Chapter Twenty-Four
Disclaimer: I do not own the PJO or HoO series by Rick Riodan.
James' POV
I had been laying in this bed for quite some time, and I was growing impatient. Jade should have been back by now, at least an hour had gone by since she had gone to get breakfast.
I sigh loudly and glance over at Adrienne. She was still asleep. Her whole abdomen was wrapped in bandages. I really didn't see why they felt the need to do that, she had only been shot in that one place, but whatever floats their boat I guess.
In the distance I could faintly hear the clash of swords and the rumble of the lava wall. I wanted to be out there training, or looking for mom and dad and Mike, or anything really. Anything but sitting in this bed doing nothing.
"Feeling helpless?" someone asks.
I jump, startled, and look over at the door. There was a man standing there, wearing a crisp black business suit. He was tall and had straight, jet black hair that fell to his shoulders. He looked to be relatively young, mid-thirties to early forties.
"Who—who are you?" I ask.
He enters the infirmary and stands at the end of my bed. He looks down at me, studying me. His eyes were a startling lilac color. I'd never seen someone with eyes that color before. The closest were Uncle Mo's eyes, but his were a deep violet color.
"I'm an old friend of your mother's." he says.
"Oh. I uh, don't mean to me rude, but why are you here?" I ask.
"I heard about what happened to your parents and little brother." he says.
Adrienne groans and rolls over in her sleep.
"Shh! She doesn't know yet." I say, glancing at her, nervously.
"I see." he says, nodding.
"Anyway, how did you find out? Do other people know?" I ask, sitting up.
"I have my ways. And besides you and Mo Laths, I don't believe anyone else knows." he says.
"I want to keep it that way for a little while longer." I say.
"I know where they are." he says, picking up and observing a vial with some sort of hot pink liquid in it.
"What?" I ask, my eyes widening.
"I know where they are. I want you to tell your sister when she's well and then I want you two to meet me in the woods." he says.
"Why can't you just tell me now?" I ask.
"Because then you'll try and find them by yourself when you're still weak from your injury. Am I right?" he asks, smirking at me, "Wait until you and your sister are better, and then meet me in the woods. That should give you time to come up with a plan." he says, turning to leave.
"Wait!" I say.
He stops and turns back around, looking at me. "Yes?" he asks.
"Where will I know where to go?" I ask.
"You'll know." he says, a knowing grin coming to his lips.
Without another word, he turns back around and leaves. I sit there in the bed, looking at the door at a loss for words.
"Who was that guy?" I ask myself.
"Hey, I'm back." Jade says, coming into the infirmary.
"Where have you been?" I ask.
"Training." she says.
"You were supposed to bring me breakfast three hours ago!" I exclaim.
"Oh, has it really been that long? I didn't notice." she says, shrugging and sitting down in the chair.
"Yes, it's been that long. I'm starving." I say.
"Well, you're just gonna have to suck it up and wait till lunch, Sunshine." she says.
"Don't call me that." I grumble.
"'Don't call me that.'" she says, doing a bad imitation of my voice and making a face.
I sigh roll my eyes, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I didn't care if some of the nerves in my legs were still paralyzed, I was going to force them to work. I couldn't sit in this bed anymore or I'd go crazy.
"What are you doing?" she asks, her eyes wide.
"I'm getting out of this damn bed, what does it look like?" I say.
I get on my feet and start to move forward, only to stumble again. Jade stands up to help me but I wave her off. I steady myself with the bed and try again. I shuffle forward and finally make it to the other side of the bed.
My legs were tingling, like they had fallen asleep and were waking up again. I suppose that's what they were doing. I move around a little bit more, stumbling less as I did.
"Thank the gods." I sigh.
Adrienne rolls over and squints open her eyes. I rush to her bedside, only feeling slightly dizzy, and look down at her.
"James?" she asks.
"It's alright, Addie." I say.
She sits up then clutches her head, groaning. "What happened?" she asks.
"You got shot in the side with an arrow. I found you, barely alive. What do you remember?" I ask.
"Uh, I was chasing Mark into this field and then I lost him and then everything just went dark. I sorta remember seeing you, but nothing else really." she says.
"I swear, when I find out who did this, I'm going to rip out his liver and feed it to the vultures while making him watch." I growl, fuming.
"Whoa now, James." Jade says.
"No, I'm completely serious. Whoever did this deserves much worse than that." I say.
"Is he really serious?" she asks, looking at Adrienne. The look in her eyes obviously stated that she was hoping I wasn't serious.
She nods. "If you think that's bad, when our dad finds out he'd personally kill him or her and do the tortures in Punishment." she says.
My stomach ties itself in a knot at the mention of dad. I knew that man was right, I needed to tell her what has happened, but I wanted to let her get a little bit better before I dropped it on her. It wouldn't be wise to tell her something like that when she's still extremely weak.
Jade looks at me, her face drawn. I could tell she was thinking about it too, just by the look in her eyes.
"Jade, can you go get Chiron and tell him Adrienne's awake? I think he'll probably want to check her out and make sure she's good to get back to training." I say.
"Uh, yea. I'll be back in a few minutes." she says, standing up and quickly exiting.
When she was gone, Adrienne looks at me, a suspicious look in her eyes. "Did she seem weird to you?" she asks.
"No." I shrug.
"James." she says, her eyes boring a hole in my head.
"What?" I ask.
"There's something you're not telling me. You're acting weird too." she says.
"I am not!" I say, indignant.
"Yes you are! I'll find out what it is." she says.
I sigh and shake my head, resting my forehead in my hands. I could already tell this was going to be extremely hard news to tell.
A/N:
I am so sorry about how late this chapter is today. Time just sorta got away from me. Before I discuss a couple of things about the chapter, I'd like inform you guys of something:
My parents schedules are pretty wacked right now, and considering I now have a puppy to take care of and train, our little schedule for updates might get a bit skewed. Chapters might be a little later in the day than usual, or they might not be posted at all on the day they're usually posted. It might be the day after.
Also, I've been feeling a bit stressed with my parents schedules and the puppy and just everything in my life in general, stressful or not, so that's slowing down my writing a little bit. Actually had a little mental breakdown Christmas night and then got angry with myself because there really wasn't a reason for me to be crying at all. Anyway, hopefully I can pick this back up and get back to my usual writing habits, 'cause I want to finish writing this story as much as you guys want to finish reading it.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, unto the chapter. Who do ya think this guy is that visited James? I'll tell you one thing, you have met him before. It actually shouldn't be that hard to figure out, it's pretty obvious ;)
Also, how do you think Adrienne will react when James tells her what's happened to Kyra, Nico, and Mike.
So tonight I went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Holy fuck. I want to just drop everything in my life now and travel the world and take pictures of everything I see and talk to people and just...yes. And Ben Stiller is a wonderful piece of man and you can't say or do anything to make me believe differently. I mean, damn. What an amazing actor and director. I definitely recommend seeing it.
M/A:
"'Cause I, I want someone to take me home.
And I, I'm finally tired of being alone.
So you make me feel,
But you make me feel high.'"
~ Home by BriBry.
XOXO,
Mrs-diAngelo25