Austin Cooper 1: Son of Athena

The rescue

The sun was setting and I stood at the front of the camp. Logan, Alice, and Tyler stood beside me. We each wore comfortable camp shirts and shorts to prepare for our hike through the woods. I had entertained the idea of wearing armor but decided it would be too heavy. Instead we all agreed on carrying more welcomes.

   Logan had a sword tightly gripped in his hand and a dagger strapped to his leg. He was casually picking at his fingernails as we prepared to leave.

  Alice had her bow and arrows, which looked like a tube of lipstick in her hand, and a dagger attached to her side in a hot pink holder.

  Tyler had what he liked to call 'His Super Awesome Fightin' Stick' (which is really a spear) in his hand. I advised he brought something extra but he insisted he would be fine.

  Chiron and I exchanged nervous glances. My sword was safely tucked into my back pocket in its coin form. "Be safe and good luck my boy," Chiron said with a tight smile.

"Thank you," I reply with just as much tension in my voice.

"I'm going to need it," I mumble to myself.

  -----------------------------------------------------

  We walked for a half hour and reviewed our plans several times.

  Logan and I are going to sneak in while Tyler and Alice cause a distraction. It was simple enough, but if Logan and I are caught before we get to Bella we may have a whole skeleton army to deal with.

   When we make it to the top of the hill I look in the entrance of the cave then at my group of powerful demigods. "Remember if anything goes wrong I want you to get Bella and retreat." The threesome shot me nervous glances that told me they wanted to argue, but nodded silently. We had debated this issue too many times.

  "Good luck," I add with a nervous smile to Tyler and Alice. I couldn't help but get nervous at the thought of possibly not seeing them again.

Tyler smiles as if he were about to enter Disneyland and not a cave crawling with our enemies. "You too," he responded with a nod. Alice gave me a tight hug, her pink hair smelled like bubble gum when she was close to me. "Bring her home," she whispered fiercely before pulling away. I could only nod and ignore the lump of emotions in my throat.

With that our group of four splits, and as Logan and I turn the corner I glance behind me to sneak one last look at our faithful friends.

They had already turned their attention to the skeletons and disappeared from view.

  Logan and I quickly and silently made our way around the cave. We took one wrong turn and had to tiptoe back, but once we found a trail that looked familiar to me we were on the right path.

The cave was just how I remember it in my dream, and the jagged walls and ledge that was the only foundation Logan and I had seemed unstable. A rock came loose under my foot and I grabbed tighter to the side of the wall.

Logan turned quickly to see if I was okay, and his blue eyes questioned me. "A rock," I whisper to him with a nod to the large baseball sized hoe under my foot. "Let's pray to the gods we don't ever have to make the same fall," Logan responded with pursed lips as we took a moment to fully take in how high up we were.