"So, explain to me again, just what was going on?" Ryan asked, yet again. He, Sasha, Leo, Jonathan, Garrett, and Nico were all sitting together at the Poseidon table, Sasha informing them of her and Percy's shared dream. She'd barely touched her breakfast—save the blueberry muffin, it was absolutely amazing. She sighed, not wanting to recount the events again.
"I told you already twice" She said, her irritation seeping in her voice, and Nico nodded thoughtfully.
"And I'm assuming the reason that Percy, Chiron, and Annabeth are all absent this morning is because they are discussing this same thing?" He asked, and Sasha nodded.
"Well, hang on. This kid can't really cause us any harm anyways….can he?" Leo asked, and Jonathan rolled his eyes.
"Really Leo, how is it that you're only a mad genius when you want to be?" He asked, and the son of Hephaestus grinned.
"It's a gift."
"Actually, the fact that he truly is working against us is extremely disadvantageous. Not that I didn't feel this way before, but now it's even more urgent—we need to take this Son of Kronos for a swim in the lethe and then ditch him at the nearest McDonalds." Nico said, and Sasha raised an eyebrow at him.
"Dude, what is it with you and McDonalds?" She asked, curious as to his obsession with the chain restaurant.
"Who knows? Ever since he first came to Camp he's had a thing for it. Weird, huh?" Garrett said, laughing, and Nico rolled his eyes.
"Excuse you, . Like you're one to talk."
"Yeah seriously man, you've ordered that place so much I think if I ever see I piece of fried chicken again I'm going to explode." Jonathan said, holding his stomach with both hands.
They continued to joke around and tease one another, but Sasha was lost in her own train of thought.
"Okay, well, I think I'm going to head over to the beach. I kinda want some time to myself," She said, standing up from the table.
"I'll go with you," Nico said, and Sasha turned to him, eyebrow raised. He shrugged.
"I thought you might want some company."
She turned to look at the rest of her friends, who were all looking down at their plates or off into other directions, conveniently not looking at either of them. She sighed.
"Alright, since you obviously didn't hear me say I wanted to be alone, I guess it doesn't matter. Come on." She began to walk away from the pavilion, Nico's footsteps sounding behind her. She turned to look back at her friends and caught a quick glimpse of all of them grinning like idiots before they all turned away. She shook her head and turned to look ahead of her again.
-
"Wait, I don't understand. So he didn't ask you out?" Jonathan asked, and Sasha rolled her eyes.
"I never said that," She argued, shrugging. Recollecting what had happened between her and Nico, she smiled internally. They'd been walking on the beach, discussing Charbel and how the camp should proceed in the issue from this point, and she'd let herself get lost in her own train of thought. She couldn't even recall when they stopped talking and had simply walked together in silence, but she knew very well that it'd been a while before he'd vaguely asked her about a date. Of course, Sasha picked up the hint immediately and was happy to agree.
"Well how am I supposed to understand what 'Nyeo' means?!" The curly haired son of Apollo exclaimed, exasperation evident.
"It means no yes" She said, fully aware she was simply annoying her friend further, and completely amused by it.
"Whatever, you're no source of information whatsoever. I'm going to find Nico," He declared, and with that walked off, leaving Sasha to watch him fade away, smiling. Once he was out of view, she turned and made her way to her own cabin, oddly stricken by the wild urge to contact Andrea. On her way to cabin three, she passed the Big house. Slowly, she turned to gaze disdainfully at the blue, worn, wooden cabin before making a split-second decision and purposefully starting toward it. She climbed the steps and shouldered the front door open without even thinking of what she was doing—she feared that her common sense would tell her to run away as fast as her legs could carry her. However, she didn't want to do that. Besides, she wasn't even sure why she was so afraid of Charbel anyways; it wasn't as if that was the scariest dream she'd ever had. And even on top of that—he'd done nothing to truly trigger fear in her in the first place; it was just the demon waitress. Still, no matter how much she tried to convince herself it was ridiculous, it didn't make it any easier to walk into the room were the son of Kronos was being kept. He looked up at her as she entered the room and smiled, as if he'd been expecting her.
"Funny, I thought I'd have to go through major difficulties to be graced with your presence" He said, and Sasha sneered.
"I didn't come here for you, stupid," She seethed, and Charbel smiling at her, as if he already knew what she wanted.
"No? A pity. Then what is it that you wanted?"
She took a deep breath and turned away so she was no longer facing the boy in the bed before her.
"I need your help."