VII: Insane

They started as nightmares.

After I closed my eyes and floated into Lethe, they forced them open and made me remember who I was and what I'd done. Mainly, they were Kronos or Ethan, following me, begging or yelling at me, sometimes both. But however hurtful those ones were, the flashbacks were always worse. Always.

***

The first one of these pleasant little episodes had taken me by surprise on my first night sleeping alone. It dragged me back to Camp Half-Blood, to the basement of the Big House, where I'd been beaten and spat at by my good fellow Beckendorf. He had just left, leaving my face swollen and bloody for the first time.

Chris Rodriguez had gone in, and immediately I felt like blowing up with the whole Camp. I delighted myself with visions of it being set aflame while Rodriguez screamed. I smiled. I didn't understand why they'd sent him here. How he'd had the guts to accept, to look me in the eye.

"Erica, it's me." he said. I laughed dryly as he coughed, disgusted by the stench of my blood. I'd recognize that scraping whine anywhere, everywhere. His voice had been carved into my memory by countless nightmares and daydreams.

"Of course it's you." I smiled, which hurt my jaw, but I didn't care. "Their little mascot, the sad traitor. I'm not like you."

"Erica…" he muttered my name with a guilty undertone. "I can't bear seeing you in pain. Tell them the plan."

He was ridiculous enough to amuse me. How stupid was he? Did he actually believe it would work? Did he think I was so terrified of him to immediately… obey him? What a fucking dumb piece of shit.

He'd been useless as a strategist and as a fighter, but his friendship with Luke and his romance with me had kept him on the top. Fucking bitch.

"Why did they send you?" I asked, ignoring his petty request. "Do they know we used date, is that it? Do they know that I'm scared you? Do they know–"

"Please, Erica. You'll save lives." he begged, looking into my eyes with his disgusting brown orbs. "Everyone is dying needlessly… I understand now, it doesn't need to be like–"

"You changed, Rodriguez." I forced myself to stare into the muddy holes carved into his horrid face. "Unfortunately for you, so have I. I'm not that girl anymore. If you had done it to who I am now, I would've skinned off your face and shattered every last bone in your body, you dog."

"Gods of Olympus," he murmured, terrified. "What did they do to you?"

"They?" I yelled, slamming my hands on the metal table. The impact made me scowl in pain, because of my broken elbow and shoulder. The blood from my arms streamed down to the table, forming a little pool. He flinched and looked away. "Who's they, Chris?"

His reaction made me gloat. I smiled again, cackling loudly as he shifted uncomfortably on his chair. A streak of hair covered my left eye.

"You know, maybe you deserved it." I shrugged, once I was done laughing. It hurt my bleeding arms and wounded bones. A look of disgust took my face. "Maybe you were better off insane. You wouldn't have to know what you did."

"Erica," he began, with a look of guilt and dread. I have to admit it hurt me slightly, wounding the marks that caring for him had burnt into my heart. "It was the only thing I thought about. That's what made me go insane."

"Good." I snarled. "I hope you think of it everyday, when you wake up, when you eat, before sleeping. I want you to remember how it felt to you; I want you to remember the sound of my pleas that you tried to quieten with your hand over my mouth; I want you remember my thrashes, trying to get away from you; I want you to remember how you held me down and kept me there."

"Ricky…"

The nickname he'd given to me when I felt a home in him now made me want to slit his throat open.

"Don't even. I hope you go insane again. I hope that everytime you kiss that girl, you hear my screams. I want you to suffer with it as much as I do, Rodriguez. Every. Fucking. Day." I continued, the tears rolling past my bruised cheeks. "Was it good? Did it feel great, seizing me and forcing me around you, despite my cries? I will haunt you when I'm dead. I will kill you, I will rip you open piece by piece, so you feel a semblance of my pain."

Tears quietly fell from his eyes, as he looked straight onto the table and avoided my judging eyes. He'd avoided looking at me that night too.

"Look at me, Chris." I demanded. He didn't move. "LOOK AT ME!"

He lifted his head, and I saw his red swollen eyes spitting saltwater to make himself feel better about the shit he did to me.

"Your tears don't make me feel sorry about you." I growled, but it turned into a sob. "I thought… I thought you loved me. You told me you loved me. How could you have done that to me?"

"I'm sorry."

"I don't care if you're sorry." I shouted, and he flinched. My face was distorted with my weeping. "I want an explanation. I need to know why you did it."

Silence.

I swallowed my cries, silencing the weeps as he looked at the metal.

"Erica…" he whispered, looking at the table. "Please. I really don't want to see you hurt. Just tell us."

"What will you going to do, Rodriguez?" I asked with a cold smile. "Would you rape me again to save your new friends, mh? To please your new bitch? I'd cave under that. I wouldn't take it. So could you? Are you still human? Were you ever?"

We didn't say a word for a minute. Then, he looked at me like he used to.

"Did anyone mourn me?" he asked quietly. "After they heard I'd gone insane?"

"Alabaster did, but when he learnt you'd betrayed us he loathed you as much as Ethan." I was honest with my answer. "Some younger kids who looked up to you. They'd be crestfallen if they saw you right now, you know?"

I hadn't told him the entire truth. I had mourned him. I knew that his departure was directly tied to me, and I hadn't stopped blaming myself for all that happened months after. I felt as if my curse had led him to do shit he didn't want to, and then got him killed or insane.

I wasn't that fucking stupid anymore.

***

Chris had been my first recurring nightmare and fear. After what he did, I relived it almost every night. Everytime I slept I went to my own personal Tartarus, feeling what I felt that night.

I remembered everything too clearly. He said he needed to talk to me, and he held my wrist way too tight. He shut the door behind him and locked it. I remembered wondering whatever he had to say that was so urgent.

He pushed me against the wall and kissed me. He was slightly taller than me, and he towered over me, forcing me to lift my chin to face him. I broke away from him, nudging him away.

"What do you need to talk about?" I asked, curious of where all this had come from.

"Come here, Ricky." he beckoned. I did so reluctantly, and he seized my arm and pushed me closer to him. I tried to shake his hand off, he didn't move it. He kissed me again, filling my mouth with the taste of the chewing gum he always used. I didn't know what he wanted, pinning me to the wall.

He leaned his mouth to my ear and spoke quietly.

"You look amazing in that skirt."

Something in his voice disgusted me, because I'd heard it before, everywhere, after I hit puberty. Men spoke like that when they wanted to fuck.

"Chris, what are you doing?" I asked, every inch of me alert and tense. I still convinced myself it wasn't that. Chris wasn't like that. I said that to myself as he kissed me again, as his hand slid from my shoulder to my waist. I pulled away from his kiss again. "Chris, stop. What are you doing?"

He didn't stop. Everytime he touched me I wanted to throw up. I pushed him away this time. He stared at me, as if he couldn't understand why I'd done it.

"Stop being like that." he'd said, and tried to move closer to me again. I slapped him.

"Get a fucking hold of yourself, Chris." I sneered, as he touched his reddened face. I didn't have a sword on me. I headed to the door, but he hauled on me by my hair. I yelped in pain, and soon I felt the tip of his knife inches away from my stomach.

"Be quiet." he'd demanded.

"Chris, let me go." I said, and it was harder to breathe. My hair was still in his hand. If I ran, he'd pull me back and stab me. "I won't mention it to anyone."

"Be quiet and turn around." he ordered.

I did so. I didn't recognize the lust in his eyes. It had been foreign to me up so close. I was fifteen.

Still pointing the knife at me, he started walking me into a corner of his room. I backed up, faster and faster, until I bumped into the desk. He'd started undoing his belt.

"Chris, please. I don't want to." I sobbed, as he only got closer. Spiders crawled from my stomach up to my throat. "Please just let me leave. I don't want this yet, I'm not ready."

My mind went blank. I couldn't think correctly. Everything seemed wrong. This couldn't be real, I told myself. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't find a way out, a way to stop this. He needed to stop, he couldn't do this to me. He wouldn't do this. I'm imagining things.

Chris wouldn't do this. Chris wouldn't do this. Chris wouldn't do this. Chris wouldn't do this. Chris wouldn't do this. Or would he?

Before I could scream for help, he sprinted to me and slammed my head on the table, stunning me. He had his hand on the back of my neck. my face pressed against the wood. I whimpered under his hand, begging him to stop.

"Don't do this, Chris." I'd begged, as tears stained my face, the table.

He did so anyway. It hurt. It hurt a lot. Every touch disgusted me. I screamed at him to stop, I sobbed, I implored, I did anything I could. And it still wasn't enough. When I was too loud, he grabbed me by my hair and slammed my face onto the table, and my ears rung.

My honor and dignity were stripped down and flayed as he kept going, ignoring my whines and shouts of pain. I kept crying out, hoping he'd feel sorry, just a bit, just slow down a moment, let me go for a second. He didn't. He got tired of my wailing and covered my mouth impatiently.

I can't describe it anymore. It's recurring, repeating, ever so immortal. I've felt it too many times to have the right words. I don't think I've ever had the right words. The spite I had for myself, for the rest of the world only multiplied throughout every repetition created by my mind. But I never got used to it. I never woke up without tears, or felt less surprised. It still hurt as much as the only time it really happened. It never lost a semblance of its blinding agony, of my raw hate, of his inhuman carelessness.

Rape is fucked up like that, kids. I've always blamed my curse, my lineage, but I know it takes less than that for most people. A single wrong choice, the wrong night to go out, the wrong piece of clothing for that night, the wrong shortcut to take, and your entire life goes down the drain because of one fucking pig.

I'm still drowning in what I felt that night. Nothing anyone can say will ease that pain, that shame, that hatred.

Chris… he'd told me, years after, when I finally confronted him about it, that he hadn't wanted to, that he didn't know what drove him to do it. I don't know if he meant it, or if my brain only wanted to believe that. But it doesn't matter anymore. No matter whether or not he meant it, he did it. He hurted me in a way that no one else has.

I doubt whether it was my fault or his, still. I know it wasn't me, but I can't stop the voice that mumbles in the back of my mind. The voice of a girl who trusted him, and who still does. She tells me it's my curse that got him to do it, she tells me he did love me. I know she's wrong, but sometimes I listen to her reasoning, sometimes I consider her logic.

Could I have possibly brought that pain upon myself?

The answer is no.

When I dreamt of it, I knew what would happen, how he would do it. I knew in which beat of my heart he would grab me, I recognized the feel of the iron blade he against my veins, I predicted the spiders that would crawl inside me. But it always hurt as much.

Every thrust hurt more. When the fabric of his pants went against my legs, I wanted to die. I just wanted him to stop. Didn't he love me? He said he loved me.

He only left me when he was done.

***

Those types of dreams usually made me wake with cold sweat and spiders all around me, enough of them to make me want to jump out of the window only to rid myself of them. But there were other dreams as well, that clawed open my heart with nostalgia. Memoirs of my life, of my happiness. They weren't any better. A cruel way of reminding me how dead they all were.

***

We were at Princess Andromeda, right after Percy got the Golden Fleece, or the royal towel, as the crew liked to call it back then.

The bears got to Annabeth, but I made a sign for them to back away. She was smart, and they were big and dumb. My dagger soon met the pearly skin of her neck, limiting her movements.

"Where is the fleece?" Luke asked slowly, every word so carefully articulated, his sword tip on Percy's neck.

"Not here." Percy said, deadly calm. "I sent it ahead of us. You messed up."

I glared down at Luke, and he met my eyes. The empathy link he'd first formed with me to prevent me from escaping came in handy at moments like this.

"He must have the fleece. Where else would it be?" I was unsure.

"Yes. He's trying to play me." his eyes told me, but I thought of what we'd presumed as the weakest link. Clarisse La Rue, the war hog.

"No." as realization dawned on his face, and he immediately spoke out loud as if to confirm it.

"You trusted … you gave …" he could barely speak those words. His face was whiter than I'd ever seen it.

"Yeah."

"Agrius!"

The bear giant flinched. "Y-yes?"

"Get below and prepare the fastest horse. Bring it to the deck. I need to fly to the Miami Airport, fast.'"

"But, boss—" the bear protested pathetically. However miserable his words were, he was right. The black horse Luke spoke of was untamed, wild. The second hardest one we'd had, and the first one was Skotos.

"Do it!" Luke screamed. "Or I'll feed you to the drakon!"

The bear-man gulped and lumbered down the stairs. Luke paced in front of the swimming pool, cursing in Ancient Greek, gripping his sword so tight his knuckles turned white.

The rest of us were uneasy, too. He had never been this… Angry?

"You've been toying with us all along," Percy said. "You wanted us to bring you the Fleece and save you the trouble of getting it."

Luke scowled. "Of course, you idiot! And you've messed everything up!"

"Traitor!" Percy threw a bunch of crap he had in his pocket at Luke. He dodged it easily.

"You tricked all of us!" he yelled at Luke. "Even Dionysus at Camp Half-Blood!"

Percy uncapped Riptide, glaring at Luke. The blade sprung out dramatically, cutting the blue air.

Luke just sneered. "This is no time for heroics, Percy. Drop your puny little sword, or I'll have you killed sooner rather than later."

"Who poisoned Thalia's tree, Luke?"

Something was wrong. This was uncalled for. What was Percy Jackson planning? This couldn't possibly be in vain. I tried to warn Luke, but his head was too swarmed to hear what I wanted to say.

"I did, of course," he snarled. "I already told you that. I used elder python venom, straight from the depths of Tartarus."

"Chiron had nothing to do with it?"

"Ha! You know he would never do that. The old fool wouldn't have the guts."

"You call it guts? Betraying your friends? Endangering the whole camp?"

Luke raised his sword and growled at the boy.

"You stupid fucking kid. You think I'm irresponsible like your gods? The fleece would be yours, when I was done with it."

Percy hesitated, and I saw his face as he took in the information.

"You were going to… use it. To heal Kronos?" he asked, as if it was a huge reach. A dimwit would've figured it out quicker than him.

"Yes, hero of Olympus. The Fleece would've sped his mending process by tenfold. You haven't stopped us. Just slowed us down a bit."

"And so you poisoned the tree, you betrayed Thalia, you set us up—all to help Kronos destroy the gods."

"He knows it, Luke. Why is he asking you? Why does he repeat every word you say? Figure out the fucking reason. Don't walk the hole he digs for you." I thought, and Luke caught my eye. He heard it. He went white, as if he'd only then realized the way he'd been lead around in circles.

"Why are you repeating everything I say?" Luke paused, and his eyes set down at Percy Jackson with a lethal glare.

"Because I want everybody in the audience to hear you." he announced.

"What audience?"

There were spectators to this shithow. I moved with Annabeth for a few paces, and saw the entire Camp Half-Blood staring at the exchange of words through an Iris message. Dionysus sent Tantalus back to wherever the fuck he came from, which meant that Chiron was to be reinstated. That was bad for us.

Luke bellowed with rage. He slashed Backbiter through the fountain and the projection dissolved, but the deed was done.

"Kill him." I shouted to Luke, out loud. Annabeth thrashed under my grip, but I held her neck tighter. "He's too much of a fucking liability for you to count on."

Luke glanced at my brother, then Alabaster. Both of them nodded. Luke took a breath in, and smiled.

"Kronos was right, Percy. You're an unreliable weapon. You need to be replaced."

The rest of the troops on the ship poured out from the deck doors, forming a full circle around Luke and Percy. Their wooden shields covered them almost entirely, but the spears they held pointed in, forcing everyone to step further into the center.

"You'll never leave this boat alive." Luke assured Percy.

The son of Poseidon looked around, gulping, his face gone white. He glanced at Annabeth.

"One on one," Percy said, all of a sudden. "What are you afraid of?"

Luke curled his lip. The demigods and monsters hesitated.

"Sir!" Agrius called, dodging a pegasus hoof. "Your steed is ready!"

Luke kept his eyes on Jackson, without bothering to signal to the bear. Luke's stance was that of a threatened tiger. A word of advice: don't threaten a tiger, you'll get killed.

"I told you last summer, Percy," he scowled, pacing around the circle.. "You can't bait me into a fight."

"And you keep avoiding one," Percy retaliated. "Scared your warriors will see you get whipped?"

I couldn't be seen advising him again, it would make him seem weak in front of everyone. I glared at him desperately. He shouldn't waste time with Percy Jackson. Another minute, and the fleece was gone. He wasn't looking at me, only at Percy.

As long as Luke was out of here, going after the fleece, and Percy was here, nothing else mattered. If someone else took on the challenge… Percy was a good fighter, though. Practically no one besides Luke could guarantee a clean victory against Percy. Except… it didn't have to be clean. Who fought him wouldn't matter. Even if they lost, Percy could be dealt with quickly.

I looked for my brother, and tipped my chin toward him. He pushed the whining satyr onto someone else, who held on to it, and stepped forward.

"I'll fight the son of Poseidon. He isn't worthy of your time." Ethan announced. I looked at Luke again, but I knew his wounded pride wouldn't take another blow. "General… the fleece."

Luke nodded, but before he could get to the pegasus Percy spat out more bullshit.

"Having your lapdog doing your errands?"

"I'll kill you quickly," he decided, and raised his weapon.

I passed on Annabeth to the other bear, signaled to Alabaster, and squirmed away from the crowd and onto an open space. I whistled for Skotos, and climbed onto her back as soon as she appeared. Alabaster came to me quietly.

"The fleece. I don't think it's safe to get it in the Manhattan airport." he warned, as he fed a herb to Skotos. "They'll be expecting someone, and the La Rue girl is rumored to be Half-Blood's second best fighter."

"What are you saying?" I whispered to him. No way he wanted me to–

"Get it midair, while it's in the plane." he muttered, watching Skotos swallow the last of the herb. "She'll be able to sense it more accurately. Skotos, guide her, yes?"

Skotos huffed and started flapping her wings, lifting us through the air. She was fast, and her gallop's steady pace seemed to disturb the clouds that moved away from us.

After I lost sight of the boat and started moving toward the airport, I sighed, wondering why Luke's ego was fragile enough to not trust Ethan. Luke was too proud and insistent, and his urge to try to shift Percy to our side would end up killing him. As if one risk wasn't enough, now he wanted revive Thalia. He spoke of her divinely, as if she was the best thing since the invention of the wheel.

For some reason, I believed that if we didn't mind the prophecy, it would turn in our favor. All of the things we did to obey it only seemed to profit the Olympians.

I reached back to my bag to grab my mask, as I felt the air get thinner and colder as the altitude heightened, and almost fell off of Skotos. My heart strained furiously, followed by shock and even physical pain. In my ears, I could hear mumbles of Luke's audition. People scrambled and screamed, under attack.

Skotos kept kicking forward, following the scent of the golden fleece, but the empathic link between me and Luke told me something was wrong. My brother was back there.

"Ah, fuck Kronos." I groaned, and turned Skoto back, pedaling back through the way we'd come from. She sped up, starting to descend. The velocity made the air around me tighter, whenever her wings pushed it toward me.

I saw the deck of the ship covered in paint, our Army running away and scrambling its precious order. People slipped and fell on the blue and yellow stains, shot by a cohort of drunk centaurs. They held paintball guns and bats, swinging and shooting toward everyone.

As I glided closer to them, I already predicted how angry Luke would be knowing I'd turned back, but I didn't care. I saw my brother attempting to help a kid up, and meters away a centaur held a paintball gun to his face. Skotos felt my worry and her wings swiped an arch to reach them. I reached out with my sword, swinging it as we approached the centaur from behind. Its head was cut clean off, falling on the floor with a wet pahck.

A centaur hollered, seeing his fallen comrade's legs bending over and collapsing. The gun was dropped at Ethan's feet. He stood up, looked at me with a "Thank you", and kicked the gun away, pulling out Vendetta.

More centaurs howled as they saw their dead friend, and that moment of confusion gave the Army a moment to collect itself. I heard Luke's voice in the back of my mind.

"Annabeth."

I glanced at her direction, and saw her struggling to get out of Agrion's hold. Agrion had his arm locking her neck, and if she kept thrashing he would break it.

Luke didn't want that. I glanced at him for approval, and his desperate eyes nodded. Skotos rose stopped circling my brother and headed toward the bear, only close enough for her hooves to hit his head.

Immediately, the blonde girl freed herself, glancing at me with a suspecting glance. I dismissed it with a nod, and tipped my chin toward Chiron.

She ran to him, and he scooped her up to his back and cantered away.

"Thank you."

With Annabeth out of the way, Luke was able to get a hold of his cruel authority again. He bellowed, his voice stronger than Zeus' Master Lightning.

"Attack, you fools!"

"Shields!" Alabaster commanded in turn. The soldiers got into formation, as Skotos glided around the centaurs' shattered group, coming close enough for me to swipe my sword, but dodging as soon as someone shot an arrow.

I decided it was too close, sheathing the sword and reaching for my knives. With the inertia of reaching back to grab it, I aimed it at Chiron. With a swoosh, it impaled itself on his shoulderblade. He howled in pain, looking for the perpetrator. He sent an arrow flying toward me, but it bounced off of Skotos' hard feathered wings.

"πηγή" I muttered under my breath, and the dagger disappeared from his arm, back at its sheathe, attached to Skotos' rump. She sat between her two sisters, named after the Furies. I grabbed another one, hauling it toward another centaur, but this one was quick enough to dodge, shooting an arrow at me. I ducked, and it flew over my head.

"Withdraw, brethren!" Chiron shouted cowardly.

"You won't get away with this, horse man!" Luke threatened. He raised his sword, but got smacked in the face with a boxing glove arrow, and sat down hard in a deck chair.

A centaur glared at my brother, who spat at its hooves holding his blade in an offensive stance. As the anthropomorphic horse backed up with his eyes still on Ethan, he bent down to grab the head of the redheaded centaur, with its eyes still open and rolled back. Its face was stained with the paint from the floor.

My brother, uncaring of the snarls of the creature, threw the head past the ranks, dripping with blood and paint, right onto the staring one's hooves. It growled in anger, knocking an arrow into its bow and pointing it at Ethan, but before I could intervene his comrade urged him to retreat.

Luke was organizing the soldiers, but when he turned around, the centaurs were gone. I stopped hovering over the boat, and landed. Skotos was annoyed, and her legs were splashed with pink and orange. She left to wash off.

Luke tried to walk toward me, but he was clearly lightheaded, groaning before stumbling.

"Are you alright?" I asked, grabbing him before he fell on his face.

"He seems moody." Ethan chuckled, pulling a beach chair to us and sitting Luke down.

Luke snarled at him in response.

"Die in a ditch, Nakamura."

"Seriously now, man. Did you break any bones?" Ethan laughed, as he set his hands on Luke's jaw and shoulder, where he'd been hit.

"I'm fine." Luke said, shaking Ethan's help off. "I will make all the centaurs that live and breathe pay for this fool's doing."

"He is moody." I said to my brother. "We're going to have a rough night."

"And you." he glared at me, sneering. "Where's the fleece?"

"You lost it when you decided to play with Percy instead of working." I shrugged. I took it upon myself to try and get it, it weren't of his command.

He knew I was right, but he still snarled at me, spitting at me with the first insults that appeared when he needed them.

"Useless fucking… half-blind retard." was all he mustered, which was directed at me but honestly more relatable for my brother.

"Why am I the one to blame?" Ethan yelped, as I laughed.

Luke showed a faint smile and Ethan helped him up. Alabaster came running to us, and almost slipped. He had a huge blue stain on his chest, and his pants were pretty much destroyed.

"I'm sorry. We weren't prepared." he apologized, ready to drop on his knees before our General. "I'll spend more time organizing our ranks."

"Of course we weren't prepared." Chris grumbled, seeming like he'd been completely submerged in a bucket of paint. He slipped and fell as he tried to walk to us. "Who's prepared for a bunch of drunk paintball horses?"

Luke's smile faded.

"Kronos will kill me."