Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Percy Jackson series or the Heroes of Olympus series. All credit to Rick Riordan.
...
Three things you should know about me.
One. I collect locks.
Two. I like heights.
Three. Yes, it's probably my fault.
Oh, and my name is Thea.
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" My best friend Tess asked nervously looking over her shoulder back down the hallway of the Big House. "What if we get caught?"
She was a short, cute girl with curly light brown hair which she pushed out of her anxious brown eyes.
"Relax." I said with a smile and pulling my kit out of my bag. "Do I ever get caught?"
She raised an eyebrow, apparently not enjoying herself as much as I was.
"Yes." She said fatly.
"Ok but I don't normally get caught." I pointed out.
"True." She admitted with a sigh.
"So stop worrying." I said with another grin. "Chiron's teaching by the climbing wall, he's miles away."
She didn't look convinced. She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced over her shoulder again as I bent down and studied the lock on the office door.
"Besides." I said unzipping the black case and selecting a hook pick along with a tension wrench. "This might be our only chance. Don't you want to get our stuff back?"
"Yeah." She said as I inserted the tools and started to pick the lock. "But do we really need to steal them? We'll get them back."
"Yeah, after capture the flag." I said frowning. "Or are you telling me you don't want your tools while you're prepping for the game?"
She didn't answer but she didn't have to. I knew what her answer would have been. Tess was a member of cabin nine, a daughter of Hephaestus, and her father had given her a box of enchanted tools which was her most prized possession.
Chiron had confiscated them along the necklace my father had given me for my fifteenth birthday as punishment when he'd caught us rigging ink bombs in the armory to the Ares kid's weapons. In our defense, they deserved it, but he didn't seem to quite agree. Apparently they could kidnap the new campers, throw them into the lake in the middle of the night and get off a warning, but when I try to dispense some well warranted, inky justice, I was "crossing the line" and "starting a war between two of the biggest cabins in camp." Ridiculous.
Luckily for us, Chiron hadn't confiscated my lock picking set and I smirked as there was a satisfying 'click' and I pushed the door opened.
Granted, part of the problem might have been I was always messing with the Ares cabin, but ninety percent of the time they probably deserved it. Maybe seventy. Definitely at least sixty-five.
Then again I was always in trouble in camp, at this point it was unavoidable. I couldn't help but break rules, it was in my nature. Literally. Being the daughter of Hermes I was born to break into places and steal stuff. It was in my DNA.
"We're in." I said brightly.
"Yeah, don't broadcast it." she said sounding annoyed. "Just hurry up and find our stuff so we can get out of here."
"Alright, alright." I said rolling my eyes and getting to my feet. "Keep a look out."
I looked around the office grinning slightly. I'd been yelled at so many times I'd practically memorized the messy desk and the pictures lining the walls. I wasn't up there, not that I'd really ever expected to be, but I'd always enjoyed looking at the story board of the past campers, some of them the latest legends in demigod history. All the greats were here, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Leo Valdez, Piper McClean, Thalia and Jason Grace (even if he was technically from Camp Jupiter). My eyes drifted over the pictures and landed on him, of course. Tall, extremely attractive, with neat black hair and deep blue eyes that looked as if they'd seen too much.
"What are you doing?" Tess hissed and I blinked then looked around the room having been brought back to reality.
"Nothing." I said shaking my head but I saw her eyes land on the photograph and she let out an irritated noise.
"Yeah ok." She said sarcastically as I ducked under Chiron's desk to where I knew his safe for confiscated items was located.
Knowing this lock would be much harder to crack, I quickly selected the tools I'd need and got to work as Tess tapped her foot anxiously and glanced continuously into the hall.
Just then, we heard a door slam shut and pair of footsteps.
"That was the front door." Tess said quietly. "We should get out of here."
I ignored her and continued working as the footsteps got louder.
"Thea…" she warned. "They're heading this way."
The lock opened and I quickly started shifting through the contents.
"Oh this is cool." I said pausing to look at a multi tool that looked as if it were capable of transforming into multiple weapons.
"Thea!" Tess hissed. "Focus!"
"Right. Sorry." I said pocketing the multi tool and continuing to shift through the stuff.
I could practically feel the fear coming off Tess in waves. I was almost certain she would bolt and I wouldn't blame her if she did. We were already being punished and if someone caught us rooting around in Chiron's office, well that wouldn't end well. She wasn't as comfortable with mischief making as I was.
"Got 'em." I said locating the battered metal box and the fine metal chain that had wrapped around it's handle.
Some people might not have understood why I would be so desperate to steal back a piece of jewelry, but my necklace wasn't just a trinket. It was made of pure celestial bronze and had the ability to transform into a perfectly balanced sword. It was my favorite weapon, and I was not going into those woods on Friday without it.
"Then let's go." She said motioning for me to get a move on.
I grabbed our things, closed the safe, and sprinted to the door closing it silently behind me as a voice called.
"Chiron?"
"Crap!" Tess whispered her eyes going wide.
I recognized the voice too. It was Aspen, one of the Satyrs who escorted new demigods, and he was about to turn into the hall.
"Thea, if he finds us here we're dead!"
"Come on." I said grabbing her hand and running towards the window at the end of it.
"It's a dead end what are you-" but her eyes went even wider. "Are you insane?"
"It's possible." I said with a grin and pushing it open. "C'mon Fixit."
"Don't call me that." She muttered and crawled out it after me.
"I mean seriously." She said dropping down to the ground and looking up at me as I jumped from the sill and caught the drain pipe. "My cabin isn't the only thing that defines me you know. I do more than just fix things."
"But you DO fix things." I pointed out starting to climb up the drain pipe.
"Yeah, but I do other things too. How would you feel if I called you klepto all the time?"
"I am a klepto." I said with a laugh.
"Yes but I don't CALL you that." She said indignantly. "What the Hades are you doing?"
"Climbing." I said looking over my shoulder and down at her.
"Yes I can see that." She said putting her hand over her eyes to block out the sun as she stared up at me. "But why?"
"This is the biggest building in camp." I said pulling myself over the edge of the roof.
"So?" she asked raising her voice and continuing to squint up at me. She looked even shorter than usual now that I was two stories off the ground.
"So." I called grinning. "It has the best view."
"You're going to break something."
"I'll be fine."
"I wasn't talking about you." She said rolling her eyes as I started to crawl up the slanted roof and look around the camp.
As always, it was beautiful inside the camp borders. Perfect summer weather with blue skies and bright white clouds drifting lazily above the strawberry fields. I could see people walking to and from their activities, talking and laughing with their friends. I glanced at the cabins, they looked tiny from this distance, and I could just see the beach from passed the edge of the woods.
I know some people might think I was crazy for it, but I'd always liked heights. There was something so calming to me about watching things on the ground move from a distance. It was a good place to be removed from it all, it made the constant problems and chaos of demigod life seem less significant.
"Are you done yet?" Tess asked impatiently. "We're supposed to be helping the new campers with archery lessons in five minutes."
"Stop worrying." I said lazily leaning back and putting my arms behind my head while looking up at the sky.
"I'm going to leave without you." She warned.
"I know you will." I said closing my eyes.
"Chiron won't be happy if he finds out you ditched lessons again."
"He's never happy."
I could hear the noise of exasperation she made and had to bite back a smile, but as a thought occurred to me, I opened my eyes and quickly sat up.
"What?" she asked obviously noticing the change in my demeanor.
"That was Aspen, in the Big House, wasn't it?"
"Yeah." She said frowning.
"He was the one who sent the distress signal to camp a few days ago right? The one about being trapped in the warehouse with new campers by the drakons?"
"Yeah, but what does that have to do with- THEA!" she shouted as I got to my feet quickly and sprinted to the highest point on the roof looking at the border of the camp. "You're going to fall!"
I ignored her and searched the boundary for signs of movement. There. A lonely figure staggering up the Half-Blood hill.
"What are you doing?" she asked horrified as I leapt off the edge of the roof, caught the branch of a tree, then dropped lightly to the ground.
"Let's go." I said already running.
"Wait, what?"
But I ignored her and continued my way to the border
"Thea I'm not as fast as you!" she shouted tearing after me.
To be fair, nobody was.
We made it just in time, Tess several seconds behind me and out of breath.
"What was that about?" she asked panting but before I could answer someone shouted.
"HE'S BACK!"
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the hill. A boy, tall and dark haired with tattered clothes crossed into camp, looking bruised and exhausted, as if he'd spent the last week going round after round with a semi truck.
Suddenly, there was a mad rush to get to the boy as what looked like every camper and their sister sprinted to him, but Tess and I hung back. He was quickly mobbed by the crowd, all eager to hear about his latest mission.
"ADAM!"
"What happened?"
"Did you kill any cool monsters? Did they leave behind any spoils?"
"Well," she said giving me a smirk. "You going to go talk to him?"
I didn't answer, I didn't have to. A hush fell over the crowd as three blonde, and extremely beautiful joined the mass and people practically fell over themselves trying to get out of the way of the tallest and the prettiest one.
He smiled when he spotted her and pulled her into a kiss which lead to several wolf whistles and I looked away. The son of Zeus and extremely talented with a sword, Adam was the best hero of our generation, and the most popular guy in camp. It would makes sense he'd be dating one of the Aphrodite girls, and not just any girl, he was dating Crystal Valaria. The head of the cabin and the prettiest girl in camp.
"Does that answer your question?" I asked raising an eyebrow and she frowned.
Crystal didn't like other girls talking to her boyfriend let alone getting near him and she especially didn't like me. It wasn't as if I was afraid of Crystal, she wasn't particularly powerful herself, but she had a lot of influence over the camp, and being labeled the Hermes token trouble maker and thief, I didn't exactly have a lot of friends here.
"I still don't understand what he sees in her." She said flatly looking at the couple. "She's so awful."
I shrugged.
I'd known Adam for a long time. We'd joined camp around the same time years ago, but unlike Adam who was called upon every time there was a problem, I'd never gone on any missions or quests. I didn't know if you'd exactly call us friends, I rather got the feeling I annoyed him sometimes. Because of his father, he had a passion for up holding rules which I'd made a habit of breaking, but we go along as well as a child of Zeus and a child of Hermes could. I even thought we might be friends a few years back, but that was until he started dating Crystal. I didn't know why she hated me so much. Sure I'd played a couple of pranks on her, but she'd hated me long before any of that and had made it extremely clear she didn't want me anywhere near her boyfriend.
Still, I couldn't help but be entertained by him. Older campers were supposed to help out the younger kids by teaching them Greek, helping them with chores, and teaching them to fight and sometimes we just ended up together. I had to admit, I kind of liked it when he was around.
"Well she's lucky she's pretty." Tess said sourly but then something about my expression softened hers. "C'mon."
She started walking and motioned for me to follow her.
"Where are we going?"
"Everyone's come here to see Adam right?" she said grinning. "That means the armory will be empty right?"
"So?"
"So." She said with a grin. "We never did get Ares boys back for bullying the new campers did we."
I grinned.
"We didn't. Do you think it's time to rectify that unfortunate situation?"
"I think it is." she said with a smirk, and together, we started making our way to the armory.