Chapter one: Swearing like a Brit. Friday, the fifth of August, two thousand eleven. Travis
The character names of The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are owned by Rick Riordan. The original content, ideas and intellectual property of this story are owned by Separate Entity, two thousand fourteen. Please do not copy, reproduce, or translate without express written permission.
Content Warnings for the chapter: Language, blood, and nudity
"Katie?" I asked, but right then, she went limp in my arms. Great, I thought, not only am I standing here with a bleeding girl, I'm standing here with a bleeding unconscious girl. And now I'm thinking like a swearing Brit. "Connor, where are you?" I yelled again, partly to distract myself from my mental rambling.
While I waited I gave Katie a closer look-over. She had a cut on her lip, as if she'd bitten it. Her hands were scratched, and one of the fingernails on her right hand looked torn off. The rest were painted sparkly gold. There were bruises forming on her wrists and shoulders and, judging from the blood dripping past her knee and leaking through her dress, she must have had a few cuts on her legs or stomach. Most frightening was the blood on the back of her head. Head injuries … those were the worst.
"What in all of Hades is going on here?" my brother demanded as he finally entered the tiny mudroom. In one hand he held a bag of popcorn; in the other was our trusty first-aid kit. The little space was getting quite crowded, really.
"I'll let you know as soon as I find out," I said. "Come on. Kitchen. Now." I pushed Connor out ahead of me, then paused to get a better grip on Katie. It would have been much easier to get her fixed up if she was awake, but I couldn't do anything about that now. The kitchen table was the closest thing we had to a cot; we would have to make it work. And at least Katie was light.
Connor took a few steps forward, then stopped and turned to face me. His eyes widened. Then an intense pained expression settled over his features. "Travis," he said again, "what in all of Hades is going on here? And why are you holding a bloody girl?"
British swears, I thought again despite myself. "I still don't know," I told him. "She just showed up at the door. I asked her why she was bleeding but she just muttered something about Celestial bronze not working on mortals and collapsed."
"Celestial bronze not working on mortals? That's nothing new. Every demigod knows it. Is that Katie Gardner?"
"Connor, as delightful as this conversation is, she's still bleeding. We need to give her some ambrosia and nectar and fix her up." I stepped around my brother and entered the kitchen. "Help me get her on the table?" I asked him.
"Umm, Travis?" Connor asked, "you know she's bleeding, right?"
"That's the freaking point," I exclaimed, starting to get angry.
"And if we put her on the table, there will be blood on the table. Let's do this in the bathroom."
"Do you want to carry her?"
Connor didn't even answer. He just took Katie from my arms and headed to the bathroom leaving me to grab the first-aid kit.
Connor deposited Katie in the bathtub and held the girl's head up while I trickled nectar in her mouth, waited for her to swallow, and then gave her another sip. Her face relaxed almost immediately, and a bit of color returned to it. The scratches on her hands began to close. I released a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "Thank the gods for nectar," I said.
Connor nodded in agreement, but I saw pain flash across his face again, and this time it remained in his eyes. I sighed. "We should probably get her cleaned up," I said. Connor nodded again. "Hey," I said. "You okay, bro?"
Again, he didn't answer. Instead he extended his hand and ran his fingers from her neck to her left shoulder and then down her left hip. I looked on, confused. "She's still got … stuff … on under the dress," Connor said by way of explanation. He began to slide the bloody garment off her body.
"All right," I said. I turned to get a few washcloths. From behind me, Connor swore violently.
"Travis," he said, "you'd better take a look at this."
"What's going on?" I asked, returning with the towels. At first glance, I didn't see what he was talking about. Katie was lying supine in the tub, wearing only a bra and underwear. A few more bruises were visible, but none looked serious enough to get that kind of reaction out of my brother. I looked again, more closely. Then my hands clenched into fists. There were hand-shaped marks on Katie's hips, and her underwear was stained red. I looked up at Connor. "Do you think...?" I found myself unable to finish the sentence.
Connor shrugged. "I don't know. But ..." He trailed off.
"Let's just wash her off. She can tell us what happened when she wakes up."
I turned on the hot water. Slowly, carefully, Connor and I rinsed the blood off her body and out of her hair. When we turned her body over, I saw a riot of bruises on her back. Whatever had happened to her, whoever had done this, she'd been banged into something pretty hard.
Once she was clean and her old dress was in the wash with the washcloths, Connor and I shared an awkward pause. "I'm going to guess you haven't been cross-dressing lately," my brother said without preamble. I just stared at him. "What I'm saying is," Connor said quickly, "she needs something to wear. We're not leaving her like this."
"Give me a second," I said. I left the bathroom and went into Connor's bedroom, and rifled through his drawers until I found an old T-shirt and pair of sweatpants that had shrunk in the wash. "Catch," I said, entering the room again. Connor examined the clothes for a second and then nodded.
"Hold her up for me?"
I obliged. As we wrestled the shirt over her head, I wondered if this was what fashion designers felt like dressing up dummies. I doubted it. Katie may have been light, but she wasn't made out of hollow plastic. Or whatever it was dummies were made out of. Do I look like a designer to you? Didn't think so.
Once she was dressed again, I picked Katie up again, carried her into the living room, and laid her down on the couch. The clock on the TV caught my eye: it was almost two. At least I didn't have to work tomorrow. "I'll keep an eye on her," I told Connor. "You can clean the kitchen and go to bed."
"Why am I always the one cleaning the kitchen?" Connor asked.
"Because you make the bigger mess."
"Do not!"
"Oh, just shut your mouth, Connor," I said. "Denial is not just a river in Egypt."
Connor stomped out of the room in mock anger. I sat down in front of the couch with a sigh. It was going to be a long night.
CUE THE LINE BREAK. IT GOES HERE.
Katie and I hadn't been all that close at camp. In fact, I rarely saw her outside of capture-the-flag, or war council meetings—we had both been head counselors. Though, to be honest, I had spent most of those council meetings lighting things on fire.
We had played some pretty awesome pranks on Demeter's cabin over the years, though. The best one had to be the exploding pomegranates.
Flash back to mid July of two thousand five. Percy Jackson had just gone on his first quest, stopped World War III, blah, blah, blah. As far as Hermes's cabin was concerned, all that mattered was that we were running out of time to pull pranks before we were stuck with just the year-rounders.
Now, the Demeter cabin had a small orchard behind it with all kinds of fruit trees—oranges, apples, olives, lemons, you name it. The tree of interest for this particular prank was the pomegranate tree, because the fruit was almost ready to be picked. (We learned this tidbit from my half-sister Delilah, who had a friend who was a daughter of Demeter.)
One Tuesday, while the Demeter kids had archery, half of the Hermes cabin left sword practice early and snuck into the orchard. As quickly as we could, we picked every last pomegranate and replaced each one with special fake pomegranates that we'd put together the night before. Then we went back to sword class and waited.
Thursday morning of that week the camp woke to the sound of shrieking from Cabin Four. Everyone from Cabin Eleven was up in a start, which was practically a miracle. We headed out the door to observe our success.
We were not disappointed. Everything within fifteen feet of the tree—the grass, other trees, the cabin and campers—was dripping with pink, green, blue or yellow paint.
The trick "pomegranates" had been paint grenades, rigged together so that as soon as one was picked, they'd all explode. At the next council meeting, Katie's face was still the same color as the Wicked Witch of the West's.
A noise pulled me out of my reverie. A soft voice, just one word. "Travis?"
Katie was awake.