The Fourth Chance (book 1)

Chapter IV

        The journey was brutal. I had to fight a ton of monsters on the streets, not to mention I accidentally ran into a Monster Doughnut. By the time I had reached Chicago, I was bleeding, bruised, battered, and extremely pissed.
        While I was dumpster-diving behind a fancy Italian restaurant, a voice behind me nearly scared the scars off of me.
        "Well, if it isn't my favorite daughter."
        I turned around so fast, I had forgotten about the dumpster lid and it came crashing down on my head. The person behind me started chuckling, if you can call him that. He's huge, with oily black hair, multiple scars, and red glowing eyes. The second I saw him, I knew I was looking at Aries.
        "What?" he asked. "You aren't even going to say hello to your dad?"
        "Hi," I said, stiffly.
        "Nice to see you, too," he said dismissively. "Let's cut to the chase. You need help and I'm here to give you some. You want it or not?"
        "That depends on what it is," I said, boldly. "Let me know and we'll see."
        Aries laughs. "Standing up to your old man, huh? Good. You've got guts kid. And brains. Just like your mom. Or, one of them, I mean"
        I stood there, glaring at him, trying not to lose my patience.
        He sighed, "Alright, alright. You caught me. Here it is." He pulled out a long spear from behind his back. I looked at him, questioningly, thinking it was a joke, but Aries wasn't laughing. "It's special. Hephaestus made it, which means it has magical properties. The only catch is that it transfers some if its magic into you. I don't know what it'll be. It varies depending on how and where the weapon was made."
        He handed it over to me and I tested the weight. It's pretty plain, except for a few buttons running up and down the shaft. It fitted naturally in my hand. I thanked him and he smiled, mischievously, then disappeared in a flash of light. After that, quite a few monsters were a bit more cautious.
        I finally reached Colorado, my old home. I've carried a cellphone since my parents decided to move. I called a few friends and we found an old diner, close to nowhere. As it turned out, the diner had a library in the back. After meeting with my friends for a while, they had to leave and I decided to check out the library. It was a small room, with bookshelves covering three of the walls and a small sofa towards the middle of the room. Along the last hung a curtain for privacy.
        I pulled back the curtain to discover it was occupied by the six boys from my previous school. I suddenly had a feeling in the back of my mind. Not knowing what it meant, I ignored it. In order as seen, the first boy was Jimmy, a lanky, athletic, and surprisingly smart kid with curly, blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and, at the time, purple braces. Next was Joe, about 5ft 6 or 7, a book worm with dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a slight scowl when he isn't smiling. Walker, a good 2 inches taller than Joe and definitely going to grow taller, had light brown hair, tanned skin, hazel eyes, and, according to him, rock hard abs. Zack was easily the smallest in the group, smaller than me but likely to grow, at about 5ft 2 or 3, has light brown hair cut short, pale skin covered in freckles, and the best sense of humor. Shayne surpasses everyone I know at our age when it comes to brain over brawn. With a deep tan, brown eyes, brunet hair, nerd glasses, and, at the time, braces. They were all cute and had great traits. Last would be Eli, who was easily the tallest in the group. He had short, blonde hair, whitewashed blue eyes that always seemed sad, and a soft smile.
        When I entered, Eli lunged on me, like a tackling dummy. We both went down, but it was my head that crashed into a bookshelf. I could tell Eli was surprised it was me by the way his body weight crushed me only to pull back.
        "Get off of me you big lunk!" I yelled at him in surprise.
        "Gracie?" he asked, as though I might vanish at any second. In his surprise he failed to get off of me.
        I sighed, losing my temper slightly. "Yes, it's me, you mutant block of mozzarella! Now get off of me!" I was beginning to yell, now, and it shocked Eli enough to get him to crawl away from me.
        As I started to stand up, the other boys cornered me and threatened me with butter knives. Walker stepped forward a little and demanded, "If you're really who you say you are, prove it."
        I looked up at him and stared into his eyes for a moment, to get him flustered and to tell him who's boss. "Alright, Walker," I said, holding up my hands in mock defeat. "You've got me. You want proof, here it is." I take a step back to open my pack. As I'm pretending to sort through it, I get a grip on one of my spare knives.
        I lunged so quickly, none of the others had time to react. I jumped at walker, turned him around, making him drop his knife, grabbed his hair in one hand, my knife at his throat. "I am Grace, daughter of Aries and Athena. And you, Walker, if you ever forget that, I'll slit your throat." He started to struggle, thinking I meant it, though I really didn't, but it was fun scaring him like that.
        Once everyone settled down, I told them I had just entered the library hoping to find new answers. Eli apologized for tackling me, while Shayne and Jimmy left for the bathroom.
        A few moments after they left, a bright flash overcame the room. The boys all hid, all except for Eli, who had been the closest to the light. Within seconds, a horrible monster formed right in front of Eli. My demigod instincts kicked in and I lunged at the monster, nailing it in the eye with my knife. The monster disintegrated as quickly as it had formed and we're left in shock to find Eli still entranced.