CH 2: The Pines

Hector POV…Six years later…

Thinking. That's the only thing I've been doing for six fucking years. I've been thinking about my friends back at camp. Grover and Percy. I've been thinking about why they haven't looked for me. I've been thinking about how Annabeth selfishly denied my request for reinforcements back on that hill. I've been thinking about what Chiron said;" You have no idea how powerful you are." Nowadays, I try NOT to think. I guess there are worst things that can happen to me besides thinking. There's not much danger when you're living in the woods. Especially the woods of Canada. It was nice living back home in British-Columbia again.

The cool thing about being nineteen in Canada is being able to drink legally. The not so cool part is only being able to drink with my uncle. No road trips, no parties and no girls. Just my uncle Atticus. He's not much of a people person. But what he lacks in social skills he makes it up with sheer determination. He is the most stubborn, hard-working, straight-forward person I have ever met and I respect him for it.

I was pretty content with the life I was living. There was always work to be done, whether it be tending the garden during summer or felling pine trees to make firewood for winter. It was a rainy spring night, I was sipping a can of bud beside the fire in our log cabin. My uncle must have gotten off early from the mill because I heard his truck pull in. The door creaked open, he stormed in soaking wet and didn't say anything.

"Bud?" I asked him, raising the beer towards him.

"Thanks," He took the beer, sat down on the chair opposite to me and cracked it open. "You're gonna need other."

"Why, did you finally invite people over for a party?"

"No," He said with a long pause. "Hector, you're old enough now to know what happened to your parents."

Ever since I left camp with my uncle, he's never told about my real parents. I slowly reached into the bag and grabbed another brew, not knowing what to expect.

"John and Keiara were their names. John and I shared the same mother, but John's father…Ares. Your mother's father…Zeus. You share both your parent's godly genes."

"So I'm some second generation demi-god, is that it?

"Something like that," Said Atticus. "When you were little, all of you lived out of town in a forest not far from here. John made a solid cabin on the mountainside for you and your mother. The place was called Strawberry Hill."

"That name rings a bell. I always heard stories about some forest fire near town. Didn't some asshole throw his cigarette beside the highway and burn that whole area down?"

"That's what the mortals told themselves," He downed the rest of his beer and crushed the can as if it were jelly. "But that's not what happened. There were things my eyes couldn't make sense of that night. Thousands of shadows creeping through the woods. John always saw things differently, but I knew how much danger we were in when I looked in his eyes. You couldn't have been more than a year old and John put you in my arms."

He stopped, stared into the fire for what felt like an eternity. Two more beer cans hit the floor.

"Keiara rushed me down to the river with you in my arms," He continued. "I caught glimpses of your father over my shoulder. There was so many of those things that for every slice of his sword, there were ten more beasts surrounding him. When he lost his sword, he used his bare hands. When they mangled his hands, he used his teeth. I've never seen him fight like that. The last image of my brother that I carry with me to this day is him covered in blood. He gave us enough time to get on a small boat. I remember thunder clouds above us. They were circling your mother, who stayed on the shore. Then all I saw was white. She…She put a fucking lightning bolt right on top of herself. Where she was standing just seconds ago, was now a crater the size of a swimming pool. Half the mountainside was instantly covered in flames. I could hear thousands of painful screams. Every single one of those mother fuckers were burning and it was music to my ears. There hasn't been any of those things around here since. But I didn't take any chances. The only way for me to give you a normal life was to put you in a normal mortal family. So that's what I did. "

"My parents died protecting me…" I said with tears in my eyes. "I see them in my dreams and I miss them, so much."

I bowed my head as tears rolled down my cheeks. Was it my fault? How come my grandfathers didn't help? I felt my uncle's hand on my shoulder, he didn't say anything and he didn't have to.

"Enough of the tears, boy." Atticus said. "A new life is waiting for you at sunrise, get some sleep."

I followed his orders, went to my room and closed the door. On my bed there was old leathery journal that had a note on it. It read; Your father wanted you to have this. I flipped the cover and in the center of the page was a single name in hand writing. Allanzo Ceci, June 5th, 1944.