V: Camp

When we arrived to his camp, everyone stared at me and Percy. I did not bother to try and decipher their snowflake feelings, or to react to it.

Annabeth saw us and ran into Percy's arms as soon as he jumped off the horse.

"Percy!" she called, as if they'd been years apart.

Her lips met his passionately, Percy's arms wrapping around her delicate hips and lifting her up. I stared at them in disbelief and mild nausea. That wasn't being lost in their own world: they were galaxies away from me. Love was that wonderful, huh? After their smooching became too embarrassing to keep watching, I cleared my throat.

She pulled away from him, her face pink with excitement and embarrassment both. A little disgusting if you ask me. She turned to me, offering her hand for me to shake. Hesitantly, I did so.

"I'm, uh, Annabeth Chase." she announced, although I already knew that.

"Yes, I know." I mumbled, letting go of her hand. I'd had quite the encounters with her during the Titanomachy.

From what I knew, she was basically Percy's brain. I'd met her first on Princess Andromeda, when they'd been captured and fooled Luke with the Fleece. Immediately, she'd striked me as a girl whose words spoke ten times louder than her actions. But Luke had an enormous weak spot for her. So I'd helped her escape, under his command.

After that, and seeing her fight more than once, I realized that she was more than that. She did fight for what she loved, and wasn't bad at it, at all. I ended up helping her more than once, although she was on the wrong side.

"I'm really sorry for your loss." she said, bowing her head to me guiltily. "We built a pyre for your broth-"

Before she could finish, a figure I knew all too well rushed into us, interrupting her. Chris Rodriguez huffed, as if he'd ran from quite some distance, and some yards away stood the angry silhouette of his girlfriend, Clarisse.

"Erica!" he panted. I eyed him with a sneer. "I'm sorry about your brother, and like, if you'll stay in camp, uhm, our, uh, relationship–"

Relationship made me scowl. I frowned at his rushed words, that begged me to not ruin the fake reputation he'd built up in this camp. Like he'd been forced to join us. Like he didn't love the little power he was given. Like me and him had simply "broken up".

Like how he interrupted Annabeth, Percy interrupted him, except more violent, with the gift of a broken nose. Percy shook his hand as he retracted it, and as Chris covered his nose with a surprised yelp. Paces away, Clarisse seemed prone to haul herself at Percy and mauling him apart. Nonetheless, the cracking of his nose bridge satisfied something in me, and inevitably I found myself smiling.

"Pig." Percy spat at his feet. He used the tone reserved for terrifying children and enemies. "If you ever muster enough courage to even touch her again, I will break every bone in your body with my bare hands."

He gulped, bothered by Percy's intimidating stance, and jogged away awkwardly, his feet kicking the dust onto himself.

Annabeth looked at Percy.

"What was that about?" she asked.

Before Percy could answer, I did.

"Just some old drama, don't worry."

"Chiron would like to see you, I guess." she said, after nodding although clearly unconvinced that it was only old drama. "He's at the big house."

I thanked her with a smile, before leaving and following a path I had walked once but memorized through the blueprints and maps.

The way they'd kissed… Kronos kissed me like that before. Could it have been the curse? All the things he'd said to me sounded so genuine… too genuine. The whispers that told me he loved me, the way his eyes lit when I walked in. He must've wanted more than just sex, right? He hadn't ever touched me without my approval, and he respected me.

How did he fall in love with a child? Was it even love, though? He seemed willing to wait. He seemed to crave my presence, want my love, obsess for my words, however senseless. Was I his weakness like Annabeth was Luke's?

Why hadn't he killed me when I betrayed him? I would never find someone to love me again.

At last I stopped at the building's porch, staring at the wooden facade that looked worn and old. Its blue paint peeled off at some corners of the walls, and the windows were slightly dusty. The big house appeared frequently in my nightmares.

I swallowed and knocked at the door. Chiron, the centaur, answered it and invited me in.

"Miss Nakamura," he began, his tall figure slightly pacing around my chair. I didn't show it, but it frightened me. "Although you fought against us at first, without you, Olympus would've fallen. You're a hero–"

"I'm a traitor." I countered, looking up to his eyes. "I had sworn my loyalty to Kronos, however wrong his cause was, and I have given up that promise."

"You did it for a good cause." his head leaned right.

"I chose my moral righteousness at the expense of the one who protected me." I stated, insistent on my views maybe to annoy him. "Now I side with my torturers?"

He looked down and let out a sigh.

"Miss." he said after a couple seconds. "There is war, and there is peace. We are no longer in war. You will be pardoned, and you will be protected by who should have protected you in the first place. Your capture was something… shameful. I reluctantly agreed to it out of desperation, knowing it was wrong. Allow us to make up for our mistakes."

I didn't answer him.

"We will build new cabins for everyone to stay in. You can stay here, talk to your family." he told me, with caring brown eyes. I flinched at the last word, but he didn't notice.

"I'll think, Chiron." I said bitterly.

"We'll give you time for that. Oh, and your pegasus… She left and said that her mistress demanded her presence. I'm guessing that's not you?"

I nodded, but didn't say anything. I expected Skotos to leave if we lost the war.

"There's a bus to New York in fifteen minutes."

I left the Big House hurriedly before anything else could haunt me. During the whole duration of his speech, all I heard was a faint drip in the background. The drip of my blood against cold stone.

"Hey!" a bright voice beckoned for me. I turned around to see a girl with fiery red hair and green eyes that shone like Hecate's staff waving at me.

I remembered her instantly. She had thrown the blue hairbrush at Kronos, just as he rose from his casket. We all had laughed about it behind closed doors, and jokes arose about the Brush Girl being the secret savior of Olympus.

"You dropped this!" she said, throwing something silvery at me. I caught it above my head. As I opened my fingers around it, I recognised the shard from Kronos' scythe I wore around my neck.

He had broken his blade with his own fingers, leaving it chipped. When I asked if that broken piece wouldn't be a weak link, a flaw in its perfect slashes, he said yes. He told me that one broken part may be the cause of a loss, of his demise.

Gifting it to me, he said he trusted me with it, but perhaps I was it, his weak link. He'd looked me in the eye steadily, calling me his hamartia. His fatal weakness.

Indeed, I was part of the cause of his demise. Had he not hesitated in killing me, he wouldn't have been distracted enough to let Luke breathe through.

I put it in my pocket, scared of the uglier memories it might evoke.

"Thanks, hairbrush girl." I muttered, as she walked to me.

"Oh, haha, you were there?" she laughed embarrassedly, cheeks flushed red.

It surprised me that she didn't remember me there. We'd even had quite a moment of shocked eye contact after she did it. But then, it was much more understandable for me to remember her than for her to remember me.

"Erica Nakamura." I introduced myself, extending my hand for her to shake. With a pleased smile, she shook my hand.

"Rachel Dare." she replied. "I'm the Oracle, like, I see visions and stuff."

"Nice to meet you, Rachel Dare, the Oracle." I smiled. She and her prophetic abilities had already been discussed in the Army, and we even debated whether or not we should try and pull her in, but her crush for Jackson had made it practically useless for us to even try it.

"I saw you in my visions." she announced, very direct. She was an interesting person, from the way she looked to the way she spoke. "You're basically alongside every saving the world moment."

"Damn, I need to save the world more?" I complained, rolling my eyes jokingly. "I thought once was enough."

"You should stop tying your hair so much. I know it kind of covers your eyes, but you fight just as well with impaired vision." she said so with the same tone she used so far, which kind of creeped me out.

"Am I going to go blind or something?" I frowned, slightly scared for my life.

She chuckled, flashing her tidy teeth and dimples.

"I suppose I phrased it wrong, sorry." apologized Rachel, before turning her head back as if she'd heard something I didn't. "I just remembered I need to be somewhere. Ciao!"

"See you around." I answered, as she ran off. What a strange person.

I needed to get going as well. There was, what, ten minutes until the bus left? I jogged toward the hill, where the tree Thalia had been for years rested, tall and quiet. I wondered what it was like to be a tree… was it just like sleeping, or death? If that was the case, wouldn't it be more convenient to let her die straight up?

A crowd of demigods waited there, some for the bus to come, some for their parents, and others were only there to say their goodbyes. The dragon laid sleeping beneath the pine tree, grumbling and shaking the ground with every snore. Its tail shook calmly, and no one seemed to mind it. I sat under the shade of the tree, eyeing the golden fleece that hung on one of the branches reflecting the sunlight. I wondered what would happen if I tried to steal it.

Across the clearing, I heard my name and my head turned, trying to locate the source. The murmured syllables and laughs came from all of the hill, but I saw the blond girl discreetly glancing at me besides a tall tuff of disheveled black hair. I stared back at her, curious of how she'd react. She averted my eyes guiltily, mumbling something as she lowered her head. I almost laughed when, in response of whatever she'd said to Percy, he jumped around and flashed me with the brightest smile and two thumbs-up. I scoffed at his childishness while Annabeth desperately facepalmed herself.

Annabeth looked worried, though. I almost wanted to tell her I'd be alright. Percy was probably telling her about what happened that day. To be fair, everyone gossiped about how Beckendorf had returned, and he probably told everyone I kept him hostage or some shit… But it didn't matter. It wasn't my responsibility, or of my concern, to make all these people like me.

So many Half-Bloods here. So many of them would die before they reached adulthood. So many of them would've been dead already, had they been born to a god of lesser power. So many had been neglected, ignored, sacrificed, overlooked. It all desperately reminded me of Ethan.

***

"Ethan! Oh, gods, what happened to you?" I sobbed, standing at the bathroom door in my nightclothes, horrified. "What are you doing!? Ethan! Answer me!"

He was leaning against the sink, blood dripping from his face. He faced down, and his hair covered his face from my view, groaning as the white porcelain turned into a sickly red. His hands were stained with blood, and a razor blade laid dropped on the floor.

"Rickie… go back to bed." he murmured, without looking up. "I'll be fine. Don't start fretting over me now."

"Ethan, what's going on?" I insisted, scared to even step inside. I was barefoot, and the floor was cold. "Are you hurting yourself? What did this to you?"

He shook his head, and flicked his wrist as if he was dismissing me.

"It's fine… I'm alright. This is just… a process. A formality." he mumbled, and flipped up the tap. Water started running, dragging the blood down the drain. "Shush now, don't cry."

I stared at him, and then I stepped into the bathroom, determined to help my brother. Maybe he'd been hurt. I'd fix it. I knew how to fix wounds, my friend's mother is a nurse, I saw her work. I'd fix him, I told myself, and I walked toward him.

"No. Go to sleep, we have school tomorrow." he murmured, shaking his head again. Blood dripped from his chin, onto his bare chest. His arms were folded and his fingers pressed against the edges of the sink, as if he was scared to let go of it. "Come on, don't come closer. It's fine."

I was next to him now. He was crying too, hiccups filling his chest nervously and routinely making him tighten his grip on the sink. His hair was wet. Tears and blood. Was he dying? My throat tightened at the thought of my brother dying. No, it couldn't be. Ethan couldn't die. I would fix it.

His messed fringe still covered his face from my eyes, and when I tried to move it away he brusquely turned his head away from me. He sobbed and he was shivering. He wasn't wearing a shirt… He was probably cold.

"Hey. Ethan, look at me. Let me see. I'll help you, okay?" I promised, trying to hold back a nervous weep. "Don't worry, E. I'll fix it for you. It'll be alright."

"N-no. You can't fix it." he stuttered, and he turned his head back down to the sink, mumbling as he cried quietly. "It's done. I've done it. You can't take it back. The sacrifice, it…"

I tucked his hair behind his ear cautiously, and then finally he turned to look at me. I gasped, a sob filling my throat and panic rising from my lungs. Immediately, I started scrambling, looking for the first aid.

"Erica, stop." he beckoned, crying. He put his hands on my shoulder, staining my shirt with blood and holding me in place. "Please. Just calm down, it'll be fine."

His eye. It was gone. All there was left now was the eye cavity, the exposed flesh, pink-hued meat covered and smothered by red, red blood.

His left eye had been cut off. Bits of flesh dangled inside, and his eyelid still twitched, as if it was aware there was something missing. And there was so much blood. It splurted from the hole, and dragged itself miserably down his cheek, to his chin, dripping. So much blood ran from my brother's eye.

I stared at him, unable to say anything, to even breathe. I just stared at him in terror, wondering what had happened. The razor on the floor, had he done this to himself? WHY? His sobs were pained, and he tried to stop, but as he saw my expression it only became worse. There was just so much blood, and it got mixed in his tears, and it just all ran down his face, and it was so…

"It'll be alright." he promised, but he gagged on his words and his weeps became more disgruntled. He tried to smile, but there was snot running from his nose, and his cries contorted his face, and he seemed so desperate. "It'll be alright, don't worry, I'm fine."

"Why?" I managed, as the iron's smell made me sick. "D-Did you do this to yourself?"

He kept sobbing, and he couldn't say anything, so I just hugged him. At first, his weeps became louder, and I was scared I'd hurt him, but soon I felt his hands on my back and he squeezed me tightly, as hard as he could manage. His chin draped on my shoulder, and I felt his neck against my skin as he cried.

"Erica… It was mom. It was a trade, Rickie." he muttered, in between gasps for air and without letting go. "Nemesis said, that… With my sacrifice, I'd be able to make a change in the world, Rickie. Then you'll be safe, we'll be safe."

The blood all over the sink, the tap open, and even the cold water didn't seem to be able to wash away the blood. The cold bathroom tiles, the window was open, and even the wind couldn't blow away the chill. The dark hatred I had of his agony, the light was on, and not even that could drown out my shadow. The tears from my eyes, and not even that would wish away his pain.

Nemesis had hurt him. He cried, and his sobs reached to my heart and wrecked it. Nemesis had done this. This was her fault. She had made him do this, she had made this happen. No mother did this to her child.

"I hate her, then." I whispered, and I held him closer to me, scared that he'd be reminded of his pain if I let go. "She shouldn't hurt you. No one should hurt you."

***

My brother had been a fool, trying to please Nemesis. She'd tricked him. So much he'd done for her approval, and none of it had been worth it. Poor Ethan.

I wish he'd listened to me when I told him that Nemesis wasn't worth any of the trouble he put himself through. I wish he'd believed me when I told him that I needed him with me. I wish he wasn't just, so fair. If only he'd been a bit more selfish, maybe he would've lived.

The other demigods seemed completely unbothered. How pitiful. How pathetic. Not their suffering, but their ignorance to it. Still they acted like lapdogs to the gods, still they ran their errands like it would bring any honor. Like if they did that, their parents would notice them.

I looked again, and I saw their worriless joy, as if they hadn't considered for a moment that their godly parents only saw them as inconveniences or entretainment. Maybe their bliss was in their ignorance.

Ignorant Half-Bloods. Blissful children.