Chaos Descends

Captivated

"Are you sure about this?" Percy questioned touching my shoulder lightly.

"I'm positive." I would learn to regret those words in a few short minutes.

Five Hours Previously

"We're getting nowhere guys!" I exclaimed as we trudged down the dusty and dirty road. It was close to nightfall already and we had no idea where to go or how to stop Nico from becoming immortal. "We're not even close to Nico, we always seem to be at least two steps behind him and shadow traveling like this isn't good for Hazel or Nightwing." Hazel smiled at me weakly.

"I can shadow travel." She said in an unconvincing tone as she stroked Nightwings fur lightly. I shook my head slowly at her. She was tired from so much jumping and last nights events with Lamia. She needed rest. I didn't think she'd gotten much sleep since we started this quest. I kept forgetting that I lost not only my boyfriend but that Hazel had lost her brother, the only family she had.

"I don't want you to tire yourself out."

"What about us? We're pretty damn tired." Axel grumbled from behind me.

"Just keep walking. Exercise is good for you. Besides, you don't hear Percy complaining."

"I'm too tired to complain." Percy panted out. I groaned and took my backpack from my shoulders, dropping it to the ground. I kicked at a rock and sat down grumpily on the side of the road.

"Fine. Rest for all I care but we've wasted four nights. We only have eight more to go and we're nowhere closer to figuring out who tired to kill me, who wants Nico and why and how he means to become immortal."

"Hey, grumpy pants. Lighten up. We have eight nights, seven days. We can do this." I shook my head at Percy's optimism.

"No, something always gets in the way, some time lapse or time jump. We can't get distracted or go off course. We have to stick to the plan."

"And how is that working for you?" I glared up at Axel as he downed half of a water bottle from his bag. "I'm just saying. You said it yourself, we barely know anything about our quest or what we're doing or where we're going. It's all just guess work. It's always been guess work." I stood up ready to pull my sword to fight the arrogant son of Ares when Hazel walked in between us.

"Okay you two, enough." I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "Let's just get to the next town, find a quiet place to sleep for a bit and eat some food. We'll all feel better after a nap or something." Actually, a nap sounded wonderful but I couldn't think about sleep currently if Nico was still out there resorting to desperate measures.

"Hazel's right, come on guys, it's just another mile." Percy encouraged. I sighed. Another mile, oh joy.

By the late afternoon, we made it into town. We were all dusty, dirty and tired. The four of us immediately searched for public restrooms where we got cleaned up and even changed out of our clothes. We soaked the old ones in the water from the sink and laid them out to dry on Nightwings fur. He seemed happy to have some the cool clothes against his body.

"While I'm asleep.." Hazel began. "I can try searching for Nico in my dreams, reach out to him."

"You can do that?" Axel asked shifting the contents of his backpack around so he could have a comfortable place to rest his head. Hazel nodded slowly.