Tell Me You Love Me

Myrmekes(Onety-Forty-One)

Ethan's POV

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" I asked Bianca for probably the fifth time.

"Yes!" She said, exasperated. I wasn't so sure. If I remember correctly (I always remember correctly), we've passed the same tree three times now.

"I don't think you're sure," I said.

Bianca stopped and turned around. "I'll figure it out, E. Luke told me about Zeus's fist and I want to find it!"

Being thirteen has it's perks, but we still weren't supposed to be out in the forest by ourselves. The older campers had warned us that Chiron keeps the woods stalked with monsters for training sometimes. But Bianca and I were determined to find Zeus's fist.

According to Ariana, nobody really knew where Zeus's fist was anymore. Apparently it used to be a pretty popular base for Capture the Flag back when Dad was at camp. It's a big rock that looks like a fist and Zeus named it after himself or something. And then there was a big battle there where the Labyrinth opens up and campers stopped going there until it was eventually forgotten about. The paths there became overgrown and hard to find. Last I heard, it was sort of close to the graveyard.

I sighed as Bianca stubbornly kept walking. I've learned over the years to just let Bianca exhaust all of her options before giving my input because she rarely listens to me otherwise. I was quite positive that Bianca was going the complete opposite way of where we were supposed to go but she wasn't yet willing to let me guide the way to Zeus's fist.

After walking for awhile longer, Bianca got frustrated and kicked a tree. She had to apologize to the dryad immediately afterwards, though. "Where is it?!" She yelled, frustrated.

I gave it a count of three. "We're definitely lost and the sun's going to set soon. Will you let me lead now?"

She sighed angrily and nodded, pulling her long black hair into a pony tail. I straightened up and headed in the other direction.

"Why didn't you tell me we were going the wrong way?" Bianca asked.

"I did," I reminded her.

I got us to the graveyard pretty quickly. It's not used very often anymore, but it's pretty easy to find. I made an educated guess to the direction we needed to go and went for it, Bianca trailing behind me. We were only walking for about ten more minutes when we arrived at a weird rock formation.

Bianca walked up to it and ran her hand up the side. "It looks like something big came through here," she said.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah there was kind of a battle here. It was crushed by Kampé and a Hundred Handed One threw a bunch of other rocks at it so the entrance to the Labyrinth doesn't open here anymore. If the Labyrinth actually still exists," I explained.

Bianca rolled her eyes right back at me.

"Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants. How do we get back to camp?"

"Uhhh," I spun a circle. The path was so overgrown that it all looked the same. "This way," I said, choosing a direction at random and hoping for the best.

It was not the best.

"What is this place?" Bianca asked after awhile.

It was a giant formation that looked like a great big ant hill. We went a bit deeper in and found a room filled with golden things and I realized where we were.

"Bianca we have to leave now."

"But this place is so cool, look at this armor. It looks ancient!"

She made the mistake of picking it up to look at it. I dashed over to her and grabbed her hand, pulling her along with me as I made to sprint out of there. Bianca screamed as a giant Myrmeke blocked our path.

I racked my brain to try and remember how to fight them. In Monster Fighting class, Chiron taught they kill you by spitting their gooey venom and paralyzing you. I pulled Bianca out of the way just in time to dodge it.

I had recently taken to carrying a belt full of throwing knives and I was thankful I had because if I hadn't, we'd be screwed for sure.

I took one out and threw it. It hit the myrmeke square between the eyes and it disintegrated into golden dust but not before it shrieked. We heard the rustling of more and we ran as fast as we could.

I led the way, stumbling upon Zeus's fist by accident. I was able to find our way back from there and we arrived back at camp out of breath. At least we were safe.

"What the Hades were those things!" Bianca gasped.

"Myrmekes," I answered.

"They're disgusting."

We decided to skip the camp fire that night. Of course, we told Ariana everything that happened right away and she scolded us for going in the woods alone, but she at least promised not to tell Dad until we were ready to.

That was one crazy evening.