The Project •On Hold•

🏹 Chapter Nine 🏹

"C'mon!" A girl called to her younger sisters. She stopped and turned her body around and waited. She was amazingly pretty, with pale skin, hair as dark as jet, warm brown eyes, and a perfect figure that was usually showed off by the short clothes that she wore. But somehow she gave off an air that she wasn't dressing like that to show off. She was wearing her favorite shirt, a camouflage crop top.

"It's no fair!" Her youngest sister, who was ten, exclaimed. "I can't keep up with you and Jade!"

"Maybe I should try being as fast as you, Zephyr," The girl's other sister, Jade, muttered. "Maybe then I'd get rid of that little pest."

"Leave her alone, Jae," Zephyr scolded her sister. "You're fourteen, act like it."

Jade rolled her eyes.

"Hey, Arty, want a piggyback ride?" Zephyr asked.

"Yeah!"

Her sister easily boosted her up. The teen was much stronger than she looked, which worked out well for her easily tired-out sister.

Soon, the were at a makeup store. Artemis sat on a bench as her older sisters looked around, Zephyr helping Jade find the right stuff. A little boy ran over to Artemis, asking her all kinds of questions about her crutches and why she needed them. His mom and older sister ran over, horrified. They apologized. Artemis just laughed. "It's fine. I get those questions all of the time. It's ok to be curious." The woman gave her a grateful smile, and she lead the little boy off.

Jade and Zephyr eventually finished, and walked back over. Zephyr handed Artemis a tube of lipgloss as they walked out of the store. Artemis rolled her eyes, but slid the tube into her pocket.

Jade sighed. "How come you two are gorgeous and I'm not? Same genetics, but you're so much prettier."

Zephyr smiled. "You're gorgeous, Jade. You just don't look as... exotic as Arty and me. You look more like Mom than us."

Jade snorted. "Meaning that you guys got their both of their best traits while I just got Mom's looks. I'd kill to look like either of you."

Artemis gestured to her legs. "Wanna trade bodies? I'd do it in a heartbeat."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Of course you didn't. You take your normalcy for granted up until it's questioned."

"Fancy words for a fifth grader."

Artemis glared at her.

"Both of you, cut it out," Zephyr scolded.

"Do we have to go home?" Artemis groaned as they walked out of the mall about an hour later.

"Unfortunately, yes. But remember, my eighteenth birthday is the day after tomorrow. And then I'll move out, and get a job and my own apartment. Then I'll get you two out of there. Not much longer."

Her younger sisters smiled.

Artemis walked down the hallway of Happy Harbor High, she noticed the bulletin board in the hall. She'd seen it, but never paid much attention. There was a flyer for tryouts for the archery team. "You guys have an archery team?" She asked, surprised. The whole group was walking together to English class.

"Yep," Dick said.

"It'll probably suck, though, since the Harper twins graduated. They were amazing. The rest of the team was mediocre, but they still won every game anyway because of the twins," Wally said.

"My old school in Gotham had an archery team. It pretty much sucked."

"You went to Gotham North, right?" Raquel asked.

"Yeah," Artemis said, holding back a smirk, knowing her friends were about to figure something out.

"They took second in the New England contest, though. After our team. The only reason we beat them was because of the twins. GN has an amazing archer, I can't remember her name. Though some of the kids did suck."

"What was her name?" Kaldur furrowed his brows before pulling out his phone. He texted someone, who quickly replied. He looked at Artemis in surprise. The blonde let her smirk show. Kaldur grinned, shaking his head. "It's a wonder no one's recognized you."

"Hold up, it was her?!" Raquel yelled.

Artemis shrugged. "Yeah. Don't need to sound so surprised. I'm not helpless, ya know."

"I can't believe that you didn't tell us that," Zatanna said.

"It didn't seem important, plus, I forgot which school it was."

Everyone laughed as they reached the classroom. As she sat bored, in class, Artemis remembered the dream she'd had that night, and tried to shake it away. Too many bad memories came after it. She suppressed them and focused as well as she could on her work.

'It's no time to linger on the past,' She scolded herself, fidgeting with the hem of her camouflage crop top.