Chapter 23
"Odie!" Jay had just barely jogged halfway down the stairs to the basement when the shorter teen had emerged from his bedroom.
"Jay,"Odie greeted, looking surprised as he shut the door firmly behind him. "What's up?"
The brown haired teen frowned, closing the distance between them with slowing steps. "Well, the rest of the team wants to go to the beach," he admitted with a shrug. "But, you'd said that the alarms went off. What happened?"
"Oh!" Odie gave an awkward laugh, ruffling his dreds a little. "Yeah, that, uh, it was nothing. Just one of the sensors needed a battery change."
Jay wasn't buying it. It wasn't that Odie was a crap liar, but he definitely had issues with on-the-spot lies. And something about the batteries wasn't reading right.
But he wasn't given any time to think it over as Teresa's voice shouted down the stairs. "Hey! Odie? Jay? You guys down there still? C'mon! The day's getting late!"
"Coming!" Odie answered for them, smiling broadly, then turned to Jay with a curious look. "What's the day getting late for? Another training session with Ares?"
"No," Jay reported, falling in step behind the shorter boy as they went to the stairs. "Hera's given us a vacation."
To that Odie gave an incredulous snort and Jay had to agree. Even though the gods tried to be as helpful as they could, they weren't really good with keeping promises. Particularly involving time off.
"So where are we going?" Odie asked when they reached the foyer to find their teammates in practically summer attire.
"Santa Monica," Atlanta reported happily. "I can't wait to hit the pier!"
"Yeah," Herry agreed. "I want to do some of those games and win Harper a stuffed animal."
Jay blinked, then looked at his teammate warily. Maybe he'd been imagining it, but he could have sworn Herry's eyes had flashed with a strange, shimmery pink for a second there. But his eyes were back to their usual brown now, without even a trace of unusual color.
"Is Harper even coming?" Neil whined, examining himself in the hall mirror. "I mean, it's not like anyone knows where she is."
"Oh, uh, she was meditating," Odie offered. "Out in the back yard, when I got back."
"Let's go get her!" Herry cheered, making Jay frown. The flash had happened again.
"Usually when people are meditating, they want to be left alone," Archie pointed out, folding his arms with a scowl.
"You're just saying that because you don't like her," Harry responded, shooting the purple-haired boy a glare.
"Okay, that's enough!" Teresa announced, stepping between them. "If you two are going to fight the whole time, the rest of us are leaving without you."
It was like watching unruly children getting a reprimand when Teresa worked, and at times like these Jay couldn't be more thankful for it. Still, something strange was going on. First Odie lying about the readings his sensors were giving off and now Herry's eyes glowing. Having Archie in the mix just seemed to make things worse. Maybe we shouldn't be going.
"No! No, none of that!" Teresa interrupted his thoughts. "We're going to Santa Monica, even if I have to turn them into air fresheners for the car!"
"You can do that?" Atlanta asked, her eyebrows rising with interest.
A little color rose in Teresa's cheeks and she gave a shrug. "Not a clue," she admitted, only to give the boys a threatening look, "but I'm willing to find out."
To Jay's relief, both Herry and Archie backed down.
"As for Harper," Teresa continued, folding her arms victoriously. "If she's not meditating and wants to come, she can join us."
"Who can meditate with all this noise?"
The group looked up as Harper appeared in the hall from the kitchen, giving them a curious look though she seemed a little wary of them. "What's going on?"
"Vacation!" Herry announced eagerly as he took hold of her wrist. "C'mon! I'm gonna win you a pony!"
"You're gonna what?" Harper yelped, her voice rising in pitch along with some form of alarm. "Wait! Stop! Where are we going?"
"Santa Monica Pier," Atlanta reported as she and the others fell in step behind them with Jay going last to shut the door.
"What?" Harper asked, her eyes wide. Then she started an attempt to tug her arm free. "No, really, I can't! I have - I have stuff I need to do."
"Oh yeah? Like what?" Archie sneered.
She shot him a soured glare.
"It can wait," Herry assured her, though Jay was fairly sure that he didn't understand why she didn't want to go either. "It'll only be a few hours!"
Harper still looked uneasy, but she strangely looked like she was resigning herself to a disheartening fate rather than going to what was essentially a carnival.
...:..:...
"Is it me, or is Herry acting weird?" Jay asked.
Teresa looked up from the sunglasses rack to find his penetrating gaze turned down the pier to several stalls away where the teammate in question had just won another plush toy and was eagerly adding it to the pile in Harper's arms. She had to admit it was impressive, they'd only split up twenty minutes ago and the giant of a teen had almost doubled his winnings since the last time Teresa had looked. Harper, beneath the pile of fuzzy creatures, looked oddly uncomfortable as she tried to smile back.
"Define weird," she said, going back to the sunglasses. Personally, she thought it was about time that Herry found someone who wasn't a siren or an Amazon or a vampire - just generally someone who wouldn't try to kill him. So what if he was acting a little love-sick?
"Him jumping down Archie's throat," Jay counted off. "Being distracted. Always wanting to know where Harper is. Doing random things to help Harper... Do you think maybe we should listen to Archie's theories a little more?"
Teresa looked up to make sure she had his gaze again before she rolled her eyes. "Like what? That she slipped him something? Does it look like she wants to be here? Or even go out of her way to be around him?"
Both of the teens looked back to the blonde who was being toted to the next arcade stall. In truth, the new girl looked a little panicked as Herry insisted she sit on the unoccupied stool next to him as he readied his dart gun. The bell sounded and Herry to start shooting at whatever could have been his target, along with a few competitors, with Harper wincing with each fire.
"Yeah, she's real dangerous," Teresa commented dryly before taking out a few bills to pay for a pair of pink sunglasses. Grinning, she plopped the shades on her nose and faced Jay. "Well? What do you think?"
"Maybe this was a bad idea," Jay responded, his gaze still beyond her shoulder.
Teresa blinked at him, then hit him in the arm.
"Ow! Hey! What?" Jay whined, looking at her with wide eyes.
She rolled her eyes behind the shades, giving a resigned sigh as she moved to walk past him, and pulled him to come along with her. Easily ignoring his confused protests in favor of getting him in line for the Ferris Wheel.
...:..:...
"I don't see why you're so concerned about this," Atlanta grunted as she moved to block the thin disc, sending it flying with a soft clink towards Archie's end of the air-hockey table. "I mean, think about it. She's accident-prone, scatter brained, and is more mortified by the idea of prom than I was. Who cares if Herry likes her?"
Archie scowled at her, returning the disc with a quick wrist movement. He didn't want to answer, knowing it would sound insanely petty. And a little possessive. But still, he couldn't ignore the fact that there was something not right about Harper being here.
"What's freaking you out, anyway? OH! Score!" Atlanta yelped, punching the air. "That's twelve to five! You ready to surrender yet?"
He snorted in response. Other problems or not, he wasn't giving up yet. "In your dreams," he scoffed, dropping the disc back onto the table and shooting it across the glossy surface. "We're going to twenty, remember?"
"Well, you better work on catching up, Dolly Daydream!" Atlanta countered, grinning as she blocked the puck expertly.
Archie snorted at the challenge. "Oh I'll beat you, just watch!"
Instantly his comment was followed by the "shunk" sound of the puck sliding right into the goal in front of him. Archie blinked as Atlanta grinned. Chuckling drew Archie's scowl to Odie, who sauntered up with a ridiculously large cup of some sugary blue drink.
Odie grinned at him, showing a set of blue-tinted teeth between purple lips. "Looks like Atlanta's got skills," he teased. "You didn't place bets this time, did you? Last time you lost your favorite skateboard."
"Shut up," Archie groaned, retrieving the puck to start the next round. He was only behind by seven points. He could totally regain the lead!
"Just sayin," Odie replied, returning his attention to his drink to slosh the ice around with his straw. "How many games has she won so far?"
"What makes you think she was the winner?" Archie demanded, shooting a glance at the shorter boy.
Shunk.
"Yes! Thirteen to five!" Atlanta cheered.
"Because there's no way she let you win at an arcade game," Odie informed him smugly.
Archie shot him a glare as he retrieved the puck again. "Yeah, well, if you weren't trying to distract me."
"Really," Atlanta drawled, raising an eyebrow. "And what about the last six games?"
"Yeah, well, maybe I've just got more on my mind," Archie grumbled, shooting the puck down towards Atlanta's goal.
The redhead gave a snort of disbelief as she retrieved the disc. "Please. Outside of paranoid ramblings, I doubt there's much else you've been thinking about."
Archie felt his face heating up as Odie laughed. That wasn't true! Okay, well, not entirely at least. "I just agree with Jay," he defended, blocking the disc from his goal. "Cronus has been too quiet."
"Yeah, but isn't that just more reason to enjoy our time off?" Atlanta pointed out.
"If it's not Cronus, then it's some monster tearing apart a town or deciding it wants one of us," Odie agreed, slurping his drink loudly. "Why look for enemies when they find us fast enough anyway?"
Archie blinked at the smaller boy. That was way too good of a point, even if it didn't help his argument against Harper at all. "But still-."
Shunk!
He narrowed his eyes at Atlanta and frowned. She raised an eyebrow at him smugly. "I'll make you a deal," she said as he retrieved the disc. "You win, we'll look into it. But if I win, you drop it. Sound good?"
It was probably the best arrangement they'd get, so Archie let a smirk come to his face. "Deal," he agreed, placing the disc on the table. "Hope you're looking forward to investigating."
...:..:...
It hadn't been easy to get any time to herself when they'd gotten back to the dorm, even being somewhere around ten-thirty, the team seemed to be on an energy high and Neil insisted they all watch him model the numerous outfits he'd somehow managed to find on their trip. Harper barely managed to make it to eleven before she announced that she was going to bed. Which earned a chorus of "good night" and a strangely disgruntled look from Archie, before she bolted up the stairs as quickly as possible.
She kept up pretenses, showering and changing into pajamas, and was doing a little bit of yoga when she heard Teresa and Jay saying "good night" to each other. Then she moved to her bed. Instead of sleeping, Harper picked up a series of knotted bunches of embroidery floss, which she absently set to twisting and knotting further into a design as she waited for more time to pass.
When the clock across the room, nestled atop old maps and schematics, showed ten minutes past two, she cast the floss aside and stuffed her feet into their shoes. Then tip-toed quietly out of her room—just as she had so many times, easily avoiding every squeaking floorboard. Nothing was different about the dorm, but at the same time everything had changed since she'd lived there. If only it were still then. She could almost let herself believe that it had been Tyson who'd left the lights and TV on as he went to bed last.
She'd just made it down to the main floor, debating whether she should turn off the power-wasters or not, when a new noise came from the living room. Her heart leapt to her throat as she tried to build an excuse in her mind, wondering what Athena would do when she found her former pupil sneaking outside.
Harper quickly kicked off her shoes and hid them under the stairs.
"Harper?"
She spun around and smiled. "Oh, Herry! It's you."
"Yeah - I thought you went to bed hours ago," Herry said, looking at her in confusion, a new carton of strawberry ice cream in his hands.
"I did," Harper assured him, blushing. "But I - erm - thought you were a monster or something."
Herry smiled. "Nope, just a midnight snack. Want some?"
Harper raised an eyebrow. "You do know it's two in the morning, right?
"So?" Herry asked, then smiled and held up a spoonful. "Never too late for ice cream. C'mon - There's probably an old scary movie on too."
Harper glanced briefly at her shoes as Herry went for the remote, but smiled back and joined him. What she had to do could wait.
Or at least she hoped it could...
A/N: ... Well... That took a while... *sweatdrop* Sorry about the epically long wait! Life got in the way (if you call it living). No, seriously, everything from catastrophes to surprises to weddings to funerals-in abundance! But I promise to get this story back on a roll! Hopefully this chapter is mildly cohesive... More action to come!