Revenge

Chapter 9

"Why are you stopping?!" Beck screamed.

They'd been driving for hours, followed by a steady stream of various monsters. Jason had cursed himself in a few different languages that Beck didn't know, but she knew Spanish and he was speaking a similar language when he cursed his father's scent.

Not that it made much sense to curse how someone smelled.

"Because we're here!" Jamie replied as he, Piper and Jason unbuckled themselves.

"We're in the middle of nowhere!" Beck snapped. "How can we possibly be 'here?' And where is 'here' anyway?!"

"I'll show you as soon as we're all safe." Piper insisted from the front seat, throwing her door open. "Let's go."

"You're crazy!" Beck shouted.

"Maybe, but we can't drive forever. Come on." Jason threw his door open as well and Jamie killed the car's engine.

"Go, go, go!" Piper barked when Beck finally got out of the car. She was pointing up a steep hill on top of which stood a large pine tree that had a strange golden carpet hanging in it's branches and what looked like a large dragon curled around the bottom of it. Beck chalked that sight up to over-tiredness and stress.

"Why?"

"Just do it, Gibbson!" Jamie yelled, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her up the hill.

"I can walk on my own, thanks!" She snarled back, thoroughly irritated with these three at the moment.

"Then do it and get up the gods' forsaken hill!" Jamie barked back, fire flashing in his eyes.

The two of them glared at each other for a few moments, refusing to concede and look away.

"You're so different from your brother." Piper muttered under her breath from behind them.

Jamie ignored her.

"Just keep moving!" He ordered, pushing them forward again.

"Cleaning harpies are out!" Jason warned from the top of the hill, a position which he had gotten into altogether too quickly in Beck's opinion. He seemed to be scanning the terrain ahead of them.

"Chiron's gonna be mad if we kill any of them." Piper said. "Can you blow them off track if they attack?"

"Sure I can." The blond boy replied.

"Let's go then." Jamie said. "Make a beeline for the Big House and don't stop no matter what happens."

Jason popped himself over the top of the hill and broke in a dead sprint for a large blue house that Beck was sure hadn't been there before.

"Go!" Piper raced after him, shouting in Beck's ear as she passed.

She and Jamie followed the couple, the satyr swiftly overtaking the other two.

A screech from their left surprised Beck and caused her to flinch sideways. She twisted to look behind her and to her left.

Another one of the strange half woman half bird creatures was on their trail, screeching something unintelligible.

In the dark, she couldn't see much, only the bright color of the house they were running for made it visible in the moonlight.

Jamie reached the house first, throwing the front door open. Piper, Jason and Beck dashed inside and he threw the door closed, leaning against it and breathing heavily.

"That...was too close." Piper muttered, taking a deep breath.

"I hate the harpies. They don't have any concept of reason for being out of the cabins." Jason complained.

"At least we know they're doing their job consistently." Piper pointed out.

"And if their job wasn't to eat me if I broke the rules, I'd be okay with that!"

"Well what would you prefer them do if you were out of bed?"

"I don't know, turn me in to Chiron for punishment. I'd rather do the dishes than die."

"I'd say doing the dishes is a close second." Jamie jumped in.

Beck glared at all three of them, but they steadfastly ignored her as they continued to debate the pros and cons of various punishments, which to her all sounded gruesome. Washing dishes with lava? Getting killed for being out of bed? What was wrong with these people?

"Okay enough!" She finally yelled. "Where are we? You still haven't told me why we're hiding out in the middle of an empty house in the middle of the night after you guys basically kidnapped me from my high school dance and none of my friends know where I am!"

"Beck, calm down." Jamie said. "I brought you here because you'll be safe, and Chiron can explain the rest better."

"Safer? Safer?! I almost got eaten! Eaten, Jamie! You try and tell me again that this is safer than when I wasn't getting attacked by crazy things from myths that shouldn't exist, before you people started hanging around me, I'll punch you right in the face!"

"Seriously, Beck, calm down. It w-"

"Don't you dare tell me it will be fine! I don't know where I am, you people obviously won't let me try to use my phone, and you're trying to get me to meet some guy whose name sounds like a joke and who apparently can explain the fact that the world's gone mad while making it sound like it could happen in normal life!"

"I'm sorry to say, my child, that a you'll never really have a normal life anymore." A kind voice behind her made Beck whirl in surprise.

A man sat in front of her in a wheelchair, his curly hair tousled like he had just woken up.

"Who are you?" She asked warily.

"I am Chiron."