~~~~8~~~~
“I still don’t understand why we can’t just sleep insidethe car, I mean bears can’t open doors, and I don’t want a bear to eat me. Plus, and this is just a guess, but I think the cushioned seats may be a bit more soft than the ground.” Ryan continued to rant as he had been for over an hour.
Willow gave him a sharp look. “We’ve slept in that truck for the past two days!”
Eryx pouted as he continued trying and failing to put up the guy’s tent. “We would have gotten here a hell of a lot faster if mister goody-goody hadn’t taken the wheel from me…”
James crossed his arms defensively from where he was in the car narrowing down the location of the map on his laptop, the blue computer light making him look like a zombie from where I was. “You were going forty above the speed limit! We would have gotten pulled over or crashed into something, and I’m the only other one who can drive!”
I was about to remind them that I could drive perfectly mediocre, but before I could speak up Eryx jumped from his seated position on the ground and pointed at James, his skin becoming a dangerous red. “We were on a freaking high way for the gods’ sakes! And we’re trying to get on with a quest; we can’t waste time thinking about the dumb law!”
Kit, who Willow volunteered to put up their tent, gave Eryx a reproachful look. “James may be painfully slow but I threw up when you were driving. Twice.”
Ryan jumped in before the petty argument could go any further. “I mean both Colorado and the Grand Canyon are known for black bears! And we’re in both of them! Doesn’t that worry you guys at all?”
I chuckled as Eryx began to go back to work on his tent building skills. “Ryan if I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re afraid of bears.”
He looked down and began to play with his thumbs. “Everyone’s afraid of something.”
I could feel the confusion falling onto my face. “But you’re a child of Ares, I mean yeah people have fears and all, but bears? From you I expected it to be failure or death or something along those lines! Not something that the warrior boy can kill.”
Ryan shrugged and just muttered something like “… just don’t like ‘em…” and went very quiet for the first time in hours.
The days we spent on the road are not what I would call fun. It included lots of arguing, being squished together (after a police officer caught Ryan and willow riding in the bed of the car), three teenage guys talking about things which shouldn't be heard, and either going fast to the point of throwing up or slow to the point of having elderly people pass us (and flipping us off with a few choice words as they went). We had only gotten to our new camp site an hour ago and man did it feel like a relief!
Kit and Eryx went straight to working on getting the camp set up and James started trying to understand our location on the map better (which he was slightly successful in considering we now knew the general location and were staying close to it). Ryan had taken the responsibility on warning us about bears for the past hour, and how sleeping in the truck would be a very good (“maybe lifesaving”) idea. Willow was waiting for debates and arguments to start so she could pick a side, and even more importantly, so she could win it. I, on the other hand, seemed to have become even more addicted to heights and was enjoy my time above them with my feet stretched out in a tree.
Kit looked around at Willow, Ryan, and I after a few minutes of awkward silence. “Why don’t you guys make yourselves useful?”
I chuckled. “And do what? I could rain dance! Wait… would that work?... cause I mean I’m Zeus’ daughter now… so if I really tried-”
“As interesting and humiliating as that little experiment sounds, rain would flood our camp site so you should probably save that for another time. Willow go hunt for food sense you seem to have a weirdly strong nose and large mussels now. Ryan go get firewood to cook Willow’s game, Arianna, go with him so he’s not such a chick about bears. Got that?” Eryx finish looking around at all of our faces.
I shook my head. “I think you have some serious leadership issues, bro.”
The vain by Eryx’ temple pulsed. “Just go do it!”
After that three of us seemed to read each other’s minds and simultaneously saluted at him sarcastically, afterwards rushing into the woods giggling like a bunch of five year olds who stole cookies from the cookie jar. We continued giggling and laughing for five minutes as we walked before Ryan spoke up.
“So do we just start ripping branches of trees? Cause if that’s the case th-”
Willow gave him the ‘what are you even saying’ look. “You can’t just rip it off of trees, they’ll still have water in 'em! You need to get it off the ground away from water sources if you want it really dry.”
“Okay I get the whole, don’t tear them from trees thing, but just cause they’re near a water source doesn’t nec-”
I was cut off by Willow as she shook her head tiredly. “Just trust me, okay? I can hear a river nearby, I’m gonna go hunt there. You guys remember what I said though!” and with that she ran off to our left, whistling as she went.
I shook my head after her. “I seriously don’t get how wood by a river would b-”
Ryan put his hand over my mouth silencing me. “I don’t either but it’s best not to argue with the red head. Now come on, I saw a hill nearby.”
“Why are we going to the hill?”
He was quiet for a long time, and when he finally spoke his cheeks were rosy with embarrassment. “Cause if a bear comes for us it’s easiest to run up hill to escape it.”
Needless to say our journey to the hill was mainly filled with my laughs and him saying “can you stop it already.”
After a while we found a part of the hill with many dead and damaged trees with clear signs of a recent fire. Some had fallen over and some were burned to ashes, but most parts that were usable as firewood were pail blue in coloring.
Is it strange that I felt sorrow for those trees? Or, furthermore, that Ryan most likely did too because the next twenty minutes we spent in silence.
As we passed the edge of where the damage was done, Ryan already collecting the large pieces of wood and I the small ones, he began to try and lighten the mood. “What’s brown and sticky?”
I shrugged. “Gravy? Your soul?”
Ryan smiled that very Ryan-like smile that stretched across his dimpled face, the one only he could seem to pull off. Only problem with it was that it only showed up when he was excited or up to something. “A stick.”
I did my best to conceal my chuckles with a cough due to how cheesy it was and the knowledge of how much his ego would increase.
“What do you call a nosy pepper?”
“I don’t know, peppermint?” A smile slowly came up my face.
“Jalapeno business!”
This time I didn’t even try and stop my laughter.
“Why did snoop dog bring an umbrella?”
“Stop, I can’t handle the cheesiness!” My voice was much happier now than when we were first leaving the destroyed area.
“Fo drizzle!”
I laughed for a long time, minutes on end with hiccups here and there. “I’m glad I have a friend like you Ryan!”
If possible his smile got bigger. “Me too. For the longest time it was just Eryx and I, now I have you, Kit, and Willow. The only downside is that James has to tag along too…”
I rolled my eyes at him and his blunt hate for the Athena boy. “You just dislike James cause he’s competition.”
Ryan’s eyes widened slightly and his smile became dimmer. “That obvious, huh? For the both of us?”
I nodded with my signature sarcastic smile. “To everyone, that is, besides Kit and Eryx.”
He sighed and shook his head. “He may be my best friend, but that guy would kill me if he knew. Thank the shotgun he’s as thick as the plot line to Harry Potter.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Thank the shotgun? Thick as the plot line to Harry Potter?”
He blushed and nodded. “The shotgun has to be the most important invention in history. And that story line is way too complicated, I tried to learn about it ‘cause I overheard James and Kit talking about it and I don’t know… it’s gonna be hard to win her over if we have so little in common…”
I shook my head. “Kit’s my friend and all, but no one is worth changing yourself for. Just remember that, okay? I don’t want you messing yourself up. After all I’m glad I have a friend like you, not the person other’s may wish of you.”
He looked at me from the corner of his eye, he gave me the look that all seemed to give me when I began to talk like that. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Well don’t go messing yourself up either. I mean in know what’s going on with you, we all do. I don’t think any of us understand it too well, but still. Just don’t let it, any of it, get to you.”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t have to say ‘it’, we both know you’re talking about Zeus. And I’m not letting him do that because I’m better than him. He won’t get to me, and he may be my father but he sure isn’t my dad.”
He gave me a look. “See, you’re already getting anger issues because of him.”
I shook my head. “Those were already there.”
We sunk into silence again until Ryan spoke back up. “You know a few good things do come with being a Zeus kid…”
I smiled at this. “Like my lightning hands?”
He nodded, that smile coming back on his face, and I knew it wasn’t from excitement that time. “And other things. Many Zeus kids get cool abilities, a more common one for instance, is flying.”
My jaw dropped. “No way…”
He nodded slowly, the grin never leaving. “Jason defiantly could, though he’s technically from Jupiter, and we’re not sure if Thalia could… and what about you? I mean, you freaking want to sleep in a tree tonight, you love being high up as if you were made for it.”
I nodded, my mind reeling with excitement. “That is true… but how would we find out, there’s no way I’m gonna jump off a cliff or anything.”
There was a certain triumph in his eyes as he pointed to the top of the fairly tall tree next to us. “That’s why we start out small…”
It took me fifteen minutes at the very least to get up the tree, seeing as I hadn’t climbed so high in one sense my fifth grade camping trip where my mom had to call the fire department to get me down. The worst aspect was that it was a school trip, which meant everyone in the grade watched and made fun of my fear of jumping down for the rest of the year.
So you can probably imagine the rush of fear I had when I finally got high enough and looked down at Ryan, who was now easily carrying all of the wood. I could feel the little food I had in the past few days try and crawl its way up my throat and did my best to swallow it down several times.
“I can do this. I can do this.” I chanted before closing my eyes and jumping off the branch I was perched on.
Not ten seconds later I was holding my leg and screaming in agony as Ryan dropped the wood and stared in shock. After a few seconds he snapped out of it, but still being the idiot he was, he didn’t know what to do and kept saying things like, “I’m sorry… I thought…”
After what felt like hours, but was probably only a couple of minutes, Eryx came running to where we were yelling. “What happened!?”
Ryan turned to him, guilt leaking of his facial features. “I didn’t think… we just… we huh… had a flight test?”
Eryx’ eyes lit with rage. “Dude! What’s wrong with you!? We have enough going on right now, it’s not the freaking time to tell our friends to jump out of twenty foot trees! It’s never the time for that you moron!”
Ryan shook his head. “I have feelings too you know!”
Eryx gave him a look before pushing past him and scooping me up. “Just get the wood to camp.” Was all he said before we were off running through the woods with many promises of ambrosia.
When we finally got to the camp the boys’ tent was up, Kit was nearly finished with the girls, and Willow was attempting to show James how to clean a rabbit of its bones and guts. The fact that James was as squeamish as a seven year old girl wasn’t helping as he turned a strange green color.
Still in a state of pain and panic I didn’t realize much of what was happening to me. First I felt Eryx lay me down and saw everyone stand over me sometimes muttering words. I had a feeling, though I didn’t notice it at first, that I had started bleeding when I fell. As seconds past I could feel the world getting blurry and myself slipping away.
A cold liquid slipped down my throat, I recognized the flavor of coffee immediately. But it was different, there was something else. The slight taste of gingerbread came through and gave me a strange feeling of peace. Slowly, as though the liquid were spreading all throughout me, my body became numb and cold. I was vaguely aware of skin stretching near the back of my head, thigh, and ankle.
It felt like an eternity before the cold feeling left my body, and even longer before I slowly began to twitch my eyelids open. After much time and effort I saw the blurry scene around me. Eryx and Ryan seemed to have accidently started cuddling in their sleep as seen through the flap in their tent, making me really wish I had a camera on me. James seemed to prefer cuddling with his laptop in the farthest corner of the guy’s tent. Kit was in the girl’s tent to the right of where I was lying and even though she was using several blankets was shivering. Willow was on watch and seemed not to have noticed my consciousness as she stared up in a trance at the moon.
Feeling more energized I slowly got into a sitting position. I could see my gauze and bandages on my right leg and feel something wrap around my head. I was lying down on a make-shift hammock made mostly of blankets and ropes, it was five feet or so up in the tree, I was also cocooned in many blankets to keep the cold out. The noise of my shuffling around seemed to have gotten Willow’s attention as she snapped her head to face me.
“They thought bringing you closer to the sky might make you heal faster, and seeing as you’re awake I’d guess it’s working.”
I closed my eyes in attempt to calm my thoughts. “What’s the damage?”
“By the time you got to camp you lost some blood, which only got worse as we tried to work on you. You’re ankle was so badly broken that the bone was sticking out of the skin – but like I said putting you up there seemed to help, because not even ten minutes later it didn’t make me wanna throw up to look at. Also your whole right leg, mainly your thigh, was cut up pretty bad. But the worst of it was your head which hit a tree root according to Ryan. It wasn’t that big of a deal at first, nothing compared to the problem with your ankle, but it was pouring blood and made you go unconscious.”
I looked up at the sky and stars not sure if I should hate Zeus for the lack of help with my falling abilities or be grateful I was a Zeus kid, otherwise I don’t know what measures they may have had to take to get me back to normal. I looked over at Willow yawning with drooping eyes. “Have you been look-out the entire night?”
She shrugged and scratched the back of her neck. “We were gonna take it in shifts like we planned to for the whole trip, but I wasn’t much help with your… accident… so I’m giving them a night off.”
I shook my head. “Well I’m awake now and there’s no way I’m going back to bed. Get some rest.”
She gave me a stare the pretty much spelled out the words ‘are you stupid’? “And if we’re under attack or you need to go check out a noise, how do you expect to get up and be productive? You’re getting better and all but it’s gonna be a while until you’re up and running.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh come on! It took ten minutes for my bone to put itself in the right place! I bet I’ll be able to walk on it in an hour, two tops!”
“No way in Hades!” she yelled, you could hear a certain giggly sound to her voice. “At least seven hours, ten before you can actually run and jump again!”
“You wanna make a bet ginger?”
“You’re on paraplegic !”
“Not for long!”
“What happens if I win!?”
After thinking for a second I smirked. “When this is over and we go back to camp I’ll tell everyone-”
“No, no, no! Way too boring! How about whoever loses has to be the other person’s man slave for a day and do everything the winner asks of them!”
“Deal! So let’s say it took me longer than seven hours to walk, you win. When it takes less, I will.”
“Agreed!”
We sat there staring at each other in the eyes for a good three minutes (though it felt like an eternity or two) before Willows eyes began to twitch before finally blinking. Laughing in victory I slammed my fist into the air.
Willow now looked very angry “OH whatever! You have glasses to protect you from the wind, I’m gonna be the one to win the bet so, ha!”
Still laughing I narrowed my eyes at her. “Whatever you say, willow. Whatever you say.”
The next three hours were spent with me trying, and (in my opinion at least) getting close before very elegantly and graciously failing, to stand. By the time the sky had turned a light pinkish purple color everyone was awake and watching me do my best to hobble around with little interest.
The only person not watching me was James who was so absorbed into his laptop that he still hadn’t noticed the mustache and uni-brow Ryan had drawn on his face (Ryan was the first of the four to wake up in the morning and took advantage of it). His fingers flew over the keyboard nonstop; sometimes he’d mutter words or shake his head to himself. He hadn’t had a real conversation yet in the hour and half he’d been up and he hadn’t changed out of his pajamas (which was a dark blue button up shirt and pants - both very sleek and expensive looking).
Breakfast was a mixture of badly cooked rabit and other things we found on the forest floor, it had been so pitiful that everyone but Eryx (who made it and was too prideful to admit it tasted like shit) passed up eating that morning.
It was Kit who finally asked something important. “When are we going after the map?”
James finally looked up from his computer, the dark circles under his eyes looking worse than mine. “Today if we can. I've done a bit more work and research, I know what set of caves we’re looking for, and there’s no way we can figure it out any further besides actually going to get it.”
“Where are the caves we’re looking for?” I asked, finally having balanced myself on two feet. Before I could move I was pushed over by Willow who wore a suspiciously innocent face.
“The caves are about a mile walk from here, There are three of them next to each other on the side of the rock. There have been lots of myths and stories from locals and Native Americans about how the area around it was blessed, but those who venture in don’t come out the same or just don’t come out.”
After a bit of help from Kit (who began scolding in a whisper at Willow) I was standing again and with difficulty began to shakily move one foot in front of the other. I smirked over my shoulder at a defeated looking Willow. “I’ll be collecting my prize later on; today we have some important things to do.”