LOL I'm the worst updater ever.
But guess what inspired me to finish this up! THE OFFICIAL BANNERS FOR BEING 14 IS TOUGH AND BEING 15 IS TOUGHER ARE POSTED ON THE VERITA AWARDS WEBSITE! The link is here:
h t t p : / / fanmortals. webs. com/apps /photos/ album? albumid=8682328 (make sure to take out the spaces)
All of you should go see them! Right now! They both came out really, really cool. And the guy is cute.
Hope all of you had a great Chanukah/Christmas/Kwanza and New Years! Mine were lovely.
Anyway, sorry guys, but this chapter is kinda awful. Kinda. I had this whole 11 page thing written out, and then today I was reading over it and I was like "Yeah… this isn't gonna work". So I started over! Yay for new beginnings and stuff. So I probably should take more time going over this and editing, but I really wanted to get it up on the first day of the new year, so I hope you all don't hate me, haha :P
Disclaimer: As of Christmas morning, I own two pairs of slippers, some chocolate (that I ate), and a DVD player, but no rights to PJO or any of its characters… :(
After searching for an hour or two, we came to the conclusion that they had been eaten by monsters and we should just go on with our lives.
Well, I came to that conclusion. Jill, on the other hand, was set on finding them.
"They have to be around here somewhere!" she exclaimed as we wandered through the park. We had come across a more densely forested area of the park, and before I could even open my mouth to protest, Jill dove into the forest without hesitation. Unfortunately, all I could do was follow her.
"Ow," I muttered when I snagged my foot on yet another tree root and nearly face planted the ground. The tree branches had scraped up my arms and face as we stumbled through the park, and Jill didn't really appreciate my suggestions of going on without me while I took a quick nap.
We continued pushing our way through the trees. "I'm going to kill them, you know." Jill suddenly said, breaking the silence. "I'm seriously going to strangle every single one of them with my bare hands."
I sighed and continued after her. Her worry must've been supplying her with some sort of energy, since she had been quickly speeding throughout the paths for an hour and didn't seem to be even a little tired. I, on the other hand, felt like my feet were about to fall off or explode. I wasn't really excited for either of those things to happen.
Even worse, the pain that had returned while journeying up the stairs had managed to double as we explored the park. When we first crawled out of the Underworld, I had dismissed the aching and focused on finding the trio; but after a while of just walking around, I was starting to feel the energy drain out of me.
To my greatest pleasure, we had escaped the thickly forested area and were back on the walking path. I thought that would be easier for me, but it proved itself just as hard. If Jill had noticed me slowing down, she hadn't said anything. She continued her fast pace, and I'm sure I looked like a drunken fool stumbling after her. As we approached a lake/pond/thing, Jill ended her steady pace and broke into a full sprint towards the water. I started to follow her, but my legs felt like lead and the best I could do was stagger over to a bench before I collapsed. My heart beat echoed painfully in my ears, and not focusing on how exhausted I was made me acutely aware of just how bad the pain in my arm was.
"Do you think they could've fallen- Nico? What are you doing?" she said more after that, but I wasn't paying attention as I was much too busy dealing with the agonizing pain ripping through my arm. Though, I did notice when she ran over to the bench I was sitting on. "Your arm." she said, finally putting two and two together.
After several attempts at speaking, I managed to spit out a word: "Ambrosia."
Immediately, she began to rummage through her pockets. Wrappers of granola bars and an old receipt fell out, but no ambrosia. When she looked back at me, her face had paled, which is the ultimate sign of bad news. "Hailey has it." Wiping the worried look off of her face, she added, "How bad is the pain?" My answer was a distressing groan that seemed to echo through the silence. "I'll take you to a hospital; there's one right on-"
"And tell them what? That our pet hamster got a little aggressive and slashed my arm open?" I tried to say, but it just came out as inaudible grunts and moans. Regardless, Jill seemed to get the message.
With a new sense of determination, the girl wrapped her arms around my torso and helped me to my feet as carefully as possible (which doesn't mean that it didn't hurt like Hades). Much to our displeasure, once I was up, my body had a hard time staying that way. I nearly pulled the both of us down more than once, but somehow she managed to keep me upright. "We have to get out of here, okay?" she told me as we stumbled along the walkway. I was scared that we would get lost in the huge area, but she seemed to know just where she was going.
After what seemed to be years, we finally came across an exit, and escaped the park. We were immediately greeted by the overwhelming sounds and lights of the city; something that wasn't exactly welcomed in my state.
Jill took one last glance towards the park, and then turned and led me away.
(HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT! I met Cassandra Clare earlier this month! And I read Clockwork Prince! It was so good! And I'm marrying Jem. Seriously.)
I must say, I was surprised that New York City lived up to its reputation as "the city that never sleeps". I had been there before, but never had I wandered through the streets in the middle of the night and took notice of the noise, lights, and people.
We turned on almost every street corner we came across, and seemed to walk forever; but Jill weaved expertly through the streets, reminding me that she was in fact a native New Yorker. We passed 24/7 grocery stores (because you never know when you're going to have to buy a dozen eggs and some pickles at four in the morning), two people passed out on the sidewalk (I nearly joined them a couple of times), and we crossed the street whenever coming close to a drunken fight between two grown men (or, in one case, two women in extremely tight animal printed dresses).
If I wasn't cringing in pain the entire time, I'm sure I would've loved it.
The entire time, Jill was whispering encouraging words, "Just a little bit farther," or, "You can do it," and, "Keep it up." For some reason, I had a feeling she was talking to herself just as much as she was to me. She seemed to be horribly uncomfortable dealing with an injured person, though children of Athena aren't exactly known for their healing abilities or compassion. I figured she was doing her best.
Half the trip, I was either too busy focusing on keeping myself upright or thinking about how much pain I was in to take notice of where we were going, but we had found ourselves in front of a huge, very modern building. There were several strips of long windows that ran horizontally across the whole building, and large balconies shot out of the sides. The entire building seemed to be made of metal and glass.
To my complete surprise, Jill held onto me a little tighter and pulled me through the big glass doors. The rush of air conditioning was graciously welcomed after the humid summer heat as we stepped inside. In the lobby of the building, only one person resided. A tall, skinny man sat behind a large white desk furiously typing away on the computer that sat before him. He turned his scowl towards us when we entered, but didn't say anything. In fact, nobody in the city seemed to cast us a second glance on the way to the building, despite our strange situation.
The lobby also held a number of uncomfortable looking chairs surrounding small tables and a strange rectangular metal sculpture, but that was all. Jill didn't stop once we were in the lobby, and continued to lead me over to elevator doors, where she feverishly hit the button showing the arrow pointing up. When the elevator arrived, she pulled the both of us in and pressed the "6" button. I pulled my arm away from her shoulders and was about to collapse on the cool tiled floor, but she quickly grabbed me again (which was shockingly painful) and pulled me up. "Oh, sorry!" she cried when she saw my face twist into pain. "We're so close; just hold on a little bit longer."
Soon, the elevator beeped, and the doors pulled themselves away from each other and opened up to a hallway. There were two doors: one to the far right, and one to the far left. Jill hurriedly pulled me towards the one to our right, and seemed to get frustrated that I was slowly her down. When we reached the door, she propped me against the wall, and dug her hand through the dirt of a potted plant until she pulled out a key and shoved it into the locked door. With a click, the door opened and the two of us entered.
The first thing I noticed about the apartment was that, like the rest of the building, it was extremely contemporary. Lights in square shades hung from the ceiling, all of the furniture was either black or white and very rectangular, and of course the long window stretched across the entire living room and kitchen.
The second thing I noticed was that it was huge.
Before I had time to stand there and gawk, Jill ushered me down the hallway and into a bedroom. I collapsed onto the bed, while she ran out of the room and came back not a moment later carrying a container.
Sitting down on the bed next to me, she tried to pull off my shirt, but after a few sounds that may or may not have slightly resembled whimpers coming from me, she took out her knife and tore it off instead. I had a very suggestive comment about this, but couldn't come up with the energy to say it. Unwinding the bandages from my arm, she looked at the gashes on my shoulder and arm and then said what was possibly the most unladylike word to ever come out of her mouth. She ran out of the room again, and I could faintly hear water running.
I didn't have to lift my head to see the injury; where the talons gashed my skin, the cuts were red and inflamed. Leading away from the slashes were swerved green lines that spread across a section of my arm, resembling the roots of a tree. I didn't have to be a doctor to know that that wasn't good.
Rushing back into the room, Jill carried wet cloths. She laid them on my skin, which burned at first, but then felt better as my skin absorbed the coolness of the water. In turn, the cloths picked up the dried blood around the cuts, and when Jill removed them, the wounds looked slightly better (but only just slightly).
Pulling a piece of ambrosia from a small plastic bag, the girl placed it in my mouth and I welcomed the familiar sweet taste. As I chewed, I could see her take out fresh white cotton bandages for my arm. Her gray eyes widened as my own began to droop closed. I could faintly hear her calling my name before I my eyes completely closed and slipped into a dream.
(My nail just broke. Thought I'd share.)
"We shouldn't have left them." a familiar voice ruefully concluded.
"We had no choice; you heard what Chiron said. All of those campers would die if we didn't hurry!" shouted another; this one masculine.
The image was blurry; I could recognize the voices, but I couldn't connect them with faces.
"It would've only taken a few more minutes to wait for them!"
"We didn't have a few more minutes!"
My sight began to clear, and I recognized the people arguing as the three missing demigods. They wandered through a suburb, looking just as confused as they probably felt.
"Well now we're lost, so we probably won't get there in time anyway." the smallest member pessimistically pointed out. The beams being illuminated from the street light made her light blonde hair appear silvery.
"We have to at least try." Hailey was the one who spoke this time. I could see her clutching the basket filled with strange leafs and berries that Persephone had given us. She had a look of purpose that I had never seen on her before.
Not wanting to argue with this, the other two kept quiet. They continued in silence as they passed house after house; the only sounds heard were the occasional car passing on a nearby street and the wind as it blew through the trees.
Someone, or something, approached from the shadows, and while I couldn't see who/what it is, I can only guess it was bad. The determination that I had just seen on Hailey's face was gone, and instead replaced with fear. Turning around, they stumbled and sprinted in the direction that they had come in, casting an occasional glance behind them. Izzy let out an ear-piercing screech, and then everything went black.
(My mom's friend paid me money to wrap her Christmas presents. I felt like one of Santa's elves. It was pretty cool.)
When I woke up, it was a nice surprise to actually be in a bed for once (and a comfortable one at that). Still lying down, I took a moment to collect my memories from the night before. The pain that had been so excruciating just hours before was replaced with a dull aching that centered around my arm and shoulder, but spread through my entire body.
Something else I noticed was the head resting on my uninjured arm, and the sea of blonde waves that surrounded it. A kitchen chair was pulled up next to the bed, and in it was the slumped figure of Jill. I alarmingly noticed how close her face was to mine; if I wanted to, I could count the few freckles that were scattered across the bridge of her nose (which I didn't, because that would be kinda creepy). When she slept, she looked surprisingly peaceful. She wasn't constructing battle strategies, or working through formulas in her head, or thinking of ways to kill a monster, or worrying about anything. She was just a regular teenage girl, and she looked happy. It was sad to think that that would all change once she opened her eyes.
With new strength and a full night's sleep, I felt restless just lying in bed; but when I tried to sit up I noticed with my uttermost embarrassment that my hand was curled around a smaller one. I slid Jill's head off of my arm and took my hand away from hers, being particularly careful not to wake her up. When I was out of the bed and was sure she was still sound asleep, I let my curiosity get the better of me and decided to explore the room I was in.
It didn't take me long to figure out the room belonged to Jill (it may have had something to do with all of the awards and trophies with her name on them). She had a desk with four piles of work on it, neatly organized by subject. One of those fancy calculators with a million buttons on them also took a place on her desk. A calendar that hung above the desk was opened to June, and marked the days of her finals and a study schedule.
How boring.
On the other side of the room, a corkboard was hung on the wall. Pinned to it were numerous academic awards, little messages scrawled on colorful sticky notes, and also scattered across the board were some pictures. I recognized Jill in all of them, though in some she looked very different than I was used to seeing her. In one she couldn't have been older than seven, though her missing front tooth and big gray eyes made her seem even younger. She held a trophy for first place in a class spelling bee. In another she was older, probably around ten. Jill held hands with a group of girls her age, all dressed in Halloween costumes. One showed the entire Athena cabin from a couple of years ago. I recognized Annabeth and Jill, and a couple of others, but Isabella was nowhere to be found. I guessed that she hadn't come to camp yet. There was one with just Hailey and Jill hugging in their hideous Camp Half-Blood shirts. Another that caught my eye seemed to be from this year, and showed Jill with a group of people all in the same navy, white, and gray school uniforms.
Starting to feel a little strange snooping through her room while she was sleeping, I took a quick glance at her dresser and bookshelf for anything particularly scandalous or juicy (all I found were books and a hairbrush), and then slipped through the door and out into the hallway. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I walked into the kitchen and spotted a pantry filled with food. Excited, I walked over and scanned through the names and boxes for something to eat. Unfortunately, all I found was weird soy bars, mix for protein shakes, whole wheat bread, and a bunch of other boring stuff. What kind of people lives off of that awful tasteless junk? Moving onto the refrigerator, I began searching the shelves for something actually edible. Hopefully something with sugar. Or cheese.
Just as I set my sights on some leftover pork chops (I figured if it came from the same animal as bacon, it must be delicious), I heard a click from behind me as the door swung open. Before I even had a chance to duck behind the counter or run back into Jill's room, I heard the door click close again and the person step inside. Neither of us spoke for a minute, and I was too scared to turn around. But before long, my newest enemy broke the silence.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my apartment?"
I actually turned around this time, and faced a middle aged man in a suit standing at the door. I suddenly regretted not finding something to put on before coming out to the kitchen, as I became very aware of the fact that I was indeed shirtless. I tried to come up with a reason of why I was there, but all I could manage to do was make some strange noises that didn't really resemble words for a minute, until Jill ran in looking awfully disheveled.
The man looked surprised to see her. "Jill?"
"Hi, daddy…" she said with a small wave and innocent smile. He then turned to me and I'm pretty sure he was imagining strangling me, stabbing me, shooting me, or something else that probably wouldn't be in my best interest.
Daddy.
Her dad just discovered a teenage boy in his apartment.
Who was shirtless.
With his fifteen year old daughter.
While he wasn't home.
Oh poo.