Finding Festus

Chapter 8

As we walked into the center of the camp, I knew something was wrong.

"Uh, hey, we're all friends, right?" asked an ominous voice. Trey.

We rounded one side of a tent, and saw a gigantic mass of girls. They all looked really mad. On even was holding a knife up. That told me that Trey did something he would totally regret. I was about to walk straight up to the group, but Thalia held me back. I looked at her skeptically, but she slowly shook her head, and mouthed the word, "wait" So, I waited.

"Friends?? With a male??"

"Yeah, we-"

Smack.

"OW!! What was-?"

Smack.

"Hey, wait!"

"Ok, now you can go." said Thalia, shoving me towards the group.

"Wait!" I was about to stop her, but it was too late.

I slammed into a girl, and fell down. Immediately, all eyes fell on me.

"Hi?" I sheepishly said.

"GET HIM!" one of the girls yelled.

Long story short, I ran for my life. I was chased into the woods, which wasn't a great thing for me. Mainly because I get lost easily. When we were really far from the camp, they stopped chasing me. Or, at least, what I thought. I hid in a patch of deep undergrowth. I had pulled a discus oddly from my card pack. It was a regular discus, but it had razor sharp edges. It could prove effective, but I would have to throw it hard. The harder I threw it, the less accurate the aim would get.

"Well...that was interesting." I muttered as I caught my breath.

I was about to relax a bit more, but I froze as I heard a twig snap. I jumped up, and was hit right in the face with a stink bomb. I immediately took my hat off, and shoved it onto my mouth. The stink bomb was causing a lot of smoke, so it was getting harder to see by the second. I held the discus tightly with my free hand, and slowly turned around. I saw the silver glint of an arrow head, and I slowly moved forward. I was about to spring forward, but the smoke suddenly cleared. I was standing in the middle of the forest, about to attack a tree with an arrow sticking out of it. There were girls standing all around the tree, holding rope. A few of them had pure silver bows, and pure silver arrows...and they all were watching me.

"Girls!" a commanding voice said behind me.

I spun around, and was staring right into the face of Artemis. I took a step back, letting the goddess have some personal space. I heard some shuffling behind me, and something told me that the other girls were getting down on their knees to beg for mercy.

"Sorry, mistress..." muttered one of the girls.

"What were you thinking?" said Artemis, walking forward. I stepped to the side to give her some room.

"Well...we kinda thought that they were trespassing..." muttered one girl, but she didn't seem to want to continue.

Artemis took this into consideration, then said, "Well, that was my mistake for not telling you about that, but I know that you would have at least should have told me." Artemis said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Now, until I find a punishment for this, I want you to treat the new-comers like they are part of us." Artemis said, turning to me.

She rolled her eyes, then walked away. I was about to tease the girls, but Artemis took a hold of my arm, She lead me toward the camp, and on the way forgave me for them.