Children of the Big Three-Book Two-Quest of Centaurs

Chapter 18 - Eryn

Two hours later we were close to the next subway station. Jace hadn't said anything since Zaylor started "reading" her magazine, and I didn't know what to say. 

Zaylor was sitting so she faced us, and she kept looking back and forth between Jace and me. I knew she was itching to say something, but she was holding it back. Finally, she decided to break the silence. 

"Hey, guys, I'm sorry if I made things awkward earlier. If you guys really do want to date, don't let me-" 

"We don't want to date," I said. While Zaylor was talking, I could see the different emotions boil inside of Jace through his eyes, and I knew I had to do something. "Jace is like a big brother to me," I continued, "It would be weird to date my big brother." 

I looked at Jace, who looked at me. His eyes said, "thank you," and I smiled at him. 

"Yeah," Jace added, "I wouldn't want to date my little sister." 

Zaylor eyed us and smiled. "Ooh-kay," she said, "Well, we should probably try to check for monsters outside of the bus so we aren't surprised again when we get there." 

We all tried looking out different windows to see if there were any monsters outside. When the bus stopped and none of us saw anything, we sat back and waited until we could leave. I suddenly had a sick feeling.

"Jace," I said, "Tell me about pit scorpions."

He shrugged. "About as big as a hand, extremely lethal, their stingers rip right through clothes, and their poison can kill you within a minute. Why?"

"Because one is waiting outside the bus for us."

We dreaded getting off, but we were being pushed by the crowd behind us towards the exit.

As soon as I steped off the bus, the scorpion jumped on my arm. Zaylor slapped it off and pulled out her sword.

Jace and Zaylor were blurs as they attacked the scorpion. In fact, everything was blurry. I stumbled back a few steps, saw a blur of yellow, and passed out.