Travis Stoll was starting to feel worried. And that was really weird because worrying was one of the things he never did. During the battle of Manhattan against an evil Titan army Travis hardly worried. He knew it would be fine; after all, Percy had their backs. Keeping his cool was something he'd always been able to do easily. Now though, he had a strange feeling in his gut that something was seriously wrong.
Yesterday morning everything had seemed normal enough. All the campers went to work, helping to build the warship; all except Connor and Travis. The two pranksters were planning their latest stunt that involved three hundred gallons of rotting milk. It was going to be epic! They were finishing the final plans when the lunch bell rang. Travis jumped up to go straight there, he loved food. But Connor hadn't moved a muscle.
"Connor, come on, if you don't hurry up we'll have to starve."
"I'll catch up with you in a few minutes."
But Connor never turned up for lunch, nor did he turn up for archery, dinner or even capture the flag. He wouldn't miss capture the flag for the world! Travis cursed himself for not questioning his brother's strange response. Connor never, ever turned down food
"Travis, where's Connor?" Chris had asked him last night. Travis had shrugged nonchalantly in response to his half-brother.
"How should I know?"
"You and Connor go everywhere and do everything together. Shouldn't you know where he is?"
Travis had rolled his eyes. "You shouldn't worry so much, Chris." But in reality Chris's words struck a nerve.
So next morning after breakfast Travis finally went to see Chiron. When he figured out where Connor went he was going to kill him! They'd lost in capture the flag because the attack plan was one member short. If his brother would have had his back those stupid Apollo kids would have been no problem. And Connor couldn't just go disappearing. It was a stupid thing to do and no one at camp needed another thing to worry about.
Travis approached the Big House and let himself in. Without Mr. D it felt kind of lonely. He'd never really been a fan of the god of wine but now that he was gone Travis actually kind of missed him. It hardly felt like camp anymore. Mr. D had left, Percy was off at some Roman camp, Katie had ditched him to go to college in Virginia (not like he cared), and now Connor had mysteriously vanished. It just wasn't his year.
Chiron was sitting in his wheel chair, talking to Annabeth Chase. A map was spread at between them and Annabeth was rapidly speaking while the centaur nodded occasionally. They were so absorbed in whatever they were doing that they didn't notice Travis enter.
"Uh… hey," he greeted, feeling a little awkward. Annabeth looked up at him with her highly appraising gray eyes. Her face was practically emotionless, which Travis found kind of weird. Then again, she'd shown few emotions lately, other than her obsession to build the ship. She hadn't taken Percy's disappearance well, to put it lightly.
"Travis… what do you want?" she asked, suspiciously. She'd been a little irritated with the Stolls lately. She seemed to think that Travis and Connor weren't taking the current crisis seriously enough. The way they saw it, they needed to be the ones to cheer everyone else up.
"Don't worry Annabeth, it's not a prank today," he replied coolly, adding a smirk.
"Travis… is something wrong?" Chiron asked, cutting in before Annabeth could respond. He sounded concerned.
Travis opened his mouth and shut it. Was it that obvious that he was worried? Now that he was here telling Chiron about Connor disappearing seemed stupid. It would just be another thing to worry about. Connor was probably hiding somewhere, waiting to pull a prank on him and catch him off guard. He was being stupid. "Well… never mind," Travis answered with a shrug. He turned to leave.
"No, Travis, wait." The son of Hermes sighed and turned back to Chiron. "Just tell me why you came here."
It wasn't ever a good idea to lie to Chiron so Travis just elected to tell him the truth. "Connor's missing."
"Are you sure?"
"I've checked all the places he usually goes."
"Is this a prank?"
"No! Seriously, I can't find him anywhere."
"Are you lying?" Annabeth asked, with an eyebrow raised.
"No! I'm serious. He was just gone yesterday after lunch and that's never happened before. He doesn't usually hide from me… well besides when we played hide and seek when we were little but…" Travis shook his head, trying not to let his ADHD get the best of him. "I'm really not lying."
Chiron looked like he was deep in thought. "This might not be good," he admitted.
"What do you mean?" Annabeth asked.
"Rachel stopped by last week. She told me she had a vision of a kidnapped halfblood."
Annabeth opened and closed her mouth. "Then what do we do?"
Chiron sighed. "I'm afraid there isn't much we can do. There is already so much to worry about and we have no idea where Connor could have gone. He could quite possibly be hiding here somewhere. This wouldn't be the first time."
"The Ares cabin wanted to hang our heads on their wall!" Travis defended. "And besides, I was with him then."
Annabeth frowned. "We'll call a meeting, Travis, and talk it over tonight." He sighed and nodded. Stupid, stupid, Conner.
"I have to go to archery class," Chiron stated. "I'm afraid I've already missed two this week." He looked at the son of Hermes with concerned eyes. "Are you going to be okay, Travis?"
He cracked a fake smile. "Pfft… me? Yeah, I'm fine. I never get any time without Connor. I'm gonna party it up and have some fun on my own for once."
Chiron frowned but stepped out of his wheelchair and trotted off.
Travis walked with Annabeth back towards the cabins. He kept the fake expression plastered on his face but didn't look at the daughter of Athena beside him.
"I know how you feel," Annabeth nearly whispered.
Travis chanced a glance at her and saw, to his surprise, that she had tears forming in the corners of her eyes. He averted his gaze again, not really knowing how to answer.
"Yeah, well, Connor and I don't really have the kind of relationship you and Percy do, if you know what I mean."
Annabeth scowled at him. "You can never just embrace a tender moment, can you?"
"Nope. And besides, I'm sure when you finally find Percy you'll have one of those lame moments right out of a cheesy chick flick where you jump into his arms and he spins you around, you both admit your undying love to one another, run off, get married, have three kids, yadda, yadda, yadda."
Annabeth blinked at him, still scowling. "What the hell goes through your mind, Stoll? I don't even know what to say to that…" She sounded slightly amused and Travis was happy he could lift her spirits, if only a little. But then, once again, her expression became distant. "He won't remember me, anyway."
"No, he'll see your face and all the memories will come back. If this movie isn't rated PG than you'll probably even get a hot make-out scene."
Annabeth shot Travis a look and he shut up. She was about to say something when they heard a muffled thump behind them.
They both quickly turned around to see Nico Di Angelo standing there with a grim expression on his face.
Annabeth gave him a quizzical look. "Hey, Nico, we weren't expecting you until Wednesday."
"Plans change."
Annabeth raised an eyebrow.. "How so?"
Nico tilted his head and answered. "You know, everyday run-ins with immortals. Have either of you heard anything about a child of Hermes in danger?"
"Why, have you?" Travis cut in. He was pretty sure he knew who Nico was referring to.
"Your dad appeared to me about five minutes ago, telling me to save his son," Nico grumbled.
Annabeth was watching the thirteen year old son of Hades with wide eyes now. "I'll get Chiron," she said hastily, not even waiting for further explanation.
Nico watched her go and turned to Travis. "Something's happened to one of your brothers?"
Travis grimaced at him. "Yeah, Connor's gone."
Nico gave Travis a strange look. It might have been his best attempt at sympathy.
"Travis!" Aforementioned son of Hermes flinched. He hadn't heard that voice since the previous summer. "Travis!" The voice repeated. It sounded urgent, even panicked.
"Hey, Katie," Travis greeted, trying to sound calm. However, his voice was an octave too high. Katie Gardner stood before him. She had dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn't slept in a long time. Her chocolate colored hair was tied back in a messy ponytail and she wasn't wearing any makeup. Her green eyes that usually glowed with warmth were dim.
"Your brother," she began, "Do you know where he is?"
Travis and Nico simultaneously shook their heads. She went very pale and took a sharp intake of breath. "Oh. Crap," she mumbled.
"I take it you do?" Travis asked.
She nodded. "Sort of… and it's probably not good news."
"Great," Nico grumbled.
:)
Nico, Travis, and Katie were standing in the Big House with Chiron. Katie had just finished telling them about her dream and Nico was finishing his explanation of his vision of Hermes.
"Well then, I guess it's settled." Chiron said after Nico had finished.
"What's settled?" Katie asked.
"Nico will have to go on a quest to find Connor," Chiron explained. "You cannot ignore a request like that from Lord Hermes himself, especially when he appeared to you under such risk."
"But where are we supposed to even start looking?" Travis asked. "I mean, all we know is that Connor is on the roof of some place in a city that's probably north. That doesn't help us much."
"What do you mean by 'us'?" Nico asked.
"Well, obviously Katie and I are going with you." No one said anything in response or looked at him.
"Travis, it may be best if you stayed here," Chiron began. "Nico has the right to choose his companions and…"
"Look, Chiron, Connor is my brother. I'm not staying behind just to wait," Travis stated clearly with a defiant expression.
"We need your help here," Chiron began but Travis cut him off before he could continue.
"Connor and I have hardly helped this whole time. I need to go find him. I'm going, even if you try and stop me."
There was more silence. "I-I think Travis is right. He has the right to come."
"Katie?" Travis asked, giving her a quizzical look but she continued as if he hadn't spoken.
"Connor is his brother. He should be allowed to go. And I have this feeling that I'm supposed go too. I wouldn't have been given that vision if it wasn't supposed to be me, right?"
Chiron nodded in agreement. "I suppose you may be right, Katie." He took a deep breath and looked over the three halfbloods. "You should leave soon. You have limited time."
Nico sighed. "I guess we don't really have a choice. Travis, when we find your brother I'm going to kill him for getting himself captured."
"Me too," Travis mumbled.
Katie rolled her eyes. "Let's leave in two hours. We can drive my car."
"Where are we going to go?"
"I don't know. We'll work that out as we go along."
Chiron nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately contacting Rachel might be difficult. She is at school and is busy studying for exams. I'm sure if I really tried I could reach her."
"We'll get by," Katie decided after a moment. "We should just lay low with this. Everyone's already freaked out enough."
"Meet back here in two hours?" Travis asked. They all nodded in agreement and ran off to pack.
Katie went back to the Demeter cabin. She had missed it a lot while at school. As she walked in she absorbed the smell of summer and fresh strawberries. She had expected her cabin to be deserted but found she was wrong when she was tackle hugged by her closest half-sister, Miranda Gardiner.
"Katie, I heard you were back but I didn't believe it. Don't you have final exams next week?" she asked.
Katie sighed. "Well, stuff comes up."
"Like what?"
"Like quests and kidnapped sons of Hermes."
Miranda raised an eyebrow. "Explain."
So Katie told her sister everything, as best she could.
"I thought we already destroyed that dracaena during that battle a few years back."
"Miranda, you know nothing stays in Tartarus very long these days."
Her sister nodded sadly. "Are you seriously going?"
"I don't think I have a choice."
"But with Travis Stoll?"
"Yeah…"
Miranda was laughing now. "You know, you didn't seem all that upset that he kissed you last year."
Katie's face flushed. "Miranda, this is hardly the time." Still, she couldn't stop her memories from zooming back to that moment.
The battle of Manhattan was about to begin. The forty half bloods and thirty hunters were about to set off to single handedly hold the inner-city.
Percy and Annabeth had already run off in one direction. Everyone else was making their final preparations and battle plans. Katie Gardner was rallying her siblings, preparing to lead them to Brooklyn-Battery Bridge and hopefully not to their deaths. A few feet off the Stolls were saying a quick goodbye.
"Well, it's been nice knowing you, Travis, hope you don't die." Connor told his brother with a smirk.
"Same to you," Travis answered with a grin. He turned to the rest of his siblings. "But if you do go down at least be sure to kick monster butt first!" They all screamed in agreement. "Now, just in case I don't survive this there was something I swore I'd do before I die." He had a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"Do it," Connor urged, as he smirked.
Travis grinned, ran towards the Demeter kids, scooped Katie into his arms and kissed her full on the lips. Her eyes widened in shock and her siblings watched in stunned silence while the Hermes kids all wolf-whistled and cheered. After a few seconds Travis set Katie back on the ground, winked, and rejoined his cabin mates.
"Oh yeah, Man!" Connor shouted as he high-fived Travis. With that all the Hermes kids sprinted off towards their respective posts, screaming and laughing in excitement, leaving a very confused Demeter cabin gaping at them.
Miranda was stilling laughing. "You can't even deny you like him. Your eyes glaze over in that dreamy way when someone even mentions him."
Katie rolled her eyes. "You know that's not true. He caught me totally off guard last year and I couldn't go lecture him, we had a war to fight."
Miranda smirked. "Whatever you say, Katie."
"You're worse than the Aphrodite cabin!"
"Do you want me to tell them about that incident?"
Katie sighed, if the children of Aphrodite found out about that she'd never hear the end of it. "Just help me pack," she grumbled.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon when the trio finally set out in Katie's car. They had packed the essentials; food, ambrosia, nectar, money, a changes of clothes or two, and their weapons but they still felt pretty unprepared. This may have been due to the fact that they still didn't have a plan.
"So," Katie began. She was driving while Travis rode shotgun and Nico sulked in the back seat. "Where are we going?"
None of them answered. Katie groaned. She had been driving towards New York out of habit but in reality visiting there would not be useful. "Guys, we need some kind of lead."
"The only thing we know is we have to go somewhere that's north," Nico grumbled.
"Okay, north," Katie agreed. "That's not at all vague." She tried to go through all the positives. Connor wasn't dead yet… hopefully and they had her car. Yes, that was good. They had transportation. Too bad it wouldn't last very much longer.
Chapter three is done. Its longer than the first two chapter combined, I think. Thanks to those who reviewed. If you find grammatical errors or problems, tell me nicely. I'll fix them. Review please, because they make me so happy.