"Mother?" I ask, but then I remember that we're children of the gods and that this is probably normal, "Wait a minute, back to my original question. What are you doing here?"
"Well, we're here to see how our two favorite children are doing, what else?" Damon's mother, Ananke, says.
I roll my eyes and I hear Damon scoff, "As if, now why don't you give us the real reason."
"I'm not one to beat around the bush, as you know Amethyst," Ares starts, "We first came here to tell you something, and while we were waiting on you two, we got." He pauses. "Comfortable with each other."
I gag, "Well that's disgusting."
Damon rolls his eyes, "Alright so what did you come here to tell us?"
"Straight to the point! I like this boy. What did I tell you Amethyst? He's a good one," my father states loudly.
Ares goes to pat Damon on the shoulders, but Damon side steps him and looks at his mother, "What is there to tell us?"
His mother sighs. She looks at Damon with love and admiration in her eyes. It was almost like she wanted to be a good mother, but her status otherwise prevented it. "We wanted to let you both know, since we know that Amethyst has problems trusting and you don't have the best track record either; your fates are intertwined. We can't say much more about it, because Zues himself has forbidden us too, but we were granted the ability to tell you that much."
I looked at Damon and he looked at me. We did nothing but stare for a couple of minutes. "So there's nothing more that you can tell us? Like at all?" I ask, looking away from Damon's blue eyes.
Ares and Ananke shake their head. My father walks up to me and grabs ahold of my shoulders, "You're making me proud of the young lady you've become. Fighting fate the way you are isn't easy, but believe me when I say it gets a lot of heroes in Hades grasp. Be careful. Ananke was right, you're my favorite child by far."
He then gives me a hug and Ananke, who was having her own conversation with her son, grasp hands and disappear out of sight. I look at Damon, "What next?"
"Well, hopefully sleep," he gestures towards the barn, "My mother told me that it still has their protection on it and we wouldn't be bothered unless by other gods or demigods."
I shrug my shoulders, "It probably wouldn't hurt to get some sleep. Maybe it even has food inside."
I drool a little thinking about the food. I hadn't eaten since yesterday and my stomach was letting me know.
Damon holds his hand out, telling me to lead the way. "No, I insist, heroes first," I say, as I let him go in front of me.
He looks at me as if I'm a moron and then walks ahead of me laughing and shaking his head. Shoot, I'm not about to go into a barn, in the middle of nowhere that could have several monsters in it, despite being under the gods magic. I'm not that suicidal.
I take my time walking behind Damon, if he dies, I want to be far enough to run away before I die too. I stared at his back as he walked up to the house. He didn't seem muscular but you could tell through my clothes that he was actually well defined when it came to muscles. Where he had just seemed scrawny before, I could see was actual muscle now.
"It's safe," Damon says, turning to see me stare at him. He smirks, "Come on, you need to see this."
I quicken my pace and walk through the old barn doors. Looking on the outside, that's all you would see, an old red barn. The inside of this place was unexpected and I suppose we have the gods to thank for that.
As soon as we walked through the door, which I later realized a mirage had been placed over, it looked like your typical Victorian house. It was beautiful. I quickly found the kitchen and discovered that there was food. Thank goodness.
I grabbed all the snacks and drinks that I could hold in my hands and went to the living room, where Damon was just about passed out on one of the couches. "Here," I toss him a water and a bag of chips.
He quickly sits up and catches them. We start devouring our food, while watching the nature channel. Soon, we're both asleep on the couches.
I awoke to someone knocking on the door. I looked to see if the guest had woken up Damon as well, but he was peacefully sleeping with one foot draped on the back of the couch, both of his arms folded behind his head. He didn't snore, but you could hear tiny murmurs of sleep talking. It's a shame I couldn't make out what he was saying, as sleep talking had often led to great blackmail material.
My thoughts were suddenly cut off by someone knocking on the door, loudly, once more. I stretched while I made my way to the door, I grabbed my sword out of the umbrella rack before answering, just as a precaution.
I slowly open the door, seeing the guest mid knock. My sword was raised and as soon as they seen it their hands went up. "State your name, your reason for being here and your lineage," I say, with a stern voice, with a face to match.
"My name is Skylar and this is Maddie, we're here seeking a safe house, and I'm the daughter of Hephaestus and Maddie is the daughter of Dionysus," the taller of the two say.
I wasn't expecting any other demigods to be here. In fact, I figured we would sooner have monsters here. They didn't look dangerous, at least not to me. The daughter of Dionysus, Maddie I believe, actually seemed drunk. "Come in, put your weapons right here next to the door. I'm Amethyst, daughter of Ares, and my friend in the other room, is Damon."
Skylar narrows her eyes at me, "What is the boys lineage?"
She doesn't trust boys. I can see in her eyes that she's been hurt one too many times by them. I can also see that she and this Maddie girl are in a relationship or are close to being one by the way Skylar holds her.
"That's none of your concern, just know that he's on my side, which hopefully is your side as well. Besides we won't be staying long. Just long enough to get some sleep and food, then we will be on our way," I say with a sharp look in my eyes, "He's sleeping in the living room, so all the rooms are still available."
I wanted to keep an eye on these two. Something seems fishy about them. Skylar looks at Maddie and then back at me, "We'll just take one of the bedrooms, and stay out of y'alls way."
I nod at her and once they're out of sight in the bedroom, I walk to the living room where Damon is rubbing his eyes. "Who was at the door?" He asks, sleep still laced with his voice.
"A couple of other demigods. We have to go, grab some food for the road," I say, my voice tight.
He looked at me like he was hurt, "I want to meet the new demigods, what if we can all be friends and we can travel with them."
"We can't do that," I say, hurrying around, gathering our things into our bags.
I ignore his protests as I walk into the kitchen to find that it has magically restocked while we were sleeping. Another perk of the safe house I suppose. It shouldn't be hard to find another one now that Damon is traveling with us and can obviously see the safe houses.
"Will you stop and tell me why you think we need to leave all of a sudden?" Damon suddenly cuts me out of my thoughts by grabbing my shoulder and turning me to face him.
I see something move out of the corner of my eye. I look in the direction that it came from and sense that Skylar is standing on the other side of the doorway. I can sense that her hands have no weapons in them but she has a small pocket knife in her sock. "It's not important right now, lets go," I say with a firm tone to my voice.
Damon rolls his eyes at me, "I'm not leaving until you tell me what in Hades is going on."
He leans against the counter. I don't have time for this. "Okay, have fun. I'm sure you'll be the best of friends with each other."
I grab the food and my backpack, "I'm leaving now and if you're not outside in five minutes with your things, ready to go, I'm leaving you. I don't care if my father said our fates are intertwined."
With the last word, I grab my sword and walk out the door. It was starting to get light outside and I knew that the sun was just over the horizon. I threw my backpack into the back seat and had just opened the door to get in the driver's seat when Damon ran out of the house yelling. Seeing him, I quickly put my key in the ignition and started the car. It wasn't a very far run from the door to the car but he seemed to be taking forever. Then I started seeing the arrows flying towards him. I looked to the door and I saw Maddie, who still seemed halfway drunk, notching arrows one right after another and shooting at him. Not even breaking in between each shot.
"Hurry!" I yell at Damon.
"The mud, it's dragging me down! It's getting harder to move with each step," he says exasperated.
I ran around the car to help him, asking Ares for strength. I suppose my father listened because the next thing I know, I throw Damon to the car and make my way through the mud. We both get in quickly and take off. We're about ten miles down the road before one of us something. I'm the first one to speak, just because I can't hold it in any longer. I look at Damon, "I told you so dumb ass."
I turn back to the road and he laughs, "Yeah, you told me so, you were right. I'm sorry."
I give him a look of surprise and amazement, "Wow, didn't know you knew how to do that. Can I get that in writing and a recording please."
We both laugh, and for the first time it seems that we are ahead of the danger. We're brought back to reality when Damon asks, "Who were they, and how did you recognize that they weren't on our side?"
"You didn't see it?" I ask, looking at him like he was a crazy.
"See what?" He looks at me, even more confused.
"They had the mark of Hera," I say quietly, as if she's watching us.