So...I'm grounded.
From the computer.
"How are you updating?" you ask.
That, my dear readers, is because of the bottomless guilt that's been sweeping over me for the last...Well, since I updated last time. Which was a while ago.
So, basically, I'm violating the terms of my ground...a...tion...
Yeah.
How to Break out of Jail
"So..." I tugged my wrists apart, testing the handcuffs.
Aven fidgeted, squirming further and further down into the cracked leather of the seats of the police car, her seatbelt slipping up just under her nose. Her hair stuck up against the back of the chair from where she had slid down it. She put her feet up on the ceiling. All in all, Aven looked like a little, uncomfortable, fidgeting human-pretzel.
Tess glared at her, shooting her a look that made the policeman in the front seat cringe. "Stop that."
Aven dropped her feet back to the floor with a heavy thump and pushed herself upright, sitting even straighter than she had before, like this would make her forgiven. She forgot about her hair, which now stood up comically high on her head.
"What did you kids think you were doing?" asked the policeman. "Blowing up a building? Did you think you would get away with it?"
"See, sir," started Aven, with what I'm pretty sure was an uncontrollable squeak in her voice. "We weren't really—"
"Be quiet, girl," he said more softly. "It was obvious to all of us you were simply a victim."
Blinking, she looked down at her tattered hand. She wasn't able to feel it yet, pumped up with adrenaline, but her skin was looking increasingly pale, falling from tan to snow white. Tess and I had an ongoing bet as to when she would start to cry. Call us cruel. We probably are.
"Actually, sir," she started again. "I was just—"
"We just need to keep you in custody to make sure you weren't more heavily involved," he interrupted again.
Aven blinked again. "Right..." she said uncertainly.
He looked at me sharply. "What do you think you're doing, putting nice girls in harms way?"
Thinking of Tess, I snorted before I could stop myself. I pulled it off as a cough as well as I could, and she patted my back helpfully, though much harder than necessary. She'd probably worked out why I'd snorted in the first place.
Smart girls will be the death of me.
He pointed a finger at me. "I have a daughter not much younger than that little one," he told me harshly, pointing at Aven, and I wondered how old he thought she was, since she was actually a few months older than me. "I don't like it when your kind mess with them."
Aven opened her mouth, as if to tell that she had helped me out of her own free will, but Tess successfully told her to plug it with another well place glare and a kick to the shin.
"I didn't draw anyone into anything!" I insisted. "Do I look like I could destroy a Taco Bell?"
He raised an eyebrow. The answer was clear. Yes, yes you do.
Tess snorted this time.
"We saw her on the ground after it happened and were going to help her when you lot came in," I told him, sufficiently angry. "You missed the idiot that did it! It's not like he stuck around."
Before he could answer (Aven had slumped in her seat again, hiding her hand in her jacket as best she could) someone garbled something into the walkie talkie connected with his, and some old mans' voice echoed. He talked into it, got a response, and got out of the car. We had just been sitting in front of the police station while he waited for his partner, but something changed this plan. "Stay," he warned, like I was a misbehaving dog. He locked the doors and hurried into the building.
I sat there, slightly stunned, sulking in a police car for the first (and probably not the last) time in my life.
I was hot. I was sweaty. I was bleeding. Blood was drying on my forehead, most likely my own, making my hair crunchy and disgusting. Not that I, Nico di Angelo, am ever disgusting.
Tess' sleeve was practically torn off, and there was a reddish tinge to the dark brown on the cloth. Three guesses what that was.
I thought longingly of my Chalupa, lying scattered, it's guts spilling out in the wreckage of what had once been a delightful Taco Bell. Sure, it could have been my guts. I could be dead, lying in a pool of my own blood. But I didn't care. My Chalupa was gone. I was in mourning.
The only thing that brought me out of my depression was noise outside my window. I looked at the offender.
It was a girl. She was short, 5'1, maybe, and a total ginger. Her skin was pale, like she had died three days ago, and her nose, which was small enough to barely be considered a nose at all, was sprinkled with little brown freckles. Her hair was dark red and long and thick, past her shoulder blades, and she had bangs that swept across her entire forehead. Her green eyes were naturally large, now unnaturally wide as she stared at me through the glass. She held a little guitar, a ukulele, in her small hands, strumming some song and singing about Hawaiian punch.
She grinned at me lopsidedly and mouthed "Nico."
I said a very dirty word.
She took out a pair of keys from her back pocket and opened the passengers' side door, tucking her ukulele under her arm. "Nico?" she said, her mouth twisted in mirth. She looked like she had been drinking the Bohemian juice, wearing on of those billowing shirts that slid off of one shoulder and a chunky necklace. Of course, she always looked like she'd been drinking Bohemian juice, so nothing had change since I last saw her.
"Catherine."
Aven sat up straight about, brow furrowed in confusion. "Catherine?" she asked me, like it was some sort of foreign word she'd never heard before.
Catherine just nodded and smiled. "Kostopoulos. Catherine Kostopoulos. Fourteen-year-old resident of New York. This car is my dads', presumably the officer whom arrested you." She raised a red eyebrow at me, eying the handcuffs. "What kind of shenanigans have you been getting into?"
Tess snapped. "None of your business!" she said with a huff.
I ignored her. "Blew up a Taco Bell."
Catherine blinked at Tess, like she hadn't expected to get a negative reaction to her somewhat (alright, completely) random appearance. But she recovered quickly. "And you brought girls along for the ride!" she squealed. She bit her tongue as she smiled. "Rosie will just be so angry!"
I could feel my face darken. "No."
"Who is Rosie?" asked Tess, distracted from her anger in the face of an opportunity to make me miserable.
"A positively demonic ex-girlfriend." Catherine smiled.
I cursed under my breath.
"And I would know," Catherine continued, blowing a piece of red hair out of her face. "I had to put up with her forever. The little devil was terrible for my chi."
"And who exactly are you?" Tess asked.
Aven grinned. "A former flame?" she giggled.
We both looked at them flatly. "No," I said. Catherine looked like someone had shoved a dead animal in her face. But she recovered quickly again, giving a slow, lopsided grin.
"We traveled together," she said simply. "Multiple times."
She didn't mention that we had gone on quests together. That her, Rosie, and I had trotted across America for something some god lost and was too lazy to get back. She also, hallelujah, did not mention that fact that she was the awkward third wheel for two weeks, before I realized that Rosie was crazy, and she did not mention that she had told me so.
At least, not at that moment. When it happened, it was the only thing that ever left her mouth.
"So, Catherine," I said, trying to change the subject. "Can you do me a favor?"
"I've done plenty for you in the past. Your favor-tab is incredibly high."
"I've done favors for you, too!" I insisted.
"Like what?" she challenged easily.
"I saved you from that hole."
"I saved you from being run over by a truck."
"I gave you ten bucks to buy that first aid kit."
"I gave you twenty to buy that video game."
"I pretended to be your brother to get you out of that school."
"I pretended to be your girlfriend to save you from that creepy girl. That at least counts as two favors."
"What?" I demanded. "Why?"
"She tried to beat me up."
"But she didn't."
"I had to get stitches."
"And she got a broken nose. All is well that ends well!"
"Oh, shut up!" Tess screeched. "Why don't you just charm her into giving you the key, or something?" she offered sardonically.
"I've tried before," I explained. "Catherine 'doesn't tolerate it.'" I even added finger quotes (gods, I hate those). "She's got the heart of a nun."
Catherine smiled genuinely, like there had never been anything said that was so true, twirling the keys around her finger. The wind ruffled her shirt. "I might be," she started, eying me wickedly. "But I'm a nun with a key."
Aven pushed Tess' face away, trying to get a clear view of the fourteen-year-old with our fate in her devious little hands. "We need to get to the airport," she said after a moment."
Catherine crossed her arms. "Why would you need to do that?"
"We're on a quest," I explained.
She looked at me, then Tess and Aven, and rolled her eyes. "Why didn't you say so?" she said breezily, tossing us the keys. She got out, shut the door, and marched over to the driver's side as I undid the cuffs. She had already slid into the drivers seat and gotten her seatbelt on by the time Aven offered them back to her. She shoved the keys into the ignition and hit the gas.
"Um," Aven started. "Cate?"
"Catherine," she said plainly.
"Right. What are you doing?"
I saw her reflection smile in the rearview mirror. "What's it look like I'm doing?"
"Driving," said Tess shortly. "Illegally."
"Why don't you let one of us drive?" I offered. "We look closer to the driving age than you."
"And that would be a good idea, if it weren't for the fact that this is a police car. Chillax." Her fingers tapped the wheel to the beat of a song that didn't exist anywhere but in her own head. Her ukulele lay forgotten on the chair beside her. "I borrow dad's car all the time. The officers won't think twice about it."
Aven looked at her. "But it's illegal."
"Officers are nefarious for bending the rules," Catherine said smoothly, smiling again, her fingers still beating the leather cover on the wheel. "I'd be different if I were a terrible driver, or if I was hurting someone. But I'm not. So we're good. Grab me my boots from under the seat, will you?"
I jumped, realizing she was talking to me. I tossed a pair of worn combat at her as she took a pair of tie-dyed sunglasses from on top of the dash. Once we'd reached a long line of traffic, she ripped off her shoes and replaced them with the boots in record time, quickly letting her feet back to their regular place on the pedals. She took of her chunky necklace too, making little changes as she talked, slowly transforming from a hippie to a demigod. "Why the airport?"
"We're going to Europe."
"Oh! Nico goes international!" She grinned again, tucking her red hair behind her ear. "Why bother with a plane though? It's dangerous for Poseidon's kids, especially, but it can't be all peachy for Hades' children either. Why not just shadow travel?"
"I've never taken three people across the Atlantic before," I explained. "I'd hate to be halfway there before I realized I couldn't make it."
Catherine nodded, drawing up her hair and tying it back with an elastic, keeping one hand on the wheel as she lurched forward. "The Atlantic is infamous for it's lack of landing spots."
"Have you talked to Kashton yet?" I asked Tess. She drew a breath, like she was about to say something, but she let it all out at once and looked sulky. "You haven't? What are we supposed to do once we get to the airport?"
"I talked to him a few days ago, when I found out you all were heading to New York, don't worry." Aven put a hand on Tess' shoulder. "He flew up to meet us. He'll be here soon."
Tess glared at Aven's hand. Aven didn't get the message. The daughter of Athena just resorted to shrugging it off and, in desperation to change the subject, asked Catherine, "So, you play the ukulele?"
Catherine grinned at her in the rearview mirror. "And the melodica."
"What's a melodica?"
"It's like a harmonica with keys," I explained in a monotone.
"I can play that, too," continued Catherine. "The harmonica. And I'm in the process of learning the banjo. It's not as easy as it looks either." Her fingers started tapping on the wheel more quickly, like she was playing some frantic jingle in a commercial.
Thinking back on it, I don't remember if it was Aven or Tess who said, "Um...what's you're story?" This was a standard demigod-to-demigod question.
Catherine didn't react at first, just kept navigating the roads of New York like she had been. "It's a bad one," she said after a minute.
"How bad?" asked Aven quickly. She, at least, could empathize.
"Pretty bad," Catherine admitted, making a right. "I was on Kronos' side during the war."
Tess stiffened and glared at me. You didn't have to be psychic to pick up what she was thinking. Why have you put our fates in her hands?
Catherine glanced at her in the mirror. "I was eleven," she explained further, like this made it okay, even though she already knew that it didn't. "Impressionable, you know. I just picked the side that I thought would get all the killing done faster. That would let us move on." She scrunched her nose up in the mirror. "Terrible logic, right?"
None of us said anything. I already knew this, of course. But it was different when you could hear the awkwardness in the air.
"Anyone, once New York went to sleep, and everything started to happen, I was kind of in shock, you know?" She made a left and dodged an angry little Bug zipping by. "I ditched. Helped out here and there on Percy's side, when I could. I met Nico there, right? The only not suspicious one." She sighed.
"You're a traitor," Tess said, unthinkingly.
Catherine laughed. "Yeah. I am. The worst kind." She pulled up in front of a big white building, and there was the deafening zoom of a plane zipping overhead. "Here we are." She unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled on the North Face she had grabbed from under the passengers seat, getting out of the car. "I'll make sure you're off safely before I go back and face my dad's wrath," she said. Her boots clunked on the asphalt. The keys went into her pocket, and I got out to follow her. Aven was out next, and Tess hesitated, like she wasn't sure she wanted to follow. But she did. I guess that's all that matters.
"You know," I said, falling behind to walk beside her as Aven pranced to the front next to Catherine. "You are extremely judgmental."
"I don't like traitors, is that so wrong?" she scowled, hefting her backpack (that she had retrieved from the trunk) further up on her shoulder.
"Would you have thought more of her if she just stayed on the wrong side?"
"She wouldn't have had to betray her friends."
"Catherine didn't have any friends," I pointed out. "Monsters aren't really good company."
Tess opened her mouth to say something that would probably make her case, because she's a daughter of Athena and they do annoying things like that, but Aven had turned around and was motioning for the two of us to hurry up. "He should be here by now," she said, peering up at the digital clock stuck on the wall.
Catherine walked over to one of the women at the big desk in the center of the airport, elbowing through men in suits and a group of high schoolers around our age. "Excuse me?"
"Hello! How may I help you?" she asked, her smile stretched thin and painted bright red.
"We're looking for some guy names Kashton," Catherine told her. "Kashton..." she started to add when the lady looked at her incredulously, before Aven whispered something in her ear. "Willingham! We're looking a young man by the name of Kashton Arthur Willingham."
"One of the Willinghams?" The woman at the desk straightened.
Catherine grinned. "Indeed," she said. "Is he here yet? He was supposed to come in sometime around now, but if he isn't, we can just wait."
"You don't know the Willinghams," accused the woman.
"I do!" piped Aven.
"Do not."
"Do, too."
I sighed. Like life wasn't hard enough. Aven found a friend.
Wish me luck on getting...un-grounded...!
YAY!
(PS, Callie, if you're reading this [which you'd better be] tell your inbox I'm sorry it feels all empty inside.)
