Earned through blood

"And... here it is!" said Luke with a wide smile while taking something out of his backpack.

"T-That is..." Christina looked at it with wide eyes. "A camera!" she exclaimed, surprised that Luke got his hands on one of them.

"Yes it is!" replied Luke proudly. "Happy birthday." he continued while handing the camera over to Christina.

Christina grabbed the camera and immediately went to give Luke a hug. It was now the tenth of September, almost a year had passed since Christina ran away and the group of four had now been together for over six months.

Separating herself from Luke's embrace, Christina immediately turned the camera on and started taking pictures of the four of them together. It was a bit hard at first taking the 'selfie' with a camera, but eventually they succeeded. The photos that came out were placed on the walls of the current shelter they were in.

Christina had already lost count of how many shelter's they had made, it took them around two days to make one and they would be forced to leave them in less than two weeks. All over the east coast they had made their small huts.

From then on, Christina began to leave pictures of them on all their shelters, to her it was a symbol that it was their home, even if only for a while.

After their small 'party' for Christina's birthday, which consisted of the camera Luke stole and a cupcake to sing happy birthday to, they went back to their routine, fighting monsters, running away, building new shelters, and training.

.

"Hmm... how long does it take for gryphons to leave their lairs?" asked Luke while looking at Christina and Annabeth. Thalia and him had never fought gryphons or even seen them before, but Christina and Annabeth had. Right now they were waiting for the gryphon to exit the small cave so they could loot it, hopefully find some more Celestial bronze weapons.

"That one time we did this, we had to wait for two hours or so." said Christina while looking at the entrance of the cave.

"Well, that just means we have a lot of time to spare." said Thalia while ruffling her hair.

All four of them came to this 'mission', after all if there were a lot of useful things in the lair it would be better to have more people to grab them, besides they had already agreed to never separate unless extremely necessary, so they were used to doing everything together by now.

Three hours later, the gryphon left the cave. After waiting a couple of minutes to make sure it didn't return instantly, the four of them ran into the cave and entered it. Thalia kept watch in case the monster returned while Luke, Annabeth and Christina went through the pile of shiny things inside the monster's lair.

"This is awesome..." muttered Annabeth while looking at the pile of weapons in front of them.

There were at least ten arrows that shone with a bronze coloured light and two javelins of the same colour. "Annabeth, you grab the arrows, Christina you grab the two javelins, I will take a look around." instructed Luke while making his way to the deeper part of the cave.

Annabeth and Christina got to work, grabbing the weapons and placing them either inside their backpacks or keeping them in their hands. After a few minutes Luke came out, with empty hands and a slightly disappointed look. Afterwards all four left, leaving behind an cave with metal junk and a small gryphon corpse slowly turning to ashes.

.

[ Annabeth pov ]

Annabeth woke up scared. It had been a while since she dreamt of the spiders eating her, but today the nightmare returned. After trying to calm her rapid breath, she made her way in Luke's and Christina's direction, who were currently on guard duty.

"It is not your turn to be up yet." said Luke in a kind tone, bringing Christina's attention to Annabeth as well.

"I know..." replied Annabeth.

Christina noticed Annabeth was still slightly scared, so she made her way towards her and gave her a hug. "Do you want to talk about it?" asked Christina, who already realised Annabeth just have had a nightmare.

"They came back..." said Annabeth.

"The spiders?" replied Christina. "It has been a while since you dreamt of them."

Annabeth nodded her head while still hugging Christina. Annabeth already knew how much she relied on the others, she was the least skilled one of them after all. Luke was a great thief and an amazing fighter, he also had a great sense of directions, even going as far as knowing more or less where they were without having to be looking at a map. Thalia was probably the strongest out of them all, with her bracelet that turned into a shield and her lightning powers no monster stood a chance against her. Christina was even more than both of them... Christina had been taking care of her for so long, fighting monsters even when wounded, making a knife out of a broken spear so she could fight better, even in stealing she was second only to Luke.

Annabeth felt... disappointed in herself, she wanted to do more for the others, for the ones who helped and protected her, for her family, but there wasn't much at which she excelled, in fact making plans, which had been her specialty when alone with Christina, was now slightly unnecessary, after all they were with Luke and Thalia who had more experience than her at this types of things. She learned how to fight much faster than the others, she could handle almost every weapon they came across with relative ease, however it was still not enough to defeat Luke or Thalia who had more experience at this as well. She couldn't wait to grow up and be of more help, but at the same time she wanted things to stay just like this, being spoiled by all three of them was... heartwarming.

In a way, she felt the family that drove her away was nothing compared to this one she had now. She still remembered the time Christina asked her if she missed her family, everyday she spent with Luke, Thalia and Christina, her nostalgia diminished and at this point, she didn't even think of going back, not when she had this three with her.

Eventually, she fell asleep once again, this time in Christina's warm embrace.