Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
There’s no sign of life on the deserted highway as we race through central Georgia. “Where is everyone?”
“Right?” Raven sits forward. “There are no humans around anywhere. It’s weird.”
“Yeah, I wonder if this has anything to do with the travelers and Hermes?” I ask.
“I’m guessing that anything weird happening outside the academy is going to be because of Hermes at this point,” Jayden says.
“True. It usually does have to do with the gods running amok.” I shrug.
“Should we take a different route? What if this stretch of road leads to another realm?” Raven asks.
“Everyone have their pins?”
“Of course. I’m not dumb enough to lose something given to me by a god,” Jayden says.
Everyone in the vehicle voices their agreement. We are safe from ending up in another realm this time. I just hope wherever this has led the humans who traveled this road is better than ending up in the fae realm.
“Then I think we can mark ourselves safe from inter realm travel for today,” I joke.
“What about the humans, though?” Kira asks.
“Hopefully, Hermes can get them all back safely and there will be something he can do to wipe the experience from their memories.” I tilt my head back against the seat.
Will it really matter with the new world order coming? Everyone seems to have their own parts to play and we’re the catalyst to it all. That’s not giving me the warm and fuzzies at all.
“What did Aggie mean by we will know who they belong to, Kira?” Raven asks with a devious grin.
“I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t mean that I have more than three mates.” She blows a strand of her hair out of her face.
“What?” Draven asks.
“Why is this the first time we’re hearing about this?” Dax narrows his eyes on her.
“I was more focused on the surviving part rather than her saying a confusing pronoun.” Kira throws her hands up.
“Surviving what?” Draven asks and glares at the back of Adrian’s head.
Adrian has been awfully quiet in this conversation. His head is turned to the window, watching the scenery go by or hoping no one remembers he’s there. Good luck with that, my friend.
“The war,” Kira whispers. “She told me if I survive on the right side of fate, they will know who they belong to when I was asking about Olly.”
“They?” Dax says. “As in more than one.”
“We don’t know who she was talking about. Maybe she was lumping together Olly and Annie since he’s gone helping keep the tiny seer safe,” I say.
“It doesn’t matter. If it’s fate, it’s fate and we can’t fight that.” Draven rubs his forehead, probably having phantom pains since she bopped him yesterday.
“Fight against Aggie?” Dax gasps. “I’m a son of Ares and wouldn’t even think about doing that. I don’t care how many mates you have as long as I’m one of them.”
Adrian flinches almost imperceptibly but I catch it. What possible futures did he see? My friends can’t die. I won’t allow it.
“Awww, the big dumb idiot is learning,” Raven says, clutching her hands over her heart.
“That was super sweet, Dax,” I say.
I lock gazes with Adrian and raise an eyebrow in the universal sign that we’ll be talking about that flinch later and he frowns. He already knows what’s coming. I need to know how to make sure my friends survive what’s to come. I can’t lose a single one of them. It will destroy me.
“See, Raven? That is the appropriate response. Thank you, Beth.” Dax grins.
“Shut it, dummy. You know insulting you is my love language.” Raven chuckles.
“What is that?” I squint into the distance.
“Is that a tortoise?” Jayden asks. “Or a giant turtle?”
“Probably a tortoise. I am not fighting a damn tortoise because a nymph defied Zeus and Hermes turned her into the first. Hades, what is going on?”
“What are you talking about?” Dax asks.
“That tortoise is more than likely Chelone the Arcadian mountain nymph who ignored the summons to attend my father’s wedding to the queen,” I say.
“What is she doing?” Raven leans forward.
“I think she’s crossing the highway, but tortoises are notoriously slow creatures because part of her sentence from my father was to carry her home on her back for eternity.”
“That’s an oddly specific punishment,” Greyson says.
“Her reason for ignoring Hermes was because she would rather stay home. It’s kind of poetic justice, I guess.” I shrug.
“Okay, so what do we do? We can’t run her over and I don’t think it’s a great idea to try to swerve around her in case she changes direction.” Jayden adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.
“I guess we watch her for a few minutes and see what she does.” I lean closer to the windshield.
Jayden inches the SUV forward as we grow closer to the huge tortoise. She turns toward us, watching as the vehicle approaches slowly, but doesn’t react like she understands what’s happening.
“I wonder if she was accidentally brought back like Chiron?” I tilt my head to the side.
“Maybe? If she’s been around since ancient times, then she would have seen the progression of man and would be scared of a vehicle coming at her, right?” Raven asks.
“This is too weird. She’s stopped now. How do we get her to move?” I unbuckle my seat belt.
“Maybe we can go around her.” Jayden inches the vehicle forward.
The tortoise backs up quicker than I would have thought possible for her and blocks our way. Jayden puts the SUV in park and slumps back in the seat.
“What now?” Jayden asks, frustrated.
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this but I’m going to go talk to a giant tortoise.” I grip the door handle.
“Not on your own. If she hates Hermes, she could try to fight you,” Jayden says.
“Yeah, I thought of that too. I just hope it doesn’t come to that. I actually think tortoises are cool,” I grumble.
“They are cool. I don’t want to hurt her either. Let’s try talking first. If she attacks, then we fight back but not before.” Jayden squeezes my hand.
“Agreed.” I move to open the door, but Jayden shadow walks to my door and beats me to it. “Show off.”
“Only for you.” He presses a kiss to my forehead.
Raven gags from the back seat and a giggle escapes me. Jayden is just too sweet for words sometimes. Raven doesn’t particularly care, like she said her love language is insults.
I turn my attention back to the problem at hand. The massive brown tortoise stares at me with curiosity in her intelligent eyes.
“Hi there, Chelone?” I ask.
She bobs her head up and down once and I take a step back into Jayden. She can fucking understand me. She’s just an animal, right? No, I need to remember that she was once a nymph before she became a tortoise.
“You can understand me?” I ask and she nods again.
“Ask about her blocking the road,” Jayden whispers.
“Is there a reason you’re blocking the road?”
Again, she nods her head and I sigh. Please don’t let her be hostile.
“Can we get through, please? We need to get to Arcadia.” I crouch in front of her.
She shakes her head frantically and nudges me back with her head on my chest. I nearly topple backward with the force of it, but Jayden is there steadying me.
“Why not?” Jayden asks.
“She can’t talk, Jayden,” I say. “Can you?”
She shakes her head again and paces the middle of the road in frantic movements. This isn’t the actions of someone with malicious intent. It’s almost like she’s scared of something.
“Is there danger?” I ask her.
Chelone stops pacing and she nods frantically. She’s trying to protect us, not fight us. She doesn’t want people to get hurt.
“It’s okay, we’re demigods and stronger than most. We can handle it.” My attempt to reassure her falls on deaf ears as she shakes her head again.
“Chelone.” Jayden holds out his hands to her in surrender. “The world will end if we don’t get to Arcadia.”
She stops her pacing abruptly and stares at Jayden with horror.
“That’s right. Travelers have already been disappearing to different realms and the breakdown in communication between the humans is escalating into a nuclear war,” I say. “We need to get to the temple in Arcadia or all is lost.”
Indecision wars in her muddy brown eyes before she hangs her head and moves to the side of the road. Even as a tortoise, she understands that this is bad. She may not like the idea of letting us past her, but she gets it.
“Thank you,” Jayden says.
“Yes, thank you, my friend.” I bow my head to her.
She stalks off the side of the road and I breathe out a sigh of relief. We can finally get back on the road even if I had to do something I never thought I would do.
“I just reasoned with a giant tortoise in the middle of the highway. I didn’t have that on this mission’s bingo card.” I shake my head.
Jayden chuckles and wraps an arm around me as we head back to the SUV. “That was a new one for me too.”
Raven grins at me as we get back into the vehicle. “That was the weirdest thing I think I’ve seen. She was responding to your questions perfectly.”
“We need to stay vigilant. Something spooked her on the way to Arcadia.” Jayden glances in the rearview at everyone.
“Any ideas on what could have spooked her?” Greyson asks.
“Not a clue but that tracks since she’s a tortoise and can only communicate with yes or no answers.” I glance at him over my shoulder.
“Yeah, I guess that was a dumb question.” He rubs the back of his neck.
“It’s not like we haven’t unknowingly walked into danger before. This time we have a heads-up to expect something at least.” I shrug.
“Hermes didn’t face many monsters what else is there?” Raven asks.
“Probably more giants.” I frown. “I’m not looking forward to meeting any more of those bastards, but a lot that I know of Hermes has to do with giants, so this should be fun.”
“It’s better than the monsters we usually face,” Greyson says, then winces.
He didn’t almost die against the monsters we faced before so I’m not sure how giants are better than monsters. I glare at him.
“Is it really?” I ask, raising a brow.
“Yeah, no. I realized how stupid that statement was as soon as I said it.” He glances out his window.