Chapter 29
Disclaimer: I do not own the PJ or HoO series by Rick Riodan.
"Where are you two going?" Lucas asks, waking into the living room in his pajamas.
I was currently tying my shoe laces and Nico was sitting on the couch, waiting for me.
"Oh, we're going to meet Will for dinner." I say.
"Ah. Oh, how was prom?" he asks.
I moan. "Horrible. You know last night when you were skeptical on my shoe choice?" I question.
"Oh gods. Was there an attack?" he asks, paling and his blue eyes widening.
I nod and say, "Yea, Callie and her army of monsters came in and caught us off guard. It was just Mo, Nico, and I. So many of the students were killed."
"Is Mo alright?" he asks.
I take a second before I reply.
"Kyra, Mo is alright, right?" Lucas pushes.
"Well, see, Keegan showed up too, but he had sided with Callie. So, he was about to shoot me, and I him. We released our arrows at the exact same time. Someone jumped in front of me and stopped his arrow from reaching me." I say, looking down at my feet.
"Who was it?" Lucas asks, turning to look at Nico, thinking that maybe it had been him.
"Mo. He almost died. If I had had some nectar or ambrosia with me at the time, he wouldn't have been rushed to the hospital. So this morning, Nico and I went and I tried to give him some ambrosia but he wouldn't take it. He actually did die for a couple of minutes." I say.
"Then um, the god of imagination, Leonas, but he prefers the name Walker, who Apollo has basically assigned as my bodyguard, came in and imagined him back to life after I tried bringing him back several times." I say, out of breath.
"Wait, what?" Lucas asks.
"Apollo is worried about my protection with Callie just strutting around town. Leonas owed Apollo a favor so he asked him if he would watch me and make sure I was alright." I say.
"And how long has this been going on?" Lucas asks.
"Well, I just found out about it on Sunday. It's probably been going on much longer than that though." I say.
"Huh. Good to know. So, Mo's not dead?" Lucas asks.
"Nope. He should be going home tomorrow." Nico says.
"Good. Well, stay out of trouble tonight. I'm pretty sure an attack like that will be enough for you for at least a couple of weeks." Lucas says.
"Alright. I'll see you tomorrow, I guess." I say, grabbing Nico's hand and walking out the door.
"So, what are you going to get?" Nico asks.
We were standing in line at Tortilleria Sinaloa. The little restaurant was packed, as usual. But the wait was totally worth it. This place was possibly my favorite Mexican restaurant in Baltimore.
"I was thinking steak tacos." I say, looking up at the menu.
"What about you?" I ask, glancing at him.
"Are the tamales good?" he asks.
"Good? Dude, these are the best tamales in town!" I say.
He chuckles and says, "Alright then, I think I'm going to try the chicken tamales."
"Good choice." I say, nodding.
"Oh, when Lucas was asking about prom.." Nico says.
"Yea?" I ask.
"Why didn't you tell him about Walker sooner? I mean, why didn't you tell him right after you found out?" he asks. Still when he said "Walker", it sounded like he was referring to rotting internal organs.
"Why do you hate Walker so much?" I ask, turning to look at him and placing my hands on my hips.
"Why didn't you answer the question?" he asks, crossing his arms.
"Kyra!" I hear someone call, stopping me from replying.
I turn away from Nico and towards the door to see Will walking over to us.
"Hey!" I say, hugging him when he reaches us.
"Nico." Will says, giving him a nod.
"Will." Nico says, nodding as well.
"So, what's good here?" Will asks, looking up at the menu board.
"Everything." I say.
"Next in line!" the cashier calls.
We step forward, only behind one more party before it was our turn.
"So I heard on the news this morning that there was a shooting at the high school prom last night. Was that really what happened?" Will asks.
"I'm pretty sure you can guess the answer to your question." I say.
"Callie?" he asks.
"You know it." I say.
The next costumers step up to the register, ordering their food.
"Something happened last night before all the monsters came in. Someone I didn't expect to see there, was there." I say.
"Oh yea? Who was it?" Will asks.
The cashier calls us up and we order our food. She hands us our drink cups and we navigate our way through the crush of people over to the drink machine.
We end up sitting at the bar looking out the big window onto the street.
"Keegan." I say.
"What?" Will asks, confused.
"Keegan was there. And he had sided with the monsters." I say.
I was almost afraid to look at Will, fearing what his reaction to this news would be.
I do it anyway. The look on his face was the most devastated look I've ever seen on a person. His whole face seemed to have lost it's natural, happy glow. His eyes were full of sadness.
"Did he say why?" he asks, his voice horse.
"No. I didn't find out. There's something else you should know too." I say.
"What?" he asks, the dread obvious in his voice.
I take a deep breath then say, "I killed him last night."
Will's eyes widen and he practically shouts, "You what?!"
"Listen. He was about to shoot me. We released our arrows at the same time. Mine hit it's target. His though, Mo jumped in front of me just in time. He took the arrow and ended up in the hospital. He's fine now, but still. I didn't want to kill him. He was my brother, after all. He just didn't give me a choice." I say.
Nico walks over to us, having just come from washing his hands in the bathroom. He sees Will's expression and gets a look of knowingness and pity on his face.
He sits on the stool next to me and quietly sips his drink.
"I know exactly how you feel right now. Do you even know how much of a shock it was last night to turn around and see him standing there?" I ask, placing a hand on Will's shoulder.
"I know. I just never thought he'd join the monsters. They killed his parents, you know." he says, glancing at me.
"They did? Then where did he stay when he wasn't at camp?" I ask.
"His god mom's. She wasn't anything like a mom though. I have no idea why his parents chose her as his guardian. Whenever he was home for the school year, she abused him. He ran away a lot." he says.
"I didn't know that." I say.
Our name is called at the counter and Will and Nico get up to go get the food. I sit there and think about what I had just learned.
I had had no idea that Keegan had been abused by his god mom. He had never hinted at it. I guess something like that is something you don't really want to talk about when you don't have to. You can just sort of forget about it for a while.
A/N:
Poor Keegan. Why do you think he sided with Callie? Do you think maybe she hypnotized him into it somehow or do you think it was his own decision?
So, the next chapter is extremely long. It took me about two days to write it and when I was done, I looked at how long it was and I thought, "Holy fuck. Did I really just write all that?"
So, subways are terrifying. On Sunday, my parents and I took the train into the city from White Plains and then we took the subway from Grand Central to the place we were meeting my cousins. Thankfully, it wasn't very crowded because it was Sunday morning, but there were still a lot of people there. It was hot and it didn't smell particularly nice down in the tunnels. Thank the gods I was able to talk my parents into taking a cab back to Grand Central to get to the train instead of taking the subway again.
But, besides the subway ride, I had a good time with my cousins. One of them wasn't able to make it so it was just the two sisters. Then after breakfast we walked around Central Park for a while and the older sister got us sorta lost. That was fun. Then we went to a sort of farmers' market and looked around for a little while. Then we went to the older one's apartment and we met her boyfriend, who's Scottish. After that, they had to start getting ready for work so we had to leave.
So now I'm home. We got back around 6 o'clock last night. Man, it felt so nice being able to sleep in my own bed with my own pillow. I swear, all three hotels we stayed at while we were gone only had feather pillows and those things suck. When you lay down on them, they just sorta squish into nothingness. And the beds weren't all that great. So my bed was very inviting last night and that was the best sleep I've had in days.
XOXO,
Mrs-diAngelo25
