The Mighty Ones' Fall

Chapter 3: Back at Home

I woke up to the sound of whispers belonging to familiar voices. I struggled for a moment to open my eyes, but when I finally came to and the whispers had stopped, I found two sets of blue eyes staring back at me unblinkingly. "Well, good morning to you too," I grumpily greeted my tent-mates in Greek, scratching my head as I sat up. Although the young kids slept with their parents, teenagers were required to room with each other, supposedly to make more room for other children to be born and to encourage independence.

"Jason was so angry last night before bed. You should've seen him. He was storming around, yelling at everybody for everything," the first boy, named Damien, said quickly in Greek, barely even pausing to take a breath.

"Yeah, so what did you and Brady do to make him so upset?" his twin, Darius, wondered aloud, eagerly leaning forward in his seat. As the more vocal of the two perfectly-tanned, curly-haired brothers, Darius continued without even waiting for me to answer him, "Are you going to tell us? Yes? No? Maybe so? Come on, Jace, let us in on the secret. What happened on your mission? I didn't even wake up when you returned. You're actually quite sneaky, you know."

"Shut up for a minute!" I exclaimed groggily, wishing the brothers weren't always so full of energy. Although they were fourteen now, they hadn't matured much since about age seven, or so I always thought. "Can I just tell you the story over breakfast? I'm hungry," I muttered as I changed from my pajamas into a clean t-shirt and a pair of pants. Then the twins nodded reluctantly, and they followed me out of our tiny tent, now heading towards the mess hall, which sat under a large, white, rectangular canopy.

As soon as we stepped under the canopy and into the long line of people waiting to receive some food, I started to scan the crowds for Layna and Brady, hoping they weren't already there. But unfortunately, I caught sight of the two of them already sitting down at small round table across the way, surrounded by a large group of people, both young and old, who were desperately trying to find out about the strange new girl. Damn, I thought bitterly as I watched the group, including Layna, start to crack up at something Brady had said. A second later, they were gasping in wonderment, and I knew instantly that I had missed my chance to tell everyone what had really happened on our mission. Undoubtedly, Brady was exaggerating most of the details, making me appear wimpy while painting a picture of himself acting like a hero when he really just got lucky escaping the minotaur.

"Who is that?" Damien asked, nudging Darius in the side and raising his eyebrows at Layna. "She's cute."

"Yeah, and she's also two years older than you," I pointed out to both of the twins with a frown as we slowly moved forward in line. "So she's never going to go for either of you. Besides, it looks like Brady already has dibs."

"You know her? Did you meet her during your mission?" Darius questioned, and I simply nodded. "Well, did Brady call dibs on her when you were there? You two were the first to meet her, after all," he continued curiously, and I thought to myself in silence for a moment before shaking my head no, deciding that Brady really hadn't called dibs on Layna. At least not directly.

"Then you still have a chance with her," Damien clarified, exchanging identical smirks with Darius.

"What makes you think I would even want a chance to date her?" I asked them bluntly as one of the cooks passed me a paper plate with three pancakes and a bowl of plain Greek yogurt.

Both Darius and Damien started to laugh, almost spilling their own food as we walked over to an empty table with seats for six. "Just look at your face!" Darius exclaimed, and I rolled my eyes. "You're totally upset that Brady and his crew got to her first this morning! Any teenage guy with eyes would be. She's obviously the hottest girl around here."