The Fleece Job (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Chapter 20: The heist Part 12

Ev

What Jason lacks in basically everything else, he makes up for in coordination. He lands on the patio in a perfect three point landing, sword in one hand, fleece clutched to his chest, looking like he's recently been on fire, with lipstick kisses all over his face, and neck, his shirt cut open.

"Great—come on, the whole place is on fire and I don't know why," I say. I was on my way to get him, but looks like I don't need to do that.

"There's another crew we have to be careful," Jason says, two seconds before a human blur speeds past him, snatching the fleece out of his arms.

We both lunge on principal.

A little girl (the previously identified human blur) stops. She's wearing pink running shoes, jeans with pink paint splatters, and a long purple sweatshirt. Her is in a neat afro and her flinty eyes flicker between the two of us, sizing us up. She's tiny, maybe eight or so, but little for her age looking and rather thin. She has a silver locket with a compass around her neck. You know those girls in school with the sixteen pack of pretty markers who smell kinda like bubble gum and write in really pretty loopy hand writing and also kill it at dodge ball and would be the object of all the elementary school boys affection if they weren't so afraid of them? Yeah, that's what she reminds me of.

Anyway she has our fleece, and I'm sure she would have kept running with if it weren't for the wall of fire.

"That's ours—give it back!" Jason says (he's not a great negotiator. You may have noticed that about him).

She sticks her tongue out at him, bouncing between her feet as if gauging if she can bolt past us.  She must not think we're very smart, because she tries it.

Well, I'm proud to say my tackle game is on point. Jason's isn't, but he's holding a sword. I manage to not hit her with my gauntlets, I mean she is little. It's not like this is life or death; we just want the thing. And I let her have the other things back in the house. She could give me this.

"Give!" Jason tries to tug it out of her arms.

She sticks her tongue out again and tries to wiggle away as I hold her. As it is she manages to drag me a few feet while Jason tugs at the fleece. This kid is ridiculously strong. And fast. Some sort of cryptid maybe?

"Give, that's mine I found it first," Jason instructs her like he thinks it will work (it does not). The girl tries to bite me but again, my tackle and hold game is on point.

The little girl cries in rage and again tries to dart away but I have her feet well off the ground. Jason is still struggling for the fleece. People are screaming. Many things are on fire behinds us. Also it sounds and looks like a fireworks show is going on inside the house and I don't know why, but to be conservative I'm blaming Reese.

Anyway, it's at that point my and Jason's shared dad decides to materialize. I assume he just decided to show up and parent us because he thought we might be about to need a ride to the Underworld. He observes the three of us wrestling with obvious horror.

"Dad?"

"Dad?"

"Dad?"

Then we all three register that all three of us said it and proceed to look at one another for family resemblance (there's none). Then we all three look back at him.

And, in true fashion, he vanishes.

"That's MY dad," the little girl says, clearly hurt.

"Yeah, mine too. Nice to meet you I'm Ev. Can you give him the fleece? He's not lucky in general and it's important to him and not many things make him happy. You won't know this right now, but he tucks his shirts into his khakis and wears a belt," I say to my new little sister.

"He's my dad," she mumbles again, clearly upset.

"What---yeah give it to me if you're really my sister we'll share it," Jason says, charitably.

That's when a massive dragon just up and decides to set us all on fire.

I may have mentioned before how amazing Penny is? She's not just my girlfriend, she's my best friend, and she's great at a lot of things. She can control metal, and fire, and is generally adept at saving my ass.  Case in point:

Penny dives in front of the three of us, seemingly coming out of nowhere, hands up, holding back the wall of flame.

"I can't do this long!" she cries.

"Challenge accepted," I say, ripping the fleece from both of my siblings and taking off running. Yep. I was right. That's exactly what it wants.

The dragon bounds after me, like a puppy that just lost its ball, a puppy that's the size of two semi trucks,. I'm not gonna out run it long and I'm going to assume it's going to incinerate me---yeah right now.

Oh. I forgot. I have impervious skin or something along those lines. I knew that.

Anyway, while the fire burns and hurts terribly, it's nowhere near as bad as the Styx water, and it certainly doesn't kill me.

"Ev!" Penny shouts. She was running parallel with me around the patio. She holds up a hand and the fleece flies to her.

"Hot potato with the fleece---we need to get rid of it!" I shout to Penny, "It's the only way to get rid of the dragon!"

"Done," she tosses the fleece off into the darkness of the woods.

The dragon takes off after it, barreling through the woods and knocking down trees.

"Weird—thanks for that," I say.

"Yeah nice---it's coming back isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's coming back."