Running is essential, but I can't stay. I trip and fall, he's advancing. My small butterfly knife won't hurt him; he's the son of his father. How will I reach safety? I can't even see through the dark, it is dense and the only glow is my own eyes, which illuminate a small path for me in the darkness. I can't see him but I know he's there…My heart beats…pounding against my chest, what is going to happen to him if I die, not only am I his love, but I am his protector. My assassin is waiting for me to fall to my knees, and be at his waist in his mercy. But I will never show my mercy, I will never back down, for I am not just the mother of the monster, but I am the one who created him.
I hear him cry to me, sing my name. It shakes my soul to utter point of fear, but I do not back down. I will never back down, my feet pound the ground. Their soft footfalls echo in my mind. Fear is slowly getting the better of me. But I brush it away, fear will not take me. It will not. I am a fighter, I was chosen, and I will not break the sacred promise I swore to him. I will not…the fate of the world lies on the poor babe's head. I can not show my weakness now. My breath comes out in soft breaths; he can hear me even though I am as quiet as a field mouse. The trees whisper warning to me, even though I know what I am running from. I knew he would come for me, but not this soon.
My dress snags on a twig, I'm stuck. This is how is would end, my life that I had always known lied in the twig of a thorn bush. I yanked my dress off, ripping a piece off. He will find me; I am just wasting my time. I wish he would answer my prayers to him. I feel hysteria rising in my blood. My baby is a few feet away hidden in the cave. But I can't lead my assassin to him; he is a king, a great king, born for greatness. I must sacrifice for him. My life is the last gift I will give to him. I turn and face my fate with the courage of the great Lord Zeus. I turn to see him standing there.
"Tell me where he is and I will not kill you."
"I will never give you his whereabouts, never."
"Penelope you are going to die then, you realize this then don't you? You've known for a long time, Hermes would leave you eventually then it would just be me, I've always watched you. Always. Now it's time, I got my chance to show you who your true love is."
"I will never love you, Rio, never…"
"Then taste my wrath!" He yelled, the sound of the latch of the arrow sounded in my ear, and then he shot. The arrow coming straight toward my heart, I could stop it if I wanted to. But I didn't my baby would be in danger is I did. My life began to fade in my eyes, as the arrow hit me. I felt my blood leaking into the ground the soil sucking up my blood. It will eternally lie on that spot. I see the flash of light blinding my eyes and I-
I sit straight up, Phoenix snoring softly next to me. His arms wrapped around me. I slowly get up, pushing his arm off of me. I get dressed and walk down stairs. Nevleon sticking the trio blade in the fire. I watch as the metal sets and bubbles in the large fire. He doesn't even acknowledge me when I sit down on the stool near the fire. He leans against the work table looking into the blazes. Both of us having the same expressions. Jordyn is asleep on the sofa placed on the other side of the room. Her breathing is deep and relaxed. My heart is still pounding from my grandmother's last night of her life. I put my head in my hands. I don't know what made me dream of her. We weren't even of the same breed, she was a nymph, I was a goddess. Who was the Rio character? I wondered what her last thought was… I wonder if she knew that her granddaughter would be trying to save the world, from death and a goddess, that's spoiled up to her head.
"You seem stressed my goddess, what is the matter?" Nevleon observed.
"It's close to stress I guess, but I had a dream in the eyes of my grandmother."
"Demeter?"
"No Pan's mother, Penelope."
"Ah, I see."
"Nevleon, do you know of a man named Rio?"
"Rio?" His face stoned and he turned back toward the fire. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I know him, but not in the way you want to know a man. He is my father; I killed him long ago, before you were born. Zeus sent me on a mission to find him; I hadn't talked or spoken to my father in maybe fifty years. I met up with him and battled him till he fell to the ground and I slaughtered him. Zeus told me later that night, that Pan had disappeared; I asked him if he knew his whereabouts, and he shook his head no. His mother was killed from the titans, Rio worked for Kronos. Curse his rotten attitude toward the older power. Rio is gone now but he remains in the heads of your brothers. I just recently heard, ol' Kelaineus, was in New York, selling his famous tin cans."
"Wait, my brothers? Oh the other ones Pan had, I thought most of them died though."
"Most did, Kel still lives. He's very old, though. He won't live much longer, I can guarantee that." I didn't even think of Kelaineus as my brother he just wasn't, I don't know…brotherly. A lot of the gods tell me I look just like him, others say, well let's not even go into that… Nevleon yawned widely. He stretched then bowed to me, picked up Jordyn and took his leave. I stood and watched in wait for something, anything to happen. I'm within you, I always am. What! I twisted around no one was there. What the hell? I was started to get really freaked out, this was too weird even for me. I rested on the stool, obviously it was two AM, I might be a little crazy, but I got at least two hours of sleep, I shouldn't need that much. I got up but a vision attacked me, I fell onto the floor.
A pretty girl with flowing brown hair and a pretty shade of green, strode in the sunlight. She wore a little silky lime green dress, it was lacy at the bottom, and it ran down to her ankles. She had tiny points in her ears, and her arms were traced with green slashes of something. It was a symbol that glowed a green light, she smiled at something. Then a golden light appeared and Hermes formed in front of her, he looked at her and smiled. She took both of his hands in her own, and he pulled her close to him. She stroked his face, and he grew his wings and they flew off somewhere. But not long after she was gone, the man, Rio stepped out. His face angry with jealousy and anguish, he growled and slipped his golden knife from his belt and chased after the distant glow of Hermes.
I opened my eyes and saw a green symbol with a twirly pattern to it crawled up my arm. I was shocked. It was the same symbol, the nymph had on her arm. I think I just saw my father get conceived. I wasn't sure, but I think that was Penelope, my grandmother. The symbol started to glow, and when I tried to scratch it off if just glowed brighter. Honestly, sometimes being a goddess sucks. The symbol was a brighter green then the shade of green that sometimes washed through my veins. It sparkled like grass with an early morning ray of sunlight on it. I realized the symbol said something. Πηνελόπη, ξύνεται του κακού και έλλειψη καλωσύνης.
It appeared to be Greek, but I couldn't be so sure. I was pretty good at speaking it, but reading it was another matter. For now all I could do was stare at it. I touched one of the letters, and it practically burned my hand.
"OW!" I yelped, I held my hand till the burning sensation went away. Then put it into a bag of ice to let it cool. My hand soon became soothed and I pulled it away, my hand was red but it looked alright. How could my own body part burn me? I didn't get that! Why me, why me? I sat on the floor and put my head on top of my knees and watched the embers go to flaming red to a light orange. Why did I even bother trying to do something, when another thing for me to figure out appeared? I didn't understand, why not just put a sign on me that says, Nancy Drew. I sighed, my life was too hard to figure out right now. I didn't even know who I was really; well let's assess my totally crazy life.
I'm a sixteen year old goddess, I'm in a relationship with a boy that's drop dead gorgeous. I can't keep up with the secrets Dad left me to figure out, I have no experience in trying to win back a manipulated little brother. I can't deny I still have feelings for Percy… I'm to busy trying to fight a stupid rotten spoiled, crazy, pathetic, fusel, disgusting, did I mention pompous, GODDESS, that I forget that things in my teenage life are slipping by. I only got to spend a month with my mom, before I chose to go after the- well if you have nothing nice to say don't say it… Now I'm in a godforsaken jungle being chased by gods know what. I couldn't barely grasp onto the fast moving car that had become my life. Just about six months ago, I had been eating lunch with Rodney, Ashes, and Fleen. Wondering how I did on my history test… I wonder if I got an A on it? I'll never know.
"What are you doing up so early?" A voice made me whip around, and I saw Phoenix standing there.
"I had a dream, it made me wake up I couldn't go back to sleep."
"Well you need your sleep, Penelope, how much have you gotten over the past two days?"
"I don't know it doesn't really matter does it? I'm a god, I never get tired."
"Well I'm exhausted, but you know I may just be a mutant god." He smiled and drew me to him. "You have no idea how much I missed you while you were gone. Now I finally get to see you, and hold you, and kiss you. Then your minds some where else, you aren't yourself, Penelope. I just want to celebrate them moment finally when you actually relax and take the load off."
"I don't know when that will be, Phoenix. I'm very busy." I pulled away. Looking on the map on the wall, I had pinpointed every place in the jungle where Fiona had been spotted, where her destruction lay, where we battled, and where her mark was. I looked like she was spelling a word. But I didn't have enough pushpins on the map yet to see what it was. "I have to go, will you tell Nevleon, that I'm off to see if there are any new places for me to mark on the map?" He grabbed my arm.
"Penelope, listen to me. Please hear me out." I looked at him, my eyes darting to the peep hole, dawn wasn't quite here yet. I glanced at him his eyes sad and filled with urgency. "I need you; I can't go one more freaking day without you! You're to distracted by Fiona that you can't even see that I love you too much to see you go. Why can't you see that? I've felt for a lot of girls that are gods, but you Penelope you're so different and you have the good judgment of a human. You're amazing and I can't do much without your face popping into my head. I'm so unrealistically in love with you that's it illegal to love you godly wife even that much! I'm crazy about you, and I can't get you out of my head. You're like doing bad things to me. If you opened your eyes and saw how I really felt about you, maybe things would be different. But I'm a guy who wasn't about to open his heart once more for it to be broken again, but here I go once more just like every other girl, I can't pick the right one, and then I find you, and your like the best thing that's ever happened to me! I know you got a lot of things going on, but for once could you just think about yourself rather then the world! And AHHHHH! Penelope just stop! Please just stop…" He wiped a hand across his face, I saw a tear start to run down his face. My tears started to blur my vision.
"You really think, I don't think about you? Phoenix, I love you…and I can't stand the fact that back in Morphina, she almost killed you. She almost killed me! I love you Phoenix, no one said having a godly relationship would be easy."
"Why can't you just let yourself be happy for once, let yourself be free for a second. Let the world do its own thing for a second."
"Because if I did that…it would die." I gave him a small smile and then grabbed my bag and went to top of the ramp, pressed the button to open the drive, and waved to Phoenix. I ducked down into the grass, a feeling settled at the bottom of m stomach. Fiona was here. I pulled my tracking device and typed in Fiona, the tracking device went on the number of radiated life forms around, the redder, and the more a mythical creature they were. Gods were very red, almost blood red. Fiona was a bright red dot on the screen, I chased after the direction she was in, when I got to a weird shaped clearing. It was oval, much like the one at camp. Sky, the aura I had met while I was there floated in the middle. She looked at me an uneasy smile was forced on her face. I narrowed my eyes, her thoughts seeped into my head,
Be careful, she's watching. It's a trap my goddess. I pretended like that didn't affect me, which it did terribly. I grew my wings and levitated a little above the ground, I felt my heart start to pound. My hands began to sweat and the knotty feeling settled on the bottom of my stomach. She flashed with a flash of lightening, her laughter echoed across the clearing. I flew at her, but she shocked me with the lightening. She went inside the blue bubble. I growled in the back of my throat, but it ended up coming like a dog growl. I hated when I sounded like a animal, but in some ways it was cool. I rose again, with the pain still in my chest.
"You want to dance; we play my way, with powers of course."
"Fine, powers it is, next time it's my turn." I flipped a vine around her ankles then stalled her long enough for Sky to fly away. I watched her go, but then an immense pain dropped onto the side of my head. Black dots danced across my vision, but it would not over take me. It never would. I ran at her full force my feet racing across the grass, she fell to the ground from my bull-like charge. I ripped my medallion from my neck and it grew into a sword, then went for her stomach, it stabbed her and she gasped for breath, as she was down I stabbed her in the shoulder with my falcata, she hissed in pain. Her stomach wound already healed, but her shoulder wound wasn't healing. Her blood was splattered on my falcata, I was about to stab her in the neck when, a voice interrupted me.
"Penelope don't do it!" I turned and saw Jake standing there, he had recently turned eleven. His dark hair jagged and spiked, his skin was tan and newly formed muscles showed under his skin. "You have to go through me first." He jumped and leaped in front of Fiona; Eros flew past and snatched her up, her shoulder bleeding immensely.
"Jake…don't you know who I am? Don't you know what I did for you? I don't want to fight you, I can't…"
"Your weak, how could I ever had called you my sister. You're pathetic."
"Jake mom's alive! She's breathing, she misses you. She really does."
"Mom's alive!" His eyes lit up for a second, but then he went back to being serious. "I don't care." He said simply. I looked at him, my heart was crushed. "You're not my sister; she's gone, left to go live in that big pretty palace. Didn't you Penelope!" I sobbed, my heart slowly beating.
"I didn't mean to Jake…I never meant any of it…"