I was half asleep when Annabeth and Malcolm came back. I hear them standing outside talking. "What are we going to tell Lexie?" Malcolm said in a muffled voice.

"I don't know Mal, we'll have to tell her in the morning. She thinks he's still coming back." Said Annabeth quietly. "Chiron said that he was sent to scout out mount Tamalpais right?" Malcolm didn't answer as far as I knew. "Lets go inside, we'll have to tell her in the morning."

Before they entered the cabin I rolled on my back and attempted to make it look like I was asleep. I could hear Malcolm climbing the small ladder to his bed while Annabeth got ready for bed. "Night Malcolm." She spoke before rolling over. "Oh and Sean, go to sleep."

"Damn it." I cursed silently as I rolled on my side and went to sleep.

Annabeth had Lexie speak with her privately the next morning. When they came back she seemed a little off and she looked like she had been crying. She sat between me and Malcolm during breakfast.

"Lex, is everything okay?" I asked. Annabeth shook her head at me. Great, another bad idea. Maybe I should just not talk. Lexie just shrugged and looked at her food, moving it around with her fork but never eating it. Screw it. "If something's wrong Lexie, tell me."

She stood up from her seat and ran out of the dining pavilion crying. Yep, just can't win. "I should go after her huh?"

"No, stay around, she needs some space. She's going through alot right now." Malcolm ordered.

I sighed. "I guess you're right." I looked over at Annabeth. "What did you tell her?"

"It's kind of complicated." She paused. "You heard about last year's battle against Kronos?" I nodded. "Well, her boyfriend and a few other campers were sent to check the situation with Mount Tamalpais, it was the Titan headquarters during the war." she continued. "But when the campers came back her boyfriend was one of the ones that didn't come back."

"Do you know what happened to him and the others?" I asked.

"More or less." She obviously wasn't going to tell me so I looked to Malcolm and he didn't say anything. "Sorry, but I can't tell you, Chiron's orders."

"Is anybody looking for him?"

She nodded, but didn't say who. "Why don't you go down to the archery range, we'll all meet you down there." I rolled my eyes, but did as she said.

I approached the archery range. It had a white wooden fence around it and it was pointed towards the ocean. There were already a few kids there and they were busy shooting arrows at the straw targets at the other side of the range. I took one of the bows off the the rack and walked over to one of the targets.

"Hey!" someone shouted from the range. It was Ellie. "What you doing around here?" She asked cheerfully.

"Hey Ellie, you training with us today?" I asked notched one of the arrows. "I was banished here by Annabeth." I joked before letting my arrow fly and hitting the edge of the target.

"You suck. No wonder she sent you here." She laughed. "And yes, so lets see who's better with a bow." She pulled back an arrow and launched it at the target. It hit dead center. "Beat that Ginger."

I rolled my eyes. "Shut up Sneakers."

"Don't ever say that again. It's not my fault that a shoe company is named after my mother." she said, slightly irritated.

"Well its not my fault I'm a ginger."

"Just go." She said impatiently.

I notched a second arrow. This time I took my time, aiming more to the left because of the wind. Once I was confident that I would at least hit the target I released the arrow. It struck a lot closer to the center - not that it needed much improvement. "Well, I'm not going to be the next Top Shot, but thats better."

"I think you still suck, you should try this." She placed her hands around mine and changed my positioning. "Now, hold the arrow like this." Ellie instructed moving my fingers around the arrow's nock - its the back of the arrow. "Okay, now fire it." I brought the arrow back again, aimed to the right this time and released the arrow from my grasp. It struck a centimeter from the center dot. "Well, I think I win this." she smirked.

"Maybe I'm just letting the pretty girl win." I smiled.

She grinned. "Keep telling yourself that. It's cute." Then she grabbed her bow and left to join her brothers.

I stayed there for a few more minutes shooting the target. I didn't improve much, but atleast I was hitting the target. Lexie was the first of my siblings to arrive. Her eyes were a bright red and she appeared to have been crying. She stood next to me, but didn't speak.

"Hey Lex."

"Hi." She mumbled.

"I'm sorry for what I asked this morning, I know it's hard for you to talk about." I apologized.

She sighed, "It's fine, I just really don't feel like talking about it right now."

"It's fine, take your time. Lets see how good you are with a bow." I said, holding a bow out to her, hoping to get her mind off her missing boyfriend.

She smiled slightly, but pushed the bow away, "No thanks I have my own." She took a darker colored bow off her back and pulled an arrow out of her jacket. "Prepare to be amazed." She smirked and notched the shaft. She took a second to aim then released the arrow. It struck dead center, better than Ellie had done. She grinned happily.

"Well, you put me to shame."

"I usually do. But ten drachma's says I've been doing this a whole lot longer than you."

"Sorry, fresh out." I said placing my bow on the ground.

"I would imagine so... Anyways I've been doing archery since before I can remember. My dad got me hooked on it."

"I haven't really used a bow, my father took me hunting, but we used rifles." I watched her fire a second arrow. Now all of our siblings were here. Malcolm and Annabeth were eyeing Lexie, probably to make sure she was okay.

"You missed out." She grinned launching a third arrow. "It's a great way to spend your time, me and..." she stopped again. She looked down at her bow. "Austin gave this to me. He was a great shot, a lot better than I am, I hope he's okay."

"I'm sure he is, he's probably just late." I promised.

"I'm going back to the cabin, there's some stuff I need to go take care of. See you later." She threw her bow back on her shoulder, pulled her arrows out of the target and left the range.

I practiced a little bit longer, now I was consistently hitting the target, but I wasn't as good of a shot as my sister - or anyone else really. Annabeth said that we all had some free time, so I placed my bow back on the rack along with my arrows.

Ellie followed me away from the range. "Hey Sean." Said stopping me as I walked towards my cabin. "What's wrong with your sister? She looked like she had been crying, that's why I left."

"She's going through a lot." I answered. "Look, I really don't want to talk about it, I feel really sorry for her. I can't imagine losing someone important to me."

"That's okay. Why don't you come with me, we have a chess board back at my cabin." She asked.

Sure." I said as I followed her towards her cabin.

The Nike cabin was a bright golden color. A large, golden Laurel hung over the doorway of the cabin, I followed her into the cabin where her brothers' were playing a game of Risk. The interior of the cabin was made of dark wood. The first thing I noticed was the giant TV screen on the wall displaying multiple sporting events, which I assumed were going on around the world at that very moment. The next most noticeable feature was the large trophy case sitting in a corner, displaying multiple trophies and medals- more than my school had had. I walked over to admire all of them.

"Wow, that's a lot of trophies."

Ellie walked up next to me and smiled, "Yeah some of these are from major sporting events, we have several olympic medals as well. But there's more than just awards here, we have a few autographed things it think there's a baseball signed by Babe Ruth somewhere in here." She said pointing to several of them. "But the most prized of all of this is this." She gestured to an extremely old looking helmet.

"Where have I seen that before?" I asked myself, "Isn't this thing like famous."

"Yeah you could say that," she laughed, "This is the helmet of Miltiades, a renowned Olympic chariot-racer. Maybe you've heard of him?"

"Isn't this supposed to be in a museum!?"

"There is one, but that doesn't mean it's the real deal." She smirked and gestured me to follow her.

I followed her over to a chess table that was on the on the opposite side of the cabin. The pieces where silver and gold. Elle chose to sit on the golden side of the table, so I sat down facing her on the silver side. "Ladies first." I smiled.

"Okay." She moved her pawn that stood in front of her king forward two spaces. "You do know that you should never give your opponent the first move."

I rolled my eyes and moved my piece. "Or you can let your enemy go first to analyze their strategy." I grinned planning my next move.

She paused for a moment watching my piece, thinking about my possible plans. Her hands hovered over her knight. "Different viewpoints, allows different strategies." She placed her knight a few spaces from my pawn. "How have you liked your first few day's at camp?"

"It's been a little strange. I feel like I've gone crazy, but other than that- fun."

We played a few turns before she spoke. "Lucky you, when I got here last year we were preparing for war..." She knocked over my bishop and placed me in check, we were both down to only a few pieces and it was getting tense. " Also I had to stay in the Hermes cabin, you wouldn't believe the smell that would come out of that cabin. I think the Stoll's had a few too many fart bombs in their back packs."

I laughed a little bit. "So you didn't enjoy camp?" I asked before moving my king away from check.

"Damn!" She cursed. "That's not what I'm saying. It provided a challenge, and I sought to beat that challenge." Now she was the one protecting her King, I had used my last castle to force her to move her king.

"So this is all just for competition to you? Camp I mean." I asked, slightly confused by her statement.

"No, not at all." She answered. "I understand it's meant to protect me and train me so I can stay alive, but the competition is what makes me strive to be the best and I want to be the very best."

"Like no one ever was before?" We both laughed. Then a horn blew. "Looks like we'll have to call it a draw."

"More like I win. Checkmate." She moved her last pawn and she was right, I had lost. "Good game, you were almost a challenge." She grinned.

I punched her playfully in the arm, "I'll figure out how you did that later, Lets go."