I'm alive! Whoo! But yes, here is the twenty-seventh chapter of SECRETS (if anyone is still reading this, because I'm a terrible person and I'm never able to update).
But in all seriousness, I'm sorry about not updating. I was sick and then my family keeps pulling everywhere to do work around the house, or rather get me out of the house since it's summer. I also apologize for any spelling errors, and if anything is confusing don't be afraid to ask because I'm seriously not sure how I explained this, I'm not that good at explaining stuff. ^^ (I've probably said this like a billion times.)
Anyway, I hope you and enjoy the chapter and thanks for reading! :) 3
Percy Jackson – SECRETS – Chap. 27
Someplace Somewhere:
Rachel was cold, unmoving as she lied upon the small bed in the dark, unfriendly room. But if it was so uninviting, than why could she feel soft, cotton sheets underneath her? And why was the room so warm, the perfect temperature to make it feel cozy.
The servants would come every few hours and she could feel a needle being pricked into her skin every time. They would apologize again and again, muttering things like, 'This is only to keep you asleep' and 'We're feeding you, giving you nutrients to stay alive, miss.' She would become more and more agitated with their visits and would only want them to leave. It's not that she didn't believe them, but rather that she was angered. Why keep her asleep? She couldn't feed herself? What? Didn't want to screw up my makeup or chip my nail polish?
Suddenly a door creaked upon, disrupting her thoughts, and someone stepped into the room, closing the door behind them. The footsteps made their way across the room, shoes scuffing against the wooden floor. Rachel sensed a presence beside her and then it was sitting on the bed right next to her. Fingers traced her jaw line and ghosted across her cheek; she couldn't help but wrinkle her nose in disgust.
"Don't be so cruel." He said and she suddenly wanted to run out of the room, but of course she couldn't even move. "The servants will be back tomorrow to make sure you look absolutely perfect. You'll be seeing your friends soon."
Percy, she thought, Annabeth and Nico. Her mind was in pure bliss, until she realized that a meeting with her friends could only mean bad things for them. Without warning, his voice suddenly appeared next to her ear.
"But do you really want to see them again, because I can promise you that they won't be around for much longer." Thomas said. That stupid, stupid Son of Dionysus. How could Mr.D have had a child so evil, so vile? Pollux was one of the sweetest people she had ever met. How could this man be his brother? The redhead wanted to make a snide comment back, but she couldn't even speak. It didn't matter either way; he was already gone without her even noticing.
Jessica:
No time now, but you are most definitely going to explain.
His voice rang through my head as I walked down the grand staircase and made my way for the infirmary. I didn't need to talk about it right now, heck, if I really didn't want to I would never need to talk about it; even though Nico wanted to know, he wouldn't force me, that's just the kind of person he was. Well, unless you were an enemy, then in that case don't catch him on a bad day.
The hall was silent except for the patter of my bare feet on the tiled floor. Goosebumps started to form along my forearms and I shivered, it was pretty cold in here. Did Lee turn up the air conditioning again? I followed the familiar path to the infirmary, but by the time I got there, I was debating on whether or not I should wake him.
Nico was lying on the cot; two pillows to keep his head elevated and a blanket that covered everything but his feet. I sighed softly, he must've kicked his feet out; he hated having them covered. I made my way over to his bedside and pulled the blanket over his feet. I couldn't disrupt him now, not while he was resting. I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and headed for the hall.
"What? No hug?" He said, voice cutting through the night.
"You could have let me know you were awake." I turned, crossing my arms across my chest.
"But if I did, I wouldn't have gotten that kiss." He said, smugly.
"Oh, well, you got the kiss, so I guess I'll just be going." I made a move to leave, but he stopped me again.
"I didn't get a hug." He extended his arms, the best he could with that broken shoulder of his, and gave a small smile. I sighed again, walking over to the cot and jumping in, pulling the cover over both of us. "You're freezing." He commented.
"Well, it is pretty cold in here at night, and I'm sorry my body isn't built to withstand the burning temperatures of Hades. Your body can change from an icicle to a campfire in a millisecond." I said, a little harsher than I intended.
"No need to get snippy with me—"
"Only you'd say that."
"And no need to comment on my old-fashioned ways, but you are right, my body heat is a little crazy sometimes. People usually always expect it to be cold."
"Your brother's cold." I said, without thinking, and immediately regretted it. Nico took a sharp breathe and pulled me closer, trying to relax himself, but failing miserably. His voice was strained.
"I . . . almost forgot about that. Thank you for reminding me. So, would you like to tell me?"
I snuggled deeper into his hold, "Do I have to?"
"No, you don't." He sighed, fingers combing through my hair. Just as I thought.
"But I will." I said.
"You don't have to—"
"I will, Nico, I owe you that much."
"You don't owe me anything." He objected.
"But I do. I haven't been completely honest with you, besides you've already saved my life." I said, images of rusted knives, fresh cuts, and blood-stained tile floors making their way back into my mind . . . and the way his arms tightened around me, I knew he was doing the same.
"Was he there . . . when I was?" Nico asked. I took a deep breath, finally ready to let all of it out.
"Yes, but not at the same time you were. He had come earlier. I was all alone after school one day and he started saying things to me, in my mind. Strange things. He said I'd die in pain, that no one would be there for me when the time came, I'd be all alone. . .that it would be best to just end it all now. Then all of a sudden I was in my bathroom, knife breaking skin, but I wasn't doing it on my own. Well . . . at least I don't think I was. I was frozen there for around an hour, and then someone was picking me up, healing my wounds, feeding me ambrosia. Saving me. . .you were saving me." My voice was calm, quiet as I explained all of this to Nico.
"Was that the only time he came?" He asked.
"No, there were several more before that, but he stopped once you started showing up." I answered quickly. He didn't respond and after a few minutes of silence I started to worry. I raised my head up; to see if had fallen asleep. "Nic—" I tried to say, but than his lips were on mine and it didn't matter.
He held me close, one hand on my back, the other on my neck, so I couldn't pull away; but who said that I wanted to. My hands fisted in his t-shirt and I started to regret pulling the covers over us, especially with the heat he was producing at the moment. We stayed like that for a few minutes, before suddenly pulling apart, both of us breathing heavy.
"What . . . what was that?" I asked.
"I couldn't honestly tell you," Nico said. "I just—I actually don't know."
"I think your hormones are acting up." I laughed.
"Haha, very funny, but I did want to tell you that, that— I want you to know you're loved." He said and I let my forehead rest against his while a smile slowly force its way onto my face.
"I already knew that." I said and he raised an eyebrow. "How could I not with a boyfriend like you around."
"Don't know whether to consider that an insult or a compliment." He smirked and I gave him a quick kiss.
"A compliment, Nico. I guess now I should be going, you need your rest." I sighed, but Nico only tightened his grip.
"Don't go. Just stay with me tonight. Please?" He asked and I rolled my eyes.
"Alright, fine, but let's get straight to sleeping. You. Need. Rest. No more talking." I said.
"Now look who's being all grown-up, and old-fashioned, and blahblahblah. You're going to start sounding like your mother." He snickered.
"Oh, hush." I said, snuggling closer to Nico and finally, finally letting my mind slip into a dreamless sleep.
Nico:
My mind was chaos, staring blankly at the ceiling. I couldn't fall asleep, even if I was exhausted. I mean, how could I? When she just told me about that whole thing, that whole brother thi—I didn't even want to think about it. Whatever happened in that library, all that armor, it definitely pissed my brother off. But what he was able to do, it looked like he had had everything under control, while I was just a gigantic ball of anger with nowhere to go. But If I could control that like he did, he wouldn't be able to go near Jess again. He would never touch her again, oh hey, look at that I'm getting possessive again that's nice.
Back on track, Nico, back on track. There had to be some way to control that whole build up of power. I'd be able to kill him if I could do that. I know, that sounds a little cruel, killing my own brother, but honestly he was already dead. They only brought him back to capture me and he crossed the line once it came to Jess. How was he even able to visit her for months if he'd only come back a few days ago. I don't understand. Would my dad even care if I were to tell him what he did? Would Demeter care? It was her daughter. Would they even listen? I don't know.
At some point I feel asleep, crowded thoughts still fighting for my attention.
Percy:
"Hey, sleepyhead, wake up." Annabeth said, kissing my temple. My eyelids slid upon and I smiled at the sigh in front of me. It was bright, enough for me to squint against the sudden light change, but also enough for the sun to glint against her golden curls. I raised a hand, running my fingers through her hair, and sighed as I gazed into her stormy grey eyes. "Seaweed Brain?"
"Yes?" I said dreamily.
"You're drooling."
"Wha—aw, man!" I said, sitting up and desperately whipping the drool off my chin. Annabeth laughed, sitting up in bed beside me.
"Don't worry, you're still just as cute as ever." She jumped up off the bed and grabbed her bathrobe from the floor, pulling it tightly around herself.
"I'd rather be sexy, then cute, Wise Girl." I said and she rolled her eyes.
"Come one, there's a lot to do today. We've got a book to read, battle strategies to plan, we have to figure out what we're wearing for tomorrow night." She said, ticking every event off her fingers as if they were things you'd see on a grocery list.
"Can't we just . . . stay in bed for a few more minutes?" I asked, giving her my best puppy dog eyes. . .but of course that didn't work.
"No, because a few minutes always turns into an hour." She said, extending her hand and I let her haul me out of bed. Before she could turn away, I grabbed her by her waist, holding her tight so she couldn't run away.
"You've never cared about lounging around before now. What happened?" I smiled and she stuck her tongue out at me.
"Our lives were never in danger before." She answered and I shot her my are-you-actually-serious look. "Okay, yes they have, a bunch of times, but not like this. This is different, it effects everyone."
I sighed, kissing her before she could say another word. She returned the favor and I could feel her muscles relaxing in my arms. We broke apart and I placed a kiss on her forehead, "You really need to relax, Annabeth. You know, lighten up."
"I will relax . . . once I open that book." She said, breaking away and heading for the door. "Now, get ready, there's something I need to tell the three of you."
"The three of us?" I asked, confused.
She smiled, "You and Nico and Jason."
Luke:
I scanned the room, my mind forming the perfect route I needed in order to get to the table without Lee beating me to the finish. That's when I spotted him, coming in from the family room and I caught his eye. It was one split second that we stared each other down, and the next—
"I call it!" Lee screamed and we both bolted for the table in the middle of the room. He was going to win, but at the last second I tackled him to the floor and used the table to pull myself up first, grabbing my prize.
"WAFFLES!" I yelled gleefully, dropping the last one on my plate along with the rest of breakfast. But before I knew it Lee snatched it off my plate and was holding it high in the air.
"HA!"
"I'm still taller than you, dumbass!" I said, jumping up and grabbing it, but he wouldn't let go. "I won it fair and square."
"No, you tackled me!" Lee yelled, pulling the waffle from my grasp, but I had such a tight grip on it that it broke in two.
"NO!" We screamed in unison, right before a plate, stacked high with fresh waffles, was dropped on the table before us.
"There are always more, guys." Katie laughed, walking back to the stove. We looked at each other awkwardly and then proceeded to grab at the waffles, filling our plates for breakfast.
"Well, one good thing that comes out of this whole mess is that I get to see these two blondes act like idiots again." Beckendorf laughed, flipping pancakes onto a plate.
"Hey," Lee said, his mouth already stuff with waffles. "We're not idiots, we just like brining a little humor into your day."
"Ha, good excuse." Clarisse snorted.
"It's not an excuse! I have to keep up my cheery attitude, especially with you walking the halls, Mrs. Grumpy Pants." Lee shot back and they went off bickering. I made my way over to the table that wasn't cluttered with food and sat down, smiling into my plate; it was good to be back.
"It really is just so great to wake up in the morning and see my boyfriend fighting over a waffle, very attractive I have to admit." Someone said, taking a seat next to me and stealing a strawberry from my plate.
"Hey Thalia, how's your morning?" I asked, nonchalantly.
"Well, it's lovely, how's yours?" She played along, stealing another strawberry.
"It's awesome," I said and then quickly added, "By the way, Thals, you don't have to tell me that I'm attractive, I already know." She shoved me playfully, and jumped out of her seat to get her own food before I could get my revenge.
"Please flirt on your own time, it's 9:00 and you're still all eating breakfast, there's a lot to do." Zoe said, sitting straight up in her seat, arms crossed.
"At least we're all dressed." Lee said.
"She's right" Annabeth said, putting her now empty plate in the dishwasher. "We should get moving."
"Can't we just wait a few more minutes, I mean we fought a battle yesterday." Jason groaned, dropping down on the couch.
"Stop whining." Zoe scolded. "This is a serious matter and you're not treating it like one."
"But it isn't even twelve yet." Percy added and Annabeth shot him a look.
"Hey, has anyone seen Samantha? She hasn't come down for breakfast yet." Katie asked. Most of us shook our heads and others looked around, to check if she wasn't already down here, but I think we all realized the exact same thing.
"Wait, was she even in the infirmary with us last night?" Percy asked.
"I don't think she was." Thalia answered.
"Did anyone see her during the battle?" Nico asked. Again, everyone shook their head.
"Ohmygods." Silena said, grabbing her heart.
"Nobody panic." Annabeth said immediately.
"Do you think she's okay?" Silena asked. "I can't believe we didn't realize she wasn't here!"
"Silena, are you alright? Realize who wasn't here?" Someone asked and all our heads whipped around towards the archway that Sammie was standing under . . . completely unharmed . . . the Book of Heirs in hand. She came to the realization just about the same time we did. "This . . . doesn't look good does it?"
"What the, I don't understand." Thalia said, completely baffled. "I-I don't even know what to say, are you-are you on their side? Do you want to kill your mother? Were you with them yesterday? Where have you been?"
"Thalia I think you're going into shock." Sammie said.
Thalia snorted, rolling her eyes. "Please I'm not going into shock, I'm just surprise and-and confused, you seemed so sweet and nice and willing to help us."
"And I am!"
"And you—wait, what? I don't understand, what's going on?"
Samantha sighed, making her way across the room to plop down in a chair. She placed the book on the table, fingers tracing the swirls along the cover, and remained silent.
"Sammie," Thalia said, softer this time. "What is going on?"
"I'm . . I'm the," She took a deep breath, as if the words pained her. "I'm the only Heir of Hestia, the only daughter of Hestia. And all of your siblings, they want me to take Hestia's position for them, they have no one and they need me."
"Alright, but that doesn't explain why you weren't here yesterday." Zoe said, speaking up. I glanced over her at her and saw that she was staring daggers at Sammie.
"I think she has an explanation, Zoe." I said. She stayed still, pretending not to hear what I said.
"I was with them last night." She admitted.
"HA!" Zoe screamed, making half of us jump.
"Zoe." Katie said, in a firm-motherly tone that even made me want zip my mouth shut, and I wasn't even talking. Zoe shrunk back in her seat, obviously feeling a bit humiliated.
"But I was only there to tell them I would never join their precious little cool kid club. Ugh, especially after what I saw yesterday. To think some of them were actually thought to be good people, I mean do you see what they did to you, it's just terrible. Truly horrible, vicious, and disgust—"
"Sammie, wait!" Thalia yelled.
"What?"
"You know where they were the entire time and you didn't tell us?" Thalia asked.
"Wait, what do you mea—Oh! No, I don't know where they are, they sort of dragged me there during the fight." She said simply.
"Why were you reading the book?" Annabeth said, not trying to be rude, but it was obvious the curiosity was getting the best of her.
"I came back late last night, when I transported myself here. I wasn't really trying to aim for a single spot and I dropped down in the middle of the library. Walked around, came across the book, found some drawings, and then I got curious. So, finally I just sat down in a chair and spent the rest of the night reading it." Sammie explained, and she held the book out for Annabeth to take. "You could probably put it to better use than I can."
Annabeth walked up and took it without hesitation, "You said something about drawings?"
"They were more like sketches and they looked like battle scenes, some random doodles that weren't given much thought, most likely just drawn to get them out of the person's head."
"Hey, I saw those too." Annabeth said, eyes sparking with interest.
"We can talk about those later." Thalia said quickly, "Let's get back to the topic."
"I can't believe we didn't realize you were gone, I'm so sorry Sammie." Silena said, combing her fingers through her hair absentmindedly.
"No, it's alright. I had to get them to stop bothering me." Sammie said quickly, making sure Silena didn't feel bad about it. Because if Silena felt bad, you'd never hear the end of it, she has to big of a heart.
"They've been after you since you met us at the restaurant?" Thalia asked.
"No, they've been after me my whole life."
"What?" Katie asked, sitting down next to her. "How long?"
Sammie's eyebrow furrowed and she looked off into space, as if she couldn't remember. "It started when I was 11 . . . 12?"
"That's when most of us got to camp," Beckendorf said and then added. "Most."
"Haha, very funny, Beckendorf." I said, and he chuckled quietly to himself.
"What'd they do? Visit you every so often or did they hurt you?" Katie questioned.
Sammie sighed, standing up and pushing her chair in, "Listen, there's time to discuss my past later, we don't even have to discuss it honestly, but for now there's stuff that needs to be done, am I correct?"
"Yes, there is," Zoe said, recovering from her embarrassment. "Let's get started."
"One more question." Annabeth said, already looking through the book. "Sammie, who visited you? Just Triton? Or maybe my sister, or Silena's?"
"All of them, at different times of course. Sometimes Triton, or yours, Pollux's brother was never fun, and sometimes Perseus."
"But Perseus has been dead for . . . centuries." Jason said, confused.
"That's what I thought," Sammie said. "But then he started visiting me and I started questioning all the history books."
"That can't be possible our parents brought our siblings back from the Underworld, only a few days ago." Katie said.
"That's where you're wrong." Annabeth said and she looked at all of us. "Come guys, we've got a lot of work to do."
Percy:
Everyone sprung into action.
Beckendorf went to work in the forge, wielding every tool imaginable, fixing up weapons, making Greek fire bombs, and working on things I wasn't even allowed to see. Lee took a risky chance, but he helped us all heal our injuries completely, which was the only thing that could have been done, unless we wanted to go into another battle with still sensitive wounds. Annabeth went into full planner mode, she had moved all the couches in the conference room and set down tables which were quickly covered with books, pencils, and gigantic sheets of blank white paper. At one point, we decided that everyone would be gather in the training room so we could practice moves, teach each other new tricks, and give each other insight on what to expect from out siblings. Everything was going fine, until Annabeth brought up her surprise.
"You want us to WHAT?" I yelled at my girlfriend with a mixture of confusion and fear. Annabeth was calm, arms crossed and dagger strapped to her side. She had asked if everyone could take a break (of course, no one protested) and then she called all three of us to the middle of the room.
"I want you to fight." Annabeth repeated.
"Annabeth, that's insane, we'll blow the roof off this place." Nico said, rubbing his temples.
"That's true," Jason said "We can't just go full out demi-god mode and start slashing at each other with all we got."
"See, we're all against it. Now, let's go back to training." I said, hoping she would abandon the idea.
"I don't want you to fight with swords." She said quickly, trying to change our minds.
"Well, what do you want us to fight with?" Jason asked.
"Your powers, guys, the stuff you were born with." I almost passed the fuck out.
"Ha! We'll definitely blow the roof off the place then. No doubt about it." Nico said, clearly irritated. "Annabeth, no offence, but I can't believe someone as smart as you would come up with such a stupid idea. We're wasting time. Let's get back to training."
"Don't you want to know what happened to you in the library?" Annabeth asked and Nico froze.
"What happened?" Jason asked.
"This one," Annabeth said, pointing to Nico. "Lost control of his anger and suddenly, he was standing there with shiny, new armor and his brother looking at him with so much hate it was honestly scary."
"How'd you do that?" I asked, surprised. This was new, cause neither of us could do it.
"I don't know," Nico mumbled. "I just got really mad and suddenly I felt something surge up inside my chest and 'Look! New armor!' it's not my fault."
"Well, what does that mean? It obviously has to do with the curse, right?" Jason asked.
"Of course," Annabeth answered. "And we can all do it, I mean if the energy takes to us that well."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"To make this easy, since we are wasting time, the way I see it, this heir thing is transferring, or rather copying our parents energy, you could call it power if you want, into us—"
"That's exactly what it's doing, we know that." Jason said and Annabeth shot him a look to stop him from interrupting her.
"Yes, but if the power takes hold of the body to well, then it might actually start aiding you instead of causing you problems. This power isn't ours, we can't control it all that well, but if it fits us well, like a really good new pair of shoes, then it will start becoming your own."
"You're comparing our parents ancient powers to a brand new pair of well-fitting shoes?" I asked.
"Yea, I guess so." She said after a moment.
"And that's why you're my girlfriend," I smiled, kissing her on the cheek.
She laughed, "Well, now that I've explained, go! Start fighting!" And with that she turned around and bolted to the sidelines.
"But we didn't agree yet. . ." I said, voice faltering. Guess there was no way around it, we had to do this.
"It sounds like she wants all of us to be able to do what I did in the library." Nico said.
"No crap." Jason mumbled and Nico shot him a look.
"Well, sorry for stating the obvious but someone at least should so we don't get confused." Nico snapped.
"Guys, looks like we're not going to do anything else until we get this done so Nico, if you would kindly tell us what you did so we can get this over with?" I asked, trying to keep them both as calm as possible. No one needed a real fight right now.
"I don't know what I did, Perce, I just got really mad, that's all." Nico said, shrugging his arms.
"Well, I'd rather do this without fighting." I said.
"What the problem with a little fighting?" Jason asked, unsheathing his sword. "As long as we keep a hold on our emotions, I think its fine."
"But there's the problem," Nico said, poking Jason in the chest. "You won't."
"First, hands off. Second, why wouldn't I? I've got a good hold on my anger, unlike you, who already blew up." Jason spat back.
"Ha! Don't try to be Mr. Perfect, I can name a few times that you've lost it. Get over yourself!" Nico yelled and everyone looked up from what they had been doing.
"If you think I'm that egotistic, you should take a look at yourself—" Jason wasn't able to finish his insult, because Nico sent a right hook flying into his jaw, hard.
Jason flew back, landing on his ass and grabbing at his jaw, looking up at a very surprised Nico. "Jason, I didn't mean to . . ." I took a few steps back, not sure whether they were going to fight or not.
"What?" Jason asked, rubbing his chin. "Didn't mean to let your anger get the best of you again." And with that he jumped up, shocking Nico in the chest, which cause the Son of Hades to fly back a good ten feet.
Well, shit.
