Chapter 17

When Theo and I eventually returned to camp, a lot of things had changed. Camp was a lot further away than we'd realised. It might have seemed harder because it was snowing, a lot.

We walked up the hill to camp and through the gate, hand in hand and smiling up at the stars.

As we walked through the gate, Aphrodite campers came running up to Theo.

"Hey guys!" he smiled, "did you miss me?"

They grabbed him, glaring at me, and tried to pull him away. Behind me, my brothers and sisters came running up behind me and grabbed me, trying to pull me away from Theo.

"Kalina!" Theo yelled as he was dragged away.

"Theo!" I yelled back and of course, I burst into tears and tried desperately to get to him but my siblings were surprisingly strong. Plus I was tired from trekking through the snowy woods to get back to camp.

I was dragged away to my cabin and Theo was dragged away in the opposite direction, to his cabin. I had never thought I would be so upset to see this cabin. I collapsed on the sofa, tears flowing down my cheeks. I felt like screaming at my siblings. Why had they taken me away from Theo? What had I done?

One of my sisters, Julia, came over to me with a sympathetic expression on her face. I sniffed and looked up at her.

Why? I said with my eyes.

"Sorry," she said, "but a lot has changed while you were away."

"What like?"

"Well uh, camp has become divided into two sides. One side supports Hera, and the other side supports Zeus. Because Theo is in the Aphrodite cabin, they support Zeus. Our cabin supports Hera, so you can't be together. It's against the rules." Julia said.

"What?" I said, frozen with shock. Against the rules?

"Yes, a lot of people are affected by this. Not just you." she said.

I looked over at my brother Drake, the one who had the over-attached, annoying Aphrodite girlfriend. He looked kind of relieved.

I wiped my eyes and stood up.

"I'm going to my room." I said shortly. The rest of the cabin seemed to realise from my tone that I didn't want to be disturbed. I pushed the button and walked downstairs, throwing my bag onto the floor beside my bed and starting to unpack it. I unpacked my pyjamas and changed into them. I was too tired and upset to unpack anything else. I got into bed and lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling and imagining what Theo was doing now.

I slept until about noon the next day, I wandered into the dining hall alone. Looking around frantically for Theo or one of my friends, I saw Carmen sitting at the Iris table.

"Hi!" I said, smiling at her and sitting down with my croissant and my smoothie.

She smiled back, "Hey stranger!" she said giving me a hug.

As I finished my juice, a girl from the Athena table walked over. She tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around.

"Yes?" I said innocently.

"Hi I'm Jessica," she said, "I just want to let you know that the Athena cabin is behind you."

"Um ok thanks." I said, trying to hide my confusion.

When Jessica had left, I turned back to Carmen.

"Um what was all that about?" I said.

"Oh, the Hera side want you to be their leader." She said with her mouth full.

"What!" I'm not really much of a leader. I tend to be a bit shy and tend to just agree with people. But, that was the old me. The new me was tougher and stronger, she had allowed her heart to be broken but healed it.

I said goodbye to Carmen and went to the battle training arena, picking up my quiver and bow on the way. I practiced until I ran out of arrows. As I searched in the supply cupboard for some new arrows, I felt someone come in behind me. I turned around only to see Theo standing there. I dropped the arrows I was holding and ran to him. He pushed me up against the wall and I wrapped my arms around him. I wanted to love him as much as possible in the short time we had.

Before camp fire meeting, I asked Chiron if I could speak to the cabins that were on Hera's side. He agreed but seemed a little agitated. I suppose it mustn't be very nice for him, having camp separated into two different sides. When I walked past the Ares cabin there were about five guys standing outside, leaning against a metal fence around the outside of the cabin. They had leather jackets and had their hair gelled. They looked like rejects from Grease. They whistled as I walked past.

Some of them came up to me, "Off to see lover boy?" they taunted.

"None of your business." I snapped, starting to walk away.

One of them came up behind me and put his arms around my waist.

"You shouldn't be around that boy anymore, he's no good." he hissed in my ear.

So obviously I did what any other girl would do. I twisted around and jammed my knee up hard. The guy fell to the ground, groaning. His friends' expressions hardened and they came at me but I was ready. I whipped out my dagger and spun around, dodging their attempts. I grabbed hold of their leaders' arm and twisted it behind his back and held my dagger to his throat.

"Do not talk about me or my guy again, understand?" I whispered.

"Yeah!" the guy mumbled.

I let go of his arm and pushed him away. Him and the rest of the guys hurried away into their cabin. I looked around to see if anyone was watching and then ran as fast as I could to the camp fire.