Lpov
It didn't take long to check Lucy's vitals and demine that she would be ok, and she was already starting to stir as James and Harper made their way back to us.
"How is she?" Harper asked her expression uncharacteristically worried as her gaze darted towards the mortal girl.
"She's fine." I said as Lucy yawned and sat up, rubbing her eyes.
I didn't know why her anxiety over Lucy's condition was such a surprise to me, I mean, I knew they were friends. Then again, Harper had never really been concerned about things like minor injuries or illnesses. Especially her own.
I'd always thought she was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to really be concerned about things like that unless limbs were starting to detach. So seeing her clearly worried about Lucy's condition was a bit odd for me to say the least.
"What happened?" Lucy asked looking around.
"Pulled one to many all nighters it seems." James, who'd been a few steps behind Harper, responded.
His hands were in his pockets again, and by his expression you'd think he was perfectly at his ease, amused even, as if he hadn't just gotten into a fight with a deity and Lucy really had just randomly fallen asleep. But I could tell by the set of his shoulders something was bothering him.
"C'mon Luce." He started the words light.
I noticed that the hand he extended to her was not his right, but his left, which I knew was not the dominant one.
"Let's get you something to eat."
Curious about this sudden shift in his habits, I glanced at his right hand noticing it was still in his pocket. But that wasn't the only thing.
"You're injured." I frowned.
I couldn't see the actual wound, but any medic who was paying attention would have been able to tell it was there.
"Injured?" Lucy asked glancing at James, not taking his hand and looking at him with concern. "How?"
"I'm fine." He said dismissively.
"No, you you're not." I said irritated, getting to my feet from kneeling next to Lucy. "Let me see your hand."
He raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised by my reaction, but I'd dealt with too many stubborn demigods in the infirmary trying to refuse treatment and get back to the arena to be intimidated by James.
Even if I had just seen him knock the crap out of one of the gods…
"James," Lucy said sounding upset. She looking between her brother and I nervously. "What's going on?"
"He's fine Lucy." Harper assured her, her tone uncharacteristically gentle and I looked back and forth between her and James, at this point incensed.
"No he's not." I said grabbing his wrist and dragging it out of his pocket, clearly surprising him. "He's got extensive tissue dam-"
But I cut myself short as I turned over his palm to see the skin on it looked perfect, not just healed, but as if there hadn't been any injury at all.
But I could sense one there.
As as certain as I was however, I could feel it was disappearing. As if the muscle under his skin was rapidly repairing itself. Knitting it's cells back together as if someone had taken the healing process and put it on fast forward.
I stared at him, but he didn't seem to want to meet my gaze.
"See." He said pulling his wrist from my grasp, and holding up his hand for his sister. "Perfectly fine."
Lucy still looked upset however, and when he reached down to help her to her feet, again, he avoided using his right hand.
I narrowed my eyes at this, which wasn't lost on Harper for I saw her gaze dart to me, before settling on James.
"Why don't you and Lucy order dinner from that Korean place on campus that we like?"
"Alright." Lucy said perking up a little, linking her arm with James. "But can we order extra rice? James always eats mine…"
"I have to eat about twice the amount of food as you do." He said incredulously.
"Well then order more!" she insisted and I watched, a little astonished at how quickly the group had gone from containing a literal god, to talking about dinner.
"You want anything?" Harper asked, and I turned to see she was looking at me.
"Want any what?"
"Food." She answered gesturing towards the siblings.
"Oh." I said a little surprised at her offer.
From my last visit to the library, I'd gotten the impression Harper didn't like me all that much, then again, she had invited me back…
"Sure." I said realizing a little too late that I had no idea about place they were referring to or what would be on their menu. "I thought, you know, with you kicking everyone out I was supposed to be leaving."
"Are you going to eat a chair?" she asked raising an eyebrow.
"No."
"Then I don't see why you can't stay." She said with a shrug, pulling the phone they all seemed to have from her back pocket and typing something. Probably a food order. "I said you could come to look through some of the titles we just got in the returns, I won't go back on that."
She looked up from her phone screen and held it up to me in an automatic gesture as she said.
"What do you want? For dinner," she clarified when she saw my questioning expression.
"Just get me anything." I said still having no idea what my options were and she smiled
"I'll make sure it's something James won't steal." She said sounding a little amused, but then seemed to realize what she was doing and looked away a little awkwardly. "I set aside the returns for you."
She nodded towards a stack of books on her desk that had a post it note with my name printed neatly stuck to the cover in the first of the pile.
"Thanks." I said surprised at the quick change in her demeanor.
She nodded again, looking as if she wanted nothing more than to leave and was about to when she hesitated.
"Thanks for your help today. You know... with the situation with Hypnos, and checking on Lucy." She said determinedly avoiding my gaze and I realized Harper wasn't upset with me. She was embarrassed. "You didn't have to."
I remembered how horrified she'd been when she'd realized I'd seen the chaos that was the destruction of the second level, and how Ashton said that these days Harper seemed to have literally no time.
"Yeah." I said realizing this was probably the most vulnerable I'd ever seen Ashton's girlfriend. A girl I'd literally treated for the effects of Gorgon poison. "No problem."
Harper had always seemed like the sort of person who'd had her life together, even before she'd taken over the library. Pretty, popular boyfriend, top ten university, crazy powerful and an amazing future ahead of her. She'd always seemed so contained. As if she'd never needed anything or anyone else.
A part of me had secretly always wondered what it was like to be so self confident. Seeing how things had spiraled in the short amount of time I'd been here however, had me wondering if maybe Harper felt like she was just barely keeping a lid on everything in her life like I always seemed to.
"What was he talking about?" I asked and she looked at me a little confused.
"What?"
"Hypnos." I explained. "When he was talking to James. He said his body couldn't handle… something" I continued trying to remember what the god had said. "Is that what was going on with the injury in his hand?"
She didn't answer, but looked at me, clearly trying to figure out how much she should tell me and what she should say. It was an unnerving look, like I was being X-rayed, and I figured I finally understood what Ashton meant when he said he could almost feel when Harper and her brother were thinking.
It was a little unnerving if I was honest, but it wasn't enough of a deterrent to stop.
"What happened to him?" I asked uncertainly.
I'd heard so many rumors about James, all of them so crazy, I wasn't sure what to believe. But seeing everything that had happened today... How he'd taken on a god and made it seem like his typical afternoon, I was starting to wonder if some, if not all, were true.
"I think that's something you should ask James." She said eventually.
She didn't seem upset by my questioning, but there was a distance in her tone that told me I wouldn't be getting anything out of her.
"I doubt he'd tell me anything," I said more to myself than her in frustration and I looked away.
However, to my very great surprise, Harper responded.
"He will." She said with a shrug. "But you have to ask."
"Why?" I asked not entirely sure as to why, but suddenly burning with curiosity.
"James isn't a liar," she said her tone measured. "But he was for a long time. He had to be."
She made a non-committal gesture.
"I guess keeping the truth to himself is a habit that is hard to break."
"So he wouldn't want to tell me?" I asked quietly, almost ashamed at the disappointment I felt and hoping it didn't reach my tone.
"I didn't say that." She pointed out sounding a little annoyed now, and I remembered what Ashton had said, about Harper being a bit brutal in awkward conversations. Even if she wasn't meaning to be.
She must have caught the tenor of my thoughts though, because her expression changed and her tone softened.
"Look, I know everyone has opinions about the sort of person James is, but he's a pretty normal dude really."
"I'm not exactly sure you're the best judge of normal." I said uncertainly. "You know, really important and demigod super powers and all that."
I was shocked to see that she seemed to consider this for a second, glancing around the library that had recently been the sparring ground between Hypnos and two extremely powerful demigods, and showed it.
"Maybe not." She agreed. "But there isn't much James wouldn't do for someone he cares about, and out of all the people that he knew from back at camp. I'm pretty sure one of the few people that he genuinely liked was you."
A shock went through me and I stared at her, not entirely sure how I was supposed to react to this.
Eventually, I just decide to say exactly what I was thinking.
"Why?"
At this, she again looked amused.
"I think that's another question we can add to the list best answered by him."
….
In the end, I did end up staying for dinner, eating a crispy noodle dish that was so good, it had me wondering if I might consider transferring to Harper's school so I could continue to have access to it.
"Just stick around for dinner every once and a while." Lucy had said easily. "We order it all the time."
From the look Harper and James had exchanged at this, I could tell they were not thrilled about this idea, however, they were polite enough not to say anything about it out loud.
They'd left me to my own devices pretty quickly after dinner, however, I was surprised when Lucy sat next to me at one of the tables, thumbing through what looked like a graphic novel as I flipped through the titles Harper had set aside for me.
"They're like, the sort of people you see on television or in movies, that Hollywood thinks passes for 'nerds.'" I said distracted, noticing Harper leaning against her desk, casually talking to James who as always looked far more serious than an attractive guy in his twenties ever should have, even if he was a demigod. "All cool and muscles and hipster glasses and perfect hair."
His arms were crossed over his chest, and though I had no idea what they were talking about, flip flops for all I knew, he managed to make it seem bad ass.
Lucy looked up from her book and over at her brother and Harper, raising an eyebrow, clearly not that impressed.
"Just last weekend a bat almost flew into James's face. It had gotten stuck in the box of the returns somehow." She grinned. "He screamed like a little girl."
"I can't picture that." I said frowning and she laughed.
"Well it happened. I bet you can't picture Harper slipping into the pool around her mother's statue because she was distracted talking on her phone to her boyfriend either. But that happened too."
"That I really can't picture." I said finding the idea of Harper giggling on the phone with Ashton absurd. Strangely, I could see it on his end however. Though, I wasn't sure anyone his size could really giggle. Laugh maybe, or chuckle, but not giggle.
"Harper and James like everyone to think that they're mysterious bad asses because it helps control the library's image." She said dismissively returning to her book. "But you don't see them broadcasting we have a Disney movie night every other week."
"Are you serious?" I asked looking at her incredulously and she nodded, clearly trying, and failing, to hold back a smile.
"Pajamas required."
"Interesting." I said trying to picture Harper in a fuzzy robe and slippers like my own singing along to 'Under the Sea', but it just wasn't forming in my mind.
"Trust me." She said looking at me from over her book. "Those two are just over scheduled book worms, who wouldn't know what to do with a social life if they had one."
"Who happen to have super powers." I pointed out.
"Yeah well," she shrugged as if to say 'what can you do?', and left the sentence unfinished.
"What do you think they're talking about?" I asked curiously.
"Work probably." She said with a sigh. "That's all James ever talks about these days, with Harper you get a little more variety, school, Ashton, AND work."
"That sounds really boring."
"You don't have to live with them." She said dully. "I tried to get James to start watching an anime with me and he said he didn't 'understand the concept.'"
She rolled her eyes.
"He has no imagination."
"Which one was it?" I asked curiously.
"I can't remember the title in English." She said making a face clearly trying to pull it from her memory bank. "But it's about a girl who has the ability to freeze time."
"Whenever she snaps?" I asked and her expression brightened.
"Yeah that's the one. Have you watched it?" she asked as I closed the book I'd been looking through and picked up the next one in the pile.
"I just started it before finals. Big mistake."
"What season are you on?"
I was about to answer as I opened the book, when suddenly, a column of flame erupted from the pages, scorching the air around me.
I let out a yell of surprise and slammed it shut, feeling my eyes go wide as my heart attempted to pound its way out of my chest.
"What the hell was that?" I asked as Lucy shot me an alarmed expression and I looked up to see Harper and James were running in our direction.
"What happened?"
"I think this book was trying to kill me." I said feeling my heart rate slowly returning to normal, my gaze first meeting Harper's then James's, both of them clearly concerned. It shot right back up when his eyes met mine.
The moment didn't last however.
"Let me see that." James muttered, grabbing the book off the table and inspecting it only to let out an irritated noise.
"Who had this last?" He asked turning to Harper. "Was it Hephaestus?"
She looked at the title.
"Yes."
"He must think he's funny." James said irritated, gingerly cracking open the pages and pulling out a thin metal strip that looked as if it might have been used as a bookmark. "And that I would be handling the returns."
There was a charred symbol carved into the metal. A flaming hammer.
"He left it on the page about dragons." James said darkly.
"Guess he's still upset about the stairwell then." Lucy said raising an eyebrow and James glanced at her for a moment, before looking at Harper.
"I thought you checked these books?"
"I did," she said sounding a little unsettled. "Before the Underworld party got here, I looked at all the returns, I didn't have a lot of time though between changing the library layout and making sure everything was set up. I must have missed it…"
She sounded upset.
"Why didn't you ask me to do it?" he asked incredulously. "Harper, if you didn't have time-"
"You were getting Libby," she said hopelessly. "And this is exactly why Lucy doesn't handle these sorts of returns."
"Sorry…" I muttered feeling awful. "If me being here is an issue, I can go."
"No."
I was surprised that both Harper and James were in agreement about this, though I had a feeling it was less about me and rather the fact that neither of them wanted to admit they might be facing a problem.
There was an awkward pause where no one seemed to know what to say.
"I'll send Hephaestus an Iris message," Harper said eventually. "Tell him this is his only warning. He can't be doing stuff like this, even if he is angry."
"And maybe James should stop kicking people down stairs." Lucy pointed out.
"He had-" James started, but cut himself off, clearly too tired to argue.
He looked at me.
"Are you ok?"
"I'm fine." I said honestly. "Just sort of startled, that's all."
His expression was hard to read, but he definitely looked upset. Whether it was anger or guilt, or just a mild irritation, I wasn't sure.
"I'll check the books again." he said grabbing the stack I'd yet to look through and glancing at Harper. "You call Olympus. Let me know if you need any back up."
"Alright." She said quietly.
The both looked tired and strained, clearly having a rough day, and I noticed Lucy looked upset as they walked off.
"They need help." She said quietly as James sat behind Harper's desk while Harper made her way to a set of steps I hadn't noticed before, clearly about to go yell at Hephaestus for what he'd done.
"Why can't you look over the returns?" I asked and she looked a little glum.
"Well, I can look over some, but even if I can see the world for how it really is, I'm not really like you guys am I?" she asked looking at me a little wistfully. "Going through the books, if I run into something nasty, it would be much worse for me than it would be for you."
She bit her lip, still looking upset.
"Usually things aren't this bad, but after Harper's last semester things have been piling up. It's gotten out of hand, and we're really busy over the summer. I think she and James are in over their heads a little."
"Is there anything I can do?" I asked feeling a little guilty.
I was sure me planning to be here over the summer wasn't going to help.
"No, unfortunately not." She said. "Not unless you had access to the library's system, which you don't."
"Can't you guys like, I dunno, hire someone?" I asked looking around.
I was sure plenty of people would want access to the library more than Harper and James seemed to be willing to give to the average visitor. Judging by the sack of pearls Harper had brought back the other day, as well as a promise for more, it didn't look as if they'd have a hard time paying anyone either.
There had to be some nerdy camper, or even maybe a minor god that had too much time on their hands and would trade stacking shelves for a chance to look through what was in them.
"Maybe." Lucy said with a frown. "But Harper doesn't really trust a lot of people, and I'm not sure James trusts anyone at all."
She sighed, clearly unhappy about this fact, but not entirely sure anything could be done about it.
"If that's the case, I'm surprised they're letting me be here all summer." I said feeling strangely... disheartened. Wondering just how much pull being Ashton's sister had and if Harper really wanted me here at all. The guilt was challenge almost immediatly however.
"Harper knows you," Lucy said her tone dismissive, as if she thought my comment was ridiculous. "She knows you're not going to cause any trouble, but even if she'd been worried about it James would have convinced her. He was on board from the start."
"He was?" I asked stunned, suddenly remembering that James had known I was going to be at the library the first time I'd run into him.
She nodded and I found myself a little uncomfortable when she shot me a smile, as if she knew something I didn't.
"He likes you, you know. I know it can seem difficult to know what he's thinking, but I can tell. James doesn't like a lot of people."
"I'm sure that isn't true." I said not sure which part of the statement I was denying, but she shook her head.
"It is. You think he'd bother taking you to Harper when she was busy otherwise? On a restricted level?" she smirked. "Trust me." She continued slyly. "Before today, I would have confidently said he wouldn't have done that for anyone."
I didn't know what to say to this, so I figured it was best just to keep silent, well aware that I was suddenly very aware of my pulse again. Lucy however, didn't seem to need a response.
She looked completely satisfied with the information she'd dropped, and went back to her graphic novel, though, I was pretty sure behind it's pages she was hiding a bit of a smirk.
Figuring it was best, I followed her lead and went back to my book.
I'd just found a particularly interesting footnote about the roosting conditions of Griffins, Lucy having said she was going to bed about a half an hour ago, when suddenly, I heard someone clear their throat.
I jumped and looked up a little startled only to see Harper standing across the desk from me.
"Hi." I said uncertainly, wondering if I'd over stayed my welcome and she was about to kick me out, but was surprised when she asked.
"Can I talk to you for a second?"
"I'm pretty sure you can do just about anything you want in here, right?" I asked feebly, mostly as a joke, but also slightly curious about the limitations of her abilities.
She didn't smile at this.
I was starting to wonder how Ashton always seemed to be making her laugh, but then again, I wasn't a nationally recognized athlete or over six feet. However I was starting to get the impression that maybe, like me, Harper was just extremely uncomfortable.
What she said next, made me think that was closer to the fact.
"What you did today, for Lucy… It was really brave."
"Oh." I said a little surprised by the complement, for some reason still strangely convinced she was upset with me. "Thanks."
"You didn't have to do it." she continued scratching the back of her head awkwardly, almost as if she hadn't heard me. "And you shouldn't have had to have intervened, especially seeing as you've probably royally pissed off one of the gods, so I'm sorry about that."
That I hadn't considered. I hadn't had much to do outside of camp besides school and the occasional tussle with a monster out in the mortal world. Despite being a demigod, my life had been pretty normal. Nothing like what Harper's was now. Most of the time I was wanted in the infirmary to help people who went off doing brave things. Something, for the most part, I was fine with.
"Do you think I need to be worried?" I asked feeling my eyes going a little wider and she shook her head.
"No. I'll talk to Hades, get things smoothed over but you may want to lay low for a bit in the mythological world, and don't be afraid to ask us for help." She said her gaze meeting mine. "You'll be safe at camp and mostly safe if you're here, but I know you're planning to be out in the mortal world, so just, be careful."
I nodded, still reeling a little that I of all people had managed to anger one of the gods, when she continued.
"Sorry you almost got barbecued."
She did smile a little at this. It was self-deprecating and for once, I thought I saw the younger, less intimidating side to her that I'd known back at camp. Harper had always been confident, but back then she didn't have super powers.
"It's fine." I said shrugging.
I hadn't been hurt.
"No, it's not." She said with a sigh. "But I'm glad you're alright. I yelled at Hephaestus on your behalf. I think he feels pretty bad."
"Thanks." I said oddly touched that Harper would reprimand a god for me, even if I hadn't been his target.
But, speaking of his target…
"Is James alright?" I asked and while Harper's attention had already started to wander back to the shelves, her eyes darted back to me.
"What?"
"Is he alright?" I asked. "I know you don't want to talk about whatever was going on with his hand earlier, but before that, after he'd gone down stairs. When he came back up he looked awful. Like he was sick."
"James is fine." Harper said shaking her head, but she wasn't looking at me anymore. "He needs to sleep more. He's over worked. We all are."
But I could tell there was more to the situation Harper was admitting to me, and I knew, that once again, it would be pointless to ask.
"If you say so." I muttered more to myself then anything and while I could tell this irritated her, she didn't challenge it.
It was clear that whatever was going on here, Harper and James, and possibly Lucy depending on how much they seemed to want to share with her, wanted to keep it to within their circle. And it was also clear to me that even if they were letting me within their proximity right now, that it was something I wasn't a part of.
I found this a little strange.
Even if there were rivals between cabins, there was always sort of an unspoken understanding between demigods that even if we didn't always like each other, we were all a part of the same dangerous club. We might try to kill each other during capture the flag, but if a horde of monsters broke through the boundaries, we would die protecting each other as well.
It didn't feel like that here.
James and Harper might have been demigods, but I didn't feel that same sort of connection with them anymore. That intrinsic tie to Olympus, the instinct of loyalty to the gods and one another. I had no doubt if I was attacked here, they would defend me, but it no longer felt like we were all part of that same team.
It was as if they'd joined their own little society, removed themselves almost entirely from anything to do with their fellow demigods and camp. I found myself wondering if we had been attacked at the camp and they were called, would they even respond?
Surely Harper would. Her brother and Ashton were both councilors there, she wouldn't leave them behind.
But what if they weren't...
If Camp Halfblood and it's demigods were in danger, and no one she cared about was there.
Would she come?
Not that long ago I would have been certain the answer would have been obvious. Yes. Of course she would. But now…
Now I wasn't so sure at all.
She'd said James wasn't liar, but he had a habit of not always being forthcoming with the truth. I found myself thinking he might not be the only one. If the rumors were true, Harper knew every single word in every line contained in the contents of this library. That was a lot of information. How much of it was she holding back?
"Well," she said, and I was convinced she knew the direction of my thoughts, but wasn't going to invite me to ask about it. "Thanks again for your help."
"No problem." I said, wondering if I did have it in me to ask more about James, but she was already starting to walk away.
I went back to my page realizing I'd managed not to retain a single word of the last page I'd read.
I tried to continue, but it was no use. I was too busy thinking about everything that had happened today, and trying to figure out what the hell was going on with James.
Maybe Harper was right. Maybe I should've just asked him, but when he suddenly came into view I quickly looked back at my book.
'Nope.' I thought.
Asking James about his past was impossible because that would require talking to him. And when I talked to James…
I felt something like unease seep through me as I realized even thinking about the situation made it a little more difficult to breathe.
'Stop it.' I thought angrily to myself, refusing to look back up, refusing to even admit that I wanted to.
The problem was, when I talked to James, I started to like him. And I couldn't like him. Not after everything he'd done. Not when Ashton was my brother.
It would have been a total betrayal to the entire cabin, and even if Ashton and I had never been particularly close, I still loved him. He was still family. He'd done me this massive favor asking Harper to visit the library so much this summer, and there were still plenty of good memories with my brother even if I didn't often see him. Goofing off in the infirmary, rap battles late night in the cabin that none of the other campers were allowed to know about. Ashton was terrible at it. I was actually pretty good.
There had been a lot of strategically rhymed verses about his relationship with his girlfriend, even before they were dating, that sort of undermined anyone's ability to take him all that seriously. Ones I was sure he'd never live down.
I grinned remembering some of them.
Keeping this in mind, I determined to be satisfied with possibly never knowing what was going on with James or the trio here.
It couldn't be too hard, right? I just had to not talk to him. And besides, it looked as if left to her own devices, Harper probably wouldn't go out of her way to talk to me.
'Unless you shoot an arrow into a god.' A small voice said in the back of my head a little ruefully and I grinned.
I guess even Harper Davis couldn't be distracted from that.
'Still,' I thought a little guiltily. She had let me stay here when she'd shut the library down for the day. She'd even gotten me dinner with the others, and if Lucy had been believed, James had pushed for me to be allowed to be here.
Maybe I was being too hard on them. It seemed like they had a lot on their plate and not a lot of help. Even with Lucy lending hand where ever she could.
'It doesn't matter anyways.' I thought. 'You're only going to be here for the summer.'
Even if I never figured out what was going on here, it wasn't really my problem. In a couple of months, I'd be back at school and they'd be going back to… whatever it was they normally did.
'Just a few months.' I mentally repeated to myself. 'Just over the summer.'
Then my life would go back to normal and I wouldn't have to think about Harper or Lucy, though that last thought kind of disappointed me. She was actually pretty nice. But more importantly, it wouldn't be that long before I wouldn't have to think about James.
And it would probably be better if it stayed that way.