Lydia Dollen's POV

Why does my head hurt so much? When I opened my eyes, everything was blurry. Why are there skyscrapers? Kearney, Nebraska hasn't undergone that much remodeling. Then, everything came into focus. I was being held up by a guy in a red shirt... and pink jeans? Yep. This definitely wasn't Nebraska. I started to get a bad feeling about this.

I remember my mom's basic training. Slamming back my head into the stranger's forehead, he let out a shriek of pain.

"Who are you? Where am I?" I demanded of my captors, "My mom's a cop, so you better have a good explanation for all this." Looking down, I almost leaped up ten feet into the air. Was I on a... gold pig? Maybe I was in Nebraska after all.

The guy behind me was still clutching his head in pain, and I thought I heard him mutter, "Next time we take girls on a surprise field trip, we choose ones with softer skulls." I'll admit. His pain gave me some pleasure. The pig stopped moving. Suddenly, an extremely hot guy in front of me turned around in his seat and announced, "Welcome to New York. You ain't in Nebraska anymore." Improper grammar. Maybe he wasn't that hot. Then, he jumped off the pig, pulled an unconscious person into his arms... NO! He will die today. In his arms, was my best friend and my favorite co-author, Rebekah. I no longer needed any assistance getting off this huge pork chop. I jumped to the ground in one fowl swoop and hot guy didn't even get time to react before I punched him so hard in the jaw that he landed on his butt, right on the hard cement. The thud of his body hitting the ground was so satisfying. The moment he hit the sidewalk, Rebekah woke up in a jolt.

"W-What?" Rebekah sputtered incoherently. When she noticed that she was on top of the hot guy, she jumped off and nearly tackled me. "Lydia? Why am I using a hot guy as a seat cushion?"

"He's the reason why we're no longer in Nebraska!" I exclaimed, giving him my signature death glare. He did not seem intimidated by it at all. He just sat there, fuming.

"Not in Nebraska... Wait! Did you punch him? For me?" Rebekah asked, with way to much excitement in her voice. Why was she so shocked?

"Thanks. I really needed that." The guy muttered.

"You're welcome. I'd love to do it again sometime. No charge." I said smugly, I heard the guy who I head-butted earlier snort at this. Maybe he was someone I could be friends with.

"Should we help?" A red-haired girl questioned. It just occurred to me that there were more people on the giant boar. The girl who had just spoken looked around thirteen or fourteen, and there was another girl with dark brown hair and grey eyes that were twinkling with humor at the sight of the hot guy on the ground.

"No, no. I want to see how Ian handles this situation." The dark haired girl responded to the young ginger. So, the hot guy's name was Ian. Well. I'd better give you a mental picture so you know how hot he is. He had raven black hair and grey eyes, just like the girl on the boar. He was tall and muscular and looked about eighteen. He was scowling pretty severely at me, which gave me more pleasure than his good looks.

The guy dressed like a Valentine stepped forward and held out his hand, shaking mine, he said, "My name is Cameron Valparaiso. The creepy ginger is Marie, the hot girl is Ivy, and knock out over here is Ian, as you may have heard. Welcome to New York! Don't worry. I'm in the same boat as you are. Fellow kidnappee and the other three are all my and your kidnappers. Their not hostile, except one hit wonder over here, I sure wish you were kidnapped with me. I sure needed the extra fist power."

Rebekah and I just stared at him for a moment. Rebekah, being the more diplomatic one, stepped forward and introduced us to our captors, I would've stuck with punching and escaping, but she's more polite than I am, "My name is Rebekah Ben-Yosef and this is my best friend, Lydia Dollen. We're going to run away now." And we sprinted off. For a minute, I actually thought we were going to make it, of course, I was wrong. We felt a sudden rush of wind and Porky the Golden Bacon reappeared right in front of us, preventing any further escape. I definitely will never become a vegetarian now. Suddenly, Rebekah grabbed the pencil that she kept behind her ear. What was she going to do? Write them a ticket for speeding? She twirled the pencil in her hand, AND IT GREW INTO A SPEAR! A FREAKING SPEAR! I knew there was a reason I didn't trust that pencil. Of course, I also don't trust Rebekah with sharp objects so I felt more nervous now than I had before.

Ian and Cameron, who were not on the boar when it came sprinting after us, came panting up behind us. Cameron was giving Ivy a deadly glare for allowing him to run, but he seemed impressed with us. I wasn't sure if we were going to get out of this one.

"Can you just wait and listen for a moment?" Ian pleaded. He still looked pretty peeved. I did not want to give him the chance, but Rebekah nodded and lowered her weapon. She has a spear and doesn't even put it to good use. Unbelievable.

"Thank you," Ian sighed, "Listen. I know it looks bad..." That was as far as he got.

"BAD! THIS IS FRICKEN HORRIBLE! MY MOM, WHO IS A COP BY THE WAY, IS GOING TO COME HOME FROM WORK AND FIND REBEKAH AND I MISSING WITH NO EXPLANATION AND GO ALL FREAKING TERMINATOR! WHEN SHE HUNTS US DOWN, AND BELIEVE ME SHE WILL, EVEN THOUGH IT WASN'T OUR FAULT, WE'RE GOING TO BE AS DEAD AS YOU ARE!" I screamed, unable to contain my fury any longer. Rebekah simply paled and muttered,

"It's true."

But Ian still didn't look intimidated! He just crossed his arms calmly and asked, "May I continue?" I just glared at him, not knowing what to say.

"Great. So, this may come to a great shock to you, but Ivy and I, did not actually have any desire to kidnap any of you. Surprised? You shouldn't be. Because if I found pleasure in kidnapping, I wouldn't have kidnapped you. Anyway, the only reason you are in New York right now is because of her." Ian pointed accusingly at Marie before adding, "She wanted you on this trip for some reason and I'll never understand why we're still following her around everywhere. But we're going to until we reach this sanctuary that she keeps blabbering on about, because I honestly have nothing else left to lose!" Everyone just stared. This guy definitely was a mental case.

In my calmest voice, I replied, "Okay." Ian looked like he was about ready to strangle me. But, something caught my eye. All the citizens of New York were ignoring us and our prized Wilbur except for one person. A middle-aged man with curly dark hair that had streaks of grey, who was wearing a grey golfer's hat, a white dress shirt and grey sweater vest, black slacks that were a tad to big for him around the legs, and long black boots, was watching us from a park bench, and was quite obviously eavesdropping in on our conversation, every so often looking at the giant gold boar behind us with a look of mild surprise on his face. Shakily, he used the light post next to his bench to stand up, then grabbed hold of an oak cane lying on the bench, that had the head of a lion carved as the handle. At first he appeared to be going for a kind, old grandfatherly look, but he had a sneer on his face as he hobbled closer to us, as if we were something rotten.

"I know what you kids are. Follow me." He grunted. We were hesitating when Marie exclaimed,

"Well, come on! We need to follow him. He'll lead us to where we need to go."

"REALLY?" We all synchronized at once.

"Well, of course! He's the one I've been waiting for." Marie explained.

"How long have you been waiting for him?" Ian asked cautiously.

"About a minute." Marie shrugged. Great! So, we were following a complete stranger. Life couldn't be going any better. After a few minutes of walking, I was sick of the silence, so I asked,

"Hey, old guy! What's your name?"

He barely muttered it, but we all distinctly heard him say, "Mister Tumnus." I heard Rebekah shriek with joy, "Like the faun from the Chronicles of Narnia?" The old man whipped around in an instant and faced down Rebekah with a look of pure hatred in his eyes.

"Never mention that book series in my presence, girl! You are officially my least favorite demigod." Mr. Tumnus bleated. "And, for your information, I am a satyr!" concluding by yanking up his pant leg to show... Wait... GOAT LEGS? I needed to be committed because I was seeing things, and did he call us demigods? Oh great. I'm hearing things now too. And to complete his dramatic revealing, he ripped off his golfers hat throwing it into the street behind him, showing off two six inch horns protruding from his skull. I was overloading from the shock of this unveiling ceremony. Everything that was happening was suddenly crashing down on me. The reality of satyrs, giant gold pigs, and demigods. I could barely stand up. I just wanted to be back in Nebraska and forget that this was happening.

Rebekah noticed my quivering stance and rushed over to help me stand, she whispered in my ear, "Just a little bit longer, I know we can make it out of this if we stay calm and collected. Just keep it together, Lydia." I nodded, but kept hold of her as we began to follow the... old goat man again.

Over all, the walk was rather peaceful as we trudged on for a very, very long time. Every once in a while I would hear Mister Tumnus mutter, "We should've been attacked by now. How inconvenient." Not knowing what he meant, and not wanting to know. I chose to ignore him. We reached a forest on the side of a highway, we seemed to be in the middle of no where, but Tumnus seemed to know exactly where we were. He gave another small grunt and we entered the woods. After fifteen minutes of hiking, we reached a hill. At the top, was a tall pine tree with a bundle of cords wrapped around the trunk. Mister Tumnus turned around and looked at us for a long time. The look on his face showed that he would rather be doing anything else right now,

"We're here."

Marie practically skipped up the hill. There were two guards posted by the tree, and those cords weren't cords. It was a... dragon. The guards looked strangely yet expectantly at us, like they were used to random teenagers showing up. They quickly allowed Mister Tumnus and the rest of us through. The last thing I saw after stepping over the border before I fainted, was a blazing red symbol over my head showing two spears and you guessed it! A freaking boar.