*Hecate*

I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel. I was humming along to Panic! At the Disco's 'Nine in the Afternoon'. It was raining cats and dogs out there, and I was glad. I liked rain.

The others were sleeping, Hatchet was snoring and I wasn't planning on letting him live it down. I recorded just in case he was one of those people who refused to admit that they snored.

Smiling, I gave a hard tap against the wheel, and the car jumped a few inches off the ground.

"What the hell was that?" Heather yelled from the back. "Did we get bombed?"

I let out a little chuckle. "Of course not. If we were bombed we'd all be blown to smithereens by now."

"What a reassuring thought," Jacin replied, yawning. "Cut-Hatchet's still out. How far away are we?"

"Bout ten minutes, give or take."

Quin groaned from the seat next to me, rubbing his head. "You did that, didn't you? The bump?"

"Yep," I chirped. "Sorry, didn't know how else to wake you up."

Heather yelled from the back, "If we're still ten minutes away, why the hell did you need to wake us up?"

I shrugged. "It gets boring, driving all night all by myself."

They all let out long sighs, minus Hatchet who was still happily snoring away.

"Hey," Quin said, looking out the window, "what happened to the road?"

"Oh that? Don't need it anymore."

"What about leaving tracks?"

"I got it covered. I'm magic, remember?"

"Kinda hard to forget." He turned to look straight ahead of us. "You don't live under ground too, do you?"

I smiled. "Kinda. It's like a cave."

"There aren't any mountains around here."

"I said like a cave, didn't I? It's like...a cavern on the side of a cliff. Ooh, get ready for the drop."

"What-" We started heading straight down, like on a roller coaster. "Holy shit!"

I was laughing the whole way down. My stomach was in my throat by the time we reached the bottom and I was laughing hysterically at their screaming.

"See," I said, motioning to the rock walls around me, "like a cave?"

"This is a cave!" Hatchet yelled from the back. "And what the hell just happened? Did we fly or something?"

"Nah, we just fell into my barrier. See it's made with glyphs so it can last for like...ten times longer than the one back in New York. What happened was, when I let my magic out, I found the barrier and broke it for a second. That's when we started falling. If it was just a normal stranger wandering through the ruins, they'd never get in."

"What about another magician?" Jacin asked. "Could I break in if I wanted too?"

"You could get past that barrier at least, but there's a lot more afterwards. I'm pretty sure that, even after I show you in an out, the barriers'll confuse you and you'll never get back in."

There was no reply, so I assumed they got the gist of it.

I let my magic flow through the car, making sure that everything was still in place. I'm ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine eight percent sure that everything was cause I cushioned the interior on the way down, just in case. Still, I didn't wanna break down in the middle of the caves. We were fine.

"Oh, here we are," I announced, making a sudden right turn.

In front of us, was a small red and white house with a porch and chairs set out in a clearing with over a thousand foot diameter. It was decently big, being a two story. In front was my personal motorcycle. To the left of the wooden house was a body of water too big to be called a pond and too small to be called a lake. To the right of the house was a giant opening with a seemingly bottomless canyon. Actually, it was only about fifty-eight thousand nine hundred sixty-five feet deep. I jumped it once. Actually, if you tried, you could climb to the surface from there, but it was pretty far and I used glyphs to keep people from going in and out.

The whole place was lit by glowing glyphs I'd drawn into the ceiling of the cave.

"So?" I asked, waiting for approval. "What do you think?"

"This is amazing," Hatchet said, awed. "How'd this all get here?"

"Built it myself," I replied, feeling rather proud. "Mostly with magic, obviously. I got the water from that opening over there. It goes to the surface."

"Christ, this is amazing," Jacin mumbled as we pulled into the driveway. Not really a driveway, more like the side of the house where my motorcycle was parked.

"Okay, everyone!" I yelled, pulling the key out of the key hole thingy. "Time to stretch our arms and legs."

They listened to me, getting out of the car. I mean, none of them stretched or anything, beside Hatchet who'd been awkwardly sleeping the whole time.

"Alrighty, guys. Let's head inside. Uh, excuse the mess but I never clean. Oh, and don't move anything cause I know exactly where everything is already."

I touched my hand to the door knob and pulled it open.

The floor as a mess, covered in papers and rocks and ancient magic artifact things. The front room was a couch, a T.V., and a coffee table.

"Just how I left it," I said, smiling. With a wave of my finger, my papers started clearing a few paths. One upstairs, and one to the kitchen, and one to the downstairs bathroom, and one to the couch.

"This place is a pigsty," Heather said, seemingly a bit mad at my living arrangement. "How do you find anything?"

"I know where everything is," I said, plopping on the couch and finding the remote. "Which reminds me don't move anything too majorly without asking me cause I might loose things. I'm pretty sure I said that but second reminder! It's important. Oh! A don't go into the third room on the right upstairs cause almost everything in there could kill you."

"How reassuring," Hatchet mumbled. "Where're we sleeping?"

"Upstairs. Pick whichever rooms you want. There's enough for everyone to have their own. Except the third room on the right. Seriously, you might die if you go in there."

They nodded, and I heard them all climb up the stairs to find their rooms.

Except for Quin, apparently, who made me jump when he plumped down next to me on the couch. He was quiet at first, watching Ridiculousness with me. So I talked first cause I don't like not talking when there's really nothing to do and there's someone next to me.

"You don't wanna pick a room?" I asked.

"I'll take whatever's left."

I nodded. "Hungry? Thirsty? Bored? What's up?"

"Why do you assume something's up whenever I sit next to you?"

I shrugged. "Cause it's not in your nature."

"...what?"

I smiled. "You're curious and you want to know more. If I had to guess, I'd say you're just trying to get near me cause you want to know more about me. You have a hard time trusting someone who you don't know a lot about."

He looked at me, his expression blank. His left hand, the one that I could see because he was on my left side, was idly picking at the threading in the couch.

"It comes naturally to me, I guess. Especially after all that training in the academy. Besides, you out of all people should be the most concerned with who you trust. Especially after your closest ally nearly got you killed."

I didn't let my smile falter because I knew he was watching me, provoking me. How mean, Mr. Grumpy Pants.

I simply shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. It might be in your nature to be inquisitive and to never trust someone until you know all their secrets, but I'm different."

"I noticed."

"Oh yeah?" My turn to poke and prod him. See how he like being questioned. "And what do you know about me?"

"You trust someone based off your first impression of them. I haven't seen what happens when you don't trust someone and I don't know if I want to. Other than that, you're a pretty closed book for someone who likes to talk a lot."

I smiled, leaning back into the couch. On the T.V. a man pulled out of a McDonalds drive through with an ice cream cone on his head, yelling, "Believe!" Oh Ridiculousness, you never cease to make me laugh.

"You know," I finally said, "you can ask me stuff instead of trying to be detectivey about it. I probably won't answer a lot of it, but it's better for you."

What was that? I didn't want him poking into my life. Why'd I just invite him to try to dig deeper into it? Maybe lack of sleep. Are these rhetorical questions? I'm not really clear on the full definition of that word so that's not a question I can answer confidently. Why'd I ask? Definitely lack of sleep.

"Alright," I said. "Get off my couch, I'm tired."

"You're not sleeping in a bed?"

"You guys're using all my beds. Now, shoo shoo fly. I'm tired."

"Hmm... No, I'm comfy. Go use my bed."

"I like my couch," I said. picking the fluffiest blanket and the softest pillow up off the ground.

"Apparently so do I," he said, smugly smirking at me. Hehe, smugly smirking. It rhymes. Well kinda. Mostly.

"So, you're not gonna move?"

He shook his head, humming a no.

"Fine," I replied, swinging my feet up on his lap. "Then prepare to get comfy. Ooh, and pins and needles in your legs too, cause that'll happen."

I really didn't want to deal with his complaining, but I couldn't put myself to sleep or anything. Seriously, no sarcasm. I'm one of the few magicians who can't use their magic on themselves. It's a mental thing, not an ability thing.

Luckily, he didn't complain, and just let me sleep.

-Authors Note-

Sorry for the short chapter, first of all.

Second, can anyone guess what couples are going to happen, cause I already know. It's pretty obvious though. Maybe not. Who knows? I'm kinds just going with the flow of the book right now.