Love Birds

Chapter Eight

-Athena's POV-

BEEP BEEP BEEP! I covered my ears with my pillow, but my alarm clock kept screeching for me to get up. It stopped for a few minutes, but the beeping continued. I raised my fist and smashed the thing to pieces. You know you should be getting up, Athena, I thought and slowly sat up.

It was early in the morning, four o'clock to be exact, when I decided to get up. I tugged off my mask and pulled on some shorts and a sports bra. I never took off my mask, not even when I slept, just in case I was ambushed during the night.

I hit the pavement and let my thoughts drift as I ran.

*******

"Here you go," I was handed a parachute by the guard who had followed me since I left the League of Assassin's headquarters. I gasped and raised an eyebrow, lookng down at the endless stretch of ocean below.

"I'm not jumping! I have no idea where to go!" I pushed the parachute back into his hands and sat back down in my seat. The man handed me a sheet of paper with coordinates and a map on it along with a small electronic GPS.

"Now, it's your choice if you want a chute or not, but I would suggest it. That's a long jump," he smirked and opened up the door, nudging me towards it. I snatched the parachute from his hands with a grunt and strapped it on. He tucked the supplies into a water proof bag inside of the chute along with a couple of water bottles. "You might need fresh water if you want to survive!" He called over the wind. I tightened my grip on the dagger Talia gave me and dove out of the helicopter.

As I fell, I watched as the helicopter flew away. The man waved and saluted to me as he ducked back into the craft. I think it was more as a good luck gesture than a gesture of respect. I pulled the shoot and drifted down into the water. I was instantly pulled down by the weight of the parachute when I touched the water. What was I supposed to do? I had to swim to this island and hopefully survive the journey. Of course, in my experience and training, I had dealt with worse, but this was still crazy. I took off the backpack and pulled out the GPS and the piece of paper. The map didn't have any of the water charted, only the destination itself. I punched in the coordinates given to me into the GPS and swam in the direction it was telling me.

The next few weeks were hell. I had to swim through massive storms and waves that threw me off course. I also had use a single dagger to hunt and defend myself. Many sharks, sting rays, jellyfish, and other threats would approach and try to take me down. I had gotten bitten on my left leg by a shark that I had killed in the end, but the wound still left me vulnerable. Thankfully, I had a first aid kit in the pack that I used to sew the gaping flesh closed with. The shark didn't get the chance to tear into bone, so I wouldn't need medical attention. When I needed to keep my own blood out of the water, I would have to try to stay on top of a pillow-sized backpack. I survived on raw fish I had managed to catch and whatever I could get from a shark, which was mostly muscle and skin. I had been lucky one day to find a rock that had been sticking out of the water that had crabs crawling all over it. I had survived the next month on the crabs alone.

After a horrible twelve weeks, I approached an island. I let my body drift onto the shore. A strong pair of hands lifted me up and carried me through a jungle-like terrain. I was so tired, dehydrated, and hungry that I passed out in the arms of whoever was carrying me.

I awoke slumped on the ground with a very tall and muscular man staring down at me. He had a thick beard and sinister looking dark eyes. He smiled, showing sharp teeth. I looked down at myself, feeling shamed in the presence of the strong man. I had lost most of my muscle and was mostly blood stained skin and weak bones. The man stared down at me while I struggled to get up. I decided the effort was pointless and just rested on my knees with my head flopping down. The man reached out with huge, rough hands and lifted my delicate chin to look up at him.