So. This chapter is 14 pages long, includes minor curses, one PG-13-ish scene, lots of violence, three near death experiences, and makes me very, very happy. Also, it brings Reyna and Nico all the way up to August 1, which you'll understand better when you get to the end of the chapter.
I just finished it, like, five minutes ago, and I listened to a lot of Imagine Dragons/Adam Lambert/Sara Bareilles/Passenger/Coldplay generally violent and depressing songs while writing it, and I am positively giddy.
Whatever. I'm also a bit light-headed, so just ignore me.
After this chapter, we have an estimated five to seven chapters left to go, possibly more or less, depending upon my writing abilities, and only 17 more days to write it all. Considering each chapter is basically somewhere between ten and twenty pages long now-let's average out at 15-and 15 times about 6 chapters-that's 90 pages...90 divided by 17...(hold on I have to do this on paper...it's a miracle I'm passing precal at all right now...) That comes to about 5 pages of writing a day.
Son of a bleeping mother.
Sounds like I'm going to be doing a lot of writing in school during classes when I'm supposed to be working on essays or listening to French lectures or doing Precalculus. Meh. It's not like I pay attention in class anyway. XD
But if I have eight hours of school five days a week, from 8 to 3, and then work about three days a week from 5 to 9 or 10, plus Spell Bowl practice after school two days a week from 3 to 4:30, and then Destination Imagination club meetings on Saturday mornings from 8 to 10 plus Wednesdays after school...holy effing schist, I have a lot to do. Remind me again how the hell (whoops, kids, avert your eyes) teenagers ever survive their junior years? Anyone have a handy-dandy survival manual somewhere, like 'How to Survive Your Junior Year For Dummies' or something like that? Nah? Wonderful.
Well, enjoy the chapter, my lovelies! I have some (meaning: a lot) of things to do now, so please display your enthusiasm in enormous gratuitious ways that are long reviews full of sparkly rainbow KABOOM POP bubbly happiness that will motivate me to get off my lazy butt and get things done. If you would.
Peace out, peeps!
Chapter CV
Reyna
The darkness deposits them onto the ground, in the middle of dense, dark woods, and Reyna has to lunge forward to catch Nico as he crumples to the ground, passing out on the spot.
"Damnit, Nico." She mutters, even if he can't hear her. "How many times have I already told you not to go so damn far?"
This is their third successful shadow jump already, and both times, he was out for the count as soon as they reached their destination, all because he just had to go as far as he possibly could in one jump without killing himself. She's yelled at him a total of ten times-their arguments lasted awhile-and yet he still refuses to listen.
"Idiot." She insults his sleeping form, her voice full of fondness, with a regretful edge that Reyna quickly catches. She clamps her mouth shut, shaking her head, determined not to let her feelings get the best of her.
She sighs and gently lowers him to the ground, placing his backpack under his head as a pillow-it still can't be very comfortable, but it's better than the ground.
Looking around at the gloomy trees around her, Reyna wonders where they are this time. She takes a seat next to Nico on the ground, carefully scanning their environment for any hints.
He never tells her where they're going beforehand. Most likely because he knows she'll chew him out and argue with him for a solid twenty minutes until he capitulates and agrees to choose somewhere closer.
The first shadow jump, he got them all the way to Newfoundland-very barren, lots of cliffs-where he passed out for two days, she had to drag him into cover underneath an overhang on an isolated beach, and then had to fight off a flock of harpies while he slept.
When he woke up, she yelled at him, he muttered irritatedly under his breath, she practically forced food down his throat to make sure he ate, and then they went on their way again.
Which brought them to Reykjavik, Iceland. Which is colder than a marble crypt in Northern Alaska, especially to someone who's spent most of her life in Puerto Rico, a magical tropical island, and California. Reyna had to break into someone's house-thankfully, they weren't home-just so that she didn't spend the time that Nico was passed out freezing her butt off in the cold.
He had the nerve to laugh at her when he woke up-having spent most of his life in northern states like Maine and New York, not to mention a great chunk of time in the Underworld, he has a much greater tolerance of cold than she does.
She almost strangled him on the spot. The only bright side of that particular stop was being chased into the hot springs by a pack of hellhounds-it doesn't sound very fun, but the hot springs were definitely worth experiencing.
But now she has no idea where they are-Nico was still pretty tired when he had to shadow-travel them away from Reykjavik, though, so she'd assume they didn't go as far this time. Maybe somewhere in the U.K.? Or did they make it as far as France?
Wherever they are, it's creepy as Pluto's underpants. Faint moonlight is the only source of illumination, and all it does is reflect eerily off of the mist undulating through the trees.
Reyna carefully pulls Nico's backpack off of his shoulders-she doesn't want to disturb his head or risk accidentally hitting it on the ground, so she goes for his backpack instead of hers. Besides, she lost the only jacket she brought with her in Reykjavik when one of those blasted hellhounds shredded it.
He brought an extra sweatshirt along, and she takes it out of the bag, leaving the rest of his stuff alone and zipping his bag back up. She pulls the black hoodie over her head, burying her hands in the pockets and drawing her knees to her chest, tucking them into the sweatshirt as well, not particularly caring if she stretches it a bit.
Then she rests her chin on her knees and sighs, knowing that it's going to be another long night. She hasn't gotten hardly any sleep since they left-she just managed a half hour power nap in Reykjavik, and that's been it. But Nico can't protect himself right now, and she can't protect him if she goes to sleep. So she has to stay awake, no matter what.
After scanning the surrounding area for any threats, she closes her eyes-not to sleep, of course, just to rest. If anything moves within a fifty-yard radius, she'll be up instantly.
Unless, of course, that something is stalking her and is being aided by Gaea so as not to make any noise as it walks across the ground.
Seemingly only seconds after she closes her eyes, something rustles in the trees nearby, and Reyna's eyes immediately fly back open, her fingers scrambling for her sword and her legs launching her to her feet, almost of their own volition.
"Who's there?" She demands, her voice muffled by the heavy mist. "What do you want?"
Her fingers are slippery on the hilt of her sword, her skin sticky from the damp night air. Every sound she makes sounds as if she's talking into a pillow, or stepping on a thick down comforter-smothered, muffled. All too quiet.
A twig snaps behind her, and as soon as she whirls around, a low growl echoes all around her. She turns, frantically searching the trees for the source of the sound, and two glittering yellow-gold eyes peer at her from the mist before blinking once and disappearing.
Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. A horribly familiar voice whispers. The former praetor of New Rome, now baby-sitting for a child two years her junior.
"Year and a half." Reyna mutters, too low for anyone to hear. Even less than that, technically, since Nico's almost fifteen and she only just turned sixteen a few months ago.
To those who know her only from a distance, a fierce warrior. Gaea's voice muses, and Reyna spins, catching a flash of cracked earth and forest green out of the corner of her eye. To those who know her more intimately, a girl so desperately lonely that she'll jump on the first poor boy to come wandering along.
A wave of fury rushes through Reyna, and her face twists up in rage. "Futete." She snarls-the Latin curse rolls naturally off of her tongue.
Such crude profanity doesn't suit you. Gaea replies after a slight pause, her voice amused.
"Fututus et mori in igni." Reyna spits, her fingers tightening almost painfully on the grip of her sword.
I am one of the oldest gods in existence; I cannot die. Nor does fire have any affect on me. Gaea replies. Your insults mean nothing to me.
"Flocci non faccio." Reyna answers, her voice hard.
Gaea's eerie laugh echoes in Reyna's head, and her nostrils flare in anger. Oh, believe me, I know you don't care.
"Leave us alone, you antagonistic bi-"
Moving on to English curses now, are we? Gaea asks, and her earthen form suddenly materializes in the mist, the hard-packed dirt rising from the ground and shifting to create her body. Your spirit is admirable, daughter of Bellona. I could have used you on my side. You should have listened to Sinis when you had the chance.
"Oh, because tying me to a tree, torturing me, and taunting me was exactly the right way to get me to join you." Reyna replies sarcastically. "I can't be bullied into submission, Gaea." In New Rome, her name is Terra, but like Thanatos, they've always been content to leave Gaea her Greek name.
As I know now. Gaea answers. Which is why you cannot be allowed to live any longer.
For some reason, hearing that, Reyna gets the wild desire to laugh. How many times has she heard that before? Enough so that she'd be rich if she had a dollar for every time it'd been said. And yet she's still here.
"Come to kill me yourself then?" She demands insolently, a mocking smirk on her face. She's so tired of being pushed around. "The people you keep sending to do the job have a tendency to fail."
No. Gaea answers, a slight note of amusement still clear in her tone. I have followers for a reason.
"To do your dirty work." Reyna says. "As soon as they've outlived their usefulness, you let them die."
Of course. If they're of no use to me, they have no reason to continue living. Gaea responds, her voice emotionless. Or if they're a danger to everything I've worked for, as you are to me now.
"I thought nothing could stop you from rising, Gaea." Reyna counters. "I thought our efforts-and the efforts of the Seven-were just the gods' last futile attempt, so that they could say they at least tried. I thought you said we were mere annoyances-nothing of consequence to you, the oldest Primordial goddess born of Chaos. But now, if you want to go to the lengths to have me killed-are you scared, Gaea? Are you afraid of the part we could play in your defeat?"
I am not afraid of mere children. Gaea scoffs. You are nuisances, but nothing that will prevent me from rising. I will rise, and nothing you or any puny demigod can do is going to stop that.
"Then why kill me? Why go through the effort involved in making sure we all die?" Reyna demands, her blood turned to cold steel running through her veins.
Pleasure. Gaea responds, her voice cold. Revenge. The gods forced me into a deep slumber for thousands of years-the deaths of their children are just another way to cause them pain. Feeling your blood spill onto the ground and seep deep down to the roots of the earth, being able to boast about it, whisper the story of your deaths in the minds of others to weaken them, to break them irreparably-that is why. Your deaths entertain me.
Reyna falters at her words, and she can hear the triumph in Gaea's voice when the goddess speaks next.
Die well, daughter of Bellona. Gaea whispers, her voice a sadistic caress.
Then her form dissolves back into the ground, and her presence is gone, leaving Reyna to stand protectively over Nico's sleeping form, waiting tensely for whatever enemy Gaea's sent to battle her now.
The same growl she heard before Gaea first spoke sounds around her, clearer than any sound should be through all this mist. Those yellow-gold eyes reappear in front of Reyna, pupils narrowed to needle-thin slits.
For a moment, that's all she can see of the monster, and then it steps forward, through the hanging curtains of thick mist, and the moonlight glints off of its glittering golden fur and silver claws.
The Nemean lion. Reyna thinks, wondering a bit at its beauty. Then she shakes herself out of it and returns to her defensive stance, determined not to let it get anywhere near Nico. Even if its fur is inpenetrable, its eyes and mouth are not.
"Here, kitty, kitty." She calls softly, her tone menacing and eyes watching the lion's every move.
It rumbles threateningly low in its throat, and light flashes off of giant pointed teeth. Its tail twitches lazily from side to side.
Reyna watches as it kneads the ground with its claws, the muscles rippling underneath its golden fur. It tenses, readying itself to leap, and Reyna knows she has to make the first move if she wants to keep it away from Nico-so she runs at it before it has the chance to pounce, yelling a battle cry-the yelling isn't really her style, but she has to make sure she has its attention.
And, oh, does she. The lion roars so forcefully that she can feel her hair blowing back, and hear the rustling of the leaves in the trees as if a powerful wind just passed by.
She thrusts her sword at its chest, knowing very well it won't do any damage, and her sword skates off in a burst of sparks. She leaps away, out of the reach of its claws, and runs into the trees, looking back to make sure it's following her.
It is-it's only a few feet behind her, swiping at her back with its ten-inch claws.
She swerves abruptly sideways, slipping narrowly between two trees that are too close together for the lion to follow her-although that doesn't stop it from trying. It skids to a halt when she turns, nails digging deep furrows in the earth, and bounds forward, slipping a paw after her, scraping and slashing at the bark in an effort to get to her.
At least it's not that smart, in any case.
Reyna sprints out of reach, zig-zagging through the trees, and then, when she finds the perfect one, she stops and pulls herself up into one of the trees, climbing until she's more than twenty feet above the ground, waiting for the lion to walk below her.
It isn't long before it stalks out of the trees, head low to the ground, setting its paws lightly upon the ground, following her scent, trying to sneak up to her.
The joke's on it, this time.
Reyna lets herself fall from her branch, landing hard on the lion's back and driving the air from her lungs-it stumbles and falls, its front paws tangling beneath it and sending it face-first into the dirt.
Reyna claws a dagger from one of her arm-sheathes, slashing at the lion's face, aiming for the eyes. As it climbs back to its feet, it makes the mistake of turning to try to bite at her, and the tip of her dagger scratches across the surface of a giant yellow-gold eye-not as deep a cut as she'd like, but the lion wails in pain and paws at its face.
The lion's movements jostle Reyna off of its back, but that's fine with her-she can't get a killing shot at it unless she's on the ground. She races forward to try to get at it while its distracted by the pain in its eye, but it straightens just as she nears it and glares hatred with a bleeding, bloodshot red eye weeping tears.
She tries to veer away, but the evasion comes too late, and the lion's paw swipes out with enough force to send her flying twenty feet into a tree.
Her head cracks against the trunk and pain erupts like a supernova all through her. The edges of her vision are ragged and black, and what she can see is blurry and unfocused.
The sight of the Nemean lion stalking towards her is clear enough, though, and she struggles to rise to her feet, the tip of her sword dragging in the dirt. Somehow, she managed to keep a hold of it.
Summoning her strength, she straightens and spins her sword in her hand, smacking the hilt directly between the lion's eyes and sending it stumbling away. Then she staggers to her left, the opposite direction it went in, trying to get back to the place where she left Nico.
The thought of him, and how if she dies, he'll have no one to protect him, is all that keeps her standing.
She can hear the lion roaring and wailing in rage and pain behind her, and tries to quicken her pace, but that only causes her to trip and nearly fall-she has to steady herself against the trunk of a tree, scraping her hand badly on the bark. When she looks, her hand is cut deeply and dripping blood.
Her head spins dizzily, but she keeps on, reaching the edge of the hollow where she left Nico just as the Nemean lion catches up to her.
She hears it breathing hard behind her, and whirls just in time for one of its claws to catch her skin, tearing along the strap of her armor and down across her collarbone.
She stumbles back, nearly falling, her vision blurring and there's somehow two or three of everything spinning around, but she shakes her head and raises her sword, her arm straining with the effort.
The lion roars and slashes at her again-she turns away in time to avoid a fatal blow, and the claws rake across her armor, leaving scratches in the metal.
The force of the hit sends her onto the ground, and she scrambles to stand, but her head won't let her and she just ends up facing the lion from the ground, her hands bracing her weight behind her, knees half drawn up to her chest, watching as the lion comes tauntingly closer and closer.
It roars again, defiantly, triumphantly, and then lunges forward, its mouth gaping wide to bite out her throat and end the fight one and for all.
Reyna throws up her left arm, just in time, and screams in pain as its teeth clamp down on her arm. Then she grits her teeth, recognizing this as her last chance, and thrusts her sword down the lion's throat.
Its teeth release her arm, and it makes an awful choking, keening wail as her sword rips it open from the inside. It gags and chokes, shuddering, and then, seconds later, it falls and dissolves with one last wail, leaving nothing but its skin glittering on the ground next to her sword.
Reyna can't stand, but she crawls over to the two objects, dragging her sword, which feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, but feeling unsafe without it gripped reassuringly in her hand. Then she lifts the lion skin and pulls it over to Nico, where she drapes it over him and then collapses onto the ground, her strength finally giving out and her mind spiraling into darkness.
(A/N: the Latin curses used in the above section should probably remain foreign. The Romans had some dirty mouths)
Nico
Nico knows something is wrong before he even opens his eyes. Normally, as soon as he's conscious, Reyna is hovering over him, arms crossed, scolding him for being stupid or just saying, "About time," and shoving food into his hands before he's even fully awake.
Nico doesn't even know how she knows he's awake. Something about a change in his breathing, she always says.
But now, there's none of that. There's only silence.
He sits up, and as he does, something falls off of his shoulders and rests in folds on his legs-a blanket? He lifts it with one hand-no, a fur. Surprisingly supple and light for something so thick. But where did it come from?
Something alerts him-a sound, maybe, or just a feeling-and he twists to his right to see what it is.
As soon as he does, he's up, shoving the fur off of him, scrambling and stumbling the few feet over to where Reyna is laying, unconscious, on the ground, her fingers still wrapped limply around the hilt of a blood-stained sword. Any hint of exhaustion that might have been left over from shadow-traveling is immediately gone, his fevered worry for her spiking his adrenaline better than a cup of double-shot espresso.
He kneels beside her, his hands hovering uncertainly just above her, no idea what is wrong or what to do about it. The relief that washes through him when he sees the slight rise and fall of her chest-slight, but still there-is almost crippling.
"Reyna, what did you get yourself into?" He murmurs, and grabs her backpack, which is lying just within reach-had he been using it as a pillow? He digs through it until he finds her stash of ambrosia and nectar, and quickly digs out the flask of godly liquid, gently rolling her over and lifting her head onto his lap to pour some of the nectar into her mouth.
She swallows reflexively, and he sets the bottle back down, resting her head gently back onto his legs-when he pulls his hand away, it's stained crimson with her blood. He lifts her back up, and her hair is sticky with it.
"When this is all over, I'm sticking you in a box where you can't get hurt." Nico tells her. This is only the latest in a series of injuries-twin gashes on her thigh from the hellhounds in Reykjavik, the scratches on her face and arms from the harpies-most worrisome of which was the one just above her eye: another inch lower, and that would've been it.
Now she's gone and gotten into an even bigger mess-and guilt is ripping Nico apart inside, because he knows most of it is his fault. If she didn't have to protect him, if he wasn't so helpless after shadow-traveling, if he was stronger, she wouldn't have to fight for him. There wouldn't be as many monsters-no doubt, this would've never happened.
He sighs shakily and digs out her first-aid kit, knowing her head, at least, is going to have to be bandaged while the nectar does its work. He doesn't know if she has any other injuries, but if she does, he'll deal with them after he deals with the first.
He swipes antiseptic across the back of her head, cleaning the blood from her hair and parting it so he can get a better look at the wound-it's a bad gash, just above the nape of her neck, black with thick, dark blood that's still weeping slowly from the cut. He continues cleaning it, taking care to get any debris out of it. Then he rubs an antibiotic ointment onto the bandage and carefully places that part of it over the gash before wrapping the rest of it around and tying it across her forehead-he smirks faintly as he does it, knowing she'll just love that when she wakes up.
After he's satisfied with the postioning of the bandage, he moves on to the rest of her-that's when he notices that she's wearing his favorite hoodie.
He smiles at that too. No doubt she got cold in the crisp England air and dug it out of his bag, seeing as hers got shredded to bits in Reykjavik. Stupid hellhound. She was so mad, too-apparently it'd been one of her favorite jackets, and the only way he could stop her from running after the remainder of the pack of hellhounds was by promising her that he'd buy her a new jacket at the end of it all.
Yeah, he's not doing very good with the whole 'not allowed to like her' thing.
There's a hole in it, too-three, including the slashes in the side where it looks like some massive monster clawed her. Bigger than a hellhound, that's for sure. But the only one that worries him is the one along her collarbone, and that's because the edges of the hole are soaked with blood. Of course.
He gently tugs the hoodie over her head so he can get at the wound, smirking a little at the raised goosebumps on her arms from the cold. Then the smile fades as he inspects the cut.
There's a glimpse of white in the mess of red-her collarbone-and he winces. The skin is so thin over the collarbones that any cut, no matter how major, would probably reveal that glimpse of white, but that doesn't make it any less cringe-worthy.
He never learned how to do proper stitches, so he just bandages it tightly, using butterfly band-aids from the kit to hold the edges of the cut together. The nectar should start working on it soon enough, and before long, it'll be like it never happened in the first place.
Then he moves on to her arms-and the worst wound, by far, is the mess of her left arm.
The bone doesn't appear to be broken-so there's that-but it could be fractured, and the bite is bad. Numerous puncture wounds so deep they scratched the bone, all seeping a viscous mixture of blood and bubbly yellow ooze.
Nico shudders and cleans it up as good as he can before bandaging it, too, and sitting back on his heels, wondering what to do next.
This is usually when Reyna gets me food and tells me to eat it all or she'll shove it down my throat. He reminds himself, and smiles faintly while grabbing a decent-if not large-amount of food from his bag and eating it absentmindedly as he watches her and waits for her to wake up.
Ironic, isn't it, how we've switched places? He muses. Now I'm the one waiting for her to wake up.
When he's finished with his food, he trickles more nectar into her mouth, and the color starts to return to her cheeks, bit by bit. She starts to stir a bit later, and he digs a few squares of ambrosia out of her bag to give to her.
She groans softly, and then her eyes blink open, raising her arm to rub her eyes and stopping when she notices the bandage on it, peering confusedly at the cloth.
"About time." Nico announces in a teasing tone, and her eyes immediately flicker over to his. She struggles to sit up, and he helps her, knowing that trying to make her stay down will be a waste of both time and effort.
"Here, eat this." He orders, shoving the ambrosia into her hands. She glares at him, recognizing his mockery of her easily, but then sighs and starts slowly eating the squares.
"Did you eat something?" She asks, staring at the ambrosia and turning it over in her hands.
"Yep. I knew what you'd say if I didn't." Nico replies, and smirks at her scowl. Without warning, she suddenly lurches to her feet, and he follows suit, reaching out to steady her as she sways. But she glares at him when he touches her shoulder, and he quickly withdraws, watching as she winces when movement jostles her bad arm and stretches all her cuts.
"Ready to go?" She asks, her voice tight in her effort to keep the pain from slipping into her tone.
Nico raises an eyebrow at her. "You're kidding, right?"
"No." She answers. "We don't have time to stop for longer. We have to be to Athens in four days."
"Well, I'm the one who has to do the shadow-traveling." Nico reminds her. "And I say that you have to rest for at least another couple of hours before I'll take you anywhere."
Her eyes flare with fury, and he braces himself.
"We don't have time for that, Death Breath." She says, her tone making his nickname sound as insulting as possible. "We have to be to Athens in less than four days, or the world is going to end. It doesn't matter what you say, we have to keep going, because we're somehow essential to the success of the Seven and if we don't make it in time, none of what we've accomplished will matter. We'll all be dead."
He watches her admiringly as she rants-the impassioned fire in her eyes and the glow of anger in her cheeks, the messy braid over her shoulder, the smudge of dirt on her left cheekbone. Everything about her.
When she finishes, she seems to realize that he's been ignoring her in favor of checking her out, and her expression immediately sours, her dark eyes glowering dangerously over at him.
"You can't force me to shadow-travel." Nico points out, hurrying to move her attention away from the fact that he just broke their promise to each other-again. "And I'm not going to until some of those wounds heal up a bit. If you have to protect me, then you need to at least have the best possible chance I can give you. A few extra hours of rest could mean the difference between life and death." Before she can respond to that, he moves on. "What attacked you, anyway? A giant cougar?"
"Nemean lion." She mutters, and his eyes widen. He glances over at the fur and then back at her.
"So that's-you-what-" He stutters, and he can see the amusement on her face. "How?"
"I shoved my sword down its throat, that's how." She answers. "But not before we went on a merry little chase through the woods and the bloody thing near tore me to pieces." She looks over at the lion skin with distaste. "I hate cats."
Nico almost bursts out laughing. As it is, he grins crookedly and sticks his hands in his pockets, looking amusedly over at her. "You're really strange, you know that?"
She looks over at him, her face expressionless, so he has no idea what she's thinking. Then, without warning, she reaches over and shoves him sideways, causing him to stumble over the forest floor and almost fall. He just laughs, and when he turns back, she has a small smile on her face.
"So are you done arguing now?" He asks, keeping a smile on his face to keep the question light. "Do you agree to stay here and rest?"
She frowns and glares, but he can see the reluctant understanding in her eyes. She knows it's the most logical thing to do, and she really doesn't like that he's right.
"Fine. But you have to rest too." She finally says.
"I can't. One of us has to keep watch." Nico argues, not liking the turn the argument has taken.
She shakes her head. "We can sleep underneath the Nemean lion skin. It'll protect us, for the most part, and if something tries to attack us through it, I'm sure we'll wake up."
Nico's already shaking his head. "No. It's too risky."
"You want me to rest." Reyna reminds him. "The only way you're going to get me to cooperate is if you rest too. Otherwise I'll take off these bandages and start running through the woods while yelling at the top of my lungs. I'm sure there are still plenty of monsters within shouting distance."
Nico glowers at her, but all she does is smile mockingly.
"Fine." He snaps, and stalks over to the fur, sitting down on the ground and beckoning her over. She complies, and sits next to him, pulling one side of the fur onto her lap and then putting both of their backpacks on the ground as pillows. Then she raises an eyebrow at him.
He rolls his eyes and drops violently onto the ground, turning his back to her and forcing himself not to wince when his attitude earns him a sharp jab in the side from a large rock underneath him.
Nico might not be able to see Reyna, but he can feel her amused grin just as easily as if it were the heat from a fire.
Instead of letting himself think about that, he closes his eyes and forces himself to sleep.
Nico
Nico hates the gods. No doubt, the fact that he and Reyna land right in the middle of a river, in a place that just happens to be populated by a monster, is the source of some great cosmic joke to them.
Does that seem a little bitter? Maybe. But then, you're not the one drowning.
If he could open his mouth without swallowing a gallon of water, he'd be swearing like a f**king sailor at this point.
Reyna jerks him backwards just as the monster snaps its jaws shut where he was a moment before. She seems to be a lot better in the water than he is-which isn't surprising, since he's done his best to stay away from it.
The monster's lunge for him allows him to get his first good look at it-a look he wishes he'd rather not gotten.
It looks like a dragon, except with fins instead of wings. But it has four legs, all equipped with long, needle-like talons ideal for spearing fish; and gelatinous blue flaps over pink gills. There's a frill running vertically up it's skull-more like a ridge, but it flicks from side to side. If Nico had to guess, he'd say the creature used it as a sort of steering tool, the same way it uses its tail. The whole thing is covered in silty, muddy-colored scales, with dappled hints of light, watery blue. The perfect camouflage for a river monster.
It's mouth gapes open again, the jaws unhinging, showing Nico the rows of jagged, mismatched black, white, and gray teeth like pieces of broken glass. It also gives him a good view down the creature's throat, which isn't particularly desirable and only makes him feel nauseous. Muddy yellow eyes peer beadily at him from deep-set ridges in the monster's skull.
Actually, it isn't all that scary. Disgusting, yes, but its appearance wouldn't be so alarming if it wasn't the size of a small whale.
Reyna pulls him out of the way a second time-just in time for him to avoid getting shish-kebabed on the creatures enormous claws. She draws a dagger with her left hand-she's holding onto him with her right. In any case, he's glad ot see that the bite on her arm is healed up enough for it to be wielding a knife.
They'd slept for longer than either of them meant-it was early morning when they layed down to rest, and when they woke, it was late afternoon and the sun was already starting to set. They'd packed up as quickly as possible-Nico insisted Reyna wear the lion skin, since she'd be doing most of the fighting while he was passed out somewhere-and then he'd grabbed her hand and focused on northern Italy, as reluctant as he was to do so. The shadows enveloped them gracefully-
And then dumped them in the middle of a forty foot deep section of a river.
Nico can feel the effort it took to shadow-travel from the U.K. all the way to Italy dragging at his consciousness. His eyes start to slide shut-but then Reyna shakes his arm violently, and he opens them again to see her eyes burning fiercely into his, holding only one message: Stay awake, Nico-or we're both dead.
He blinks once, hard, and opens his eyes as wide as he can, ignoring the sting as the silt floating in the river water irritates his eyes. He feels guilty-he's deadweight; Reyna would be so much better off without him. He can't even draw his sword, let alone kill a monster with it. He might as well be another piece of useless trash floating through the river, for all the use he is.
Oh, but he's so tired. He's so, so tired-and suddenly the exhaustion of everything washes over him. The raggedness of his love for Percy, how tired he is of feeling lonely, how often he was left to wander the abandoned halls of his father's palace without a single soul to talk to, the way he wishes he could just stop feeling the pain of Bianca's death day after day, how he'd finally found someone he could be with, someone who understood him, and that'd been ruined by another prophecy-the exhaustion of just being. It all piles up and crashes through him in a wave of weariness, and he can't help but think how nice it would be to just give in, to drift away with the current...
Reyna shakes him again, and he looks sadly up at her through a haze of gray to look into her worried black eyes, full of that fire and passion he loves so much. But then the monster twists to attack again, and she has to take her hand from his arm to face it and block it's attacks-she has to let go of him in order to protect him.
But isn't that the way it always is? His mind whispers, just a wisp of a voice in the back of his head. People have to leave you to protect you. You have to leave others to protect them.
Black loneliness fills him, and he feels the drain of it-the drain of always being the only one, being so completely alone in the world, without his sister, his only friend, and left with a dad who cared nothing for him.
His eyes close, almost without him realizing it, and his lips part and water rushes into his lungs in place of his last bubble of air, and he doesn't try to stop it. His strokes slow, his kicks to tread water, and then they all stop altogether, and he's floating, being washed away by the darkness claiming his mind. He can feel the shock of blows reverberating through the water-Reyna's still fighting. She'll always fight, till the end, and he knows she'll find a way on her own, somehow, without him. Even if it means she's alone.
Like I always was. He thinks, and opens his eyes just once, to look up-far, far above, he sees the mon casting silvery rays of light through the water, but hten his eyes close again and he can't see anything anymore...
Then a strong hand grips his suddenly and pulls him up, up towards the moonlight, but it's a race with the darkness and the darkness is winning.
He tries to open his eyes, to fight, but all he can see is a murky figure swimming strongly through the swift current.
He feels detached, unsettled, far away, viewing everything as if from the end of a long tunnel...
Suddenly, though, he feels his head break the surface, and hears fingers scrabbling against the rocky bank before he's dragged onto a shore with his feet still dragging in the water.
"You are not leaving me alone, Nico. Don't you dare; don't you even dare. You're not leaving me alone again, not again, never again." Reyna's voice chokes out, her tone frantic. The sound of it makes some part of him want to live again, even if his mind still wants to just give up.
Against his will, his body coughs, choking on the water, expelling it from his lungs and forcing them to breathe again.
He can hardly move, but he's alive, and Reyna is still gripping his hand, her elbows bracing her on the side of the river but the rest of her body still submerged in the water. He can hear her breathing hard, gasping for air.
As much as he wanted to give in, he wasn't actually trying to breathe water into his lungs, evidently, and it isn't long before he's just laying inert on the bank, breath shuddering, shivering a bit, his eyes closed again and feeling his mind beginning to spiral back into exhaustion.
Only shadow-travel exhaustion, this time, though. He knows if he falls asleep, he'll wake back up.
Reyna's breathing starts to calm, but then she gasps-a sound of pained surprise, and then her hand is jerked from his and he hears her fingernails digging at the rock, water suddenly erupting everywhere as she struggles to pull herself up onto the bank-and then she's pulled back under.
Reyna
The monster tightens its hold on Reyna's leg, and she feels its broken-glass teeth grate against the bone. She almost screams out in pain, and has to bite down on her tongue hard enough to draw blood to make sure she doesn't open her mouth.
She slashes down blindly with her dagger, and feels its grip loosen, but when she tries to break free of its hold and swim up, its jaws close back on her leg with crushing force, sending waves of blinding pain crashing through her. The lionskin cloak on her shoulders only weighs her down more, and part of her wants to just cut it free, be rid of it, but it's already saved her life twice in the past ten minutes and she doesn't want to give up her main advantage.
She adjusts her grip on her dagger and looks down to decide the angle of her thrust, keeping her eyes purposefully focused on the monster's head instead of her mangled leg. The one muddy yellow eye she can see is staring triumphantly up at her, and she feels a wave of rage that helps guide her hand-the point of her dagger finds its way directly into that yellow eye.
Its jaws immediately open wide as a reaction to the pain, and it claws at its face, only serving to do more damage with those giant talons.
Reyna struggles for the surface, kicking her legs-even when the pain almost makes her pass out; even when the cloak tangles around both her wounded leg and her good one and makes it only more difficult, because she has to get to Nico. She has to-he needs her, he needs protected, and he's helpless right now, too weak to be any good in a fight-
The monster swipes its claws across her back, and she winces in an automatic reaction, even though its talons don't touch her-they can't pierce through the lion fur. She won't be able to get out of the water as long as the monster is alive-or awake, at the very least, but she can't fight it unless she's facing it, and the cloak doesn't protect the front of her.
Her lungs are starting to feel the strain of being without oxygen, though, and she knows she won't last much longer, so she braces herself and spins around in the water, slashing out in a wide arc with her dagger to make the creature back off and give her time to get her bearings in the fight.
The monster has the advantage in the fight-its body is made for the water, and it lives in this river. Down here, the monster's got the ball. But it won't let her get close enough to the surface for her to be at an advantage there, so she can't do much about that for now.
It has plenty of disadvantages, though, too-it has one less eye now, after she stabbed through the first, and it might be a faster swimmer, but its limbs are big and bulky and she doubts it can turn very quickly.
She swims to its left-her right-the side without an eye, and draws a second dagger, treading water with her legs. She can't feel the pain in her one leg anymore-shock, maybe, or just adrenaline. She hopes it's the latter, because she can't go into shock, not now. It'd mean disaster.
She can still feel the brutal coldness of the water, though, so that has to be a good sign. Sort of.
The monster comes back in for another attack, and she strikes out with her right hand, opening a slanted cut across its ugly face that narrowly misses the second eye. Before it can back away, she thrusts out with her second knife, driving it towards the creature's chest.
She would've hit it directly in the heart, killing it instantly, but it turns at the last second and her blade sinks into its leg instead.
Irritated, she yanks the knife back out, and makes as if to go for it again, but the monster has lost its arrogant air and only wants to finish the fight anymore-it backs away and then barrels forward, propelling itself swiftly through the water and directly at her chest.
She kicks to the side just in time to miss a direct hit, and her lionskin cloak deflects it, even if the force still bruises up her side pretty good. The problem isn't the hit itself-it's that it knocks her extremely off balance and leaves her arms flailing in the water, trying to right herself.
The monster isn't about to let an advantage like that go to waste, and it lunges into her from behind, slamming her downwards and locking its jaws around her middle-the cloak, yet again, keeps its teeth from piercing her, but that doesn't make her immune to the clamping force of its mouth.
She struggles to turn and face it-there's no honor in dying with your back to the enemy-and just manages it before she's slammed bodily into the river floor. Her head-with barely-healed wound and all-smacks into a slab of rock, and the monster holds her down with a single taloned paw, pressing down harder and harder the more she struggles.
Her lips open in a small gasp, and bubbles of air burst from her mouth, shining ethereal silver-blue in the moonlit water, and she breathes in a lungful of water before she realizes what she's doing-she chokes and coughs, but only swallows more water, and the cold of it turns her blood to ice and her skin pale as snow. But she doesn't stop moving, doesn't stop thrashing and struggling to breathe, to live.
She is empty inside; she has nothing left anymore, but she won't stop fighting, not now, not ever. Not for herself, never for herself, but for others-how would Hylla feel, after all, to hear that her sister drowned when that's exactly what she saved her from all those years ago? And she can't leave Nico on his own-no.
Her dagger flashes out-a last attempt as her strength starts to wane, and it finds its mark, slashing across the monster's throat and leaving a cloud of gold ichor to twist through the water all around her.
It screams again, crying out in a sound barely muffled by the water, and its claws pierce the skin on her chest as it flails, trying to escape the taste of its own blood. When it finally falls still, it doesn't disentegrate-as far as Reyna can tell, it still isn't dead; it's still clinging to the barest thread of life, and even though it'll be long gone in a minute or two, she doesn't have that long.
She pushes up and against it, straining with all her strength to move it from where it's pinning her to the crumbling marble ruins of the river floor. It barely moves, but she bares her teeth in a defiant snarl, not caring to keep her mouth closed anymore. Her lungs are already full of water anyway, and they long since gave up trying to cough it back up.
She wants to just give up, oh, she wants it so badly, and she feels her eyes well with tears, saltwater mingling with freshwater, but she won't let herself because there's no honorable death in just dying. There's no honorable death in giving up when others need you.
Reyna chants the names of those she has to fight for in her head-Hylla, Gwen, Jason, Nico; Hylla, Gwen, Jason, Nico, but mostly it's just, Nico, Nico, Nico, Nico...
Her heart and lungs are near to bursting, and her vision is darkening so she can barely see her hands in front of her face, but she refuses to give up, and swings her dagger out at the monster in desperation, widening the cut across its throat, slashing across its chest, and still straining upwards with all her might, kicking with her legs, going on ignoring the horrible, cold, throbbing pain in her mangled leg.
The monster finally starts to disentegrate, turning to dust that fills the water and clings to her hair and clothing and gets in her eyes, and she tries again to swim up but now there's something else holding her there-she twists, trying to break free of it, desperately clawing for the surface, her eyes half-blind and her mind more unconscious than conscious, and her whole being so, so cold...
Then suddenly there's a hand, with the golden dust and ichor swirling all around it, and she grabs it with all her strength, channeling her last energy into just holding on.
It pulls her free, and she tries to swim up, but she's drowning inside as well as out and her mind, and for some reason, there doesn't seem any reason anymore.
Why did I fight so hard, anyway? She thinks sluggishly. I can't remember...it doesn't matter anymore. There was never anything for me here anyway.
Her mind is spinning, her body deadweight, and all she wants is to be free of it-and then that's it, that's all she has left, and she's spiraling away on the darkness.
Nico
Nico doesn't know when exactly Reyna stops struggling, but he feels her strokes slow and then halt altogether, and the panic that comes with feeling the girl who never stopped fighting stop fighting closes around his heart in an icy fist. That same panic, though, is what gives him the burst of energy to swim that last stretch to the surface and pull her out onto the bank-all the way out this time, onto the rocky shore, where he collapses on his knees beside her and leans over her motionless body, gasping, different glimpses coming to him in pieces like fragmented glass.
Her parted lips, blue with cold. Her skin, usually a healthy, tan bronze, now whiter than any snow he's ever seen. Her hands, limp, and her purple fingers. The dark bruised color of the area around her eyes. The golden sand from the river monster glittering in her hair, on her shoulders, dusted across her skin, making her look like a wounded goddess.
Her black eyes, wide open to the night air but unseeing and blank, without a single spark of their usual fierce fire.
His fingers fumble for her wrist, for a pulse, but there's nothing to feel and a tide of emotion is rising within him, but he forces it back and places his hands on her chest, placing one hand on top of the other and pressing down firmly with the heels of his hands-CPR, as taught to him by one of the spirits of the Underworld.
He counts silently, his lips mouthing the numbers as he goes. One, two, three...
She doesn't respond, her heart doesn't suddenly begin beating again, and that wave of emotion threatens to overwhelm him again, but he ignores it and pinches her nose shut with one hand before covering her mouth with his and blowing air into her lungs. One, two, three...
Then he goes back to the compressions, again and again, back and forth. One, two...three...
One, two...three...
His mind slips into autopilot, even as he's desperate to save her life, but as time goes on and she still doesn't move, his movements start to slow...
One...two...three...
One...two...three...
One...
...Two...
...Three...
And tears start to fall, unimpeeded, from his eyes, mixing with the water dripping from his wet hair, and he cries for the first time since Bianca died. The tears fall silently, rolling down his cheek and dripping onto Reyna's wet skin as he continues trying to revive her, ignoring the fact that it's been too long since her heart beat, ignoring the fact that her eyes shouldn't be open and that there's blood in her hair and on his hands from her chest.
"Damnit, Reyna, wake up." He calls desperately, his voice thick with his tears. "Don't you dare be dead, don't you even dare." His tears start to run faster and harder, blurring his vision, and a choked sob traps itself in his throat, but he's crying openly now and he doesn't even care.
He knows he shouldn't feel this strongly about her, not after just a week, but it's like he's found himself in her and he doesn't even care about things that shouldn't be, because things have never been the way they should.
He presses his mouth to hers again, breathing more air into her lungs, another attempt at rescuscitation that turns into a kiss-his first kiss, and he's kissing the pale, cold blue lips of a girl who's dead or dying, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care.
"I love you." He rasps, his voice barely a breath, his hand desperately grasping hers. He doesn't want to lose her, not after he finally found the person he's meant for after all these years. Someone he can be with, who doesn't make his chest ache with pain-la douleur exquise, a spirit he'd confided in once told him. The pain of wanting the affection of someone unattainable.
The exquisite pain...
"I love you." He whispers again, still desperately crushing her fingers in his, and he lays his head on her chest, feeling her blood seeping into his hair as the salt of his tears mingles with the dark crimson.
Reyna
"I love you." She hears, whispered from lips that are dripping tears. She's unaware of anything, and everything, except for those three words, murmured by the person she most wants to hear them from.
"I love you." She's floating, high above and far away, and she can't see or feel or smell or taste, but she can hear, and those words have never sounded more beautiful than they are coming from his lips.
"I love you." She forces herself back, struggling, throwing herself into going back to him, without breath in her lungs or the beat of her heart to guide her, following nothing but the sound of those three words. She forces herself back to life, to living, to breath and heart and love and hate and Nico.
Nico
Underneath his head, he feels it. Just once.
Beat.
He jerks his head up and stares incredulously, scanning her face for any sign of life-her eyes are still blank and staring, but when he scrambles for her wrist, her pulse is there, slow, but strong and steady.
Beat.
The next second, she suddenly comes flooding back to herself-blood rushes to her cheeks, life to her eyes, and her frozen gaze flies wide as she gasps and chokes, her shoulders arcing off the ground and hunching in on herself as she claws feebly at her chest and retches river water.
Nico holds on to her shoulder as she chokes and coughs, vomiting more and more water from her lungs and stomach. When it's finally all out, she doesn't move for a few moments, just gasping, her breath wheezing and raspy, rattling out of her chest. Then her eyes close halfway and she slumps against him, shivering, and her wraps his arms around her, heedless of the voice in his head that won't shut up about the dangers of letting himself feel.
"C'mon, Reyna, you need to drink some nectar." He murmurs in her ear, and she doesn't respond, but when he digs a bottle out of his backpack-miraculously undamaged and not at the bottom of the river somewhere-she lets him help her drink some of it. Not as much as he'd like, but something is much better than nothing.
He rubs her arm reassuringly, trying to work some warmth back into her ice cold skin, and whispers sweet nonsense into her ear to calm her as she shudders and shivers against him. Her shivering starts to slow, though, and then stops, and he rests his chin on her wet hair and closes his eyes as she falls asleep against him.
Thank you. He thinks-a prayer to whoever listened. Thank you, for helping her back to me.
[[[TIME LAPSE]]]
Reyna
When Reyna wakes up, she's in Nico's arms, and she feels so wonderfully warm and happy that she wishes she could stay there forever. But, of course, she can't, because as soon as she's awake, Nico unwraps himself from her and sits up, turning to help her up with him.
She looks up, and is startled when she meets his gaze full on-his meltingly dark brown eyes burning directly into hers. She stares back, though, wanting to hold him there, to hear him admit what he said before was true, that he meant it more than anything.
He looks away first.
Maybe I was imagining things. She thinks, agitated, her thoughts jerky and hard to follow. I was so out of it, maybe my mind started hallucinating the things I most wanted to give me a reason to live.
Nico stands, moving a few feet away before turning back with his hands in his pockets and looking down at her. "How are you feeling?"
"Sore." She answers, her voice hoarse. "Like my lungs were turned inside out and then trampled by a herd of pegasi."
The corner of his mouth quirks up into a tiny smile, but it disappears after only a second, and he suddenly seems infinitely sad, for some reason she can't fathom.
He looks away, his eyes staring far into the distance at something she can't see. "Tomorrow is August 1st." He says.
Oh. Her heart feels like it's being crushed by a twenty-ton weight. She closes her eyes briefly and breathes in through her nose before opening them back up. "This is it, then. Our next stop is Athens."
He meets her eyes for just a moment before looking down and nodding once. "Yeah. This is our last day." He kicks absentmindedly at the ground, his shoe scuffing at the leaves.
She mirrors his nod, her head moving absentmindedly, like a puppet with strings. She feels numb-but then, what is she supposed to feel in this situation?
Nico clears his throat. "I'm, um, sorry about sleeping so close to you. You were really cold; I was just trying to keep you from catching hypothermia."
Something in Reyna falls and crashes-he's not acting much differently than he was before, if a little nervous. Less lighthearted. "It's okay." She replies, the words pulled from her almost against her will.
He nods again-like it's the only response he can manage. "We should go soon." He tells her.
She breathes in deeply, just once. "I know." She replies, and starts to climb to her feet-her legs aren't working very well, though, and she isn't really expecting the lance of pain that shoots up her leg as soon as she puts weight on it.
Nico lunges forward to steady her before she falls. "Careful." He cautions, and she has to bite back a sarcastic retort.
When she looks down, she notices her leg is bandaged, and a flash of memory comes back to her-looking down and seeing the river monster's teeth latched onto her leg, pulling her down as spikes of hot pain flared through her.
"Ow." She says, her brow furrowed. Then, muttering under her breath, "Damn monster."
Nico lets out an exasperated little puff of breath-a cross between amusement and hysteria, and she looks up at him, her forehead wrinkled in confusion to see the incredulity on his face.
"Reyna, you died last night. Your heart stopped, and it didn't beat for over two freaking minutes, and all you can say is 'damn monster?!" He asks, his voice raised.
She looks back at him, and the worry in her eyes, as twisted as it might seem, makes her heart rise a bit with hope-he was worried about her. "Why the hell are you saying 'freaking?'" She asks him, mostly ignoring his question. "I mean, we're both probably going to die in the next 24 hours. If you're going to curse, do it properly."
He looks at her, mingled exasperation and yet more incredulity in his eyes, and then he barks a short laugh. "Really? That's what you choose to respond to?"
"I'm fine, Nico." She assures him. "Near death experiences are kind of a routine thing for demigods."
"Yes, but dying and then coming back from the dead aren't near as common, wouldn't you say?" He shoots back, and she pushes away from him.
"Oh, what d'you care? I'm alive, I'm as healthy as I'm gonna get, and tomorrow is the Feast of Spes so it doesn't damn well matter how I'm feeling. If we're going to get to Athens on time to fulfill the stupid prophecy, we have to leave as soon as possible, and all this argument is doing is wasting time. Get over yourself." She shouts, and spins to get away from the slightly hurt look on his face and to keep herself from continuing to vent her fury on someone who doesn't deserve it.
She yanks her armor strap sideways, straightening it, and stalks over to where she sees the backpacks, swinging hers up and onto her shoulder, hating when she stumbles and has to put her hand against a tree to keep from falling. When her head stops spinning, she picks up Nico's backpack too and tosses it to him.
"Here." She says shortly. "We ought to go."
His expression is guarded, and the shield she hasn't seen in the longest time is back up in his eyes.
"Reyna, I didn't mean it like that." He tells her, and she closes her eyes, leaning back against the tree again for support.
"It doesn't matter." She replies, her eyes still closed. "And I'm sorry for yelling, but we really do need to go, Nico." She opens her eyes and starts to take a step towards him, but as soon as she moves, she stumbles, and she would've fallen if Nico hadn't lunged forward and caught her by the shoulder.
"Before we go anywhere, you need to eat some ambrosia." He orders. "You aren't going to do anyone any good if you're dead on your feet when we get to Athens."
She opens her mouth to protest, but he shakes his head and forces a few squares of ambrosia into her hand. A few minutes later, she's sitting with her back against a tree, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand while she waits for the ambrosia to kick in.
Skip ahead another few minutes, and she's joining Nico at the edge of the river bank, where the sun is catching the water just the right way to make light glint off of the golden dust still scattered through the river.
"Ready?" He asks, without turning, and she looks around at everything-the way the sunlight makes death look beautiful, the bright green light filtering through the leaves of the trees scattered around them, the crumbling marble ruins at the bottom of the river where she almost gave up. Not a very inspiring picture, all in all.
Then she turns to him, and he meets her gaze, and she sees so many things in his eyes, but mostly she sees herself reflected back at her. Her unreadiness, and how afraid she is of her feelings. And in his eyes, she sees the same feelings she's afraid to feel half-hidden behind his shield, which was once too strong for her to see past and is now easier than seeing into herself.
'I love you,' he'd said. Or so she'd thought he said.
"Did you mean what you said?" She asks abruptly, and his eyebrows lift in surprise-she can see his thoughts clearer than she knows her own; 'Does she really remember? How does she even know? No, that can't be what she's talking about.
"What do you mean?" He asks, and the uncertainty in his eyes only barely veils the other things. The fear, and the longing, and the loneliness...and the love.
Tomorrow, one or both of us might be dead. She thinks. Neither of us might make it through this last day, and we're just going to keep on pretending we don't feel what we do for each other?
A rush of irritation floods through her.
"Screw this." She says, and steps forward without another thought, knotting her fist in the fabric of his t-shirt collar.
"Wha-" He starts to ask, but before he can even finish a word, she yanks him forward and presses her lips to his with bruising force, kissing him angrily and hungrily with all the passion a berserker feels on the battlefield.
And he kisses her back, oh, he kisses her back. Her lips part and she presses herself more firmly into him, her other hand finding the back of his neck and his hands finding her waist and tangling his fingers in her hair.
The kiss is hard and passionate and angry and wonderful, sharp and metallic and harsh. Her lips ache with the force of it, and her hands pull at him, pressing so close to him that there isn't a single centimeter between them.
This isn't one of those soft, sweet, perfect kisses read about in romance novels and squealed excitedly about by little girls. This kiss is violent, and full of mingled heat and shadows, and Reyna loves every second of it.
When she breaks away, gasping, still holding on to him, she looks into his dark chocolate eyes, and the shaggy black hair falling into his eyes, and she bares her teeth in a feral grin.
"Damn, Di Angelo, you're a good kisser." She tells him, and he grins too, throwing his head back and laughing before resting his head back forward with his teeth showing in the biggest smile she's ever seen on his face.
"You're not too bad yourself, Ramirez-Arellano." He replies, and even though he uses a name she's hated for so long she refuses to even tell it to people, she doesn't care.
Her fingers tangle in his wild hair, and she presses herself against him again, kissing him a second time, desperately, hard, violently, and she can't get enough of him.
When they pull away this time, she moves her hands down his arms, and he twines his fingers with hers.
"Ready?" He asks again, and she looks him straight in the eye and smiles.
"Ready." She tells him. "As long as I'm with you, I'm ready for anything."
He pulls her into him, and they fall into another kiss as the shadows fold around them, bringing them closer to Athens and August 1st, yes, but also closer to each other-if that's even possible.
*shrieks so loudly every person in twenty-mile radius covers ears* REYNICOOOOOOOOO! Is it bad to fangirl over your own writing? 'Cuz I'm just sayin' now, I was fangirling so hard during that last scene there, you have no idea.
I love you, SHIP REYNICO AND SQUEAL AND BE HAPPY BECAUSE HOLY EFFING SCHISTINESS THEY KIIIIIIISSSSEEEEEDDDD, please leave happiness and funny inspiring awesomeness in your reviews that IS NOT reminiscent of sappy motivational quotes, and OHMYGODSBLOODOFOLYMPUSISONLYSEVENTEENDAYSAWAY!