"Ouch !" Santana winced and sucked in air between her two front teeth. She edged closer to us and leaned over Henry's still body. "Man, I really got him good!" she said, admiring the bruise forming on his temple. "Maybe I shouldn't have quit baseball."
"Ouch !" Santana winced and sucked in air between her two front teeth. She edged closer to us and leaned over Henry's still body. "Man, I really got him good!" she said, admiring the bruise forming on his temple. "Maybe I shouldn't have quit baseball."
My hand found resistance midair, and I jerked my head up to see that Santana had her fingers wrapped around my wrist. "Hey, I hate to tell you this, but I don't think he's going to come anytime soon," she informed me and gave me another apologetic look.
She let go of my hand, and I slowly moved it towards my hair, running my fingers through my damp waves, while I tried to think of what to do next. She was right. He wasn't going to be waking up anytime soon. "You're right," I acknowledged out loud, and ducked my head under one of his limp arms, "But we need to get him out of here, get on his other side, " I commanded.
Santana seemed to understand what I was planning to do because she bent down to Henry and copied my motion. She secured his left arm around her shoulder, held in place with her right hand.
We both struggled to our feet, with Henry's body positioned between the two of us, and began to move forward with Henry's feet dragging limply on the ground.
"Hey, can I ask you a quick question?" Santana asked, after about ten minutes of walking /limping/ struggling. Her voice came out strained from having to support Henry's weight.
"Go ahead," I replied, my voice equally strained. Being in this hot climate and not having had anything to eat or drink for hours was beginning to have a devastating effect on my body. Already, the muscles in my abdomen were beginning to cramp up, and it was becoming more and more painful even to breathe. My legs felt like they had weights tied to them, and those weights grew heavier with every step I took.
"What was the thing you were saying earlier about man-eaters?"
My body temperature went down one degree at the mere mention of the word man-eater. I wished I had never remembered that stupid fact.
"Well, you see the infamous thing about Griffins is they almost never eat women," I began, "They like to leave them alive and hold them captive within their territory. Then they... they umm?"
Come on, brain, you can do it! I believe in you! "They wait for the men to come and rescue them, and then they eat them. They like to eat muscle more than fat since most men have more muscles than girls, they are their primary prey!" I exclaimed loudly and then covered my mouth in both embarrassment and fear of being heard by someone or something.
Santana let out a short laugh, and I shot her a wary glance. Did this girl finally lose her marbles and buy a one-way ticket to loon town? That would be just what I need right now, in addition to everything else on my plate, a big heaping helping of wacko.
"So right now, and we are towing around an unconscious boy that probably looks like a delicious appetizer to them, this situation just keeps getting shitter and shitter doesn't it!?" she scoffed.
Okay, good, it just sounded like she was just fed up, and not going crazy. I would take fed up over crazy any day.
"Yeah," I replied, "That pretty much sums it up perfectly."
I was getting kind of fed up, too, with all that was happening. Heck, I was getting fed up with my whole life!?
"Yeah, the more you're with me, the more you realize that my life is pretty much a one-way ticket to hell," I replied bitterly, and grunted when a combination of Henry's weight and a tree branch almost caused me to eat it. I swear, if I didn't love this boy, I would've left him behind a long time ago.
"Hey dits with no tits, you're heading right towards the freaking griffon den!" A familiar voice floated through the air and into my ear.
My head snapped up, and I stopped walking. My face turned upwards, and my eyes danced across the foliage above my head, but I didn't see anything, except for fragments of an orange and pink sunset peeking through the tree branches.
"Do you want to take a break or something?" Santana asked, mistaking my stopping for exhaustion. Don't get me wrong, I was tired, but not on the point of collapsing, yet.
"Nothing, I just thought I heard something."
Santana leaned her head forward so she could see me better, past Henry's body. Her face was a mask of well-concealed fear, "Did it sound like a griffon?" she asked wearily.
I shook my head and frowned, "No, I just thought I heard someone say something."
"Is it one of those people who worked for that chick?"
I shook my head again, "Don't worry about it, let's just keep moving," I said and began moving forward again.
"UGGH, DID YOU NOT LISTEN TO WHAT I JUST SAID!? YOU'RE GOING TOWARDS THE FREAKING GRIFIN DEN!"
I let Henry slide from my shoulder in surprise when a blazing ball fell from the sky and landed right in front of me.
Suddenly, Henry and Santana were gone, and I was left in a state of confusion. What the heck was going on?
"Look what you made me do! I had come all the way down here because your stupid ass can't listen to a warning!"
The ball of light slowly dimmed, and when it was about at half its original brightness, I could finally make out the figure standing within it, and the more it dimmed, the more I could make out.
It was a girl with red hair, and a pair of magnificent red wings sprouting from her back. She wore a blood red school uniform, which looked to be a little out of date, and there were two gaping holes where her eyes should have been. But as the light faded completely, those holes were filled in with two cat-shaped light brown eyes, and the uniform melted into a purple tunic with a black sash.
"Lacy!?"
She glared at me, "Yeah, it's me, crossed over but still dealing with your stupid ass. I've been assigned to be your guardian angel, and part of that job is to prevent you from doing stupid shit," she pressed her hands together.
I stared at her without speaking.
"What!?" Lacy asked when she saw how intently I was looking at her, "Oh, you must be admiring my wings and my heavenly light! Yeah, this kind of comes with being an angel and stuff? You got my divine dream telling you how I forgave my sister for accidentally killing me, right?"
Silence.
Lacy began to fiddle with her red hair. "Well, I kind of had too? I didn't have that many options after you got sucked up into another dimension, now did I?"
More silence.
"Hello!?" she exploded, waving a hand in front of my face in a motion of agitation. "Is anyone home in there?"
"Yeah, sorry," I said, coming back to reality, "It just took me a second to process that."
Lacy shook her head at me. "Really, it still takes you time to process things? Your life is a never-ending continuation of weird! You should just be able to roll with anything by now."
I shrugged, "You would think, but there are still things that surprise me in this world..."
"What, and me being an angel is one of them? I know I'm not the cookie-cutter image of what an angel should be. But come on! I'm not the worst person to ever exist.... I think."
"No, but you suddenly descending from the sky in a ball of light and then telling me you are my guardian angel is still on the list of things that will surprise me," I replied.
Lacy scoffed, "Trust me, being made your guardian angel wasn't what I was expecting either. In the great beyond, you don't just sit on your arson all day and twiddle your thumbs. No, they put you to work, and my job just so happens to be a babysitter for a sixteen-year-old derp!"
"Seventeen, I'm seventeen now." I corrected her.
"Even worse!"
"Oh, and by the way? If you're supposed to be my guardian angel, where were you when I was pinned up against a tree by a griffon-like creature a little while ago? Hun?"
Lacy sighed loudly, "Are you really going to start whining about that? Nothing happened to you. Now listen to me carefully, I'm going to say this so you can understand." She pointed in the direction we had been headed. "There is a bad place," she pointed to my right, "There is a good place where Violet will find water. You need w-a-t-e-r, right?"
I gritted my teeth together in annoyance and nodded.
Lacy batted her eyelashes at me innocently, "What? Does Violet still not understand?"
"Yes, I get it!" I snapped, throwing my arms into the air in frustration, "I'll go that way!" I yelled and accidentally pointed in the wrong direction, but quickly corrected myself, ignoring Lacy's smug look.
"Okay, you can go now!" I said and waved my hand in dismissal.
Lacy rolled her eyes, "Alright, toddles, and try not to die," she blew a fake kiss at me, and disappeared in a blinding flash of light.
"Violet?" Santana said, and I looked to my right and saw her. She was still holding half of Henry up; the rest of him was on the ground. Santana gave me a look full of questions.
I quickly bent down and reclaimed my share of Henry's weight, trying to ignore her look.
"Sorry about that, I tripped," I lied. "Oh, and we should go this way," I said, pointing towards the direction that Lacy had indicated. "If we do, we will find water."
"Really!?" Santana's face lit up, "Because I'm like dying of thirst right now."
"Same," I said, and we began to move again. I really hoped Lacy hadn't been lying about water being over there.
After weaving our way through a couple more trees, we soon came upon a small, clear pool. Its surface was clear, so you could see its pebbly surface. The only problem, someone was already taking a drink out of it.