Chaos Descends

Running From Nightmares

My head hurt just as badly from falling as it had from the poison, how awful. Groaning, I tried to roll over but someone started shaking my shoulder. "Violet? Can you hear me?" It was Percy. Judging by how now light was hitting my eyelids, I figured it was still dark.

"Yeah. I can." I grumbled.

"Can you open your eyes?" Came Hazel's soft voice. Grudgingly, I opened them. Axel, Hazel and Percy were all staring down at me. I groaned and shoved Percy away.

"Get your ugly face out of my line of sight." Percy started laughing and sat back on his legs.

"Well, she's okay."

"I'm not so sure." Hazel said her voice full of concern. "Can you sit up?" I nodded my head slowly. There was a wetness on my scalp I could feel now. I was going to have sit up to see how badly I was bleeding. I grabbed Hazel's hand and she helped me sit up. My vision went blurry immediately. "Actually, maybe not." I murmured, touching my forehead and closing my eyes. God my head hurt.

"You're bleeding," Axel said touching a spot at the back of my head.

"Ow!" I cried out smacking his hand away.

"Gods I'm just trying to let you know." He grumbled digging into his backpack. He handed me a square of ambrosia. I took it from him and threw the entire thing into my mouth.

"Violet!" Percy exclaimed

"What?" I asked, it tasted like warm milk and cookies. "No big deal. I think I broke a rib too." I said touching my back painfully. "Or at least fractured it. Maybe it's just bruised." I winced. "Either way, I'm not going to die from eating the full square of ambrosia." My headache was already going away and my back, while still painful wasn't overly so.

"You still should have eaten it slowly." Hazel warned.

"Aw come on you guys, you're talking to an ex goddess here. I know ambrosia is for the gods and my "ex" title means I'm not one anymore but I don't think three gods are just going to let me up and die."

"And you said I was cocky." I rolled my eyes at Axel.

"How long have I been out?" I asked.

"An hour or so." Percy said glancing at his watch. I groaned and started to stand. "Maybe you should just rest for a while. If you're rib is broken or fractured or whatever, it would be best not to move."

"We don't even know where Nico is." I said pushing my hair out of my face. "We've wasted enough time. We have to go." Nobody tried to argue with me. Instead we began to head back to my sleeping hellhound. When we got back to the billboard, something was clearly wrong. Nightwing kept pacing back and forth, whimpering as he looked off into the distance. He had nearly made a trench walking like that, which meant he had been doing it for a while. "What's wrong boy?" I asked patting his nose. Nightwing just whimpered.

"He's scared of something.." Percy said slowly.

"What scares a hellhound?" Axel asked. A chill ran down my spine. What did scare a hellhound? My sword for sure but..

"We have to go." Nightwing had stopped sniffing around and was now just staring into town, the direction we had come from. The four of us quickly climbed up onto Nightwing's back. "Nightwing, can you find Nico for us?" He whimpered and backed up, he wouldn't look away from this spot in the distance.