed him after she had been changed that was all she wanted to do as well, the thirst for blood is overbearing in the first few months, but she didn't really feel like going by herself.
"Anna!" Came Cronus' voice, "have you talked to the Oracle yet?"
"The sun's not even down yet." Anna said looking out the window; it was close to being dark but not quite.
"Well make sure you that you let me know as soon as you know." Cronus said annoyed.
"You'll be the first to know, Cronus." Anna said rolling her eyes, she had been working for Cronus the past five years and she had never let him down once, why did he all of a sudden think she was going to start now?
"Good." Cronus said sounding satisfied as he left her head; Anna looked out the window and watched as the last bit of light left the sky, just then Odie walked in.
"It's time to go hunting." He said looking out the window and smiling, running for the door.
"Odie wait!" Anna called but Odie ignored her running outside and out of sight in the blink of an eye, Anna sighed in exasperation leaning on the counter, she was going to have to have a talk with him, at some point.
"Odie gone out hunting?" Clarissa asked walking into the room.
"Yep." Anna said sighing, "Guess I'd better go see the Oracle."
"I can come," Clarissa offered, smiling.
Anna smiled at Clarissa before shaking her head, "no offence, Clarissa but I can run much faster than you can, and I need to get back with enough time to feed."
Clarissa nodded before looking at her watch, "well I should practice some spells anyways."
"Spells?" Anna asked confused, "for what?"
Clarissa smiled as she took a book of spells out of her book, "you'll see." She said walking out of the room, Anna watched as she disappeared before smiling Clarissa was always secretive, and Anna knew that she would tell her when she wanted to and not a moment before, besides Anna had bigger things to worry about, and as she ran out the door and in the direction of New Olympia at the fastest pace possible since she had to go see the Oracle before sunrise and make sure she had time to feed especially if she wanted to keep her strength up, if her Odie and Clarissa failed breaking Cronus out of Tarturas then he would send someone after Chloe and she didn't have a doubt in her mind that Cronus would be able to find Chloe him being a god and all, Anna picked up her pace even more as she thought of her daughter, she would make sure her daughter was safe no matter what.
Theresa and Jay had been walking down the hall in the direction of the cafeteria in silence, until Theresa sighed and looked at Jay sadly,
"I guess we'll have to call our parents and tell them that the wedding is going to be postponed."
Jay stopped walking pulling Theresa into a hug, "I'm so sorry."
Theresa smiled looking up at him, "You have no reason to be sorry, it's not like you're a physco god who's trying to escape to take over the world."
Jay smiled back at Theresa before sighing, "I don't want to have to go through this again."
"This time we have more help," Theresa said looking in the direction that footsteps were coming from revealing Krista holding a crying Taylor, "you OK, Krista?" Theresa asked.
"No," Krista said crying, "I don't think I can do this, I'm a lover not a fighter!" She said on the verge of hysterics.
"It's OK, Krista." Theresa said putting her arm around her trying to soothe her.
"How can you say that?!" Krista demanded causing Taylor to cry louder, Theresa and Jay looked at each other not sure what to say, when Neil came running over.
"Oh Krista!" He said relived, there you are!"
"Neil go away." Krista said as tears began falling down her face, "in fact all of you get away from me!"
Theresa turned to Neil, "take Taylor." She demanded.
Neil nodded as Krista willingly gave Taylor to him, clearly Krista wanted Taylor out of her arms, Theresa then put her arm around Krista, "come on Krista."
"Where are we going?" She asked confused.
"You need some air, so we're going for a walk." Theresa said as she began pulling Krista away from Jay and Neil.
"Theresa, keep in contact with your phone!" Jay yelled after her.
"Gotcha Jay." Theresa said smiling at him, once Theresa and Krista were out of sight Neil and Jay began walking to the cafeteria where Hera and the other gods had made a makeshift dorm, when they walked inside they were surprised to see that Gisele was punching and kicking a punching bag quite roughly, and Chloe was playing around with a knife after a few minutes she threw the knife and it hit a bullseye that she had drawn on the wall directly in the centre.
"Whoa!" Jay said amazed.
Neil sighed looking down at Taylor who had finally fallen asleep, "I hope Krista will be OK."
"She'll be fine; don't forget how nervous we all were when we first found out that we were going to be fighting a god that wanted to take over the world." Jay said remembering how close he had come to quitting at the very beginning.
"I hope you're right…" Neil said as he walked to Taylor's crib putting her down in it, before sitting on the bed and looking out the window wishing that he was at home with Krista just enjoying their beautiful baby girl.
The tension that Theresa felt between her and Krista was so thick that she could cut it with a knife, but she wasn't really sure what to say to Krista, she knew nothing she would say would make anything better.
"How do you handle it?" Krista asked finally breaking the awkward silence.
"What do you mean?" Theresa asked confused.
Krista sighed looking at the moon for a moment before looking at Theresa, "you and Jay just got engaged and now you're postponing the wedding, and you guys don't know when you'll get to get married… just like I don't know when Neil and I will get the chance to go home and raise Taylor properly." Krista said wiping away a tear.
Theresa sighed putting an arm around Krista, "Krista, don't forget my friends and I have done this before, and we will defeat Cronus again," Theresa said in a final tone, "as for mine and Jay's wedding, it sucks," Theresa said letting out a humorless laugh, "but we kind of have to have a world to live on to even do our vows… so priorities." Theresa said trying to make light of the situation.
"I don't know if I can fight though…" Krista said, "I'm scared."
"I was so scared when I got recruited to be part of the original seven," Theresa admitted.
"But you're physic, don't you always know what's going to happen?" Krista asked confused.
"I only pick up bits and pieces of most of my visions..." Theresa said looking across the street and gasping as she saw a woman that she recognized, talking to the Oracle.
"What?" Krista asked alarmed.
"Shh!" Theresa hissed, "follow me." Theresa demanded as she led Krista across the street hiding in a bush close enough so she could hear what was going on.
"Anna, welcome!" The Oracle said happily.
"If you know my name then you know why I'm here." Anna said.
"I know everything," the Oracle said smiling, before waving his hands as a blue light appeared revealing Theresa, Jay, Atlanta, Archie, Herry, and Neil, "there is a new prophecy, the six heroes that remain as well as their spouses, can defeat Cronus again."
"Darnit!" Anna said annoyed she had hoped that because Odie wasn't part of the team anymore that the prophecy wouldn't exist anymore, plus Cronus wasn't going to be happy about it.
"However all you have to do is kill one, and the prophecy is broken."
As the words left the Oracle's mouth Theresa covered her mouth to stop herself from screaming, after taking a deep breath to steady herself she turned to Krista who had tears streaming down her face, Theresa put a finger over her mouth telling Krista to be quiet then tilted her head signaling that it was time for them to get out of there.
Theresa began leading Krista away from the Oracle when all of a sudden she found herself on the ground, with a pounding pain in her head.
"Theresa!" She heard Krista scream from beside her, but when Theresa tried to turn her head to look and make sure Krista was OK she gasped when someone was on top of her and as she looked up she realized that it was Odie.
"It's rude to eavesdrop you know," Odie said smiling, "I think I need to teach you a lesson." He said as he bent down closer to her neck, Theresa closed her eyes not wanting to see death coming for her, there was no way she could fight back, Theresa felt tears streaming down her face as she felt Odie's teeth make contact with her neck.
End Chapter 9
I don't own Class of the Titans
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