The Missing Prophecy (pjo/kotlc) book 3

Chapter Twenty

Reyla POV:

I drive away from Terminus, fuming. He calls after me, but I don't wait. Yeah, I get it, I've been a bit moody lately, but just about everything has gone wrong. I broke up with my boyfriend, Rich, because he cheated on me and he's an ass, and Terminus never knew about him. Terminus thinks he's sooo smart, that he knows every single god damn thing about me. But he doesn't. I turned to my friends because he wasn't there for me, nobody was. I met Dahlia, Ryan, Marina, and Aelia at school. Before Dad went missing, I used to hang out with Charolette Jackson, all the time. We had our own little group of four girls, me, Char, this girl name Monette, and another girl named Kara. Monette and Char are a year younger than me and Kara. My dad went missing when I was in grade seven. Me, Char, Mom, Aunty Annabeth, Matt, Ana, Terminus, and Silena all went to Camp Half-Blood. Hazel and Annabeth dropped us at the Big House and ran off. Half an hour later, Char had a really bad feeling and followed them, saving my mom's sorry ass and my uncle. I honestly don't know what they were thinking. I don't think my mom does either.

We eventually went back to Camp Jupiter permanently, after all the search parties were called off. I was about halfway through grade eight, but I had a valid reason to miss the last half of grade seven and the first half of grade eight. When I went back to school, I found out that Monette moved, of course Char and her family didn't come back, and Kara had found a new group of friends. I met Dahlia at the mall, and we hit off immediately- and she introduced me to Aelia, Marina, and Ryan the next day at school. They helped me cope with the loss of my dad, made me laugh, made me feel happy.

My phone rings. It's Ryan. She's always the peacemaker of the group.

I answer it. "Hey, Ry. What's up?"

"What's up?!" she screeches. I hear the other girls laughing. "We just watched you scream at your brother and drive off. What happened, girl?"

"Oh, nothing," I say.

"It wasn't nothing," I hear Marina say in the background.

"Girl, shut up!" Ryan tells her, laughing.

I smile.

"Don't worry about Terminus, he's fine, do you guys want to go to Maxie's and get some bubble tea? I also need to do some shopping anyways." Maxie's is just outside New Rome, in the mortal world, and it's relatively easy to sneak out of Camp boundaries into the mortal world as long as you know how to bribe Terminus. (The god, not my brother.)

"Reyla, don't you go changing the subject, you know I am always down for a mall trip, how 'bout you ladies?" Ryan says, and I hear choruses of 'yesses' from Marina, Dahlia, and Aelia.

"We'll see you in an hour!" Aelia says, and Ryan hangs up.

I sigh. Terminus is probably right. It's about a fifteen minute drive to where we always meet to go to the mall, by the border, and I have an hour. I should probably go home and apologize to mom, but- well, I don't really want to.

I sigh again. I'm already going in that direction anyways...

I turn on to our driveway. I open the door. Mom's staring at my painting of Dad from two years ago. It's really bad, in my opinion. I messed up his eyes. They don't look like his. They just don't convey the sense of happiness, of joy, that his real ones do.

I touch her shoulder. She jumps. "Oh, hi honey. How are you?"

"I'm fine, mom. Look, I'm sorry for swearing, I know how you feel about that kind of stuff."

Hazel shakes her head. "It's okay, hon. But why would you swear in the first place? There's no reason. It may be cool or trendy but-it's-it's not right. You have to understand this."