Renegade

Emily's POV

Finding a boat was the easy part, actually. We found a huge transport ferry by the harbor and bought tickets direct to Rome. The hard part, however, was trying not to think about the job ahead.

By the time the boat cast off, it was just getting to noon, and the sun was high in the sky. Griff had booked us separate rooms on the top deck with amazing views, and they hadn’t even cost that much because almost nobody was on the boat. In fact, the only people I saw come onto the boat besides the crew were a family with blonde triplets, a few different couples, and a tall man in a leather jackets and jeans, which surprised me because that probably wasn’t comfortable in June, and it wasn’t a very European outfit.

In the very back of my mind, a small voice whispered, Beware. That guy isn’t normal. But I decided to ignore it and moved my collection of things into my room. I had only come to Spain with two changes of clothes, one pair of shoes, and my daggers. The rest of my things I had bought. Speaking of the daggers, they came with their own story. When I was five, I got to watch the praetor Reyna, in her final year, face off against my mother in a dramatic game of…cards. My mother had put my registration into the Roman Camp on the line, which had pissed my dad Jason off, and Reyna had smiled as she put “a surprise” on the line if she lost. To be quick, my mother destroyed Reyna, and Reyna smiled again as my dad exhaled a sigh of relief, knowing I would stay at Camp Jupiter.

The surprise had come to me only a few days later, as the praetor herself presented me, in front of the whole Fifth Cohort, with a pair of beautiful Imperial Golden curved daggers, fresh from the Camp forges. I had grown up with those daggers, and I couldn’t imagine going into any battle without them.

I put my daggers on the bed and slipped into a pair of flip-flops I had bought last week in Madrid. It felt good to relax a little as we traveled to our first job, and I guess Griff must have had the same idea, because he walked out of his room with sandals, khaki shorts, ray-bans and a skating shirt. Huh, well, I had guessed he was part skater and part Cali dude, so I guess that confirms it. He had a thin, muscular body, and looked really good in the sun, and when he looked at me, I will admit to blushing a little.

“Cool boat, eh?” He asked, smiling. I chuckled, and he smiled wider.

“Yeah,” I responded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the leather jacket guy’s head peek around the corner, staring with an intense hatred at Griff. He noticed me looking at him and quickly whipped his head back around the corner, which was followed by the sound of heavy boots on wood that I shouldn’t have been able to hear over the engine or the rush of the water. Griff followed my gaze to where the jacket guy had been, and then looked at me in concern, asking,

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” I replied slowly, “I’ll be fine. Just…seasickness.”

He raised his eyebrows in a question, but not a joking one. I don’t know why I didn’t want to tell him about the jacket guy, but I just didn’t. Maybe I didn’t want to ruin a perfectly good boat trip with a cute guy. Maybe I was scared. Maybe I don’t know, okay?

_______________________________________________________________________________

The afternoon passed into night and we had dinner in the dining hall, which was almost empty, except for one of the couples, and the parents of the blonde triplets. We were almost finished with our meal when one of the blonde triplets ran into the dining room crying, screaming,

“Scorpion! Mommy, there’s a huge scorpion! It took Andrew!”

The parents looked at the kid, who had a cut over his right eye and was speckled with bloodstains, and asked in fear, “Thomas, what do you mean?”

But the kid couldn’t answer. He just sat down and cried. Griff looked at me and we locked eyes for a second, a relaxing moment turned to all business. We ran out of the other side of the mess hall and sprinted up the stairs. Most people’s lights were on, but one cabin’s lights were completely black. I mentally marked that cabin as we ran past it towards our rooms. When I got into my room, I found my two daggers and strapped the belt that held them around my waist. I had only finished training two weeks ago, but I suddenly felt an eagerness to attack whatever had ‘taken’ one of the triplets. When I walked out of my room, I found Griff standing in front of me with two black pistols. Despite the fact that I knew this was a dangerous situation, the pistols surprised me. I had never seen anyone train with real guns, only people training with swords, bows and arrows, or javelins.

“Really?” I asked incredulously, “Pistols, man?”

He made a gesture that was a mixture of a toothy grin and a shrug, responding, “My uncle gave them to me. I also have one other weapon—”

“Your uncle?” I asked, confused.

“Yeah, my…oh. Well, he’s not really my uncle, he’s just—”

Griff would have finished his sentence, but just then, we heard a series of rumbling and crashing sounds come from the floor beneath us. We ran down the steps and found that the noises were coming from the cabin with no light. I drew my daggers and Griff’s eyes widened. That made me feel good. We both walked forward silently and he tried the door, but it was jammed shut. Then, he pulled out both of his pistols and screwed on black tubes that I assumed from James Bond movies were silencers. He pointed one of the guns at the door handle and mouthed to me the words,

Stand back.

I retreated a few steps as he fired two shots releasing a soft Click! Click! With each bullet. The door handle and surrounding wood of the door splintered and shattered, and I rushed forward as Griff kicked in the door. I found a switch and flooded the cabin with light, exposing a gruesome sight. On one side of the room was the bed, covered in ripped clothing, blood and blonde hair. Sitting in a leather chair next to the bed, licking his lips was the leather jacket man, with a patchy grey beard covering a sharp nose, accented by a set of mismatched eyes, one brown, one blue. His leather jacket had been thrown to the ground, revealing a long, scorpion-like tail, bristling with barbs. I had heard of these monsters before. Manticores.

“Why…hello,” The monster greeted us in a scratchy, French accent.

“Where’s the kid?” Griff asked roughly.

“Straight to the point, I see. Well, if you must know, Andrew Charles Smith was a great snack, if a bit on the small side. You’re too late.”

He pronounced the letter ‘y’ like a J or a Zh, garbling the words as he spoke them. He smiled evilly, licking one of his fingers, but Griff wouldn’t have it.

“You’re lying!” He shouted, raising his guns at the monster’s head. His voice was shaking with fear, and I was trembling as well.

“What good would me lying do anyone in this situation?” The manticore asked nonchalantly, not even paying attention to Griff’s weapons. Then, he took a big breath in with his nostrils as if drinking in the scent and remarked,

“You know, when you become afraid, like you two are right now, you smell just like your parents! Ugh, how…adorable!” He gave us another evil smile and Griff cocked both his guns. The monster looked at him pityingly and sympathized,

“Aww, someone feeling sorry they weren’t fast enough? It’s okay, you’ll get another chance.”

“But you won’t,” I snapped. I was still reeling from the parents comment, and it looked like Griff was too. Did this freak know our parents back when they fought monsters? The man laughed harshly as I raised my daggers, saying,

“Ah, but I will. I know you work for the Organization, and I honestly don’t need or want your death. So, how about we both let each other go, eh?”

“You’re Dr. Thorn!” Griff realized, “You fought my parents…and lost!”

The manticore growled and let loose a spike from his tail, knocking aside one of Griff’s pistols. But he wasn’t fazed. As quick as thought, he drew a dagger from holster on his belt while firing his right pistol, flying towards the monster’s chest chest. But the bullets didn’t hit the monster. The manticore had picked up his leather jacket and used it as a shield, which was a smart move because the jacket had obviously been bulletproofed. But, it hadn’t been protected against daggers.

I sprinted towards the monster and slashed down, ripping his jacket to shreds. He groaned in disappointment as he looked down at his torn coat, obviously ticked off that I had destroyed his only fashion item. I dodged a spike from his tail as he threw a punch at me while still keeping one eye on Griff, who still shooting his gun. Eventually, Griff got in a good shot, hitting the monster in the ribs. The monster wailed in pain and knocked Griff hard to the ground as he fled the cabin, jumping into the Mediterranean and disappearing. I ran out of the room to try and see where he had landed in the water, but it was well past 10:00 at that point, pitch black. I thought about using my dad’s gifts of flight, but those were never strong even in the best of times, so I settled for shouting in anger into the night. Then I remembered Griff.

I ran back into the room to check on him, but he was out cold, bleeding from the chest. I shook his shoulder to try and wake him up, and he groggily asked,

“What? Where…where’d he go?”

“He disappeared into the water,” I told him disappointedly, “I couldn’t see where.”

He grunted in frustration and I helped him to his feet. With the gruesome sight on the bed, we decided not to stay in the manticore’s room for much longer, heading up to our cabins. I laid Griff down on is bed gingerly as I got out the ambrosia and nectar, slowly feeding it to him.

By the time Griff was asleep and stable, it was well past midnight, so I headed back to my room to salvage any of the sleep I could. But it wasn’t much use. The last thing I remember thinking about were the captain’s words,

“It should take us 36 hours to get to Rome.”

36 hours at the start, about 20 to go.

Just get to Rome, I thought, Just to Rome.

Notes

Enjoy! I should have the next chapter soon, seeing as I have planned out this story pretty extensively.