EVANGELINA

I've lived a good chunk of my life at Camp Jupiter. My mom was an alcoholic, and died while I was still young. My dad is Mars, the god of war. He couldn't be bothered to watch over one of his many kids, so he sent me here. The campers here have become my family, especially the Third Cohort. I'm the Centurion now, and I have been for the past five years.

My life was pretty uneventful. A couple battles every now and again, and one major war. Everything's settled down since then, but I still felt like something crazy was going to happen to me. I had seen it all, my half brother could turn into animals at will! But I was missing something in my life. I knew it. I was feeling pretty distressed about it, so I decided to pay my brother a visit.

"Hey Ev." He called tiredly when I knocked on his door and let myself into his room. My brother was the praetor, and it was definitely exhausting him. I pulled up a chair to the table he was sitting at. There were battle strategies and maps all strewn over the place. Frank sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. I started shuffling through the papers, analyzing them.

"What are you up to? It looks like some kind of battle in the mountains?" I questioned. Frank closed his eyes and rested his head on his hands.

"Reyna wants me to prep in case there are any threats. She keeps throwing scenarios at me to work on. I stayed up all night trying to decide what path through the mountains to take."

"That's easy. See, go through here, then take this valley over to this path. That'll cut about three days off of the time, and you can attack from the side. See?" I pointed out on the maps. Franks face relaxed, and he smiled. It had been four years since the war, and he was definitely a great praetor, but my brother could be so daft sometimes.

"So why'd you come Ev? You don't just come visit me for no reason. You never have. You only see me when you want something." I rolled my eyes. Frank was right, but he didn't need to know that. I was saved from answering Frank luckily, because Reyna burst through the door.

"Frank! Have you finished those plans yet? I don't have time to waste. We just got a new recruit and I have to give him the tour and-" Reyna seemed to notice me just then.

"Ev, would you do me a favor and show Lucas around? That'll save me from doing it."

"Yeah, I got it." Sometimes I wondered if Reyna knew I had been at camp for twelve years. She treated me like I was unimportant. I rubbed the tattoo on my forearm as I headed for the door. It had the letters SPQR like everyone else, two crossed spears, and two columns of six bars, showing that I had been there for 12 years.

I blinked rapidly at the bright sun when I made it outside. I turned around in a circle, trying to find the kid who I was showing around. My guess is that he would be young, maybe twelve. That's how old they usually are when the monsters start finding them. I swept my eyes over the streets. The only person on the street was sitting in the shade, leaning his back against the wall and looking uneasy. He seemed to be closer to my age, 17, not twelve.

"Where's Reyna?" He asked, crossing his arms, and standing up. He was taller than I was, easily over six feet. His hair was golden blonde, and his skin perfectly tanned. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and khaki shorts. I scoffed at his flip flops. This was New Rome, not the beach.

"Are you Lucas?" I asked, ignoring his question. We were doing this my way.

"Yes, and who are you?" He said.

"Centurion Ev. Reyna asked me to show you around. She's busy." I started walking down the street. When I realized he wasn't following I stopped and turned around.

"Well? Are you coming or do you want to meet the Legionnaires by yourself?" I called. Lucas looked around, kind of scared, then hurried to my side.

"So what brings you to Camp Jupiter?" I asked, making small talk as we walked down the road towards the main part of New Rome.

"I've been wandering for a while. Reyna and I crossed paths and she realized I was a demigod. She brought me here this morning."

"Well you can't be all that important if you only just got here. How old are you, sixteen? Seventeen?"

"I'm eighteen." He ignored my first remark. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen." I pulled my sword from my belt as we walked, playing withe the refracted light on the ground from the blade.

"Who's your parent?" He asked.

"Mars. God of war. And yours?" I didn't expect an answer, but it had started to become a knee jerk reaction when we were dealing with the Greeks.

"Reyna said I'd hopefully know tonight." He kept his eyes forward. When we reached the Pomerian Line, Terminus yelled at me for having my sword. After yelling back a bit out of boredom, I hid my weapon in a bush and continued down the street. Lucas gaped behind me.

"Did you just yell at a statue?" He asked, jogging to catch up.

"Yeah. Part of my daily routine." I showed Lucas the majority of New Rome. He wasn't bad company, I'll have to admit. He asked the right questions, and his knowledge of Ancient Rome was sufficient enough that he made connections.

Eventually I had him sit with me under the aqueduct. I really got to look at him then. It was weird that he struck me as attractive. Not because he wasn't, but because I didn't generally look at guys like that. His hair was blonde and messy. His eyes were dark blue, and the way he was looking at me made me feel like he could see my past, present, and future. Apollo kid maybe? I was never any good at guessing those things.

As we sat in the shade, he pulled the bottom of his shirt up to wipe a bead of sweat from his brow. He had a six pack. This kid was killing me. I laid back in the grass, staring up at the summer sky. I wondered if Reyna was done with Frank yet. I wanted to get rid of Lucas before I did anything stupid.