Hunter

Chapter Twenty Six - Conflicts and Commotion

Once I arrived safely at home, I was surprised to see that no one had moved. Except for a few pieces of paper that were on the dining table, everything was relatively the same. They all looked at me as I walked it, hoping for the best.

"How did it go?" Dee asked, a smidgen of hope in her voice.

"So, the literature teacher at South Lake High School turns out to be a descendant of Calliope herself. We don't need to find her anymore." They all breathed out a sigh of relief, and I could see the stress evaporating off of their shoulders.

"Alright, let's hear it," Jasper said, his elbows on the table, ready to go.

"So basically, this is what she said to me, along with my added analysis." I pulled out the sheet of paper and slammed it onto the table.

"This current hunt that's going to end with a kill is our search for the necklace. So I am, eventually, going to find my necklace. The Heart refers to Andrea, but I'm not sure since Mrs. Arwyn didn't say anything about it. Granted, she didn't know about her, but that's what I think. The foul is plural, so whoever it is that we're going up against, they're going to be tough to beat.

"Once we get them, there's going to be another conflict. This conflict is going to be one between Jasper and me, hence the Knight part." I glanced at him, but he didn't look at me. "I'm assuming that it's going to be about Andrea. "

There is another bad guy, and when we're going after him, something devastating, for lack of a better term, is going to happen. Not exactly sure to who, but it's most likely me. However, if I manage to get past the second bad guy, despite external attempts to prevent such actions," I glanced at Jasper, "I will be able to fix whatever is left of my relationship with the Knight." At those words, Jasper stood and left, his footsteps echoing throughout the room. There was silence for a long moment as we all took it in: it was a lot to take in, so the silence was understandable.

"In all our focus on this Prophecy, we forgot to talk about finding Apollo."

"He's in South Africa." My mom's eyes hardened.

"We could just fly-"

"Are you insane?"

"No. Actually,-"

"There's no way I'm letting you fly to South Africa. You must be crazy to think that I'd actually let you do that! Plus, you have the integration program starting in a week!"

"Well, what other choice do we have?"

"Think of another way."

"Fine, we can go through the Labyrinth."

"That's ruled out."

"Why not?" I argued, feeling like she was shutting down all of my options.

"Well, for one thing, the Labyrinth is extremely dangerous. You can't go in there without learning about it, and that's going to take well more than a week to do that. Also, you're lucky you managed to find a portal to get into the Labyrinth. They're difficult to find."

I banged my head on the table repeatedly, trying to think of ways to solve this problem. We were so close to finding my necklace, and I couldn't let a little sea get in the way of me and victory.

And then I got it. I lifted my head and looked at Dee, mouth open. When she felt me staring at her, she glanced at me and immediately shook her head.

"Nope. No way. I'm not doing it."

"But you've done it before!"

"It was my first time! And I live in the neighborhood. Who knows what could go wrong if I tried it overseas? It wouldn't work anyway because I have to form a connection with the person in that area." My mind was working viciously, trying to think of ways to make this work.