I promised the next chapter would be up soon. Here it is. :)
Chapter Two: Awh Naw She Di'n't
"Nakita!" comes a loud, yet not offensive, voice. In fact, even bellowing, her voice is almost melodic. Kinda weird but cool at the same time.
"Nakita! Where are you?" joins another voice, this one male.
Clearly, I had been 'missing' much longer than I thought. I almost feel bad, but then again, they should know that the first place to look for me is up on the roof of the Hermes cabin. This is where I am nine times out of ten, after all. It's like my own secret hideout where I can be alone with my thoughts. There aren't many places left at Camp Half Blood where one can do that anymore, what with the influx of campers.
I'm almost torn between staying up here on the quiet peaceful roof and going down, but upon hearing their calls grow increasingly more worried, I make up my mind. I won't worry the two best friends I've ever had.
Standing, I use a neighboring tree to quickly climb down from the roof. Sadly, halfway down, my foot slips and I fall in a most undignified manner on my buttocks, thoroughly startling the two people searching for me. After a moment of shock, one of them rushes over, while the other one starts laughing. In fact, he's laughing so hard, he ends up doubling over and then falling on his butt. Serves him right.
"Are you okay?" my friend's lyrical voice questions as she hauls me to my feet. She may be sixteen and I look clear over her head at her height of 5'6", but she sure is stronger than your average sixteen-year-old.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine," I say, shrugging her hand off my arm.
Quite frankly, I've always been kind of touchy. I don't like people touching me unless it's necessary, like bandaging a wound, but even then, I only trust certain people. It's not like there's any reason for this; it's just one of my weird behaviors, I guess.
"You almost weren't if you'd fallen from any higher. I may be a child of Apollo, but I'm not healing you if you break your neck over your own stupidity!" she yells slapping my arm. In case anyone is wondering, she slaps harder than the average sixteen-year-old, too.
"Jeez, Theia! Maybe you shoulda been a daughter of Ares instead," quips my other friend, a tall brown-haired boy. He saunters over and inspects my arm that now sports a stop sign red hand mark. "That's showing up through her tan… How hard did you hit her?"
"My safety and well-being wasn't your top priority earlier when you were too busy laughing to see if I was okay. At least Theia asked about me first then hit me," I reply, shrugging off his hand this time.
He smirks devilishly, mischievousness and laughter filling his brown eyes.
"I couldn't help it! The look on your face was just so priceless!"
"STOLLS!" bellows a very angry voice sounding suspiciously like a very angry Clarisse. 'Very angry' being the key words.
At this, the grin falls from his face, and he looks like he might have a heart attack.
"Speaking of daughter of Ares…" Theia smirks. She loves tormenting Travis. They're always poking fun at one another, and exchanging witty one liners.
I sigh, "Travis… I know I'm gonna regret asking this… But what did you do this time?"
"Well, Connor and I might have done Trading Spaces with the Ares and Aphrodite cabin…."
"Travis!" I hiss as I try my hardest not to laugh picturing the look on Clarisse's face when she walked into her cabin after that kind of swap.
"What?" he exclaims defensively. "We just figured that since Ares and Aphrodite like each other so much, maybe their kids would like to…. swap spaces…."
I execute a perfect face-palm maneuver, then look back up and Gibbs-slap him. Gotta love Gibbs. He's brilliant. And NCIS? Best show ever.
"OW! What was that for?" he yelps, one hand going to the back of his head.
"You're gonna get much, much worse than that if they catch you."
"Who're you more scared of?" Theia asks, still grinning, now rather sadistically. "The Ares cabin, or the Aphrodite cabin?"
In that exact moment, all color whatsoever drains from his normally tan face, "I didn't think about that…. Kita," he whines, using the nickname he had given for me. "You gotta help me!"
"Why?" I ask. "You and Connor created this monster."
"Please! Clarisse and her minions will tear me limb from limb… And then the Aphrodite cabin will put make up on me again!"
Theia and I both raise an eyebrow at his logic, limb-tearing then makeup. Really? But he's using that look on me again and I cave. I don't know who taught him that trick, but he learned it much too well.
"Alright. Alright. Fine. But what about Connor?"
"He's probably already hiding," Travis frowns.
"True," Theia says as we hear thundering footsteps, swords being drawn, and electricity crackling, probably from Clarisse's staff.
"They're almost here!" Travis whimpers, holding my hand like a child despite being almost twenty-three years old. I'm honestly not sure what exactly is wrong with him… "!"
I sigh again, "Okay. Okay. Theia—"
"Yeah, yeah… I'll try to distract them," she answers with practiced certainty.
Obviously, this happens a lot… More than it should… I suppose that's what I get for befriending one of Hermes' most mischievous children…
"Come on!" he urges, pulling gently on my hand.
"Alright. Let's go," I say as I grasp his hand tightly and start running towards the woods. "Really, Travis. We shouldn't have to do this once a week."
"Why can't anyone take a joke? It was just Barbies!… And Barbie bedclothes…. And we may have swapped the Aphrodite and Ares campers' clothes… But seriously!"
I roll my eyes, "You just better hope Connor's already hiding."
I don't look back, but I know him well enough to know he's scowling.
"He will be. I haven't seen him. He was helping Theia and I look for you but he 'vanished'. He coulda at least warned me, the little traitor. I hope they catch him."
"You're gonna get caught if you don't run faster."
"Well, sorry. It's not my fault you run like a deer. I'm having a hard time keeping my footing with all these leaves and mud! It rained last night!"
"Boo hoo."
"Well, it's true!"
Upon this statement, we hear the battle cry of the Ares kids and, amazingly, we both discover that he really can pick up his pace if properly motivated.
As we crash through the woods, I can't help but wonder where we'll hide this time. Travis is easily six foot now, and I'm only a few inches shorter. That kinda limits hiding spots.
I hate being tall. Everyone's always staring at you. It's very uncomfortable… Not to mention situations like this, which I seem to be getting thrown into more and more frequently…
"Travis?"
"Y-yeah?" he responds, sounding somewhat, okay, very out of breath.
"How close do they sound?"
"Hard to tell…. But… They're not that far off."
"Wonderful…"
As we run through yet another 'layer' of trees, we reach a rock wall. Clearly, we have no choice but to stop and I realize we must've gone really deeply into the woods… And the sun is setting…. Just terrific… We either face the Ares cabin, or get eaten by monsters… At least with the monsters it would be over quickly, I suppose…
"Where do we go now?" Travis asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
"Well…" I wrack my brain, trying to think of something, some plan.
And then I remember the hidden place.
It was a hidden, subterranean room in the woods. I'd stumbled across it once around this general area. Near as I could tell, it had been made as a hideout for demigods way back, possibly during Prohibition, who wanted to hang out after curfew without being eaten…
"Well?" Travis repeats impatiently.
"This way," I answer finally as I start running, practically dragging the poor, unfortunate soul who had gotten himself, and—consequently— me, into this mess.
After a few wrong guesses, I finally find the 'fake ground', which is really the entrance to the room. It's kind of like those old-fashioned basements where the door is in the ground. When I find the border of the hatch, I open it, shove Travis into it, look around warily, and then jump down.
It is upon the hatch fully shutting behind me that I realize how dark it really is in this secret room. I very quickly start focusing on not freaking out… Or crying. Yes, crying would be bad, not to mention extraordinarily embarrassing.
Ever since I was little, I have hated the dark. Even now I hate the dark. I hate it with a passion, but my fear of it easily overcomes my hate for it.
When I had lived at the orphanage, I couldn't sleep if there wasn't a light on somewhere in the room. Things moved in the dark when you could see beyond the Mist. Big, scary things. The exact reason I scoot a little closer to Travis.
There's also the fact that there is absolutely no sound other than the two of us breathing. That is freaky and just plain unnatural. It is perfectly silent. Horribly silent. Nothing good ever comes of the dark quiet. Even the Greeks knew that. That's why the Greek women told Medea to come outside into the light…. Though, I doubt they knew that Medea would kill her own children just to get back at her husband… Which only proves my point: People go crazy in the dark.
The silence is thick, suffocating almost, and the dark isn't much better… So imagine my utter shock and horror when the whole Ares cabin runs noisily over the thin layer between them and us.
I jump and barely suppress a blood-curling scream.
Remain calm. Sure it's dark and that noise just came out of nowhere, but that is no reason whatsoever to have a coronary. I tell myself.
A few seconds later, the Ares campers' yelling fades off and it is once again silent until…
"I think they're gone now," Travis whispers right in my ear.
In all honesty, I jump. I didn't realize he was so close.
"…Do you think you can release the death grip on my arm now? And maybe scoot over a little? You're almost on my lap, Kita..."
Funny. I don't remember willing my hands to move and my nails to leave crescent-shaped scars on Travis' arm. Bad hands and nails. And I certainly don't remember telling myself it was okay to practically sit on Travis. Bad self.
I quickly remove my 'death grip', move away from Travis a little, and clasp my hands firmly in my lap.
But I say nothing in response to him, because, I know if I open my mouth, the scream I have been so desperately trying to hold in will escape. Things are still moving in the darkness.
"Oh. That's right," he mutters under his breath from beside me as if just remembering something.
Shuffling noises and then a light appearing, banishing the darkness to further corners of the room, immediately follow this statement. In a pitch black underground room, Travis had managed to find a flashlight within the bottomless depths of his backpack.
"There. Is that better?" he asks, truly sounding concerned as he places his free hand on my shoulder.
I hope the blush spreading up to my scalp isn't all that noticeable in the now somewhat illuminated darkness. Travis is one of only four people who know about my scotophobia, also known as fear of the dark.
I force myself to take a few deep breaths. I then put on an act to pretend that I'm fine, "You carry a flashlight around in your backpack?"
He knows I'm changing the subject, of course, but we've been friends for a long time. The second titan war makes it seem like it's been even longer. He and I had fought side by side when we had defended Manhattan. Being in situations like that, it makes people even closer than they would have been otherwise, no matter how long they've been friends. We all know each other as we know ourselves, and we all have a kind of bond that only people who have fought together have.
Travis generally respects that and doesn't try to push me into talking about things which I don't want or feel like discussing at the moment.
Therefore, instead of pushing me, he simply shrugs and smirks, "I am a child of Hermes, after all. I pack well."
I smile back, grateful I had made such a wise choice for a friend.
"Yeah. But isn't the whole 'child of Hermes' bit why we're down here to begin with?"
He rolls his eyes, "Details. Details."
"A-huh. Sure. Big details."
"Yeah, yeah," he smirks before holding the flashlight out to me. "Here, hold this, I need to look for something."
I take the flashlight and he immediately begins to rifle through his backpack as I hear a metallic 'clank', I'm suddenly curious as to what he carries in there.
A moment later, he brings out a small, rectangular electronic device that looks suspiciously like—
"A cell phone? What are you doing with a cell phone? Are you crazy?" I hear myself exclaim, my voice almost an octave higher than normal.
"Shh!" Travis warns as he pushes a few buttons rapidly. "I'm texting Connor to make sure he's okay."
" You're not even supposed to be using that!"
"No. You're not supposed to talk into them. Texting's okay though."
"Did Chiron say it was okay?" I ask skeptically.
"Well… Not exactly…"
"Not exactly?"
"Well… He doesn't exactly… Doesn't know about them…"
"He doesn't know?"
"No. He doesn't," he answers, returning the phone to his backpack.
"And Connor has one, too! Great, you and Connor are going to get everyone killed because you're using cell phones."
"We will not!" he yells, clearly upset about something more than just the cell phones. "Just shut up. You don't know anything."
I open my mouth to say something in response, but stop myself. My doing so makes an awkward silence descend upon the room like snow in the Alps.
It takes me a few moments into the silence to realize the problem. Why Travis had overreacted so badly. One name.
Luke.
"Travis…" I begin, "I'm sorry… I didn't meant to—"
"It's fine. It wasn't your fault. I just…." he pauses, sighing heavily. "Ever since Luke first betrayed the camp, everyone assumed that Connor and I were spies. They thought we wanted to kill everyone, too, just because…"
"You had looked up to him," I supply for him.
"Yeah," he says, and suddenly a fiery light appears in his eyes. "I mean, he was our brother. Of course we had looked up to him. He was amazing. Everyone in the camp looked up to him… But then, when he betrayed us, there were all those whispers when no one thought we were listening, or just didn't care if we heard... It's still… difficult sometimes…." he finishes, the spark dimming again as he leans back against the wall.
"I can't imagine."
"No. You can't," he replies, looking down with a hurt expression on his face.
I had spoken the truth when I had said that I couldn't imagine what it was like, being betrayed by a brother. I couldn't even imagine him or Theia or Connor or any of my other small group of friends gossiping about me to the Aphrodite cabin. Forget becoming a minion to the titans and a body for Kronos.
I just stare at him for a moment, more than a little unsure of what I can do to make him feel better.
I had only seen him get like this two or three times, most of which were during the war after the Hermes cabin lost someone. I doubt that even Connor had seen him like this but a few times. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, Travis and Connor are upbeat and friendly and enthusiastic with a touch of mischievousness. That sometimes makes people forget that they aren't Superman. They can and do hurt just like everyone else.
Before I can even think about it, my arm decides for itself to go around his shoulders in a kind of one-armed hug. He looks up at me, clearly somewhat surprised, and then he smirks again, trying to lighten things up.
"So's this mean we're going steady?" he asks, a crooked grin spreading over his face.
I accidently shove him hard enough that he falls over on his side, but he starts laughing so he can't be too hurt.
"You wish, Travis. You wish."
He keeps laughing as he sits up, rubbing the shoulder on which he'd fallen over.
"Y'know… I don't know why I hang out with you. You're always trying to kill me or something."
"Yeah well—"
"Travis! Nakita!" calls a voice from above us. We both recognize it to be Theia, but the next voice only I recognize.
"Nakita! Where are you?" the voice bellows.
"Who's that?" Travis asks before paling. "Not an Ares is it?"
"No. Not an Ares. Her name's Ava. Ava McAllen. She's a child of Dionysus."
"Seriously?" he questions, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
"Yeah, but she gets her looks from her mom, thankfully for her and everyone else."
At this, he cracks up again, laughing like a maniac.
I have to admit, it is a very good thing that Ava takes after her mother. I don't think the camp can take much more leopard print anything.
"Travis! I can hear you laughing, but I can't see either of you. If this is some joke you two have worked up, I'm gonna kill both of you. It's not funny!" Theia threatens, but I can tell she's just upset.
Whenever she gets upset, she gets 'angry'. It's not really anger. She just doesn't know how to express worry extraordinarily well. She can sometimes, she just doesn't for the most part.
"Seriously guys! Come out! It's dinnertime!" Ava shouts.
"They're probably worried," I say, stating the obvious.
"Yeah… We better go."
He reaches up and opens the hatch and lets me get out first. The exact moment I look up from stepping out onto the ground, I come face to face with the most dangerous creature currently in the woods.
The extraordinarily enraged Theia.
"Where were you? We've been searching the entire wood for you!"
Before I can even produce the answer, Travis hoists himself out of the room and stands.
Even with nothing but the light emitting from the flashlight in my hand, I see Ava's eyes widen comically. Her expression is somewhere between a mix of horrified and shocked.
"What were you two doing down there?" she asks, clearly not sure whether she wants to know the answer or not.
"What're you tal—" I start then stop abruptly as it dawns on me. I am a girl. Travis is a guy. We were both alone in an underground room. We had gone running through the woods and probably didn't look our best at the moment.
My face heats up and I know it just turned the darkest shade of red imaginable to man or Olympian. Travis and Theia both manage to get their wits about them long enough to give her the 'Awh naw you di'n't jus' ask that' look.
"Nothing happened!" Travis exclaims, seeing that I have temporarily lost my ability to speak. "Why would you even say something like that?"
"Well, y'know. What was I supposed to think?" she asks, a hand coming up to rest on her hip. "Theia came and got me, didn't tell me anything except that we needed to find you two. Then we find you and you both look like... Well…."
She is unable to finish as she blushes, too. I guess I can't blame her too much, keeping in mind who her father is…
Theia's face isn't much better than mine or Ava's as she says, "Yeah… I suppose that was my bad… I didn't think about it like that…"
"So if you weren't…. well…Y'know…. What were you doing?"
"Not that it's any of your business, but we were hiding from the Ares cabin," Travis snaps indignantly.
Travis is one of my best friends. Just the thought of what Ava had implied leaves me quite stunned…
"Oh… That makes more sense…"
"Whatever," Theia sighs. "We need to get back to camp. It's dinnertime. For us and whatever's in here…"
Without even thinking about it, my grip tightens on the flashlight, as though it will protect me. Then, even in my dazed state realizing it won't, I involuntarily step closer to Travis, who takes one look at me and shakes his head, his mop of brown hair falling down in his eyes. He pushes it back in place and looks at me again.
"Yeah. Let's go," he says.
He ends up throwing one last 'I- cannot-believe-you-implied-that' look at Ava before grabbing my arm and beginning to lead me forward. As my feet start walking and I come back to my senses, I try to keep up with Travis.
Not far behind us, I barely hear Theia mutter threateningly,
"Don't ever imply or say something like that ever again. If Travis doesn't end you, I will."
The major changes haven't come in yet, but just wait. ^_~
~Kanae~