The Blade ~Book One~

Chapter Five: The Flying Cake

My eyes slowly fluttered open to see three Bridgers, and after a few seconds they all combined into one. My hand shot to my forehead, blood covered my fingers.

"Don't touch it!" He swatted my fingers away from the cut.

I blinked, "What happened?" We were in the woods.

Brooks stepped into view, "We hit a deer... and then we hit a tree."

I groaned, feeling the throbbing pain increase, "Is everyone alright?"

"You got the worst of it." Bridger explained, but he didn't look too well of himself. Dirt and blood decorated his golden hair, "How do you feel?" He picked up his canteen, taking a swig.

"Fine." I sat up, "Where are the others?"

"Chandler's scouting for help, Haiden is gathering supplies, and Lia went to check out the car again. Too bad we don't have any Hephaestus kids with us."

"Yeah," Brooks added, "and too bad we're stuck far away from civilization and we have no vehicle that works."

"Where's my backpack?" I changed the subject.

"Over at that tree with everyone else's."

I almost fell down, but quickly caught myself and trudged over to the nearby tree. I leaned up against it and dug to the bottom of my bag. There it was, my very damaged photo. I didn't want to live in the past, and I didn't- except for one thing. One person that I just couldn't seem to let go and accept that they were gone.

"Who's that?" I jumped at the sudden voice. I hadn't noticed Lia peering over me.

"Oh- uh hi. Are you alright?"

"I'm doing as fine as I can, y'know, things aren't the best right now." She took a seat beside me, "So... who's that a picture of? Some guy at camp?"

"No. Mason was my brother."

"Oh." She spoke slowly, "What- what happened?"

"It was my fault. I visited once during my first year at camp. Monsters were everywhere, the place I called home was attacked. The place was set on fire." I brushed some dirt off my jeans, "My mother was killed inside, but we managed to get out." I stared at a blade of grass as the memory played once again in my mind. "He was older than me and thought that he could protect me from the monsters. I ran ahead, and I never saw him again."

"That's not your fault, Beth. He saved you, it was his choice."

"It was my fault. I messed up the directions to camp and got us trapped."

She said nothing when she lifted the photo out of my hand. After a minute of silence, I took the photo back and placed it into my bag, "Don't worry about it. It was a long time ago anyway. Let's go see what's going on, I saw Haiden and Chandler get back not to long ago."

She nodded and we made our way back to the others.

"-much time left." I started listening to Haiden mid-sentence, "I say, we head back to the road and see if we can catch a ride."

"There are no cars around here!" Chandler spoke up.

"Do you have a better plan?"

He thought for a moment. "Fine," he sighed, "we should get going."

Realizing how dehydrated I was, I pulled a bottle out of my bag. We found the broken car and took a seat beside it. I clenched my freezing hands together. There were no cars in sight, nor engines in earshot.

"What do we do now?" Brooks plopped his bag onto the ground.

"We wait." Haiden tapped her foot impatiently on the road like she expected something to happen.