"Who are you and what do you want?" Skylar huffed. While her fists tightly pressed into balls, anger and fear boiled inside her.
"You really don't know, do you?" The stranger circled Skylar, examining her from head to toe. "You can call me Alena. You don't look how I imagined you would look at all. Do you know how difficult it was to track you down?"
"I don't know what you're talking about and I don't care. Where are Mason and Nick? What have you done with them?" Skylar's tone was sassy and demanding. Hiding her trepidation, she spoke loudly and forcibly.
Alena laughed sinisterly. "You thought it was going to be that easy? Just show up and take them home with you? It's been several weeks since you've heard from Mason, right? That's how long it took me to find you, especially since they wouldn't cooperate. After I found his cell phone, which he tried to break without me knowing-well, the rest is history. And now you're here. It's a good thing you care about him or else this plan wouldn't have worked."
"You've held them prisoner that long?" Skylar glared at Alena.
"Relax. I gave them some food . . . enough."
"What do you want from me? I have nothing to give you."
"Oh, but that is where you are wrong. Don't you want to see your friends or shall we talk all day?" she asked with an evil smirk, turning her back on Skylar.
Alena waved her hand in a circular motion and mumbled a few words. Mason, Nick, Everett, and Amanda appeared in front of her as if a layer of clouds had evaporated, allowing a clear view. She had held them prisoner behind some kind of shield, and whatever it was, it was still there. They were all sitting closely together on one huge boulder. When they saw Skylar, their eyes lit up with hope, except for Mason's.
"Mason," Skylar called out hesitantly and headed toward them with caution. She kept one eye on Alena and the other eye on her friends, wondering why Mason didn't look happy to see her. Surprisingly, the Oracle stepped in front of her, making her halt. She had been hiding behind the tree so Skylar hadn't noticed her. Now she knew the reason why Alena had been protecting the tree when she first got there.
"I told you to kill her," the Oracle said with anger in her tone, pointing her cane at Skylar. "Now she will doom us all."
Clenching his jaw, Mason's fists were tightly gripped as he shuddered in anger. He pounded the shield with his fist. "Don't touch her or I'll kill you myself." The palm of his hand fizzled with silver electrical light, sparkling like lightning, but it was dim. It crackled for a few seconds before the sparks went out.
Recalling Mason's words, Skylar remembered that their powers were limited there. It was no wonder he couldn't use them to escape. Stuck there and feeling helpless, he hadn't given Alena the information she wanted, just so he could keep Skylar safe. She was grateful and touched that he had thought of her over his family's safety.
The Oracle set her eyes on Mason, then to Skylar, and wobbled backward in a cowardly manner.
"Now, now," Alena mocked. "You already know your powers are limited here. It's one of the reasons why I tricked you to come. At Olympus, we are on equal ground. You can thank Zeus. He was always afraid someone would try to overthrow him. How smart he was. But too bad for his descendants."
"What do you mean ‘she will doom us all?'" Everett, now standing beside Mason,
demanded to know.
"So it really wasn't that you were protecting her out of some sick obligation," Alena said. "You really didn't know. Mason kept this secret from all of you. He has chosen her over his own kind. Pity, pity, pity. Doesn't matter, you're all dead after I'm done with you."
Everett gripped Mason by his shirt. "I knew it. What are you hiding? We've been locked up here because of her? You've chosen a stranger over your own family?"
Mason didn't even fight back. He just let Everett vent his feelings.
"Stop it!" Amanda yelled. "Can't you see what she's doing? She's making us go against each other. Let Mason go."
Nick looked like he was ready to take action if Everett's anger grew, but he backed down when Everett released Mason with a shove.
"What do you want?" Mason asked Alena. "Why go to all this trouble to bring Skylar here? We at least deserve an answer if you're going to kill us."
"Oh, I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to enjoy watching Skylar kill you."
Skylar flashed her eyes at Alena, then to her friends. She backed away, shaking her head. Never would she hurt them. She had to run, but to where?
"Face your destiny, my cousin. We've been waiting for you to take revenge upon the gods' children." Alena smiled cunningly.
"I don't know who you are, and I'm not your cousin. I'll never do it." Skylar ran. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Mason slam into the invisible shield, trying to break through. When that didn't work, he was cursing, trying to shoot lightning from his hands, but to no avail. His beautiful eyes sparkled silver, but that too quickly faded. Hopelessly, he leaned against the shield along with the rest of his family, watching Skylar run for her life.
Breathing heavily, Skylar hid behind the statue of Poseidon, contemplating her next move.
"Skylar, I just need a little bit of your blood and then you'll be free to go."
"Why do you need my blood?" Skylar yelled, running next to the statue of Hera, trying to keep track of Alena by the sound of her voice.
"Oh, don't play dumb."
Skylar turned to her right, but before she could go to the next statue, Alena was right in front of her.
"I know how to play dumb too."
Stunned by her presence, Skylar screamed and ran. She had been almost positive she knew where Alena was positioned when she heard her voice, but she must have underestimated her speed.
"I'm tired of playing games." Alena yanked Skylar's hair and dragged her until she was in front of her friends. "Let me tell you a story about how this war began. Hades predicted his brothers would massively reproduce to preserve their kind, while he remained in Hell to rot. Intelligent and cunning as he was, he jumped at the game. He knew that one day they would die as religion progressed, so he and Medusa created their own bloodline, just before, you know, she got her head chopped off. I'm one of their descendants, and so is Skylar."
Glancing at their shocked expressions, she continued with a smirk, "That's right. Medusa and Hades produced offspring, creating evil blood long before Zeus and Poseidon started theirs, and you know what's special about Skylar? Why she should be feared? When she kills a being, its special power transfers to her. Can you imagine if she was vengeful and decided to kill just to suck up your powers? There are others like her out there . . . somewhere. They may not even know what they are, just like Skylar. She just happened to be the first one I found."
Blood drained out of Skylar. Her pale face expressed no emotions. Having some kind of evil blood was bad enough, but knowing she was one of the descendants of Hades and Medusa was unbearable. Those two were the most hated of their kind. Now she understood how she was able to heal so fast. Mason had told her Remus was a fast healer. When she killed him, unknowingly she swallowed his blood and took his power of healing. Remus even told her that when he attacked her.
"That's right," she continued, "Skylar has their blood. You know what that means, don't ya? One droplet of her blood on your skin or the skin of any of the gods' children, will turn them into stone."
"I told you to kill her," the Oracle shouted again. "Just kill her."
"Shut up, you old hag," Everett yelled. "I'm getting really tired of you. You're supposed to be all knowing. Why didn't you know any of this?"
"It doesn't work that way. There is only one of me. My other two sisters are dead. We were all knowing and strong once, when we worked together as a team." The Oracle sheepishly and sadly backed away.
"Why don't you kill them yourself? Don't you have the same blood?" Skylar asked, testing her.
"I can't." She looked embarrassed at first, but then changed her expression to anger. "We do have the same blood, except mine is different. Over time, depending on the family line, our abilities and the potency of the blood changes. However, your family bloodline is strong. That means that in every generation in your family line, one of the parents had the HM blood-Hades-Medusa blood."
"Why do you want to kill them? They haven't done anything to you."
"It was my mother's wish. She was the same as me, but one of the gods' children killed her."
"We didn't do anything. We didn't kill anyone," Amanda shouted. "We keep to ourselves. We don't want any trouble. Let us go. We won't hurt you."