LET IT BURN

Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

I know this has been done a lot, Artemis having a child and her hating him. But I'm taking a spin on the 'running from the hunters' theme. This is the story of Theodore Felix, A.K.A. Tucker Phoenix; son of Artemis, fourteen, born 1962, and he hates Artemis for what she has done to him.

Now, just who is this 'Tucker Phoenix'? If you are a half-blood, you have probably never heard of him. If you are mortal then you have definitely never heard of him. To say that he is a protagonist is a bit of a stretch, as his goals are not so righteous. He is not deviant, though. He seems to inhabit that morally gray area. I have taken it upon myself to record and document the life of this rather troubled young man and take all the good and bad that comes with it.

Heavy May rain fell on the 1976 West Virginia small town of Elston. The town was just two rows of buildings on either side of the country road that passed through Elston. On one side the country store, the grocery store, the bar, the motel, the church, the restaurant, and the small bookstore. On the other side were the small houses of the people who ran the town. Right around noontime, someone entered the checking room of the motel. It was a young teenager. He had auburn hair and silvery eyes. He wore a pair of blue jeans, a white tee-shirt, and a tattered denim jacket. The person behind the front desk with the logbook in front of him had nodded off; so the boy just slid the book over to himself and wrote his name in it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill and placed it over the name he had written. He walked over to the keys on the wall and picked out the one with the number '7' on it. He then walked over to the door and left the room. When the door closed behind him, the sound was loud enough to wake the desk person up. He noticed the hundred dollars on the logbook and looked over to the keys, noticing that '7' was gone. He removed the bill from the book and noticed a new name under that day's date.

Tucker Phoenix In: 12:21 P.M. Out: Whenever I care

The front desk man was confused by what this meant. He got up, walked over too the door and exited the checking room. He walked up the stairs to the second floor of the motel. As he approached the seventh room, he counted out the rooms before it all along the way. When he reached room number seven, he took out his master key that unlocks all of the rooms, and placed it in the lock. To his surprise, the door was not locked at all, so he assumed that this 'Tucker Phoenix' was still inside, and he turned out to be right. He opened the door to the small motel room. It had a small bed, an old tv on top of a dresser, and a door that led to a bathroom. Casually laying on the bed was a young boy, staring at the ceiling with his piercing silver eyes, as though he were looking at the stars.

Ehhem the front desk man cleared his throat. Tucker looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Would you mind explaining yourself, young man?" the front desk man said.

"What's there to explain?" Tucker spoke in a deep, mature tone. "I'm a paying customer who rented a room here. That's all there is too it."

"There is more to it than that, mister! 'Out: whenever I care'? What is that suppose to mean?" The front desk man said with an angry expression.

"It means what it says. I'll leave when I feel like it. And don't worry about the cash, 'cause I've got plenty." Tucker said with his eyes closed.

"Well, what about your parents?" Front Desk man asked. Tucker's eyes opened and were suddenly filled with anger. He leapt off of the bed and spoke in a rather dark tone.

"Never mention that word in front of me. As far as I'm concerned, I have no parents. And even if she still cared, my mother would never accept me for two reasons that I will not explain. You wouldn't understand, No one ever will because no one has even been through what I have."

Somehow, the front desk man knew that Tucker was right. He backed up and left the motel room, closing it behind him. After a few seconds, Tucker fell back onto the bed, and after a few more seconds, he began crying. He burried his face in the bedsheets to hide it as if someone was watching. He didn't think anyone was, though. Unlike when those people did those horrible things to Tucker, when all anyone did was watch. He could hear it in his mind, clear as if it was happening right beside his eardrums. He could feel it in his skin, though nothing but air touched it. The cracking of the whip, the flesh on his back bursting open. Warm blood pouring down his back, teeth clenching as he fought back the tears. For better or worse, these sensations were all Tucker remembered of his life before learning about his mother's dirty little secret. Because he will never tell a soul again, I will tell you. Theodore Felix was the son of an important politician. One night, he met up with a young woman at a hunting lodge in Pennsylvania. She had shimmering silvery eyes, and striking Auburn hair. She was the Goddess of the Hunt, Artemis. To this day it is unknown how it is possible that Artemis fell for a man, and that caliber of man much less, but she did. They began dating, and soon, nine months later, to her horror, Artemis gave life to a son. At first she panicked, and sent the child away, but not before killing his father in hopes of eradicating all evidence of her shattered vow. The child was sent to an orphanage somewhere in the mountains of Virginia, and there he grew into an intelligent and capable boy. For years he led a happy life, never knowing his own secret, he was kind and respectful to all others. He would throw his body on a grenade for anyone. However, as the sad story goes, on the eve of his twelfth birthday, Artemis and her Hunters payed a 'visist' to her long lost son. Artemis had decided to tie up every loose end she could to avoid her past. They took him away from the only place he had ever known and to a place so vile it chills Theodore's veins even today. There Artemis tried to drown out her sins through the torture of her only son. The memories still haunt Tucker; so much that they purged all other memories from his mind. But, alas, he would recieve salvation though his rescue by his uncle, Apollo; who saved him and took him to Camp Half-Blood on Long Island Sound. But Artemis' rage was still not satisfied. A month after Theodore arrived at Camp, Artemis claimed him as her own, and almost instantly, he became an outcast, shunned and ignored by all; even those who he had called 'friends'. He should have left Camp that day, left and never returned. But he foolishly decided to stay, hoping that both the campers and he himself could accept this truth. Obviously they did not. He was hated, bullied, and labeled a monster. After two weeks of this, he abandoned his life at camp.

From that dat forth, he has never felt true happiness. He hated his father and his name, therefore he took a new one; Tucker Phoenix.

"Do you really think this is the way for you be happy?" A voice from the bathroom said. A young girl's voice.

Tucker stopped crying and leapt back off of the bed. He pulled out a cigarette lighter from his pocket, flipped it open, and lit it. It erupted into a long gust of flame and materialized as a shimmering bronze sword that hummed at the slightest movement. Tucker pointed it at the bathroom door.

"Show yourself!" He yelled. A young girl emerged from the threshold of the bathroom. She was about ten years old, and Tucker recognized her eyes; calming little flames like a hearth...