keep your eyes open (taylor swift)
Thalia spits.
"First Luke, then you," she says. "I need to stop loving people."
"Aw, you love me?" he mocks, putting his hand on his heart. "That's so sweet!."
She gives him a glare filled with malice as he changes his expression to one with a slightly crooked smirk and raised eyebrows. "Why didn't you want to see me?" he asks.
"Seeing you crazy was going to make me hate you. I don't want to hate you. I - " her voice cracks, "I wish I didn't hate you."
"You hate me?" and then his mouth drops, a little bit - almost like he's disappointed - but seconds later, the corners lift up again into their deranged pattern. "Great. That will make this harder for you."
Then he takes out a sword. Thalia looks at it, resigned to her fate, her head low and ready to be cut off. She is not expecting it to dangle in front of her.
"Go," he whispers, "and raise an army for me."
And it would be a strangely laughable moment if not for the stormy skies in his eyes and the prison cell.
"Do you trust me enough to do that?"
"No. But your alternative is damnation. So choose."
She reaches up for the sword and he smiles. "You always were a survivor, Thalia Grace."
"That's your name too," she murmurs, "come back."
The sword drops into her hand and she sees her shining gold reflection and her own eyes and how she looks, for now, slightly sane. He watches too. Then he frowns.
"I am where I belong."