Luke
Friday, January 2
12:33 AM
I woke up in a forest, but I knew the scents of the wood and dirt and the stream that gurgled somewhere nearby, how could I not know this place? It was the only home I had ever known, until…. I frowned, that thought disappearing like mist. Where was I?
A more terrifying question rose in my mind. Who was I?
I searched my mind and found only my identity Luke Castellan, why was that weird? What was missing? Why did my head suddenly feel so large?
An image floated before my eyes, my hand, guiding a knife into myself, right wear he was weakest.
He?
Kronos.
I forced the memory down and stood up, swaying gently. I couldn't be here, I couldn't bring him back here, I couldn't be here!
My legs gave out and I sat down, hard.
I couldn't get up again. My mind turned inward, found the tunnel I had been avoiding. There was light at the end of it, but my darkness had been polluting it for years.
Luke? The word shimmered through my mind, confused and hurting. How long had it been since she had spoken to me. Not since the first time he had called on her under the influence of Kronos. He did that often, but after the first time, she had never replied.
Thalia! I replied. Please help me! I sent her an image of where I was, hoping she wouldn't show up, praying she would.
Thalia
1:00 PM
I had resisted the cruel trick as long as I possibly could, already feeling trapped because my shock at hearing Luke's voice had driven me to reply for the first time in years.
We had never told anyone about our connection, it had always seemed so natural and personal that we never felt comfortable sharing it with anyone, even Annabeth.
It had been how we had found each other as children, both on the run from monsters, always looking for a safe place, and we had found it in each other. When I had woken up, dazed, on the Hill, the first thing I had done was reach for him, but he had felt tainted, and it had frightened me.
After I heard about his betrayal, I had ignored his constant poison whispers in my mind, but I still couldn't bring myself to reveal the connection.
When he had sacrificed himself to destroy Kronos, I had ignored his whispered good bye and regretted it ever since, knowing I could have sent him away with honor and love, but fearing another trick.
His desperate and confused plea for help over twelve hours ago had shocked me beyond all words. I still thought I might have gone crazy, especially because the taint that I had felt for years was gone.
But I couldn't stand it anymore. Even if I were crazy, and I couldn't imagine being sane at this point, I had to know for sure.
So I followed the trail in my mind into the forest at the edge of camp to the small clearing where he sat. Leaning against a tree. Like it was nothing.
I froze and stared at him, wanting to laugh and cry and beat him with a stick and kill him and hug him and run. How dare he look at me as if he had never betrayed me or Annabeth or the camp or everything that he used to be.
I blinked, expecting him to disappear like mist but there he still was staring at me with the same confusion I'm sure was reflected in my gaze.
"What the fuck-?" I managed to gasp out, grasping a rough tree trunk and plopping gracelessly on my ass as I stared at him. "You- you're dead, Percy killed you with your own knife!"
His mouth opened and closed "please don't leave me," he begged, reaching for me with a trembling hand.
I forced myself to stop, although everything in me screamed at me to run away as fast as I could.
"What happened to you?" I demanded, trying to tamp down my despair and disgust and grief. I wasn't sure if I meant what made you evil? Or what brought you back? And really, it didn't even matter, because he was here now and he had certainly been evil so I didn't even know why I bothered.
"I don't know," he said, and he must have seen my face crumble with disbelief and anger because he lurched forward toward me with shaking hands, "No! Don't leave me! I don't know! I swear on the river Styx!"
I froze and stared at him searchingly for a moment, struggling to find the self-control to leave him here. Or to wake up, because gods knew this had to be a dream, but I knew it wasn't going to work. I wasn't capable of leaving him –him- here, not like this and gods help us both because I was going to betray my goddess, my friends and my beliefs to take him back to camp.
My watch beeped, reminding me I was supposed to lead the newbie archery lessons in ten minutes. I swore loudly and creatively, running a hand through my hair angrily. "I have to go now, cant do anything with you in broad daylight anyway. You stay here and maybe, maybe, I'll come back to get you, or maybe I'll lead a hunting party out here to send you back to Tartarus where you belong."
He looked stricken by my words, but I turned and stomped away before I could dwell on why his expression hurt me so badly.
Archery was so normal and the sun was bright and the camp looked so picturesque that I had almost convinced myself that seeing Luke was just a weird hallucination, but when I returned to the clearing after dark, he was still there, watching me with unreadable eyes.
Shit shit shit Thalia what are you doing? I asked myself even as my mouth told him to get up and come with me.
It was pathetically easy for me to sneak the Camps number one demi-god enemy through its own heart, and gods forgive me but the only place I thought of hiding him was my own fathers cabin.
Call it teenage rebellion, but I knew nothing would piss him off more than stashing his biggest enemy under his own nose. I was aware of the potentially fatal consequences of his being there, but, well, I wasn't thinking of those.
Besides, it was empty. As I was one of Artemis' Huntresses, I now stayed in her cabin when I was at camp.
Exhaustion weighed heavy on me as I lead him into my dads cabin. I still didn't know what I was going to do with Luke, but I really couldn't decide right now, besides, a gently breeze filtered through the open space of the room, it smelled fresh and welcoming and immediately calmed me a bit.
I ran my head through my hair, forcing my fingers through any knots they encountered. "Go to bed, Luke," I said "I'll deal with this in the morning." I waved my hand at him and left the Cabin.
I yawned all the way back to Artemis' Cabin, thanking the goddess that I was the only maiden at Camp at the moment.
I stumbled to my bed and glanced up the moon that always softly illuminated the room.
Sleep came soon after.