Changing the Future

Chapter 27

Now, I know what you're thinking. Andy, why didn't you just shadow-travel off Thorn's back like you always do? Or why didn't you kill him?

There are simple answers, surprisingly. You don't hear those words too often in the whacked up world that we live in. Anyways, I couldn't shadow-travel or mist-travel off of Thorn's back, because whatever darkness we'd plunged into wasn't natural.

I couldn't control it.

As for the killing matter, the size and intelligence of a monster equals the difficulty it takes to kill. Since Dr. Thorn is one of the smarter monsters and is as big as a lion, something like a few arrows to the hide or being stabbed in the back wouldn't prove fatal unless someone had managed to severely injure an internal organ or blood vessel.

So, as I'd expected, I was captured by Dr. Thorn.

When we landed wherever it was that he brought me, he bound my hands together with rope laced with Celestial bronze. I swore under my breath when I saw the bronze strands entwined with the rope. The blessed metal would prevent me from using my powers, and with the way my wrists were awkwardly bent, I wouldn't be able to cut through the ropes unless I broke my wrist in about twenty different places.

"What is this?" a low rumbling voice asked, like the earth had turned to Jell-O beneath my feet. "This is not a child of the Big Three."

I glanced down at my bracelet, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw my knives sheathed on my wrist. I didn't want Dr. Thorn to accuse my being a daughter of Hades if he noticed that I had stabbed him with Stygian iron, a metal only children of the Underworld or those who Hades permitted can wield.

"I know, General. They escaped with that infernal moon goddess," Dr. Thorn spat bitterly, rubbing at his neck, where a Hunter had nailed him with an arrow.

"So, you've failed." The General was not amused, his tone of voice alone being cold enough to drop the temperature of the room a few degrees.

"We can still use the girl." Dr. Thorn shoved me forward, and I spat in his face, earning myself a slap. My face snapped to the side, the skin stinging, but I didn't even flinch. "She is friends with many of them, including Artemis herself."

"Is that so? Well, perhaps you aren't completely useless. Bring her forward at once!"

Before Thorn could continue shoving me around, I walked forward on my own accord, holding my head up high. I wasn't going to show the General any fear, not if I could help it. Thorn trailed right behind me, pressing his thorn-tipped tail right against the small of my back, daring me to try anything suspicious. If he was so afraid of me, then maybe he should've bound my legs, too.

"She's ancient, for a demigod that is," the General said, observing me like a specimen under a microscope. "Nineteen or twenty. But I haven't the slightest idea about your parent. Hephaestus, perhaps? Maybe Nemesis or Hecate?"

"Who is your mortal parent, girl?" Thorn growled, digging in the tip of his tail hard enough just to break through my skin. I felt his poison enter my bloodstream instantly, gritting my teeth to prevent showing my discomfort.

"I don't know," I snapped. "I was abandoned at an orphanage as a newborn."

"Have you been claimed?"

"No."

"How do you know the children of the Big Three?"

I stayed silent. Thorn dug his thorn in deeper, causing for a thin stream of blood to start oozing down my back.

"How do you know the children of the Big Three?" Thorn asked again, his teeth clenched together as he tried to torture the information out of me. Good thing Ares and Artemis both taught me how to withstand torture that was way worse than what Thorn was doing to me at the moment.