Pinehurst: Book One (A Magical Olympian Adventure/Young Adult Romantic Fantasy)

Chapter Twenty

Chapter 20

Havoc was waiting for us around the bend, motioning us to hurry. I owed her a few kicks in the leg from her show of loyalty to her friends. Honestly, like they would have noticed she wasn’t in on the brawl. I swore I could feel a bruise on my ankle already.

“We're almost to your dad,” she said over her shoulder. That would be her saving grace. Only the knowledge that my dad was close by could have distracted me from planning her demise.

I came to a skidding halt, courtesy of Roland who’d stopped in his tracks, grabbed my arm and yanked me back into him.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

Antonio had spun around. His eyes, vigilantly searching our close quarters, settled on Roland.

“We can’t go that way. The Daimonas are down there.” Roland looked scared. I couldn’t help but feel for the guy. I couldn’t imagine what he must have endured.

“Here. I’m not that good with it anyway.” I handed him my staff, hoping the weapon would give him a sense of security.

He took it from me, staring at it for a moment before his eyes looked into mine. I could see in the limited light a glassy look about them. “Evie, how did you find me?”

Now, really was not the time for questions but I knew by the look on Roland’s face, he couldn’t move on unless he had a few answers. Where to begin . . .

“Okay, listen, I heard from Havoc here that my dad had been captured and taken to Hell. Then, you turned into a gargoyle during third period biology, and tried to kill me. Only it wasn’t you, but we didn’t know that at the time. So Antonio had to stab you in the head with his staff. Sorry.” I winced at the horrified expression on Roland’s face. His eyes flickered to Antonio who still looked as if he could stab Roland all over again.

“Only Antonio didn’t really kill you, it was gargoyle you!” I interjected quickly—like this would somehow soften the blow. “But we didn’t know that either. By the way, when you kissed me at school in The Kitchen that was you, right? I mean, you weren’t a gargoyle then, were you? Anyway, Ms. Leech is a Daimonas, and Gunny is totally going to kick your ass for getting captured.”

“What in the hell?” Roland looked at me like my head was whipping around my neck.

I knew exactly how he felt. I unfortunately continued. “Havoc opened a porthole into the Underworld. We fought snakes, a swamp troll, and had to sleep all night in a tree so we wouldn’t get eaten by Borgons—who by the way are flesh eating rats! Ms. Powell should have totally covered that in class.” I rolled my eyes at the lack of information in that school.

“Anyway, we entered Hell, turned Ragnos to stone, and froze the River of Souls to get across so that we could rescue you from the pixies. I didn’t even know you were here until a few hours ago.” I panted now, having updated him on the whole adventure thus far. “Now we’re going to fight the Daimonas and rescue my dad. I was hoping to be home for dinner.” I looked toward the others. Antonio and Havoc shared the same vacant expression. Geez! You’d think they’d just heard this story for the first time instead of having lived it.

“Roland?” I waved my hand in front of his face a few times. He looked petrified. I glanced at Antonio. His expression was completely unreadable.

“Ow!” Roland grabbed his ankle and began hopping up and down on one foot. “What did you do that for?” He snapped angrily at Havoc. “She bit me!”

“Just making sure you’re still with us.” Havoc smiled meekly.

“Are you up to this, Vandenberg?” Antonio addressed Roland with what sounded like a challenging tone.