I gripped onto the bars with my cuffed hands, my knuckles turning white. "What the hell do you want from me?"
"Oh, what the hell do you want from me?" Hermes mimicked in a childish voice. "Why do you think everything's about you? You think you're so special and all, but guess what, sister? You're not!"
I stared at him coldly.
He rolled his eyes at my silent retort. "Fine. Yes, it's about you, loser. Who else do you think we came here for?"
My eyes narrowed. "We?"
As if on queue, the police lady I talked to earlier walked into the holding cell area with a longbow on her hand. She tossed the police cap she wore away, revealing her short white hair.
"Did you get her?" she asked, then glanced at me. "Oh, you already did. Good."
"Hey! Don't underestimate my skills, moon girl," Hermes said. "She didn't suspect a thing. My acting was flawless."
Moon girl? Artemis?
"So there wasn't an Officer Williams, huh?" I gritted under my teeth. "You made that person up and pretended that my uncle was missing so you could meet me here the other day."
Hermes smirked. "Not exactly."
"What do you mean?"
"Do I even have to spell it out? Fine." He crossed his arms. "The Officer Williams you've talked to the other day was a real person, but I was playing the role of the so-called Agent Cortez that day."
My eyes widened as a sudden realization hit me. That was why he kept asking me weird questions during the interrogation.
He nodded like he read my mind. "Yep, that was me. I played that scene well, didn't I?"
I frowned. "You were a bit fishy, I admit."
"Whatever you say." He said in a huff. "What's important is you didn't know it was me all along."
"Cut the talk, Hermes." Artemis slung her bow on her shoulder. "We have to move before the police wake up."
I stepped back as Hermes opened the bars wide and slowly walked up to me.
"W-what do you think you're doing?"
He groaned. "We're going to kidnap you, obviously."
"What?" I inched away as he cornered me in the room, hands reaching for my cuffed ones.
He grabbed me by force and pulled me out of the cell. Artemis stood in front of me with eyebrows furrowed.
My nostrils flared as she looked at me like I was some sort of peasant. "If this is all some sick joke to lure me out, what did you do to Uncle Ben?"
Artemis shrugged. "Don't know, don't care. We heard he was gone, so we just used that as an opportunity, that's all."
"How dare you—"
"Tell me where you got this." She pulled out a long chain with a stone hanging on it from her pocket and put it near my face.
My heart skipped a beat. "H-how did you get this?"
"I'm the one who's asking the questions." She tied my necklace around her fingers. "Where did you get this talisman?"
"I. . ." I took a deep breath. "I don't know."
She hit me on my cheek, the necklace's chain grazing through my skin. "I said where did you get this?"
I pressed my lips into a thin line.
Don't say anything, don't say anything. . .
The silver-haired archer huffed and kept the necklace back in her pocket. "Fine, you know what? I think you need a time-out to think about what you'll answer."
Before I could ask her what she meant, a painful sting shot through my body as I felt something small pierce my neck. I glanced down, and I saw a hand holding on a tiny dart on my neck like a syringe.
I blinked. Why does my head feel dizzy all of a sudden?
"Sleep tight, redhead," Hermes whispered behind my ear. "We're going to have a long trip ahead of us. . ."
A small click sounding nearby stirred my senses awake. Moaning, I slowly blinked my eyes open and saw a green-eyed boy staring back at me. I yelped, pushing myself away from him.
"You're finally awake," Hermes said. "Took you long enough."
I looked around the place in panic. There were no cells, no tables and no chairs around me. Instead, I was surrounded by rows of passenger seats in a wide cabin.
My eyes widened. How in the world did I get in a plane?
Shaking, I gripped tightly on the armrests of my seat. It took me a few moments to realize my hands weren't cuffed anymore.
Glancing back at Hermes, I noticed that he wasn't wearing a police uniform anymore. Instead, he wore normal ones, which made him look younger than he probably should be.
"H-how long was I sleeping?" I asked.
He shrugged, relaxing on his seat. "A while."
"Where are you taking me?"
"Somewhere."
"Why did you take me?"
"I don't know."
"What are you—"
Hermes groaned. "Stop asking questions. I'm the one who's supposed to do that, not the other way around. Plus it's annoying."
Fine. If he won't tell me anything, then I'm going to find the answers myself.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and imagined the barrier surrounding my mind to be brought down. I saw the invisible wall still towering my head.
Weird. Why is my power not working?
Clenching my fists, I willed the barrier to go away with everything I could, but it was still there.
A loud beep snapped me out of my focused state. I glanced down at the strange-looking collar that was around my neck. At the middle of it blinked a tiny green light.
Standing up, Hermes clicked his tongue. "Whatever you were doing, stop it. You won't be able to use your powers with that collar on."
I was about to put my hands on it when he spoke again. "Don't even try to remove it if you don't want to get a nasty shock."
"Whatever." My eyebrow twitched. "I don't need my powers to knock you out now that you've removed my handcuffs."
He strode away, shrugging. "If you do that, Artemis will stop you before you could even parachute yourself out. And trust me, you don't want to get stranded in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean all by yourself."
He continued to walk toward what looked like a mini-bar, complete with colorful bottles of drinks displayed on shelves and a large refrigerator on the side. He took a couple of them and began whipping up some drinks for himself. A while later, he came over with two glasses and offered one to me.
"You want some?"
I eyed the glass warily. "No thanks. I don't want to get poisoned by whatever you've put in there."
His lips curled up slightly. "Relax, girl. It's just a harmless glass of orange juice, nothing to worry about."
"I don't care. I'm not gonna risk it," I said firmly. "Besides, why are you being so. . . nice to me? Am I not supposed to be your prisoner?"
"Well, yeah. That's true." He drank up the two glasses and sighed in satisfaction. "We were ordered to keep you comfortable and not let you escape."
My eyes narrowed. "By who?"
Hermes stuck out his tongue. "Not gonna tell. I could only say so much, you know."
I crossed my arms and sat there in silence while my 'babysitter' went back to the bar and took out some food from the fridge. My stomach grumbled as the smell of sweet pastries hit my nose.
Maybe it won't be a bad thing if I ate some of their food. . .
I shook my head. No! They're probably counting on me being vulnerable so they could get out some information from me. I won't let that happen.
But what should I do now? I can't know anything they're thinking because of the stupid collar they put on my neck. I do know we're somewhere in the Atlantic, which means this plane was either going to Africa or Europe. If the latter were true, then Athena's coordinates could be right after all, and I could simply tell them where we were exactly heading so they could come and rescue me.
How will I even do that though? The Olympian siblings didn't know I went to the police station, and Hermes probably took my phone since I can't feel it in my pocket anymore. I think they won't let me contact them easily too.
How will I be able to get some info from Hermes while his partner wasn't around yet?
I looked back at Hermes who was still in the mini-bar enjoying himself out. My eyes landed on the variety of drinks lining up the display.
An idea popped into my head.
I strolled across the mini-bar and sat on one of the bar stools. Hermes paused on his drink halfway.
"So you finally decided to come to your senses, huh?" He raised a brow.
I faked a smile. "Yeah, sure. I was feeling kinda hungry, and I thought eating wouldn't be bad."
"Fine, what do you want?" He went over to the refrigerator and opened it. "We've got pasta, some mousse, leftover pizza. . ."
"Um, I'll take the pizza, please," I said. "A couple of slices will do."
"Okay." He took out some pizza from a box and popped it in a microwave.
He leaned on the table and looked at me. "Don't even try doing something stupid, you hear me? I won't fall for whatever plan you're trying to achieve."
I put a hand over my chest, feigning shock. "Why would I even do that? It's not like I could do anything with you watching me. Besides, you're Hermes's Chosen. You might as well have some sort of a 'sixth sense' for detecting mischief or something."
He rubbed his chin, deep in thought. "Yeah, that works too. I was just giving you a warning, that's all. If Artemis were here, she wouldn't be as welcoming as I am to you."
"Where is she anyway?" Just as I asked my question, the microwave pinged.
Hermes took the pizza out of the microwave, put it on a plate, and served it to me. I mumbled a "Thank you" before slowly taking a bite.
"I think I last saw her with the pilot," he said. "Why do you ask?"
"Nothing. I just want to have a casual chat." I shrugged halfheartedly. "That's not too much for you, right?"
"Well, don't act too casual," he said. "We're still enemies after all."
I nodded in agreement, then glanced at the bottles of drinks behind him. "Are those alcohol?"
He turned around. "Yeah, some of them are. Why?"
"Just curious," I said. "I don't drink, and I'd like to keep it that way."
He scoffed. "Weak. I bet you don't have that much of a high tolerance for alcohol."
"Well, do you?" I smirked, then pointed at one of the bottles near him. "I bet you can't finish off, like, five shots of that tequila without getting drunk."
"Challenge accepted." After taking a new, small glass from under the table, he swiped the bottle from the shelf and poured a shot into the glass.
He drank the shot in one go. "One."
He poured another one and chugged the glass empty. "T-two. . ."
As he poured his third shot, his hand shook a bit, spilling some tequila on the table's surface. When the glass was filled, he slowly put it near his lips.
"Here's three—"
"What the hell are you doing?"
Artemis stomped in our direction, her nostrils flaring. Before Hermes could make sense of what was going on, Artemis grabbed the glass from him and splashed its contents to his face. She put the glass down the table with so much force I swore I heard something crack.
"Give me a good reason why you were drinking during duty!" She gritted under her teeth.
Hermes leaned on the table. "My good friend here dared me to a drinking challenge, and you know I can't resist a good challenge. You know I can still be sober even after a bottle of alcohol, so it won't get me drunk one bit and blah blah. I'm amazing."
Artemis rubbed her temples. "You idiot, she's trying to get you drunk so she can ask you questions easily and escape!"
"Huh. . . But she didn't say that at all," he said. "That's weird."
The silver-haired girl turned to me. "And you. Even if you're being treated decently, you're not supposed to do anything."
"It's not like I wanted to be here." I huffed. "You can't blame me for trying."
"Pathetic," she grumbled. "If I were given the chance, I'd slit your throat and feed your corpse to my wolves."
"Nice try, but that won't scare me."
"Well, you better be," she said. "Because we're going to arrive soon, and I hope my master will give you some good talking."
She pulled out a tiny device and pressed a button. The next thing I knew, I was kneeling down on the floor while I held onto the collar buzzing around my neck.
I looked up and glared at Artemis, who gave me a sly smile.
"Since there's still time, why don't you tell me where you got this talisman?" She took out my necklace and threw it down near her foot. "If you say a wrong answer or none at all, I'll smash this to pieces."
My eyes widened. "No! Please, don't break it!"
"I'm waiting for your answer. . ."
Should I just tell them? I can't risk losing the necklace Ben gave me, he would not like it if I lose it for good.
I sighed. "Fine. I got it from my uncle, and he got it from my dad who's been dead a long time ago."
Artemis crossed her arms. "Hm. And what's your dad's name?"
I suppressed the urge to snap at her for asking that question. "It's Dmitri Kingston. Happy now?"
Using her foot, she slid the necklace to my side and I eagerly took it. "Yes, I'm satisfied. Now take the bloody thing."
Before I could even take a good look at it, I felt electricity course through my veins once more, numbing my whole body. I crashed down the floor and everything turned black.