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The rest of winter break flew way too quickly for my liking, and soon enough, I was holding my thousand page chemistry textbook in my arms while Leah and I walked to our professor's classroom. Joe and Pete were already waiting for us by the door, devious smiles on their faces.
"You don't want to sit up in the front today," Pete told us as we walked into our classroom, the four of us making our way towards our seats.
"What did you guys do?" Leah asked suspiciously, counting eight rows back from the front before finding seats for the four of us.
"You'll see," Joe said, causing Pete to snicker.
I rolled my eyes at the both of them, setting my backpack between my legs and taking out my spiral notebook. I finished copying down the notes from the textbook while the rest of us waited for class to start.
As the bell rang signaling the start of class, Dr. Atomos ran in from the side door, his white hair sticking up like he'd stuck his finger in an electrical socket. Papers were flying out of his briefcase, and his tie had come undone, leaving it draped over his shoulders. His shoes were mismatched, and when he set his briefcase down, he accidently knocked over one of his beakers, causing for the glass to shatter against the floor.
"Are you all right, sir?" a girl up front asked, the boy next to her having walked down to the floor and started to clean up the glass with the dustpan and a broom.
"I'm having a bad day," Dr. Atomos said bitterly, his fingers flying as he tried to tame his hair and redo his tie.
"Wife threaten to leave again?" some boy behind us asked.
Our professor glared up at the offender. "Class, you may all thank Mr. Grayson for your homework assignment tonight. I want all the questions on pages 682 through 750 completed by tomorrow."
A cacophony of groans filled the room. Some people even waded up paper and chucked it at Wilbur Grayson, muttering curses under their breaths.
"Ugh, sixty-eight pages of homework," Pete said, his nose wrinkled in disgust. "And since there are about twenty questions per page that means…" he trailed off for a moment to do the math before saying, "1,360 questions?! He's joking!"
"That's going to take me forever to finish," Joe groaned, slamming his head repeatedly against his textbook.
"Note to self," Leah said, writing this down on the top of her paper. "Have Grayson on cleanup duty for next week's pep rally."
"You better splurge for that confetti cannon and the streamers," I said, flipping to page 682 and beginning to skim the questions. I exhaled through my nose, highly annoyed at the type of questions Dr. Atomos had assigned. Of course he punished us with the hardest chapter in the entire book.
"Definitely. I'm going to miss cheer practice because of him."
I paled. "Schist, I have a volleyball game tonight. Coach will kill me if I'm a no-show."
"Then you better get started," Joe said, scowling as he began working on the homework while Dr. Atomos continued setting up for today's lesson.
Finally, class started, and the four of us were forced to stop working on the massive homework assignment we'd just received. The sad thing is we haven't even got past question five; the math alone for some questions could take up an entire page, meaning this would be more time consuming than I originally thought.
Two and a half hours later, when Dr. Atomos began his demonstration of the most precise titration I'd ever witnessed, smoke began pouring from the doorways. Our professor was blissfully unaware of the smoke, continuing to talk about the equipment we'd need to measure the information as accurately as possible while scribbling down notes on his tablet, which were displayed via projector.
I heard Pete and Joe swear under their breaths, causing for Leah and me to glare at them.
"What did you two do?" I asked, keeping my voice at a whisper yell. Despite being nearly seventy years old, Dr. Atomos had radar ears, able to pick up conversations as far away as the fifteenth row. As much as I detested my friends' pranks, I didn't want them getting in trouble, either.
Before either one of them could answer my question, the sound of something exploding echoing right outside the doors.
"Hit the deck!" someone shouted, and we all dove down, clutching our hands over our heads. Books and papers flew everywhere, causing the people that got hit to yelp in pain.
"We may or may not have set up fireworks outside the door," Pete said in one rushed breath. Leah pushed Joe down and punched Pete's arm, hard. I knew it was going to bruise later.
"Idiots," Leah hissed.
"How do we stop them?" I asked.
"Wait for the gunpowder to run out? Didn't really think of that." Joe shrugged, earning a jab in the ribs from Leah. "Jesus, Leah, stop being abusive!"
"I'll stop when you two end your stupid pranks! Someone could've gotten hurt!"
The three of them began to argue, but I stayed silent, trying to think of how to end the fireworks. Smoke was starting to billow up towards the ceiling, and I got an idea.
I grabbed all of our stuff and shoved it underneath our seats – hey, college textbooks are super freaking expensive – and waved a hand over it just in case. Sensing the heat in the smoke, I added some more, increasing the rate of it drifting towards the ceiling, right where the sprinklers were.
Sure enough, the moment the smoke reached one of the sprinklers, they all went off, dousing everyone and everything in the classroom with water. People screamed, clutching their stuff before running up the stairs towards the back exits. Gods, I hope Pete and Joe didn't plant any fireworks there.
But now that there was water in the air, I forced some of it to go underneath the door's crack, planning on dousing the fireworks. The tug in my gut didn't lessen until all the explosions ended. Once I was sure the fireworks were done blowing up, I closed my hand into a fist, turning off the sprinklers.
Dr. Atomos got up from underneath his desk, completely soaked from head to toe. At least his hair had been tamed. He began ranting in Polish, his accent coming back at full force as he swept his arms across his desk, tossing his ruined lesson plans and calendar to the floor.
"Class dismissed," he said angrily, his face a bright red and a vein bulging out of his forehead.
We all bolted out of the classroom, not wanting to be within a thousand feet of our chemistry professor's explosion. We'd all heard about his temper from former students and from his wife, whenever she'd drop by and visit, and no one wanted to ever experience it.
The four of us were completely soaked to the bone, shivering as we were greeted with a blast of icy wind. There were still six inches of snow covering the majority of the campus, and since we'd taken our coats off in class, they were dripping with sprinkler water.
Our books and backpacks had been spared after I tucked them under our seats, much to all of our relief. We could deal with being wet and cold as long as our school stuff was unharmed.
"Well, that was an eventful morning," Pete said cheerfully, ducking Leah's punch.
"No thanks to you! Jesus, what were you thinking?"
"And, Mama Bear mode has activated," I said under my breath, earning a chuckle and a fist bump from Joe.
Leah ranted about how stupid and dangerous their prank had been, her face slowly turning red then purple as she didn't take breaths between her sentences. She'd gotten herself so worked up that she didn't notice that she walked right past the entrance to the dorms until I called her back.
"We'll see you both in Dr. Kim's class," I said, waving goodbye at our friends as I held Leah back from clawing their eyes out.
"See ya, cool chicks!" Pete said, shooting the both of us a wink.
"God, I hate that name!" Leah screeched, the elevator door shutting prevented her from going to tackle Pete.
Leah typically isn't this angry or aggressive, but she absolutely adored Dr. Atomos and hated when the boys, or anyone else for that matter, would prank him. Bad enough he was already the laughing stock of the school for being the oldest teacher here, but his temper didn't help his reputation.
However, Leah and I knew that his anger came from sadness. For the past year, he's had to handle living with a wife who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and for some reason, the last thing she remembered was seeing Dr. Atomos kissing a girl that wasn't her. That girl had been his sister, who had died in a car accident fifteen years ago. And the kiss had been on her cheek. Now she hated him, claiming that he was cheating and that she wanted a divorce.
Now that we were away from the boys, Leah brought this up, sadness lacing her voice as we walked back to our room to change into dry clothes. I knew Alzheimer's was a particularly touchy subject for her after losing her grandpa to the disease. That's why she was so determined to be a neurosurgeon, wanting to find a treatment or even a cure for Alzheimer's.
"It's okay, Leah," I said, unlocking the door to our room. "No one was hurt, and I don't think the doors were damaged. Plus, everything can dry off."
Leah shook her head. "That's not why I was so upset. I hate the fact that people think they can take advantage of Dr. Atomos, including our friends. He's just trying to do his job, but the kids here are cruel, making it way harder on him than it needs to be. That's why he ends up giving sixty-eight pages of homework."
"Speaking of which, we should get started on." I reached for my sweatshirt, pulling it over my head. "Bio doesn't start for another two hours, just enough time to knock out half the problems."
"You're right. Let's get to work."
Gods, I hate it when teachers turn out to be monsters.
I hate it even more when I actually liked the class.
Let me explain.
After Leah and I spent two hours in our dorm room working on our homework for so long that my brain hurt and my hand was cramping, we got our stuff for bio and headed out, meeting up with Joe and Pete along the way.
Leah had given the boys the cold shoulder, refusing to even look at them as we walked to the other side of campus. Snow had started to fall again, the flakes falling slowly to the ground, landing on the recently cleared sidewalk.
I knew something was wrong from the moment I stepped into the biology building. Despite the heater being on, there was a foreboding chill in the air that sent all my nerves into overdrive. My hand kept messing with my bracelet, catching my friends' attention.
"You okay, Andy?" Joe asked, cutting off his conversation with Pete.
"Yeah, you look like you saw a ghost," Pete agreed.
"I'm fine," I said, biting my lip.
"I call BS."
"Language," Leah chided.
"What, I didn't curse," Pete argued.
"Still. Not nice."
"I'm fine," I insisted, a fake smile easily resting on my lips. "I was just thinking."
"About Fredrick Adams?" Joe asked hopefully. I blushed and lightly smacked his arm.
"Gods, when will you stop trying to hook me up with people?" I asked, chuckling lightly. Ever since I met Joe, he made it his life's mission to get me a boyfriend before we graduated.
"When my matchmaking skills pay off! Until then, I'll keep searching. So, what do you think about John Freeman?"
I rolled my eyes, walking ahead and holding the door open to Dr. Kim's classroom. The biology classroom was basically identical to the chemistry one, except instead of famous chemists and element posters on the wall, there were famous biologists and diagrams of different living structures.
This time, class ran smoothly without any interruptions. Our teacher, Dr. Kim, was a perky red head with hazel eyes and a permanent smile on her face. Some days, I was annoyed by how happy she was. But she was still a pretty amazing teacher, helping us memorize incredibly complex things through acronyms or little catchphrases that you couldn't forget no matter how badly you wanted to.
But if she was as nice as I believed her to be, why was I so on edge?
Three hours later, we were dismissed, all of us thanking Dr. Kim for not giving us homework that night. The majority of this class also had Dr. Atomos in the morning, so I knew we all had a long night ahead of us.
Leah, Pete, Joe, and I had gotten up from our seats and turned to leave, but Dr. Kim said, "Andy, if I may have a word with you."
I was confused by the request but agreed anyways, telling my friends that I'd catch up with them in the cafeteria in a few minutes. I placed my textbook into my backpack and tightened the straps, that unnerving feeling still there, like someone was breathing down the back of my neck.
"Is everything all right, ma'am?" I asked, my hand tightly clamped around my bracelet.
Merely being in my teacher's presence was enough for my body to instinctively tense up, expecting an attack. I'd had one-on-one conversations with Dr. Kim before, so I had no idea why I was so on edge right now. But the little voice in the back of my head screamed, "Monster!" and I feared it was right.
"Unfortunately, thing aren't all right, Andromeda," Dr. Kim said, approaching me after stepping down from her podium, where she usually taught from. The sound of her heels against the floor echoed in the empty room. "You've caused too much damage lately, hurt too many people."
"I-I don't understand," I stuttered, slowly backing away from my teacher. I knew exactly what was going on now, but if feigning ignorance had the slightest chance of working, I was going to take it. "Who have I hurt?"
"Oh, don't be naïve, dear." As Dr. Kim kept walking, the sound of her heels transformed into sounding like misshapen feet, like a hoof then metal. "I mean that you've hurt my master."
"Mr. Randolph, the headmaster? I haven't hurt him."
She laughed dryly, her red hair tumbling out of the bun that it had been in. As she closed the distance between us, the ends of her hair began to sway like they'd caught fire. Then I realized that her hair had caught fire, like she'd poured gasoline in her hair and then stood over a Bunsen burner.
"Kronos will rule the world, demigoddess. Whether you live or not all depends on where your loyalties lie," Dr. Kim cooed, her fingernails elongating into claws, though they were still the same shade of red that her nails had been painted. "I will give you one chance to give me the answer I seek. So, tell me, who will you follow?"
"For Olympus!" I declared, Epithymia appearing in a flash as I lunged forward.
"You ignorant, pathetic girl!" Dr. Kim shouted, moving out of the way of my blade. "You could have infinite power, live in a beautiful world where there is no suffering! Why fight for the gods when they have abandoned you?"
"Because they are my family," I said truthfully, rolling under Dr. Kim's wild slash, bringing Epithymia around to slash at her legs.
Like I expected, she jumped, and I had a shadow fling her against the wall. She rushed towards me again, surprisingly fast for having horribly misshapen legs, dragging her claws against my face. While she did that, I thrusted forward, feeling Epithymia cut into my teacher's abdomen.
"Curse you, daughter of Hades!" Dr. Kim wailed as she began disintegrating into gold dust. "Western Civilization and the Olympians shall fall, and there is nothing you can do about it!"
"I think I just did," I spat, bringing my sword downward again, piercing the empousa's heart. She fell silent, a pile of gold dust taking her place.
I winced as I pressed a hand against my cheek, my fingers coming back tinged red. Thankfully, there was a sink on the lab table, so I turned on the tap and held my hand underneath the water, letting it stitch my skin back together.
Then, just as I was about to leave the classroom, I heard something hitting the supply closet door. I held Epithymia tightly in my hand, slowly turning the knob before throwing the door open, brandishing my sword as I prepared to defend myself.
I gasped when I saw Dr. Kim tied up and gagged in a plastic chair, various cuts and bruises littering every part of her skin. She even had a black eye and a broken nose, which was really swollen, making it hard for her to blink.
"Oh, gods," I muttered, gently taking the duct tape off her mouth before moving to cut the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles together. "What happened, Dr. Kim?"
"M-monster," she stammered, her face ashen. "Took my face. She locked me in here, hurt me."
"You're safe now," I said calmly, placing my hands on her shoulders and helping her control her breathing to prevent her from hyperventilating. "The monster is gone."
"Did you kill her with your sword?"
My eyes widened. "What sword?" I asked, positive that I had shrouded it in Mist.
"That one on your waist," she said, pointing it out. "How did security let that pass, anyways?"
"You're clear-sighted," I said, earning a confused look from my teacher. "I'll explain later, but first, let me take care of you."
I picked up my teacher and sat her on top of her lab table, where I'd have an easier time treating her wounds. I told her the truth about what had happened while I bandaged her up, making sure to keep things as simple as possible. Thankfully, she let me heal her nose with some water, which would deter questions from anyone tomorrow. Last thing I needed was to be accused of beating up my biology teacher.
"That makes sense now," Dr. Kim said, gently prodding her nose, gasping in surprise when she found that it didn't hurt. Luckily, healing her broken nose had done wonders for the black eye, making it fade to a yellow-brown instead of the dark blue it had been. "I've always seen monsters ever since I was a little girl, but everyone told me it was an overactive imagination."
"Yeah, unfortunately they're real and love to eat demigods. But you should be fine as long as you stay out of their way."
Dr. Kim raised her eyebrows at me. "I was just kept prisoner in my own classroom for the past day by a monster. I don't think that applies anymore."
I winced. "Sorry about that, but I think all the empousa wanted was to send me a message. I guess she thought you were the best way to do it."
"Lovely." Dr. Kim hopped off the table, surprisingly steady for someone who had just been held hostage for the past couple of hours. "Thank you for the help, Andy. And I promise I'll never breathe a word about the gods, demigods, or monsters to anyone."
"You have no idea how thankful I am. But I'm afraid I need to go before my friends show up."
Dr. Kim gave me a weak smile. "Go ahead. My husband will be here shortly."
"Are you sure?"
"That's an order, Andy."
I smiled back at Dr. Kim. "Yes, ma'am."
I turned Epithymia back into a charm and left the classroom in search of my friends.
Of course, my day wasn't over yet, not even after I was in my pajamas and struggling to stay awake as I tried to finish my last page of chemistry homework.
Leah and I had been arguing about one of our answers, when the next thing I know is that I'm standing on the side of a road in a residential area I didn't recognize. The fact that it was easily eighty degrees let me know that I wasn't in New York, or the north in general, anymore.
"Uh, hello?" I asked aloud, turning around in a slow circle, trying to figure out what the heck was so important that my cover might've been blown.
All of a sudden, a barn owl landed on my shoulder, a scroll about the length of my index finger wrapped around its neck. I awkwardly reached for the ribbon on the owl, quickly untying it and grabbing the scroll before the owl flew away.
Okay, so this was definitely Athena's doing. I just wanted to know why.
I unfurled the scroll and read.
Andromeda,
I'm sorry about the unfortunate timing of this mission, but I need your help. Two of my children have been kidnapped by human traffickers after learning of their intelligence and their father. They are being kept in the attic of house 4039 on the street I've left you on. Please bring my children to camp.
Oh, and one other thing.
Make those dishonorable, pig-headed men pay.
Warmly,
Athena.
P.S. Your cover hasn't been blown. I have taken your place until you succeed. Bernard shall keep me updated on your progress.
Sure enough, perched on the lowest branch of the nearest tree was the same barn owl that had delivered the letter – Bernard.
I tucked the scroll into my bag before summoning my mortal daggers. I'd forged these myself a couple years back after Hades sent me out on an assassination for the first time and he learned that I didn't have any mortal weapons on me. The following day, he left me in the forges of his palace and told me to make myself a weapon lethal to mortals, thus these daggers were born.
It didn't take long to find the right house. I mean, come on. If you're trying to be inconspicuous, maybe don't spray paint the house number the same shade as the exterior walls when the houses on either side have their numbers clearly printed above the garage.
After surveying the exterior of the house, I figured that the quickest way in and out would be to shadow-travel and deal with the people inside as I confronted them. I looked up at what appeared to be a bathroom window and let the shadows deposit me in that room, stumbling as I landed inside a slick bathtub.
Great, I was in the master bathroom. I made sure that my steps made absolutely no noise as I walked out of the bathroom, pausing as I reached the doorframe.
"How much did they sell for?" a man shouted from downstairs.
"Half a million, boss. These kids are gonna make us rich!"
I scowled, walking pass the door and heading into the closet. It was void of clothes, which I'm sure would make the majority of the Aphrodite cabin very happy, but that also meant I was able to pick up on other sounds. Someone was hitting a wall, the distinct thump of vibrating drywall becoming a noise I've learned to discern within seconds.
I looked up, smirking when I found a little door in the ceiling – the attic. I jumped up and tugged at the dangling rope, the door groaning as I pulled it downward.
"Hey, you hear that?" one of the goons asked.
"Go check it out."
I continued pulling the door down until I was able to see a dusty ladder jutting out from the edges. Then, I moved on to getting the ladder down but was interrupted when I heard, "Hold it, you!"
"No, you hold it," I hissed, throwing my dagger right at the man's forehead. I heard it land in his skull, his body hitting the ground moments later. I bent down and retrieved my dagger, wiping the blood and brain matter on the guy's shirt before the ladder touched down on the ground.
I climbed up the ladder, taking two rungs at a time, finding myself in the middle of a dusty attic. Cobwebs were everywhere, as thick as the fake ones people would use to decorate their houses for Halloween. Two rats scurried past my foot, hiding inside of a cardboard box that they'd chewed a hole into.
"Hello?" I asked, cutting down the cobwebs with my daggers. If these kids were children of Athena, they must've been scared out of their wits being surrounded by so many spiders and cobwebs.
"Get out of there, girl!" another man shouted, shooting into the ceiling. I watched as he fired bullets through the opening of the attic, the empty shells clattering to the ground.
I carried on, running through the cobwebs until I found two little boys with their hands and feet tied together, the both of them huddled together and crying as a horde of spiders bit them, running up and down their bodies.
"Hi, there," I said gently. "I'm here to help."
"That's what they said," the boy on the right said, screaming as a spider crawled across his face, biting his chin.
"Then they took us, abused us, told us we needed to pay," the other boy said, tears streaming down his face.
"I promise, I won't hurt you. Your mom sent me to take you somewhere safe."
"Mom?" the two asked at the same time.
"Yes. I can get you away from these bad men, if you'll let me."
They shared a look before nodding in agreement. I cut them free, which allowed them to swat at the spiders that were covering them. I pulled out some Athena-grade spider-repellent (Safe on skin, tough on spiders™), spraying the ground around us and basically dousing the boys in the stuff. The spiders fled, their arms flailing as the repellent short-circuited their touch receptors, making them unable to move correctly.
"There! She has them!"
"Get down," I told the boys, twirling my daggers dangerously in my hands. "This is going to get ugly."
Two men, each of them holding guns, charged me, yelling as they kept pulling the trigger. I raised my eyes at them, my shadows smacking the bullets out of the air, causing them to imbed themselves within the roof. When I got close enough, I engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the men, except I had daggers in both hands.
Wherever I could, I let my daggers cut into their flesh, blood pouring from their wounds. The two men who had been sent to get me fell, their arms, abdomen, and thighs completely shredded like they'd gotten dragged against a really large cheese grater.
"Mercy," one of the men begged, holding his hands up in surrender.
"Did you give the children you steal mercy? Did you give them mercy when they begged you to stop, to take them home, to leave them alone? Did you?!" Venom flooded my voice, anger pulsing in my veins.
"N-no…I'm sorry."
"Too little, too late." I then slit both of the men's throats, kicking their bodies down from the entrance to the attic, letting them bleed out for their friends to find them.
I sheathed my daggers and took the little boys' hands, shadow-traveling us to camp as a barrage of bullets made their way towards us.
Just another day in the life of Olympus' messenger girl.