Maiden Grim | A Pjo Fanfic

Chapter 8: Percy Gets A New Fur-Coat

Isra woke with a start. She sat up too fast and nearly knocked herself out twice in two days on the bed boards.

There was a lack of snores coming from the Stoll brothers' bunks. When she got up, Isra noticed Travis, Connor and Nico weren't in their beds.

She frowned at the unmade covers of Nico's bunk. Yesterday Isra told him her and Bianca were joining the quest. He had said it was fine and wished them good luck but was quiet for the rest of the evening. Which totally meant he was not fine.

Isra checked the time and cursed. She had to get ready fast or risk Zoë and Thalia's wrath for being late.

She hoped to say goodbye to Nico, but it looked like she wouldn't get to.

Isra quickly made herself ready in the bathroom. And struggled longer than she'd liked to with her curls. She changed into the unofficial camp uniform along with a jacket and grabbed the pack Chiron kindly issued her. Inside was a first-aid kit with included packaged ambrosia and vials of nectar, an emergency blanket, traveling rations, a refillable water bottle, hair comb and 'mortal' money and drachmas.

She snatched up the lip balm hidden under her pillow. It was the dory spear. There was a hidden mechanism she had to push for the weapon to collapse into the ordinary form. The Stolls showed her how after capture-the-flag.

The lip balm went into her jean pocket. Isra sped out of the cabin toward Half-Blood where a tall pine tree stood. (Apparently that used to be Thalia, crazy as that sounded.) The golden fleece hung from one of the tree's branches, and a dragon the size of a border-collie slept in its large roots.

A van was parked by the road leading out of camp. She saw Thalia and Grover waiting by the open sliding door. Bianca stood nearby, dressed in the silver outfit of the Hunters, while Zoë paced on the grass.

She frowned. Weren't there supposed to be three Hunters?

Isra finally made it to the van. She panted. "Good—huff—morning."

"Good morning, Iz," Bianca said.

"Morning," Grover yawned.

Zoë glared; arms folded. "You're late."

"Actually, she's right on time," Thalia said.

The Hunter threw up her arms. "To be on time, one needs to be at least five minutes early. It is only polite."

Isra wiped her forehead. "And what about your third Hunter, Phoebe? She in the van already?" she challenged.

Zoë had the decency to look embarrassed. "Phoebe has come down with an illness. She is unfit to participate in this quest."

"What? But I thought we needed six members," she said, looking over at Thalia.

The daughter of Zeus was even more displeased with Zoë. "We do."

"Enough," Zoë said. "We have already discussed this. There is no time to waste arguing about this further. We must depart."

She was right, of course. They needed to leave now. They only had five days to find Artemis and free her.

Everybody filed into the van. Isra counted herself lucky that Thalia wasn't the one who was driving. Instead, Zoë took up the wheel with Bianca at shotgun. Isra sat in the row behind her. Thalia and Grover did the same, with the satyr between the two girls.

Zoë drove the van down the main road and outside the camp border. Isra took out her comb and tried taming her hair into a more manageable braid. She looked outside the window and saw gray film cast over Camp Half-Blood as it disappeared into the distance.