Note from Author: For those who have read Blood of a Mayan¸ this is where you're going to see a few familiar "reveals." This was the original way I experimented with doing the reveals and I hope you enjoy this rendition. And I hope you enjoy seeing how I experimented with a certain someone's magic. ^^

Act III

"You tortured my brother as a trap for Alabaster," Axel stated. His shoulders trembled. As Kally watched, Axel snapped his wrist to the side. Three obsidian blades appeared in his hands. She'd never seen those before and didn't know from where Axel got them. Currently, she didn't care.

Pax had huddled up against the cage beside her, whining at them to leave. They couldn't though. Even if they wanted to abandon Pax, Lamia was standing between them and the only exit and neither Kally nor Axel had any intention of leaving Pax behind.

Kally grabbed Pax's hand. Although terrified and shaking, she sang softly while setting his index finger into place.

He squeaked and shook his head. "No—ay!—there's—there's no time—ay!"

Lamia's eyes narrowed into vertical slits. "I'm not letting you take my bait away. Besides, Ajax and I needed some… catching up to do after he left me without a goodbye." She smiled, revealing a row of fangs.

Axel laughed.

Kally balked at the reaction. She hoped he was just buying them time, but he sounded genuinely mirthful. In the dim flicker of torchlight, Axel's eyes had taken on a glistening golden hue.

"I'm going to rip your heart out, witch, and I'm going to eat it," Axel said with a crazed smile. "I'll absorb your soul and steal your powers and—when I'm done—you won't even remember the sight of your dead children."

The rumbling ceased and the green gleam of the walls dimmed. Lamia tilted her head to one side and sniffed. "You don't smell like a half-blood," she said.

Axel reached towards his face with the blades.

Pax broke Kally out of her paralysis. "Kally!"

She glanced back down, focusing on his fingers. She'd healed one. The palm was still shattered, and the others were still broken. If she couldn't concentrate, she couldn't heal. Despite Axel acting terrifying right now, they'd have to trust him to keep Lamia occupied. She exhaled and used her magic to feel around, where each fracture was, where each splinter had gone, where the ambrosia was speeding along the healing process. Fast. Faster than she'd ever seen. Why wasn't he burning up?

"And even though I'm walking through the valley of shadow I will hold tight to the hand of Him—" Kally sang.

Over her singing, she could hear Lamia chant, "Incantar-"

And Axel cut her off, "K'aak'!" [footnote 1]

An explosion roared behind Kally.

In the corner of her eye, she could see Axel slam into the far wall. Except, he didn't smack bodily into it as she'd expected. He gracefully twisted in the air, hit the wall with his feet, snagged the sledgehammer leaning there, and pounced towards Lamia like gravity had dissolved.

"You think you can kill me with—" Lamia laughed.

A loud thunk resounded in the cellar. Lamia hissed.

"B'alam," Axel snarled. Something sizzled and the reek of blood became gag-worthy. The torchlight flickered to a deep blue.

Kally wasn't even sure who was casting what spell. She didn't know Axel could cast magic. In all their fighting, she'd never seen him do this before, just minor Mist manipulation.

She continued to sing, shocked Pax's anatomy was responding so rapidly. Already, she'd finished up his palm. "Whose love will comfort me and when all hope is gone and I've been wounded in the battle—"

"Give me another ambrosia square," Pax said and reached for her messenger bag with the arm that had been dislocated.

Kally didn't hear at first. She had tunnel-visioned on her healing but flinched when she registered what he did.

"Wha—no—" She swatted at his hand, but he was too quick. Pax popped another square into his mouth.

Kally gaped. "Pax—no—no! Spit it out—you'll—"

Under her touch, his skin felt fiery. His face crunched with pain. "Tastes like candy," he croaked. "Keep singing. You're almost done tormenting my bones."

You'll die, she thought. His cheeks were flushed with the heat. Two squares of ambrosia. She wondered if her singing could keep his stomach from catching fire and destroying him from the inside.

But the healing factor kicked in instantly. Requiring barely any direction, the bones were mending.

Lights blazed behind them. Magic spit back and forth in turquoise and green, Axel's single-word commands cutting off Lamia's Latin incantations. Another rumbling shook the building and black gas hazed the cellar.

Pax's eyes widened. "Hold your breath!" he hissed.

Kally felt something soft flick against her ear and she yelped. She expected Lamia to be right behind her, reptilian claws posed to break her neck. Instead, she twisted into Axel's legs as he crouched beside her. She couldn't see him very well in the smoke and blue-green lighting, but he faced Lamia, hands held up like he was about to catch the ceiling. She really hoped he wasn't about to catch the ceiling.

Something twitched from the back of Axel's belt and Kally realized there was something hanging there.

Axel shouted, "Hanil! Ch'a'ik ilk' hanil!" [footnote 2] and the smoke around them lightened to a grey.

Pax exhaled.

On the list of ways Axel had endangered and then saved her life today, preventing her from inhaling poisonous gas would have to go way up there, as she was in no position to hold her breath. Kally hadn't registered how much of a toll the healing was taking on her until she tried to slow her breathing and found she couldn't.

Lamia knelt—sort of. Her legs were a pile of swirling black sand from the knees down, already reforming. A sledgehammer lay in pieces about her. The calm amusement was gone from her face, replaced by irritation. "Your meddling has ceased to entertain me whelp. You are a favored of Hecate but I am one of her daughters. Your savage sorcery cannot save—"

Axel stumbled backwards. For a horrified moment, she thought he might collapse, then she saw the two strategic things he'd done: he kicked her messenger bag over, knocking her Argonaut statue free and he caught himself on the cage, whispering, "hook'ol." [footnote 3] His grip glowed dimly, and a lock appeared in the upper right hand corner of the bars.

Pax gasped at the sight. Although his fingers should not have fully healed, he snagged two bobby pins from Kally's hair and clamored to the lock.

As Kally slipped her hand around the Argonaut statue, Axel righted himself and stepped towards Lamia. He snapped those obsidian blades out again. With a snarl, he pounced. Lamia wasn't formed enough to defend herself. When Axel hit, they rolled, reptilian claws flailing and—

—Kally gagged—

—Axel bit Lamia's shoulder.

This was a first for Kally, though maybe seeing Axel take a chunk out of someone's skin would bring them closer as friends.

Axel withdrew his mouth, blood gushing over his lips. Kally didn't even know monsters could bleed. From what she could see, Lamia's shoulder wasn't reforming and this was the first time she'd heard Lamia cry out in pain.

But it was a distraction. As Axel posed his blades to cut out Lamia's heart, a green rune glowed above his raised hand.

The lock clicked. While the cage swung open, Kally could hear Pax's desperate, "Stop him!"

"—I'll hang your body as testimony to what happens when you touch one of the Triple A," Axel snarled. He went to plunge his daggers into Lamia's chest.

Kally pitched her Argonaut statue. She didn't have time to do a full-powered wind up, but the metal still hissed into a discus, spinning right at Lamia's head.

"Incanta—" the monster chanted to activate the rune. Instead, she got a full mouth of imperial gold.

Lamia exploded into dust. The rune above Axel faded. Axel's knives clattered harmlessly into the floor. He knelt there, stunned at the dust all over his body.

Although Kally could barely make him out in the turquoise torchlight and grey mist, he looked terrible. His clothing was ripped to pieces from Lamia's claws. There were burn marks all over his forearms and—she thought—some on his face, likely from one of the trap explosions. Blood trailed down from his jaws and… his eyes glistened a brilliant gold—like Pax's hazel eye if it were as bright as the Bat Signal.

Pax crawled out of the cage towards Axel.

Axel dropped his blades and dragged his little brother into a hug. "Ajax—damn it—you should have let me eat her. She'd never reincarnate to hurt you or Alabaster again—"

Although this was not the time, Kally wanted to point out she would have given Lamia that discus sandwich regardless of Pax's warning. Instead, she resisted the urge to ask, "What the fuck" and crawled to hug the boys.

Axel slipped an arm out to pull her into the embrace.

The boys were a mess. Despite Pax's false protests against it, Axel carried him all the way to the van. Axel told Kally to wait inside while he cleaned Pax off. Despite her attempts to give them privacy, she could hear Pax sobbing about what Lamia had done to him. Kally found herself wishing she'd let Axel… stop the monster from reincarnating. She wondered if there was some way she could have saved him from that rune and… what? Made it so he could eat Lamia's heart. She shuddered. She knew she would have to ask, but she wasn't sure she wanted to.

After about fifteen minutes, a full package of Wet Ones, and a change of clothing, Axel set Pax down on one of the couches in the back beside Kally. Pax smelled a lot better. From what Kally gathered from eavesdropping, Lamia hadn't been generous with bathroom breaks. Axel hadn't given Pax a change of shirt yet, so she could see how sickly pale his normally tan skin looked. Although the evening wasn't that chilly, the arm that touched hers trembled violently. One of Pax's shoulders was bleeding. When Kally examined the wound, she realized something very different about it.

"I think the ambrosia healed his skin into the shirt. When I took it off, I had to… to tear the wound back open," Axel explained. His eyes were dark again. From the conversations she overheard, Kally knew Pax had tried to clean the blood off Axel's chin. There were still smears from where it dripped down his neck.

Although Pax had stopped crying upon entering the van, his eyes were puffy and red. He cracked a smile and said, "Axel just wanted to give me a reason to be shirtless around you."

Axel sighed. The motion was so normal, considering the events of the evening, that it felt surreal. "I know you're tired Kally, but could you-"

"It's not that bad," Pax insisted. "It can just be bandaged. In the meantime, you're not allowed to be all bad-ass and invulnerable about those gashes on your chest." Although Pax was trying to joke, his voice sounded weak and scared, a sad mimic of his normal tone. He shoved at the blood smudged across Axel's tattered shirt.

Kally didn't notice. She'd leaned closer to Pax's shoulder, gently touching beside the wound. "Pax, your blood… it's… glittery…" she mumbled. The wound glistened faintly in the van's lighting. Now that she was more relaxed, she could feel out the wound with her magic. The ambrosia should still have an effect, and it did. Since she'd never seen someone take so much before, she couldn't be sure, but it seemed like Pax's wound was healing even faster than it should.

"I like to call it fabulous!" Pax chimed. He looked nervous.

Axel clenched his jaw.

"Have… I never seen you bleed before?" Kally muttered. Now that she was thinking about it, Pax didn't seem to get hurt very often.

"It takes a lot to make me bleed," Pax admitted, voice cracking.

By now, she should be used to the Pax brothers keeping their secrets, but this was different. Kally felt like she'd paid to see a DC animated movie, only to have it be live action. "Is this like, a Twilight vampire thing? You were talking about eating someone's heart." She didn't mean for it, but her voice shook. She dropped her hand from Pax's shoulder.

"Kally," Axel said. He sounded tired and sad. "For another night, please."

"Do you bleed shiny?" she asked.

He gave her a miserable smile. "No."

"I'm special," Pax stated with forced pride.

"Yes… yes you are," Axel agreed. He stared at Kally, his eyes unnervingly steady. "And harmless."

Shame drowned out her uncertainty. They'd helped each other through a lot. The Pax boys did get her into a lot of trouble and were terrified of talking about their heritage, but they'd never hurt her. She'd once promised Pax she wouldn't judge him based off his past or family. She wasn't about to go back on that promise. She'd judge him as the conniving, annoyingly cute weasel he was in the here and now. Weasel with glittery blood.

Kally set to bandaging Pax's shoulder, though—at its current rate—Kally assumed the wound would be healed by the end of the night.

At the motion of acceptance, tension smoothed out of the van.

Once done, she turned to Axel, who crouched beside them. "Okay Axel take off your…"

"I'm going to call it a sex costume. It more gives the illusion of clothing," Pax said.

Axel's hand snagged Pax's ear.

"I'm injured and pathetic—don't hurt me!" Pax squeaked.

Although Axel's cheeks were red with embarrassment, he released his little brother. Kally had never seen Axel give Pax a pass on that kind of behavior, but she figured he was as happy as she was to hear Pax joking around. He sighed, wordlessly stripping off the remains of his shirt and—after a moment of awkward hesitation—the remains of his pants.

Kally had him sit in her place so she could look him over. Pax tapped his fingers together evilly. "Yes, be distracted and mesmerized by his abs. Forget our previous conversation—"

"Shut up Ajax," Axel hissed. "You're not that injured or pathetic."

There were burns all over his forearms, a few on his legs, and some on his left cheek. Four deep gashes decorated his chest, where Lamia must have slashed him with her claws. What looked like frostbite blackened the edge of one calf. As Kally examined Axel, debating on what to heal first, she wanted to curse at him for not saying anything about his wounds sooner, but she knew Mr. Stupid and Stoic would never change his ways.

As Kally knelt down to get a better look at the gashes, she muttered, "Okay, let's get you some ambrosia—"

"I can't have ambrosia," he stated.

"How about a Band-Aid? Can you have those?" Kally asked. She fished around the Pax medical kit for some needle and thread. She would have to use the last of her strength for those burns.

"Cyclops got fangs," Pax teased.

She snorted at him. "Pax, I need you to grab the back of Axel's calf. He's got frostbite. Do not rub it; just keep your hands there to warm it. And Axel…" she glanced up from the needle and thread. His blush was worse than earlier and he seemed to struggle to keep eye contact.

Be mesmerized by his abs, Pax's taunt echoed in her head.

Damn it Pax, Kally thought. Reflexively, she put a hand to her mouth, feeling the heat in her cheeks. She'd been kneeling right in front of him, her hair dangling between his legs as she touched his torso. Kally became painfully aware of how nicely the grey waistline of his boxer briefs contrasted with his dark skin.

When she touched her lips, Axel broke eye contact. He cleared his throat. "Yes?"

She wasn't sure she could do this. "Uh—are you—can I—I'm going to stitch your gashes so I have enough energy to heal your burns," she managed.

He nodded, keeping his eyes on the ground.

"You okay?" Pax asked her, sitting beside her to cup his hands around his brother's calf.

Pax's shoulder brushed hers, still trembling. She glanced over at him, also aware that his chest was exposed. Merry would have been thrilled by this experience. All Kally could think was, stupid, hot ex-circus boys.

"Pax, put on a fucking shirt. You're in shock still and shaking," she snapped.

He gave her that devil grin then crawled to one of the compartments in the van, then returned with a shirt on. He reclaimed his leg holding duty.

Kally went to sit where Pax had been on the van's bench, making her feel like this was a game of Medical Musical chairs. She threaded the needle, pointedly not making eye contact with Axel or Pax.

Axel cleared his throat again and said, "If Lamia was setting a trap for Alabaster, that means he's alive."

Pax didn't say anything. He didn't look at his brother. "You think so?" the question was quiet, all his humor peeled away.

"She would know if he were dead," Axel said. "She has the magic to track him, but he can block that. She'd know if he were dead."

He'd have no reason to hide if he were dead.

Kally took in a deep breath. She poured some alcohol onto a swab and began to dab at Axel's chest, trying not to think about his muscles. His breath remained steady. Although this felt like a private conversation—after the events of the night—she felt the right to ask, "How is Lamia involved with Alabaster? Is that her… other ex-boyfriend?"

She knew Alabaster was one of their good friends from Camp Othrys and apparently he'd spoiled the Pax brothers with lots of gifts.

"Ew!" Pax complained. "No!"

Kally glanced down at his outburst, wondering how—if he had dated that thing—anything could bother him that much.

Pax was blushing. Kally wanted to glance around to see if the Apocalypse was on its way. When the world didn't explode, she stared. Tightness spread in her chest. She'd turned Pax down a number of times so she didn't know why she cared about his ex-girlfriends.

"They're half-siblings," Pax explained, his eyes sinking back to the ground. "It would be gross if you dated Will right? I mean, other than the fact that he's Will."

"Pax, how did you and L-" Kally asked.

Axel touched her shoulder. "Another night," he interrupted.

Kally frowned and tried to distract herself with the task at hand, only to remember she'd started talking to avoid thinking about the task at hand. She debated on asking Axel, "Ready?" but saw he was watching her.

They both glanced away. Kally forced her hand to stay on his chest instead of reaching up to her lips. As fast as she could—pretty fast due to her demigod powers—Kally set to work lacing up his gashes.

Axel's breath became measured; Kally had to wonder if he was counting before inhaling. Softly, he said, "Ajax, we're going to find him."

"Do you think he wants to see me?" Pax murmured. Kally could barely hear him.

"I bet he's just as scared and alone as we were before we found Kally," Axel said with a dim smile. "And he's thinking the same thing—that your last conversation can't be an argument."

Pax made a sniffling noise and Kally was afraid he'd burst into tears again.

For the third time that night, Axel said, "We'll talk about it more on another night."

"I'm buying you a thesaurus," Pax croaked.

Kally tied the last stitch off. She set the needle and thread onto the ground, examining Axel's burns. He brought his gaze back to her, blush gone. "Heal them when we get back to camp," he instructed.

"Camp?" she echoed, confused.

Pax perked up, blinking at him. "Yea, camp?"

Axel nodded. "We're not going to have to sleep in shifts tonight. We're staying at Camp Half-Blood."

Within minutes of Axel driving, Pax squirmed his way into Kally's arms. If Kally could count a single day that Pax wasn't an opportunist, she'd agree to date him. He knew how pathetic he looked right now. She knew how badly he needed a hug. Despite pretending to be frustrated about it, Kally was glad to feel the comfort of his touch. Seeing him in that cage, scared and damaged like a lab animal—it made her feel sick to think about it.

They didn't talk much, but when they did, she made sure it was about light conversations: how she and Calex watched the Manchester United vs. Arsenal game together (Manchester crushed Arsenal), how she'd been caught Iris Messaging Merry in her Chemistry class, how Joey invited all three of them to her and Euna's upcoming hapkido tournament. She didn't mention how—within the same conversation—Joey announced she was going to be dating Pax within the next month. She'd let Joey approach that with him, though she wondered if she'd be allowed to hug Pax like this anymore. [footnote 4]

While she talked, Pax burrowed his face against her neck. He shivered for most of the car-ride. Axel sipped a Monster energy drink as he drove. Kally could see his fingers hesitantly tapping against the sun visor. She'd give him a scolding look in the mirror and his fingers would sheepishly slide away.

At one point, Kally took a few sips of the Monster drink, so she could wake up enough to heal the burns on Axel's arms and face. It was difficult since he didn't want to pull over, but they made good time to Camp Half-Blood.

Once they got to camp, they sneaked around the harpy border patrol with ease. Argus caught them, but he waved them on through with a grunt. When they got to the cabins, Kally hesitated.

Pax had held her hand since they parked the van. At the cabins, his grip tightened. "Come in with us," he whispered.

Axel eyed him warily, but nodded an okay to Kally. She saw no reason to protest. They were already breaking curfew and she didn't want to leave the boys just yet.

Inside, Axel woke up and took Connor Stoll to the bathroom to explain to him what happened. That was as much privacy as could be managed in Cabin Eleven. Meanwhile, Kally and Pax took the two sleeping bags the Pax boys stored in the corner and laid them down. Travis Stoll's loud snores covered most of their movement, though—with it being spring—there weren't many campers to bother. Pax immediately opened his bedding completely, so it was more like a bed than a sleeping bag. He would probably want to be coddled all night, so didn't bother with the illusion of having two separate beds. Kally wondered what Axel would want Pax to do in the morning: take it easy or go straight into training to get his mind off everything.

Once they were done, Pax tugged Kally to sit down beside him in his new nest. Axel and Connor came out. From the way Connor's eyes lingered on Travis, she could tell Axel must have told him some of the details and he was thinking about how many monsters he'd kill to save his brother from that kind of torture. Or he was thinking about pranking him. It was hard to tell with the Stoll brothers.

As Connor walked back to his bunk, he ruffled Pax's hair.

Axel sat down on Pax's other side, resigning himself to sharing the bed.

Kally frowned. She should go back to Cabin Seven, but she wasn't ready to, not with some of Axel's Monster drink running through her system. No one in Will's cabin knew what happened, and she didn't want to explain why she occasionally would shudder at the thought of Lamia taking a sledgehammer to Pax's hand, at the thought of how Pax used to date and presumably care for someone who could do that to him now.

"Kally," Pax leaned over to whisper into her ear, "Spend the night with us."

Axel scowled. "Ajax!" he hissed.

Kally put up a hand to defend Pax's ear. She wanted to stay the night. She glanced hesitantly over at Connor, knowing the counselors couldn't really allow co-ed sleepovers—

Connor rolled heavily into his bunk, so he couldn't see them. "Ahhhh! Man," he yawned. "This cabin's counselor is such a heavy sleeper and such a loud snorer!"

That was the closest thing to a, "I'm a child of Hermes, of course I don't care about the rules," that she was going to get.

Axel sighed. "We're not letting you get away with all of this tomorrow."

"Which is why I need to take advantage of it tonight." Pax grinned.

Kally smiled. Then had a heart attack when Pax pulled her down beside him. Axel looked utterly annoyed as Pax moved them around like a human flower arrangement. No, hm, I don't think the color Axel looks right there-—yep—there we go.

In the end, he positioned Axel to be on one side, backing up into him. Pax tugged Kally into his arms, making her blush that their faces were so close. She'd never shared a bed with a boy. Her mom would kill her for curling up with two like this—

Mom.

Her mom was probably still at her aunt's. Kally wondered if her mom would ever talk to her again. She wondered if it mattered if she—Kally—ever came home. At the thought, Kally was happy Pax already held her.

Pax twitched, making Kally jump.

From the sound of his breathing, he'd been dozing off, but he whimpered, his eyes crinkling with distress.

Kally could hear Axel sigh. He rolled towards Pax, propping his head up on one hand. With the other, he reached across to pet Pax's hair. In a near whisper, he began to sing, "X ciih x ciichpan u, tz' u likil yook kaax; tu bin u hopbal…" [footnote 5]

The song was soothing. Since Kally was used to the constant singing from the children of Apollo, it was hard to impress her, but she would believe Axel was once a backup singer. His voice was raspy and coy; she quickly recognized it from some of the songs Pax played in the car.

Everyone else stayed quiet in the cabin. Either they were trying to be respectful or the Hermes children were so numbed by constant pranks that nothing could wake them.

Pax stopped whimpering. He relaxed into the bedding and Kally could feel his grip loosen around her.

Axel switched hands. He sat up, stroking Pax's hair with the hand he'd been leaning on, and silently reached his other to Pax's utility belt.

Kally tried not to laugh when Axel nicked Pax's arm with one of his own sleep darts.

From how many times Pax knocked Axel unconscious, she suspected some part of Axel must have really enjoyed doing that. If so, he hid it well. Axel slid away from Pax before tucking his little brother in.

When Axel went to stand up, Kally gave him a pleading look. Axel smiled, helping her disentangle from Pax.

No one stopped them from leaving the cabin. Neither asked if the other wanted to, but Kally got the distinct feeling they'd both had enough Monster and adrenaline to keep them going for two more months. [footnote 6] For once, the air inside the camp's boundaries matched the weather outside—pleasantly cool. The moon was a half-slit, providing just enough light to walk comfortably and enough darkness to make the approaching tree line seem ominous.

Axel kept an ear tilted for the patrolling harpies as he led them towards the woods. Chiron kept the forest stocked with monsters for battle practice, but after his display earlier that night, Kally figured Axel wasn't afraid of any monster.

"What song was that?" Kally asked when they were clear of the cabins. She wasn't sure Axel would answer, but she hoped he would. Anything that could calm Pax like that must be some sort of sorcery.

"A lullaby," Axel said. After a moment of listening to creatures buzz and scurry among the ferns, he continued, "Mom and Dad used to sing us to sleep with it. Af—after Santiago… that was the only way I could get the little ones to sleep. When Hiro, Lapis, or Ajax would cry for them…"

Axel stopped walking. They were at least twenty feet into the woods, far enough to get disoriented. When Kally turned to face him, it felt like they were isolated for miles.

Axel's eyes were closed, jaw and fists clenched. He exhaled and fumbled in his pockets.

Kally intercepted his hand as it withdrew a cigarette.

When he scowled at her, his eyes looked frenzied. Then the crinkles relaxed. His shoulder slumped. With the fight gone, Axel looked tired and sad. He dropped the cigarette to take her hand, rolling a thumb across her knuckles. "I should have permanently killed that witch years ago. None of this could have happened if…" He shook his head, glaring at the moss under their feet. "Ajax could have died."

The obvious "but he didn't" wouldn't make Axel feel better. Kally frowned. "You couldn't have known she was going to do that," she said, though that didn't sound much better.

Axel didn't say anything.

Kally examined the worry lines creased between his facial scars. If he keeps this up, he's going to look like a mole rat, she thought. Cautiously, she took a step closer. After taking a deep gulp of night air for courage, she hugged him.

At first, she was certain he'd push her away, or stand limply in her arms, but Axel buried his face against her shoulder and slipped his arms about her waist. You don't need to carry all this alone, she wanted to say, but knew better. Their team leader trembled and Kally couldn't help but observe that the Pax brothers weren't as different as they pretended to be.

"He's safe now," Axel whispered into her skin. "He's safe, and Alabaster is alive. Thank you—thank you for helping me save my little brother."

Kally stroked Axel's hair, wishing she knew the words to the lullaby he'd been singing to Pax. She didn't understand enough Mayan to remember the first verse. Instead, she choked out, "The only people allowed to hurt Pax for being annoying are standing right here."

Axel laughed hoarsely. He pulled back from her shoulder with a smile more appropriate on Pax than on him. "You've become feistier over the last six months," he observed.

The warmth of his hands contrasted nicely with the gentle chill of a breeze. Kally went to put a hand to her mouth, but Axel caught it. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Merry had said something similar a few months ago and Pax had said something similar earlier that night, but it sounded different from Axel. "Your brother does that. He takes perfectly functional people and ruins them," she said.

Axel chuckled. This one sounded more natural. Before Kally could register why he was getting so close, he kissed her forehead. "Seriously," he whispered. "Thank you for helping me get him."

Infuriated, Kally marveled over how Axel was the only man alive that could make a kiss like that feel familial and friendly. She struggled to say something back and failed completely. Finally, she squeaked out, "He's too endearing to let die."

Axel found this an acceptable answer and released her. "Are you headed back to the Apollo cabin?" he asked.

She shook her head. She already wasn't tired. Now her heart was racing.

Axel sighed and glanced up at the sky. Kally wondered if Camp Half-Blood's barrier blotted out the light pollution, because the stars were vibrant. Axel put his hands into his pockets. "I won't get you home before dawn. Should we call your house so they know you're okay?"

"They won't miss me."

Axel dropped his gaze to hers. "Pax and I miss you. When you're gone."

Kally really wished he'd stop doing that. It was like his little moment of Axel weakness—something that most people probably experience once a week and he experienced once a decade—had crushed all his barriers and he felt the need to be as nice as possible to cover it up.

He shrugged, like the comment was self-evident. "Do you want to stargaze?" he suggested. "I can tell you all the Mayan constellations. Grandma used to always talk about them when we visited her."

Damn it Axel, she mentally swore. Aloud, she squeaked something like, "I—um—yes?"

As they found a clearing on the forest floor to lie down on, Kally had a feeling she'd have a hand to her mouth to cover her blushing for the rest of the night.

Footnotes:

1 Fire

2 Purify/to clean air.

3 Appear.

4 This was also experimentation. I don't remember if I've said this before, but I don't actually know which of my characters end up with which other character. I kind of let the relationships form as I write them… which has gotten me into trouble with plot before ''

5 "When the moon has risen over the forest; it will burn, suspended in the air…" A passage from The Flower Song, translated by John Curl.

6 Pax, "Ha ha, get it?! Monster!" Axel, "Shut up Ajax."

Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little side adventure for Kally and the Pax boys :D