Chapter 8; Camp Half Blood

Riley's POV

I woke up to the hum of a ceiling fan. The smell of antiseptic invaded my nostrils. I murmured and sat up but I felt a sharp pain and raised my hand to my head.

"Oh," I moaned. The memories of this afternoon came flooding back to me. I felt a hand on my stomach, softly pushing me back down so I wouldn't get too tired. I think I'm in a hospital of sorts.

"Easy, Riley," Lucas whispered, a smile in his voice.

"Lucas, you came. I'm ok. You saved me." I leapt up, ignoring how sore I was and hugged him tight. It seemed like he was waiting next to me until I woke up. I took notice that my arm is all healed. I drew back from the hug quickly for two reasons.

One; my ankle is throbbing and is wrapped in bandages. Reason two; I realised that Lucas's torso was also bound in bandages, his shirt was on the table, torn and soaked in blood. My cheeks were on fire. I sat back down on the white bed. His hair was wet and so was mine so I guess it must have rained. I had no idea how muscly he was until now. I guess you have to be when you're a demigod. Lucas was looking every inch like a Greek god.

And what did I look like? A wet dog, probably. He smiled at me. "Are you feeling ok?" he asked.

"I suppose so, I feel really groggy and wet and my ankle kind of hurts, but other than that I'm fine." I answer truthfully.

This time it was him who enveloped me in a hug. I grinned and hugged him back. "Don't ever scare me like that again. I thought you were dead." He breathed and hugged me tighter.

"It's ok, I'm here now. Definitely not dead, you're not getting rid of me that easily." I reassured him.

He let go of me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "I, hope so, I'd never want to get rid of you." I smiled. He turned around to pick up a golden drink on the table behind him. I gasped. There were stains leaking through the bandages. The red stood out on the white like blood on snow. The blood stains ran across his back.

"Lucas, your back! What happened?" I quizzed. Oh, this is all my fault.

He chuckled and ran a hand through his blond-brown hair. "Don't worry about it, I just got scratched when we fought off those hell hounds, the wolf things." He turned back to me with two small shot glasses with the honey-like substance.

"I'm so sorry. It's my fault, Lucas. If I hadn't had been stupid enough to wander off no one would have gotten hurt. If I had just-" He cut me off.

"It's not your fault, what happened yesterday is nothing compared some other things I've heard about. I was really petrified and worried, you know, when I heard you scream. It felt like the whole world stopped, and then when I found you like that." He explained, a dazed look in his eyes, as if he was re-living a nightmare. He passed me one of the drinks and finished his in one go.

"Yesterday?" I frowned, sipping the drink. I immediately felt the throbbing in my ankle leave.

"Yeah, you've been out for a day. It's almost lunch on Saturday." I finished my drink and passed the empty cup to Lucas. He turned back to the table and put down the glasses. He took off his bandages and I watched as his raw wounds healed over and left no mark that they were ever there. He took a clean orange T-shirt from a backpack on the floor next to the table. He pulled it on, just as well, I was getting distracted.

"Lucas, what is this stuff? Where are we?" I asked.

"It's nectar, a drink of the gods, in small amounts it heals demigods. If in large amounts, you'll burn alive. Promise me you'll never take any unless one of us gives it to you or you learn how much to take." He told me. I nodded. "We're in the hospital at Camp Half Blood."

A blond girl with grey-blue eyes walked up to me. Her eyes reminded me of Farkle.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Annabeth. Welcome to Camp Half Blood." She looked over her shoulder and waved to three campers to come through the curtain that separated my bed from the other empty ones.

There was a boy with blond hair and blue eyes and a girl with choppy brown hair and her eyes were… I have no idea; they are changing colours. It was obvious she didn't care about her appearance but she was still beautiful. The third, a girl had raven black hair but the same shade of electric blue eyes as Lucas. Her clothes were a mix of punk and goth.

"Hey, you guys gave us all a right down scare when Lukey (Pronounced Luke-ee, like what uncle buster calls Lucas in girl meets Texas part one) carried your half dead corpse into camp." The black-haired girl said.

"Lukey?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, that's what everyone calls him around here." She walked over to Lucas and reached up to ruffle his hair. Lucas pulled her hands away. His hair still looked perfectly roguish.

"No one calls me that, Thalia, with exception of you." Lucas grimaced. Were they an item? I felt a surge of jealousy and the lights in the hospital went out.

"Woah, that's really weird." Thalia said.

"It's ok, I got it." The blonde boy said, he looked at the lights and his blue eyes turned grey and then they gleamed with golden electricity. The lights came back on.

"Wow, that's awesome! Hey, you look a bit like Lucas." I exclaimed.

"Yeah, that's because all three of us take after dad." he told me.

"Three of us?" I frowned. If he means the other brunette, I don't think she looks a thing like Lucas or the other boy. She looks more like me, we both have smooth olive skin, luxurious brown hair, long lashes, strong legs, average height… The alike comparisons are endless.

"Oh, yeah, me, Lucas and Thalia are the three children of Zeus. We all look like him except for Thalia's hair which is a major distinction." Oh, that makes sense now. All that messing around wasn't romantic at all, it was sisterly.

"I guess you're an Aphrodite child then." I said to the other girl.

"Yes, but how did you know?" she asked.

"Oh, it's obvious really. You definitely don't try to look good. If anything you try against it, but you're beautiful anyway. I'm guessing you're Piper. I've heard stories about you. Which probably means that this is your boyfriend Jason." I prattled on, gesturing back to 'Lukey's' brother. I leaned forward to shake Jason's hand. "Have any of you seen Maya, Zay or Farkle?"

"What'd you call me." Jason's face contorted.

"Farkle Minkus, that's his name, my friend." I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, he was here waiting with me. Maya was going to stay too until she met Leo. I sent him to go get Maya when I saw you'd started to wake up." Lucas told me.

"Oh, no. You'd better advise your friend against Leo. Lots of girls fall for him but he's a particularly picky guy. Don't get me wrong, he's my best friend but he'll only take what he believes to be the best. I'll tell you now, watch out Riley. He can be pretty full on when he knows what he wants." Jason warned. I furrowed my brow. What does that mean? By the scowl Lucas sent Jason's way I'd guess it wasn't a complement.

Just at that moment Farkle walked in with Maya, Zay and some other guy. The boy had short brown, curly hair and wore a tool belt on his hips. Maya was laughing and talking with him. Like she did with Josh. I caught Lucas's eye and we both grinned. Maya was falling, hard. When Maya saw me she put two thumbs up and bounded over to hug me. I almost fell off the bed.

"Woah, Maya, hi." I gasped. Wow, she's strong, it's like she has me in a strangle hold.

"I thought you were dead! Don't ever run away like that again. If it wasn't for cowboy you would have died." She yelled.

'Yes Maya, I am well aware of that. I'm a baby and I need everyone to take care of me because I can't take care of myself. Everyone has to protect the plant.' I wanted to shout. But I didn't. Because I'm smiley Riley and I deal with everyone else's problems instead of mine. Just lock it all up inside.

When she finally let me go I looked to the boy Maya came in with. He had a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Who's this?" I asked her playfully. Lucas snorted and tried to cover it with a cough. I shot him a grin.

"Hey, I'm Leo, you must be Riley. Lucas hasn't shut up about you. He's so in L-" The rest of his speech was inaudible, I couldn't understand it because Lucas had walked over and crossed his arms over Leo's face. Just like he had to Farkle when we had the art show and Katy, Maya's mum, didn't show up.

"Ok, who's next?" Lucas laughed nervously.

"Percy!" I hear Annabeth shriek when he entered the room, she ran into his arms. She gave him a quick peck on the lips and held his hand.

"Oh, I'm Percy's girlfriend. I haven't seen him since three weeks ago when he left to find you. He was on patrol last night so I didn't see him then either." She explained her outburst. Lucas let go of Leo, who grinned like a Cheshire cat who'd gotten the cream.

"Bay window, Bay window right now." I pointed to Maya. Then I frowned and turned to Lucas. "Does this place even have a bay window?" I asked him sinisterly, widening my eyes.

He grinned at me. "Yes, but I'm not taking you there until your all recovered. So you'd better hurry up and heal fast, princess."

"Which reminds me why I'm here," Annabeth kneeled down and began to unwrap the bandage from around my ankle.

"Wait." I said hurriedly, and she stopped. I chewed my bottom lip. I was horrified of what I might see. The image from yesterday of my ankle with all that blood and the bone was seared into my head.

Lucas must have read my mind because he sat next to me and gave my leg a reassuring squeeze. "It's ok, it's healed now." he told me.

Maya sat on my other side and held my hand. I leaned on her shoulder, remembering the events of yesterday's attack vividly. The physical injuries may heal but the emotional scars would take a whole while longer to lick over.

"Ok," I said, taking a deep breath. Annabeth continued to unwrap the bandages. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I saw my ankle. It was fine, a little bit pale, but otherwise fine. I let go the breath I had been holding in a sigh of relief.

"You're good to go." Annabeth told me.

"Great," I hopped up and went to put my boots on when I saw that I was covered in dry blood. "Before anything else, I need to take a shower. But we didn't get the chance to pack anything."

Piper smiled. "You'd be surprised how many people forget to pack. Or maybe you wouldn't. I don't know. But because loads of people were turning up without packing Chiron let me and the Aphrodite cabin make magic dressing rooms in each cabin. It's all stocked by Hermes. After your done I'll take you on a tour of camp. Jason is going to take Maya a little later on. Wait till you see the camp fire tonight. The Athena cabin equipped the area with a new sound system so we're doing karaoke! On Monday we're doing a dance as well; notices are on the pin boards in the cabins. Make sure you get a date. It's semi-formal so us girls can go on an outfit hunt, should be amazing."

Maya and I looked at each other and our faces lit up. "YAAAAY!" I yelled. Everyone laughed.