After Artemis spoke with Ryker she abruptly dismissed herself, calling Thalia over to discuss something that Ryker didn't bother listening to. One of the girls stepped forward, her expression decidedly guarded, and beckoned for Ryker. "Those wounds need to be looked at." She said dully.
"I'm fine." Ryker glared at her.
"All the same," The girl sighed, glancing around in an effort to find someone to assist her. "We look after our own. There's some sort of shrapnel in your chest. It needs to come out or you could have difficulties breathing later on."
"I don't know why Artemis brought him along." Ryker's ears twitched as he heard the words. They had been spoken just loudly enough for him to be certain that he was intended to hear them. "He's a boy. We all know what happened last time a boy was brought into the hunt. Why should he be any different?"
Ryker cast his eyes around, searching for the source of the voice. It didn't take him long. She wasn't exactly trying to hide her distrust in him like the others were. She openly stared at him, her face pulled into a scowl. "I might not know the whole story," Ryker called, his voice carrying easily through the forest around them. "But if memory serves Orion liked you guys before he hated you. I don't like you."
Every hunter paused in what they were doing and looked at him with such a medley of expressions that Ryker nearly smiled. Disgust. Fear. Mistrust. Curiosity. Confusion. Hatred. Amusement. The girl who had spoken against him glared at him before storming off into one of their tents, disappearing inside and not returning. "If you wouldn't mind," The girl who was tending to his wounds said as she examined his chest, "Could you keep your antagonism to a minimum? Having you join us is cause for enough stress in of itself."
"It's not as if I particularly wanted to join you." Ryker reminded her. He let out a slight gasp when she applied a small amount of pressure to his chest. "That hurt." He admitted grudgingly.
"You have a shard in between your fourth and fifth rib." She said. She glanced back to a tent and sighed. "Come on. I'm going to need to have you lie down to get it out, and you'll need to rest afterwards." She straightened and turned away, not bothering to look behind her to see if he was following. Ryker was certain that she couldn't care less if he followed or not, which made him much more inclined to follow her. He felt every eye on him the second he stepped into the tent and scowled. His doctor was pulling on a pair of what looked like silver gloves made out of a very thin material. She nodded to a bed and turned back to grab something out of a drawer. Ryker sat down warily on the bed and, with eyes still watching him, sent a glare around to every hunter in the tent. He didn't truly care about being embarrassed, he had actually never given it a second thought, but he imagined what he was currently feeling was most like embarrassment. "Lay down." She said again, turning back to him with a large silver knife in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other.
Ryker did the exact opposite. He leapt up like a cat, knocking over the bed in the process, and began to back away rapidly. She sighed and shrugged. "Fine. Die." She shrugged again. "It will save us a lot of trouble."
"Something wrong?" Thalia asked cheerfully, ducking as she entered the tent. She surveyed the slight mess Ryker had made and tilted her head to one side. "What happened?"
"He's being difficult." The medic said simply.
Thalia rolled her eyes. "Jude, listen, I know you might not like him-."
"I don't."
"But Lady Artemis has already spoken to us on this. Whether you like it or not, he's one of the Hunt now." Thalia glanced at Ryker and winked. Ryker scowled instantly in response. "You don't have to worry about him. He's not Orion."
"He's a boy." Jude answered back simply. She still had the knife in one hand and pliers in the other, swinging them back and forth at her side. "They're all the same."
"I wouldn't say that's true." Thalia mused. "But for now, would you mind just patching him up? I want to get some rest tonight and Artemis and I need to speak to him before I do."
"I was going to treat him regardless." Jude told her. "He's the one who freaked out."
"You came at me with a knife." Ryker glared at her.
"Your wound has somewhat closed." She answered back in a neutral tone. "You were probably given nectar as a safeguard to keep you from bleeding out. It worked, but your wounds healed over slightly. I need to reopen the wound enough for me to get the shrapnel out. Since I am already going to work on you, I'm going to get the shards out of your legs too."
"See?" Thalia said brightly. "We can get along. If we try. Really, really, hard."
"Are you going to come lay down?" Jude asked, one hand on her hip. "If you aren't I'm going to sleep. Pick."
Ryker sent a withering look to Thalia who in turn gestured towards the bed. Snarling, Ryker turned on the others in the tent and growled, "Find something more interesting to look at." The audience they had inadvertently accumulated dispersed immediately and Ryker scowled.
He slowly picked the bed back up and laid down. "Come see me when you are finished." Thalia told him, striding out of the tent.
"This is going to hurt." Jude told him, holding the knife above the spot on his chest where the pain was emanating from. "A lot. Try not to scream too much, people are trying to sleep after all." And so saying, she began to cut into his chest. She was right. It did hurt.
When she had finally finished the sun had made its way across the sky, leaving only a few hours of daylight left. Jude had told him that he should rest but did not try to enforce her recommendation, simply watching him when he exited the tent. Ryker's legs, chest, and arms were a ball of agony. She had been extremely thorough, removing every piece of the jar from his body, but she had not made any attempts to be lenient on the knife. In fact Ryker was almost certain that she had gained some sadistic pleasure from the ordeal. The other girls certainly had, giggling every time he bit back a groan of pain. Jude had bandaged up the areas she had worked on with expert precision which gave Ryker some ease of movement. When he stepped out of the tent the Hunters that were outside immediately went silent, watching him as he made his way to the grand structure he could only assume was Thalia's tent.
As he stepped inside he realized that he had chosen correctly. Artemis, in the form he had first met her in, was lounging on a couch with her feet up. Thalia was nowhere to be seen. "Aah, Ryker." Artemis greeted him with a nod. "I trust that you were well taken care of by our Jude? She is a daughter of Aceso after all. She has a better grasp on the healing process than most."
"You have…" Ryker's voice tremored as he fought to keep his temper in check. "Ten seconds to tell me why you brought me into this hell." Pain from being worked on combined with confusion as to his current situation did not make good bedfellows and Ryker's anger was white hot under his skin.
Artemis studied him for ten seconds, Ryker counted them, and on the eleventh second she sighed. "Suffice to say that your mother asked me to." Artemis told him. "You have gained quite the interest from the gods. This was a way for us to keep a close eye on you."
"So instead of sending me to one of the camps you chose to instead drag me along with a group of hunters who want nothing more than to see me die?" Ryker asked incredulously. "Who came up with that brilliant idea?"
"Your mother." Artemis told him. "I wouldn't say that my Hunters want you to die… They might not particularly want you around but I doubt they seek your death."
"My mother did this?" Ryker asked furiously. Of course she did. Meddling seemed to be the norm for the gods. "Look, if you want to hunt Orion fine. I'll help. But-."
"If you are going to suggest that I let you hunt him on your own you should save your breath." Artemis overrode him, leaning her head on one arm. "As I said, you are under close inspection. No one, not even your mother, is certain as to what your role is in the coming days. You are unpredictable. Uncertainty among the gods is less than desirable. On top of that your attitude towards us does not inspire very much trust in you. There are some among us who think that you may be our downfall. Your mother asked me to bring you into the Hunt because of that. She does not want to see your death."
Ryker processed her words. "If I'm going to hunt with you," He said finally, "Then I am going to need a bow. I… I don't think it's safe for me to use my claws."
Artemis nodded. "Do you prefer to make your own or would you rather one like my hunters?"
"I'll make my own." Ryker snorted in derision. "The bows your hunters have are too small for my taste."
"Aah yes," Artemis nodded. "If I remember correctly you prefer a longbow."
Ryker nodded. "And don't expect any sense of camaraderie from me towards your hunters." He warned.
"You are one of my hunters now." Artemis reminded him, an amused smile on her lips. "But I can understand what you meant. We will see. Bonds formed by the hunt tend to take root faster than others. Particularly since you are all bound to me you share a common theme. My blessing connects all of those who bear it. No hunter will ever fight alone so long as their sisters, erm, siblings are alive."
"I fight alone." Ryker told her simply.
Artemis sighed and rolled her eyes. "I can see that you are going to be ever the argumentative one, aren't you?" She shrugged. "Your mother said as much. Apparently you take after her a bit too much."
Hello my readers, Hallowed here. Bit of a hectic chapter this time, so my apologies for that. It's also a bit shorter than I had intended, but I really wanted to get back to Camp Jupiter and begin writing about what is going on there. As always, thank you so much for reading. It means the world to me.
Cheers, Hallowed
