The Vesta House Squad

23) The Whooping Cough, Part 3

Isaac was somewhat surprised to say the least when he finally returned to Vesta House from his bathroom break.

The first thing he saw was Arthur and Katrina sprawled across the table. They were apparently unconscious, having coughed themselves into exhaustion (though Isaac didn't know this last part). Valerie was still conscious, though she seemed to barely be holding herself together as she coughed repeatedly. Somehow in the time it took for him to go to the bathroom, Arthur's disease must have spread to Valerie and Katrina. This struck Isaac as strange, since he was pretty sure diseases didn't normally spread this quickly, but he didn't say anything about it.

The next thing he noticed was that there was a girl with curly brown hair wearing a face mask pants with strangely large pockets standing beside the table with her hand on her hips wearing a smug expression on her face.

That was definitely also very weird. In fact, things were so weird, that Isaac was actually beginning to suspect something was wrong. His suspicions were confirmed, when Valerie was finally able to stop coughing for a moment.

"Isaac!" she cried out, then immediately went back to coughing.

"What's going on?" Isaac said. If he was at all surprised or concerned for his friends, Jandice couldn't tell.

"Jandice," Valerie managed to sputter. Her voice was beginning to sound raspy "The disease. It's her demigod power. Also watch out for her slingshot. She shoots-" She was overcome with another coughing fit. Her throat was also starting to burn now, but she had to try to warn Isaac.

"The disease. It's transmitted through-" Once more she was overtaken by a coughing fit. It was no use, she thought. She just couldn't do it. And the coughing was getting worse every moment. Not only was she finding it difficult to breathe in-between coughs now, her sides were starting to hurt. She tried once again, but this time she could barely get her mouth open before she was forced into another fit. The coughing intensified to the point that she now felt like she was about to throw up. It was genuinely the most pain Valerie had ever been through in her entire life. She could barely move now, and her whole body was in pain now. She felt like giving up. After all, what did it matter? Even if she were able to warn Isaac, she didn't have the energy to weave another mask for him anyways. 

Valerie collapsed in a fit of coughing and fell out of her chair and onto the floor.

Jandice froze as Isaac slowly approached the table. Her instinct was to run away. After all, he was a son of Zeus, likely gifted with extremely powerful lightning abilities, and she was just a daughter of Apollo.

But the more she thought about it, the less intimidated she became.

Although fson were generally more powerful than children of Athena, Jandice was a lot less threatened by Isaac than she had been by Valerie. The reason for this was because although children of Zeus were stronger, their lightning powers tended to be ineffective in indoor environments. Even if Isaac didn't strictly have to summon the lightning from the sky like many of his siblings did, the fact that Jandice was standing so close to where his friends were meant that there was no chance he could electrocute her without hurting any of his friends. She on the other hand, had the complete advantage, as Isaac couldn't get closer without risking getting contaminated by the disease, and if he chose to distance himself from her, she could just easily shoot him down with her BBs. 

She also began to remember what she already knew about Isaac. He was an unthoughtful individual, someone who was only good at regurgitating facts he memorized for a test at school. If she could beat someone like Valerie, who was admittedly a little clever, then someone like Isaac would be easy.

"I must say, after seeing you in person, you're a lot shorter than I...um..." she faltered as Isaac ignored her completely and instead began looking at something on the ground. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"