violent delights, percy jackson

chapter two

VIOLENT DELIGHTS
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( chapter two! )

AZALEA GREW UP WATCHING DISNEY, but never had she thought she would be re-enacting one of their movie scenes. She had always been a fan of 'Heracles', ironic considering her true genetics, as she liked the idea of being a woman like Megaera. Tough, resilient and not needing to be rescued by a man. A damsel she had called herself but not in distress, Azalea was currently in a similar predicament. Though she was less of a 'damsel in distress' and more of a damsel in disarray.

She had followed the plan to get her into the camp without fault, and all she could truly say about it was how she remembered why she hated P.E. so much. At three miles she had been more or less kicked off the ship with nothing but the clothes on her back, and a bracelet that was her communicator to Luke. It was a simple golden chain that voice recorded up to a minute messages and had two hidden buttons to do so, all of them disguised as small gold charms. The one to record was a star with a white gem at its centre, the one to send it was a sun with a red gem. To receive messages the star would vibrate slightly and if she pressed it three times each being held for ten seconds it would start to voice the recording. The sun also had the feature that if she held it for twenty seconds it would alert Luke they had a problem. She was ordered that when she was safely inside the border that she was too hold it down for ten seconds. Besides the bracelet however, she was completely and utterly defenceless as she had been forced to leave her sword behind along with all her other valuables, or lack thereof.

In her half hour head start before Luke sent the dogs after her, she had managed to lightly jog and speed walk nearly a third of the entire distance, and fortunately the terrain wasn't as horrible as she expected. Sure, the pine trees were a little intimidating and the ground seemed to be on a permanent incline up, but at least it wasn't muddy and her converse easily got traction on the damp ground from the nights rains. Though like always her luck soon ran out when she was faced with a very steep hill with the sound of what could only be described as three very loud dogs gaining quickly. Azalea had just turned to half glance behind herself when she saw the approaching black dots through the brush.

Like most hellhounds they were hardly an attractive looking dog, resembling a cross between a hairless Rottweiler with the massive scull of a bulldog with elongated fangs. Azalea didn't think twice before taking off at a sprint straight up the hill. The last thing she needed was to become doggy chow before even getting within ten minutes of the border.

The hellhounds played their part well, as they forced her to run straight down the hill after seconds of running up it. She may or may not have tumbled down it a good ways. After her first fall she was however, quickly back on her feet and running, this time through a thick set of trees that grew far too closely together. Her hair was loosely flying behind her in tangles as her hair tie had been lost in her tumble.

Azalea was panting hard as she took sharp turns and corners around fallen trees and at one point hurdled what she thought to be an old white fence post that had to have been rammed head on with a vehicle. Now on the low grounds of what she assumed to be a valley, her previously white converse were covered in inch thick mud that flew up on the backs of her bare calves. She scrapped up her hands and face when flinging branches of nearby trees behind her in the hopes of slowing the hellhounds behind her, all the while wishing she had been a little more serious about keeping up her endurance in school.

She felt blessed when she finally crested what she thought to be the last hill of her journey when a boy in an orange shirt came into the distance of her view. Azalea didn't hesitate to scream, though she knew it was more to do with the fact that one of the hellhounds chomped a little too closely to her feet than seeing an actual person nearby. Azalea in the back of her mind made a note to throughly yell at Luke the next time she saw him for giving her not only the ugliest of hellhounds to chase her, but the most vicious as well. They were, if anything, dedicated to playing up the part of hungry monster after the meal on wheels.