~ ☼ ~

When I woke up again, I was laying back in the cabin.

Everyone else was already awake, and up and getting ready. Riley wasn't there, though, and I found, quickly, that neither was Will. But Alec was. He saw me get up, grabbing my head painfully. And when we locked eyes, from opposite sides of the cabin, he looked away. But I'd seen him watching me.

I was still in Riley's dress. I'd missed changing time, so I'd have to go to the bathhouse if I didn't want to argue with Michael about breaking schedule to close the curtain again. Besides, I didn't want to draw attention to myself, so I slipped outside with a t-shirt and shorts in hand and ran through the dew down to the bathhouse.

I had no idea what had happened last night.

Maybe one of my siblings had seen me on the beach when they'd come back from the party, but I feel like they would've said something had that been true. Besides, as I ducked out of the bathhouse, I overheard a few Ares kids walking by arguing about what to do next. It seemed like my siblings were too busy last night turning the party into another fight with Cabin 5. I didn't know whether that made me feel better or worse. On one hand, it was pathetic, but on the other hand... at least that meant I wasn't the only pathetic one!

Falling asleep on the freaking beach was definitely worse, though.

So, embarrassed, I trudged back to the Cabin, just as everyone was coming out to head to breakfast. And I stayed back, not wanting any of them to see me. And certainly not wanting to see Alec. I didn't have enough sass in me to confront him now.

Unluckily, to my utter chagrin, he apparently did.

He stopped, noticing me. Then he gestured for me to come over to him. I wanted to puke, but I did.

"Hi," I said.

"Why were you  asleep on the beach last night?" he asked. "You're lucky the harpies didn't get you."

The harpies, quite frankly, did not exist, in my opinion. But that wasn't the point here.

My neck went hot as I tried to figure out what to say. Did I start with asking where he'd snuck off to last night? Did I bring up the fact that we had freaking kissed?

Finally, I said, "Um, do you know where Riley is?"

"Michael said Will took her to the infirmary to run some magical tests on her to see where her powers went." He squinted as the sun came out from behind the trees - frick you, Apollo - and I had to admit, he looked handsome, in a grotesque way. I'd always thought that, though. His hair and his tan skin were perfect for sunlight.

I'd thought it was the sun, but it was the light that was the key there.

"Oh," I said. "I didn't know there were any tests to run."

What I wanted to say was, I'm sorry about last night. Please forget it ever happened. Please. Please don't ruin the one person I thought I had for sure.

Then, he said, "I'm... sorry. Again. For last night."

I didn't know what to say. He wouldn't meet my eyes, and between that and his tense mood, it felt like he was mad at me for it. But it was something, I guess. If we just pretended like it never happened, maybe we'd just forget it ever did.

"It's okay," I said. "So am I."

"It's not your fault at all," he said. "It's mine. I was... um, stressed out, and, I don't know. I don't know. It's entirely possible the Stolls spiked the lemonade."

I rolled my eyes. "That would be... wildly illegal."

Now, finally, he gave me a glinting smile. "Their dad is the god of thieves."

"I feel like stealing is a different crime than providing minors with alcohol."

Alec raised an eyebrow. "Is one better than the other?"

Then, the official conch blew, indicating we better get our butts to breakfast now, or else we'd miss it. After all, pretty much every cabin had already headed down, but - like the world was out to get me - some Athena kids were just now going down. Including Lacey. And when she saw Alec and I standing together, she narrowed her eyes.

"Does she still have a bone to pick with you?" Alec asked, his nose crinkling.

I nodded. "She hasn't been... super nice."

Alec gasped, his eyes filling with concern. "What? Is she bullying you? Why didn't you say something?"

Discomfort flooded me. "It's not... it's not that big of a deal."

"It is, too," he said. "If she says anything to you, literally tell me. And everyone else. Riley alone will be completely willing to make her... stop."

He gave me a look that both made me feel shivery all over and made me question what exactly this meant. When I raised an eyebrow, suitably, he gave me a beaming grin and clapped me on the shoulder.

"Let's have a good day today, runaway," he said, then began to jog towards the dining hall.

There was the Alec I knew.

~ ☼ ~

I remembered what the dryad had told me once we were at breakfast. Luckily, Riley re-appeared just in time for it - I imagined Will wanted to get her a space in the infirmary before it started filling up for the day, tough that didn't happen as much anymore with less campers. When we asked her what he'd done, she kept her lips shut; I had a feeling that meant Will didn't really know what was wrong with her, either. I admired him for trying.

"Well," I said. "Um, there's something you should both know. After the party last night, before I found you, Riley... I, um, ran into someone. Hence why I was so dirty."

I saw Alec look at me in surprise over his Honey Bunches of Oats, but I didn't look back at him.

"Who?" Riley asked. "Gods, not Demeter again."

"Nope," I said. "It was a dryad. Her name was Red Oak. She told me she had seen Demeter give me the mini quest, and had been trying to help me since. Said something about the wild not doing too well right now. I guess Pan is dead."

Will, now apparently Riley's personal child servant, was listening. His eyebrows raised, and he said, "Yeah, I heard that too. Grover Underwood saw him die last summer. Now there's this huge chasm between the satyrs who believe him, and the ones who don't..."

He trailed off, because he saw my eyes glazing over.

"Sorry," I said.

"I know it's a lot," he said. "But it's sad. They gotta keep the spirit of the wild alive somehow, right?"

"Get back to the dryad," Alec said, gruffly. Then, he too added, "Sorry."

I gave him a grateful look, then said, "Anyway, she told me she had asked Hemmings -  that's pegasus Alec and I adopted from the stables - and Hemmings said he was currently out looking for the sickle, too. But he knew it was in Manhattan."

There was a chorus of surprised blinks all around.

"Hemmings is okay?" Alec asked.

"Hemmings is looking for the sickle?" Riley added.

"Dryads can talk to pegasi?" Will continued.

"There are pegasi you can adopt?" Michael put in.

I wanted to knock my head against the table.

"Yes, yes, yes, and yes," I said, in rapid succession. Now that Michael was apparently listening, his tan face propped on a hand, his little council was listening too. With all their eyes watching us, I felt the same way I had in the cabin last night. Like I wanted to run away.

Great. Now I was back where I started!

"Anyway," I said. "My point is that it's somewhere in Manhattan."

"How would he know?" someone asked.

"Alec and I have the greatest pegasus in the world," I said.

"A pegasus would have no connection to Demeter," someone else said.

"Maybe he just really likes us and is doing a lot of research for us."

"Maybe he's the spy," someone else suggested.

"Gah!" I said, slamming down the cup of orange juice I had been in the process of lifting. Everyone looked shocked as the juice sloshed everywhere. Immediately, shame covered me like a blanket, and when a few people already started to go back to their own conversations, uncomfortable with my outburst, I felt even worse. Now they'd all just think I was one of those antisocial girls who didn't want people talking to me.

(Which, yeah, in Highland Falls, I was.)

"Sorry," I said, immediately. "Just... sorry."

I blinked, putting my head in my hand and willing everyone else, Will included - hehe - to look away, too. Eventually, they did, as Alec, sitting beside me, awkwardly moved to put an arm around me.

And awkwardly, it made me feel better.

"Ignore them," Riley whispered. "They mean well, but they don't know."

"I agree," Alec said. "But I'm kind of mad that we've been trying so hard and it's in freaking Manhattan."

I would've reacted to this comment, given that I'm pretty sure he'd left last night to find the sickle without us again, which irritated me, but I couldn't. Because instead, there was something else to react to. He had not said freaking.

"Alec!" Riley and I said together, in equal measure of horror.

He blinked twice. "What?"

"You just said a very bad word," Riley admonished. She hit his hand, and he swore again, pulling it away.

"I say that all the time!"

"No, you don't!" I said. "You're... Mr. Infirmary Sunshine. I've never once heard you swear. Actually, now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever heard anybody swear in English here."

"We're not allowed to," Riley said solemnly, and Alec rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry, okay?" he said. Then, he shook his head and gave us a softer look. "Seriously. Just... um, fricking Manhattan."

"Yeah." Riley sank into her seat glumly. "Manhattan."

"Manhattan," I repeated, but my mind was repeating Alec swearing. I guess it wasn't that weird, but...

I'm sorry. I do live to psycho-analyze the people in my life, apparently.

Alec turned back to his cereal, looking sad, and Riley sighed. Meanwhile, I looked towards Manhattan in the distance and wondered why the Titans would keep Demeter's sickle right under her nose. then again, I highly doubted Demeter spent her free time wandering the streets of Midtown.

"Well," I said. "I guess we'll just have to hope Hemmings can find it. Or wait until we get a chance to go to Manhattan and find it ourselves."

Little did I know when that would be.

~ ☼ ~

A/N: One day AJ will hear of the new, way too poppy, Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer and be so, so, so bewildered