Chapter 43.

"You're slowing down!" Nico shouts as I stop swinging my sword around to blow my hair out of my face. At this pint I'm not sure if it's wet from when I washed it earlier or from the sweat I've been working up. I've been practicing my sword fighting for nearly two full hours now with few water breaks because Nico is cruel.

"You need to speed up, your enemies are immortal." Will says

"Ugh." I respond.

"Come on, try and get my sword put of my hand. Then we'll take a break."

"I've been trying to get your sword for the past hour."

"Then let's not make it take another."

I know there's no way in hell I'll be able to get it through skill, Nico is far too fast and I'm, well, not. I need another plan. I raise my bright pink plastic sword across my chest and step forward. Yes we're using plastic swords, the real swords hurt when you get hit, by the way. Nico is holding his neon green sword diagonally across his chest. "Two seconds." I reply, motioning towards my water bottle. When he lowers his sword, I swing my leg around his ankles and as he falls backwards, he let's go of his sword. I pick it up and press it lightly against his chest. "I let you trip me." He grumbles.

"I still got your sword." I breath as I take it off his back.

"Yes, but."

"No buts, me win." I laugh.

"Fine." He picks himself up. Then he tackles me. As soon as we hit he floor I roll over so that I'm on top of him and hold his hands out. I can feel him trying to lift his arms and I have to use all my strength, and balance a lot of my body weight on my arms, not to let him get up. "You're stronger than you look." He says through gritted teeth. "Thanks, I'm going to let go now." I gasp. "In three, two, one." I relax and let go.

"Come on Neeks." Will taunts. "I have an idea."

Will goes to one of the cupboards and comes out holding two nerf guns, two pairs of safety glasses and two sashes filled with nerf bullets. "Let's see how your aims are." He grins.

He hands us both a sash and a gun. It's the one with a laser to show where your bullet would fire, but the light doesn't work. I put my glasses on and load the gun."All the bright orange tips of the bullets have been painted green, so we know if you've been hit." Will explains. "You're not allowed to leave the arena, and you have ten minutes, the person with the most markings at the end is the loser. You have ten seconds to get ready, staring now."

As Will counts down, I dash to the indoor climbing frame and as soon as I reach the top, I see a bullet hit the wall. I balance myself and put my gun to my cheek. I look at Nico who has reloaded his again and is aiming at me. I aim and shoot a second before he does. I get his forehead but he gets my hand. "Oh, new rule." Wills shouts. "you can't stay in the same spot for more than thirty seconds!"

"Come on!" I laugh as I shoot but Nico dodges it with time to spare. I climb down the frame and jump when I'm a meter from the bottom. When I bend my knees I hear a bullet go over my head. I point my gun at Nico who is struggling to get a bullet out and hit him in the knee. He then fires and gets me in the cheek. It stings for a second but the pain quickly vanishes. I charge towards him and he tries to run but I have already collided with him. We both fall to the ground but get I three shots on his side and he gets one on my chest. We both scramble to our feet and shoot as fast as we can. "You need to keep moving!" Will calls.

"Slide to the left." I say, and we both do so,

"Take it back now y'all." Nico adds. We take a step away from each other.

"Two hops now y'all." I say.

"Two hops two hops." He repeats.

"Now turn around." I giggle as I do so.

"Take it back now y'all."

"Freeze. Everybody clap your hands." I clap my hands around in a circle.

"No." He responds and hits me in the chin with a bullet, then again on my neck.

"Ok." I reply, stroking my face from my eye down to my cheek to mimic a tear, before I get hit in the hand. "Oh, it's on." I reload. I get him in the shin and I move my head when I see another come my way. I get his stomach and he gets my ear. I notice that he's aiming high. Well, he is half a foot taller than me. I should be aiming low. I get his foot twice and I cuss as he gets my hair. "Relax, it'll wash out." Will says. "Five minutes left.

We carry on like that, moving a few steps every ten seconds. I have two bullets left and Nico has five when Will calls time out. Nico has won by nine markings and I pretend to be devastated, screaming 'no' as if I were a child. He, on the other hand, raises his arms like he's holding a trophy. "I would like to thank my boyfriend, Will, for always being by my side. He is always there for me, and the only times that he isn't on my arm is when I'm riding on his back when he gives me piggy back rides."

"Thought you were going to say some thing else there." I turn to see Jessica walking into to the room, with her hair tied back and a fiery red hair band. She's wearing a camp half blood shirt with a pair of denim shorts and white converses. I feel my face heat up and thank the gods I'm already bright red.

"Hey. Did you hear Drew earlier?" I ask.

"Oh my gods! It was hilarious! When David opened our door he just closed it back again when he realised that it wasn't a dying cat."

"Do you know who did it?" I ask, trying to cover myself.

"Probably one of the Hermes' kids. Or maybe even an Aphrodite kid since they hate her more than anyone." She says.

"Hey, I just thought, there were a fair few Demi gods in such a small area, back in England," Will says. "Especially since most of us live in New York.

"I was born in London, but there were too many monsters so my brother and I moved, and by too many I mean a couple. There are almost none where I live, because the north isn't very populated compared to the south. Therefore, less half bloods, meaning less monsters. So, that's why we live there. You probably just got lucky." She justifies

"I don't know why we moved. I guess we got attacked once then my dad wanted to move, and thought England. Because, why not?" I say.

"It rains a lot." Nico says.

"Not as often as you might think, to be honest. Only when we do outdoor P.E." Jessica replied. "Hey Katy, when are you finishing?" She asks.

"Now. Now is good." I put my gun down

"You should join the group class after lunch, by the way. You're really behind." Nico points. "Thanks, captain obvious. But yeah, thanks for today." I stick my thumb up.

"See ya." I wave.

"I'll see you in afternoon class!" He calls.

Once we leave Jessica takes my hand and races towards the canoe lake. I run after her, momentarily lagging behind but I quickly catch up. We reach a small platform thing that has canoes tied onto the edge. "We need to be alone." She says as she passes me a paddle. "And this seems to be the hotspot." She grins.

I help her untie the other side of a bright red canoe. It looks new and the inside is dry, so I don't hesitate to sit down once Jessica steps in. She's facing inland and I'm facing out towards the water. "Can you swim? Because I hate wearing buoyancy aids." She asks.

"Yes." I reply. "But, we're not going to, right?"

"We better not. This water is freezing and Chiron refuses to get any wet suits that will fit anyone over thirteen because he says we're tough enough not to need them."

"That's cruel." I laugh. We start paddling and develop a slow and steady rhythm.

"Once when we were racing, Percy started splashing everyone. It was alright for him."

"Did you get him back?" I ask.

"Yup. The Stolls dunked all the bedding from cabin three into the lake."

"Couldn't he have just got bedding from another cabin?"

"He's not the brightest bulb in the box."

"Must be a Poseidon thing. Grace isn't either. Then again, I'm not too smart. I need to start thinking ahead more often."

"And Hera said you were a daughter of Athena!" Jessica laughs.

"I know right." I smile.

"Ok, I think we're far enough away." Jessica puts her paddle on the bottom the boat and so do I. "So, about last night," she starts.

"Do you regret it?" I twist my hand.

"No. Do you?"

"Not at all."

"Do you maybe, want to take things slowly, or."

"I'm very impatient." I grin.

"Me too."

Within five seconds I'm in the middle seat and Jessica is on the closest to the middle. Her lips are softer and I feel her push hand on my shoulder. I pull away, for a second. "You alright?" I ask, cautious.

"Don't look know but I can see another boat." She murmurs.

"Sugar," I mutter.

"No one else knows about you either?" She guesses.

"Yeah, but that's not the point." I admit. "I've never, you know, done this before."

"Same. I was feeling brave last night because I was only ever going to go to that club once, so I thought 'Hell, Mickey brings home girls he's only just met all the time, maybe I can give this a shot.' So I put on my favourite outfit then one thing led to another."

"And here we are,"

"And here we are." She agrees. "Mickey's my older half brother, by the way. He's known that I'm a half blood for a while now. It seems ridiculous that I haven't told him because 'I'm gay' is nothing compared to 'my dad is a god and I have to fight mythical creatures frequently.'"

"You see, I know he won't actually care but I still fear any sort of backlash." She sighs. "It's so frustrating! anyways, that boat." She changes the subject and I follow

"how close is that boat?"

"It's getting closer, but slowly. I can see two people in it. But I can't tell if they're boys or girls."

"So, how's your family life?" She asks me.

"Well, you've met my father." I rub my temple.

"He seems, em."

"Oh, he's a saint." I say. "And everyone else is related to a god."

"So, why don't you tell them, about, you know." She raises her eyebrow

"Don't know. I don't know how I would tell them. I could introduce you, as my girlfriend, I guess. But like I said, you were my first kiss and I have only just met you, so we didn't have much of an opportunity."

"Fair." She looks over my shoulder. "Not to alarm you, but I am ninety percent sure that Liam is in that boat." She nods.

"Oh shoot." I run my hand through my hair. "Quick, change the subject!"

"Gordon Ramsey though! What's your favourite insult?" She asks.

"I'm not sure if this is legit, but 'this squid is so beeping raw, you can still hear it telling Spongebob to beep off." I say. "Yourself?"

"First of all. Do you like offensive jokes?"

"I make offensive jokes." I reply. I see her think before shaking her head,

"No, i can't say that one out loud. Here's another: 'why did the chicken cross the road?" She pauses. "Because you forgot to beeping cook it!"

"Oh, once in Biology we were doing about efficient eating and she put on a Gordon Ramsey video about him going to a shark fin soup restaurant. Not even a minute in and he was swearing. Then, at the end, he asked to see the customers but he wasn't allowed, so he asked for a pen and paper. Then when the owner left he went straight for the customers." I recall.

"Once in school, we had to pretend to be a celebrity. We were in groups of four and my group chose Gordon Ramsey and this guy went up, said this chicken is so raw a trained vet could rescue it, and for me to just beep a heck of a lot," she says. "Then, this guy went up to the other girl in our group, places his hands on her cheeks and said what are you?"

"An idiot sandwich!" I interrupt

"Have you seen that one? It's my favourite."

"He's just hilarious." I shake my head in laughter.