Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait.
thank you to fantasy137 for betaing :)
enjoy.
Chapter 8: Curse
"What's up with you today Lays?" I heard Leo ask.
Blinking hard, I looked up from my pancakes. Why did morning have to come so soon? "Sorry Leo, I didn't get much sleep last night," I apologized. "What were you saying?" That was a bad question because it triggered Leo into a detailed description of each and every contraption that would be on our chariot.
Chariots. They were the talk of the camp! Everyone was so happy that there was no imminent threat... how clueless they were. It made me uncomfortable to think that I was going to be the one to take it all away. A nauseous feeling rose in my stomach as I looked around and saw all the happy faces of my friends. They were my friends. Even though I only spoke to a select few - Leo, Nico, Percy and Annabeth (the latter two only on occasion) - they were all my friends. Okay two of them weren't. Thalia and Jason; something about Thalia made me uncomfortable and it was only right to hate Jason's guts because of what he did to Piper.
"So what do you think?" Leo asked, bringing his ranting to an end and pulling me out of my reverie.
"Huh?" I asked, then I plastered a smile onto my face and with forced enthusiasm said, "It sounds great, Leo! The other teams don't stand a chance." At least something in my life was going okay.
"So how's the chariot going?" Nico asked, slumping down at the table with a cereal bar and a cup of coffee in his hand. I heard the same forced enthusiasm in his voice that I'd had in mine but luckily Leo seemed oblivious. He launched into another description of his handy work, just as animated as he'd been the first time. "Hey," he paused, "since when do you drink coffee?"
Nico took a long gulp of coffee and glared at Leo. "Since now."
"Alright, hold your hellhounds."
Nico ignored Leo and went back to drinking his coffee. I could tell that he was beginning to wonder why we were both dead on our feet, and saying we were both up late eating Happy Meals and drinking Coke wasn't a good enough excuse... to avoid unanswerable questions, I thought it would be best to change the subject. "So, any luck with Piper?"
Leo grimaced then looked longingly over to the Aphrodite table where Piper was happily eating breakfast with her siblings.
"I think she's back with Jason," Leo sighed though his tone implied that he had more than enough evidence to know they'd gotten back together. "Well," Leo said, working hard to sound happy, "I'm gonna go and work on the chariot; try not to drown in coffee Nico." He poked him on the arm then left before Nico could react. Following in Nico's footsteps, I asked my goblet for some extra strong coffee and then proceeded to stare absently into its murky depths.
"Hi." A deep voice pulled me out of my daydream. I looked up to find electric blue eyes staring down at me. Jason.
"Hi," I replied reluctantly.
"Do you mind?" he asked, gesturing to the seat next to me.
I internally groaned but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt (besides, he hadn't personally offendedme). Plastering a big, fake smile onto my face I said, "Sure," in a relatively friendly tone. He sat down and turned so he was facing me. As an excuse to not look at him for a while, I took a long sip of coffee; when he still hadn't said anything I stared expectantly at him.
Over the last few weeks I had developed my daughter of Hades powers so now, among other things, not only could I sense life auras, but emotions as well. Thanks to these handy new abilities, I could sense that Jason was really nervous though he hid it well. "I... uh..." he began, clearing his throat, "I just wanted to apologize, I didn't make the best first impression and now I get the feeling that you don't like me very much."
I couldn't help but laugh, which made Jason feel uncomfortable so I explained, "I don't like anyone very much."
Jason smiled. "You like Leo and Nico though."
"That's different, they're my family... well Leo's like a brother to me," I explained.
"Well you're costing half the camp a lot of money in saying that," Jason laughed.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"A lot of people think you and Leo would be a great couple... of course I think you're better suited to... someone else..."
I recoiled as he started reaching for my face, "What are you doing?!"
He looked at me, confused. Then he realized what he was doing and said, "You... have some hair in your eye."
"Oh," I blushed, "thanks." I couldn't help thinking that of course there was hair in my eye, I had a side fringe! But I didn't want to make things more awkward than they already were.
"Jason what are you doing?" Piper asked, her voice conversational with a hint of charmspeak leaking into it. Things were getting more awkward than they were to begin with... at least it wasn't my doing.
"Talking to Layla," Jason replied, matching her conversational tone.
"Why?"
"She's my friend." Piper didn't look convinced. Well, I wasn't really his friend but I didn't think he was as bad as I'd first thought. "What? Don't you trust me enough for me to have friends anymore?" He had a point. Piper had been super possessive of Jason ever since they got back together; it was kind of getting annoying.
"Of course you can have friends sweetie," she smiled a smile Drew would have been proud of.
"Then why are you all in his face?" I asked. I didn't know where this confrontational manner was coming from, it kind of scared me.
"You've never had your heart-broken, kid." Kid? I'm 15 years old! She's not that much older than me. It really annoyed me when people assumed that just because I was new, I was young. Despite being a child of Hades, I actually managed to somewhat take care of myself out in the big bad world. As for having my heart broken? Well to the best of my knowledge,Piper had lived a nice life up until she got to camp. She had a rich and very much alive father who loved her. It wasn't my fault she'd hated being rich. Her heart was so called 'broken' by her stupid little high school crush or whatever.
"Piper," Leo warned her, coming over from the Hephaestus table to see what was going on. He knew my full life story, and though he didn't know the full extent of my powers, he knew that you don't want to get on the wrong side of me. That said he did know the full extent of Nico's powers and he also knew how protective my big brother was of me –that explained his worried expression.
"What? I'm just saying, she doesn't understand what I'm going through," Piper said. Leo shook his head frantically at her, noticing the subtle drop in temperature and how the sun had just so happened to disappear behind a cloud at the exact moment I was starting to get angry.
"Stop worrying, Leo. I was just saying. You understand that, right Layla?" Piper asked me. I heard the huge dose of charmspeak she'd laced into her voice, trying to hide the slightly incoherent flow of words, but of course it didn't really affect me. "I was just saying how you should stop sticking up for Jason since you don't know how heartbreak can change a person." Maybe if she hadn't said that last sentence none of what happened next would have happened. But that was the last straw. Of course I knew what heartbreak did to a person! I'd watched it change my mother and then it had changed me into what I am today.
"Layla." Nico settled a comforting and restraining hand on my shoulder. He'd shadow travelled to me, having sensed my anger becoming out of control. But he had come too late to calm me, that tugging sensation in my gut had already started and I'd already chosen the perfect curse to give Piper, the girl who suffered from heartbreak.
Just in case you were confused by the sudden out burst, Layla's gone through a lot more crap than I've already said and I'll be making that clear in the next few chapters.
thanks to you guys who are still reading this, your support means a lot to me x
merlinandpercyjacksonfangirl: glad you like it, keep reading :)
Nightlock64: Hm... I might actually do that if I can find the right moment. Of course the next few chapters will be developing on the curse.
see you next time!
