Chapter Two
I looked at Percy with wide eyes. "You're joking right? I don't even know you!"
"But we know who you are. Wait up!" I started to walk away; this guy was seriously freaking me out.
"We don't mean to sound crazy but you're different." Annabeth and Percy caught up to me but I pretended not to know them, which quite frankly wasn't too hard to do. "You are dyslexic right?"
I was about to go to the nearest payphone and call 911 but my gut urged me to listen to this girl. "Are you sure that you have the right person?"
She nodded. "It's a common trait found in half-bloods. Also ADHD—"
"Hold the phone. Are you working for the cops?" Backing up slowly, I quickly made up a plan to go back to my house and try to get as much stuff as I could carry and then I would disappear.
"Cops, no. But we are half-bloods too." Percy said quietly. I felt a shift in the air, knowing that someone or something was going to attack me again.
"Please, come with us." Annabeth seemed to really need help but what could I do? "I will explain everything once we get to camp. I promise."
I bit my lip in frustration but a couple seconds later I could hear a loud roar coming from further down the block we were on. "No, not again!" I started running in the opposite direction once I saw the same monster I had seen only a couple months ago. That thing…at first it looked like an ordinary lion to me but then I realized that it had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, a blood-caked mane, and a ten-foot-long diamondback snake-headed tail which grew out of its shaggy behind. At the time, it was when I was on a day trip to the Franklin Park Zoo near Boston last summer. I thought it was just the heat messing with my mind but I knew I was right.
"Slow down!" I could hear Annabeth chasing after me but I knew I had to put as much distance as I could between me and that lion imposter.
As soon as I ran a couple more blocks, I felt like I gained enough distance. Plus I felt like I was going to cough my lungs out. Sitting on the front steps of a corner shop, I thought about the times I would try to race my cousins every Thanksgiving.
"Mira, you can't beat me!" My oldest cousin Manny would always taunt me before a race. We were in the park where there the forest met the playground.
"Tonterías, I have been on the track team for only a couple months and I already made the varsity team!" I grinned when I saw his smirk fall for a second before he put up a poker face again.
"Hey you two stop chattering and get to the starting line!" My other cousin Pearce said, standing near the 'starting line' aka between the two broken branches set on the ground in front of us. The sun was starting to set, meaning that we had to be home soon.
"Get ready to lose, again, my loving cousin. After this we can go back home and eat all the turkey we can find."
"Alright, One…Two…Three…GO!"
We took off. It was my running skills against Manny's knowledge of the terrain. I knew I had to pace myself but the extra branches that had fallen during past storms were starting to slow me down.
Think of these as hurdles, I told myself. Even though I was a versatile runner, I wasn't keen on jumping every two steps and hoping that I wouldn't faceplant on the floor because my foot was an inch too low.
Manny was already ahead by a couple steps but I couldn't let this minor issue keep me behind. The wind blew behind me and I felt like it was pushing me forward and every time I jumped over a branch I felt like I could fly for a couple seconds. Towards the end of the race my legs started to get sore but I pushed harder and touched the hand of my youngest cousin only a step ahead of Manny.
"Miracle wins!" She said, holding up my right arm. And of course Manny had a fit.
"Esto es completamente erróneo!" He complained. "Completely wrong! I don't believe this, I was way ahead of Miracle, how could she even catch up to me!"
I shrugged. "Not sure. Maybe you got winded early." We started to walk back to the house, and while Manny ranted, I thought about the race. I haven't felt that free since I was a kid. Like I was weightless.
Just then, my younger cousin Lucia looked at me with a surprised look. "You ran really fast. Are you okay?
"Are you okay?" Just then I got shaken out of my memories and Annabeth stood in front of me.
"What? Y-yeah I'm totally fine, I'm just not exactly used to running for my life." Just then it hit me. "Where's your friend?" Please don't tell me he had to sacrifice himself for my pathetic life.
"He should be here soon. Meanwhile, we need transportation. Any ideas?"
"Well…." Of course. My mother said that she would leave a special car that my father was working on before he left us. "My dad left me a car but its back at my house."
"Great! Where do you live?"
"I haven't tidied up in awhile."
"Its fine, and while we're there, you can pack some clothes and then we will leave."
I raised an eyebrow. "So you were serious about that camp stuff? I'm 15, which means that I am way too old."
"We will talk about this later. I told Percy we would meet him at that little bakery a few blocks from where we met."
"If you say so. Follow me, my house is this way." I said, half running/half walking down the street. It wasn't very crowded but it seemed like everyone my family knew would see me and ask how they were doing. I would always reply that they were on a small vacation in another state, but they would never notice that I've been saying this for weeks.
"So tell me about yourself." Annabeth was nice and everything, but I wasn't big on telling complete strangers about my family, much less about myself. So I only pointed out the obvious facts and hoped that she wouldn't notice.
"I'm half Brazilian, but the ironic thing is that I grew up in a neighborhood that only spoke Spanish. So instead of my native Portuguese, I speak fluent Spanish. I guess I like being different that way."
"Being different is nothing to be ashamed of."
"Who said I was ashamed?" I said defensively.
Annabeth's eyes doubled in size when I took it the wrong way. It was almost funny. "I didn't mean to offend you; I was just trying to help."
"Helping me could get you killed." I knew she wouldn't believe me, but I tried to warn her. Walking up to the block that I lived on, made me think of all the good times I had here.
"Which house do you live in?"
"Querido Dios, calm down. It's right over there." I pointed to a red house a couple doors down from the one we were in front of. "The one with the black mailbox. And the dying plants." That really narrowed the search down. There were plenty of "red houses" on my block, but the whole dying plants thing really set my house apart from the others.
"These houses look like something you would see in movies. Perfect is an understatement."
I just looked at her. What would be the best non-sarcastic answer for this situation? Survey says: Nothing in the entire world.
"And the square footage may be a bit small," I started to walk toward my house "but the way the architects managed to manipulate the space is just….wait, where did you go?"
Taking out the key from under the mailbox, I walked up to the front door and grimaced. What are you still doing here? Sooner or later the neighbors will notice something is wrong. My conscience always bombarded me with these types of questions.
No. It will be a quick get in get out thing. I won't even look at the damage. I replied.
You will regret this.
The door creaked slightly which caught me off guard. Last time I was here the door sounded fine. Creaky door meant that it was being used, which led to my next question: Who is coming here?
Everything seemed normal, despite some glass that managed to hide from me when I was cleaning up last time. The door creaked behind me and I automatically slipped into the dining room which connected to the kitchen. I grabbed a carving knife and listened for more sounds.
Where the heck is Annabeth? I thought to myself. Then I took a deep breath and grabbed an identical knife. If another monster was coming after me, I wasn't going down without a fight.
I saw a shadow and charged. My blade was immediately knocked out of my right hand but my left swung upward and I thought that I finally hit my target but my opponent managed to take my blade arm and twist me around, and in a couple seconds I had my knife at my throat and a black sword aimed at my face. I threw my head back and managed to hit someone's nose. While my opponent was stunned, I threw my right elbow and hit them in the chest.
Then I got a good look at the person I managed to injure. It wasn't a monster exactly, but if it was, I would have been able to see it. It was a dark haired boy about my age.
"What are you doing here and where is the girl I came with?" I demanded.
The guy raised an eyebrow. "Annabeth told me to come find you and make sure you don't do anything along the lines of stupid. Idiotic. Reckless."
" I got it. Thanks for sharing your synonyms professor."
"Just get your crap, I don't have all day." He said, sitting on one of my favorite couches.
"Usted chico estúpido es por eso que no puedo soportar a la gente." (You stupid boy this is why I can't stand people) I muttered under my breath as I walked to my room.
It looked almost exactly how I left it, except one of my Selena Quintanilla posters fell on the floor. I rolled it up carefully and put it inside my backpack. I only packed the essentials and changed into cleaner and nicer clothes. A simple gray Obey crewneck I got last Christmas, black jeans, my favorite pair of Jordans and a red beanie. Hopefully I won't make too much of an impression.
"Ready?" the guy yelled upstairs. I grabbed my things and went to my closet to get out the old cardboard box my mother gave me a couple weeks before she disappeared. Inside were a pair of car keys that I immediately touched, feeling my father's presence with me.
After getting some extra food, we went to the garage and what caught my eyes was a Ford Mustang that looked like it came out a few years ago. The car I always wanted.
"I'm assuming that you know how to drive." The guy said, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm also assuming that I can learn to drive, as I drive. Experience on the road will be good for me?" Both eyebrows were up and I rushed into the driver's seat. Turning the car on made me feel like I was on the set of a racing movie.
"Congrats, you turned on the motor. Now we should go find Percy and Annabeth before something catches up to us." He said as I backed out the driveway.
Slow and steady. Almost there! I gave a sigh of relief and started driving down the street. I was retracing my steps when we heard an explosion a block or two away.
Immediately I drove in that direction (still working on the turning) and we saw Annabeth and Percy covered in gold dust heading our way. As soon as they jumped in the backseat, I sped away before anyone could call the cops on us.
"Mind explaining?" I asked, looking in the rearview mirror at the two.
Annabeth looked a bit out of breath but alright. Percy was holding a pen really tightly and for some reason I felt like keeping those questions out of my mind.
"We….defended your honor?" Percy said, half grinning before both guys were laughing hysterically.
Annabeth and I shared a look and shook our heads.
Men.