Chapter 14: Past pain, Present problem
"Mind if we talk?" I asked as I sat down next to Reyna at the left side of the boat. She moved and made room for both of us to sit as I got situated.
The Amazon girl looked at me with a semi serious, partly questioning look. "What about?" She asked.
"Not much." I shrugged, trying to slowly ease into the subject so she wouldn't out right try to bite my head off. "I had just heard a lot of rumors back at Camp Half Blood about you and Jason and..."
"And you were wondering if you could ask me about how all that happened and how it affected my decision to become a hunter?" She finished.
"Yeah, that's it." Was all I managed to say, being surprised she guessed what I was trying to say.
Reyna sighed as she flipped her braid aside, then looked at me with a serious look that probably meant she wasn't looking for a half baked answer. "Why are you asking."
"I'm just curious, nothing wrong with trying to know my friends right? And besides, I shared a personal story with you already didn't I?" I asked her, referring to last night.
This caused her to look at me and sigh. "You're right. It's only fair." She said, leaning back on the railing of the boat, looking up at the sky. "It's simple really, Jason and I were friends back at camp Jupiter, we still are, but back then we were...very close, close enough to where if you were an outsider looking in, you'd think we were in a relationship. However that changed when the giants appeared, and when he…" She trailed off for a second.
"Met Piper?" I finished.
She nodded, closing her eyes. "I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous, and upset when I found out but, deep down I think I knew we probably weren't meant for each other. Though that didn't stop me from lashing out at Piper, and looking back, I honestly wish I'd been more understanding, and not shown such weakness."
That statement really made me wanna punch something. Show weakness? What kind of stuff were they teaching them at camp Jupiter?! I decided to say this piece of my mind out loud.
"Yeah, well you know what I think?" I said, trying my damndest not to sound angry. "I think that showing what's in your heart, no matter if it's through sadness or bursts of anger and not giving a damn about what people say about it isn't weakness, it's the most powerful kind of strength."
The former Pretor turned her head to look at me, surprise painted all over her face. I looked her straight in the eye and I told her.
"It's true, maybe Jason and you weren't 'made' for each other, maybe it was best if he got with Piper, but I know one thing's for sure. Any guy who would reject a woman as strong, brave, and (oh gods help me now) beautiful as you, is either crazy or dumb as hell." I said, my face heating as my cheeks went pink. I got up tried to face away from her. "And I'll be damned if anyone tells me otherwise!"
With that I quickly made my way below deck where Robin kept all his drinks and food. I took a bottle of water out of the fridge and started drinking it, my little monologue there having caused my throat to go dry.
I put a hand on my heart, it was still racing. Why did I even say that?! What was I out of my mind? Was I just talking outta my ass? What was that?! Hell, I didn't even know why I said that! What was wrong with me?!
I chugged down the water before I heard a voice. "Hey slow down, you're gonna choke." A male voice said from behind me.
I nearly did a spit take, causing the water to go down my windpipe and caused me to choke. I coughed and sputtered as I looked to see who it was, it was Jason, he was leaning against the frame of doorway in front of stairs leading down from the main deck.
"Wha-*cough cough* What, *hack* do you want Grace?" I asked, he was not the person I wanted to see me like this right now.
"You left in a hurry. Something wrong?" He asked, walking into the room to where we were a good two feet apart.
I set down my water and then thumped my chest a couple times, coughed, cleared my throat and then took a quick breath. "No, nothing's wrong, I just needed to cool down, it's hot out there." I lied.
"It's only Seventy two degrees…" Jason stated.
"Shut up." I said as I drank some more water, which finally cooled down my face. I turned to face him as my heart rate returned to normal. "What are you really doing down here?"
"You left in a hurry after you talked to Reyna, everything okay?" He asked.
"Oh you saw that?" I asked, again, habit of stating the obvious. "Yeah I'm fine, you didn't happen to hear any of that did you?"
Jason shook his head as he pulled out a Bluetooth earbud from his left ear. "No, I had these in. Sorry."
I gave a silent sigh of relief, that was really lucky. "That's fine." I said as I sat down on a bench. "So since I got you here, mind if I ask you something?"
Jason sat down on the bench next to me and looked at me. "Okay what is it?"
"Have you and Reyna ever, ya know, dated at all? Before you met Piper?" I asked this question just to be absolutely sure that Reyna's story was accurate.
The son of Jupiter shook his head in reply. "No." He said, his tone was pretty solid, like this was subject he didn't like dwelling on for long.
I nodded. "Reyna said something similar. Okay, next question, did you ever like, question your love for Piper? Like maybe you thought it was all in your head?"
That caused his brows to furrow. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "There was this one time, yeah, that thought it was a trick from the mist or her charmspeak, but I eventually got over that suspicion."
I nodded, I heard about Charmspeak before. It was a rare ability given to children of Aphrodite to be able to charm someone into doing what they wanted. I remember that this one time Piper's sister Drew Tanaka tried to use it on me, but since I'm a Son of Tartarus, it didn't work Whatsoever.
"So why are you so curious all of a sudden?" Jason finally asked.
"Robin said he sensed something awkward going on between you two and I was curious as to what it was." I told him. He gave me a weird look. "He's really good at reading people."
"Oh." He nodded. "Did we satisfy your curiosity?"
"Yeah, I'd say so." I nodded as I threw away my empty water bottle. We were quiet for awhile before we felt the boat lurch to the side. "What the hell? What's going on?"
The two of us ran up to the main deck and saw Robin was trying to straighten the boat. "What happened?" I asked as I ran up to him.
"I don't know, something just dashed in front of boat, so I swerved out of the way to miss it." Robin said. "And whatever it was, it was fast."
I looked around, I couldn't see anything, but I could definitely hear something. It sounded like something was whooshing around the boat at top speed.
The noise kept going around us for a few seconds before it disappeared. "Well it's gone now." I said, I adjusted Suppressor, which had just gotten heavier again. "But I doubt that'll be for long."
I ran over to Reyna, who had her knife out, looking on guard. "You okay?" I asked.
She turned to me and nodded. "I am now, I can't believe something tried to attack us."
"Well. At least we know that the prophecy wasn't kidding, we really do need to beware the sky." I said as I looked up behind us, something had dashed away too fast for me to see, we had an aerial attacker, and something told me this wasn't the last we'd see the last of it, whoever or whatever it was.
(Third person POV)
The black blur stopped dashing around after getting back around twenty or thirty yards away from the boat. It now seemed to have a human shape.
The figure looked like a boy about thirteen years old or so, with black hair that was shaved off on both sides, leaving a Mohawk that dropped to the right side of his head. The boy also had tan skin and the same ethereal green eyes as Nigel, and the same build, but was shorter. He wore some black cargo pants, purple greaves, a black vest, and lastly, he had on a Camp Jupiter shirt. Which matched the brand on his arm, which was the symbol of Tartarus.
"Looks like I finally found you...big brother." The boy said as darkness surrounded him and he disappeared.
DUN DUN DUN! New character is here. which means he needs a name. Leave your suggestions in the review section and I'll be holding a poll on my profile to decide on the name from a few of those, the winner will be the name I use for this new character!