002───────ஐ〰ฺ･:*:･✿the call of the wild

  THAT NIGHT, THERE WERE NO NEVER-ENDING BLUE SEAS AND OCEANS, NO DEEP SKY. There were no wings from her back, no kind-but-cruel men watching her fall, shock in their eyes. There was no sea-green or sky-blue, no burning hot wax scarring her back or any heat. There was no sun. Only darkness.

  It wasn't the type of darkness that came with the night, the kind of darkness that night-owls like Annabeth Chase thrived off and everybody else slept in. It wasn't darkness like the deep, light-less murk of the sea, which Percy Jackson flourished in. It was just...nothing. An abyss she was falling into, a void she was engulfed by. 

  Is this what death is?  The question blooms on her lips, but she does not dare to ask, for fear of the answer. 

  Pain and suffering, salt-streaked lines running down her cheeks, fire-hot tears that brand her skin. She can see nothing, hear nothing. She is nothing. But if she is nothing, how can she feel? She must be someone. She must be alive, for is she can feel everything. She does not know what she feels, but it is something. 

  Her body is splitting in two. It feels like something is being ripped from her body, or perhaps her soul, as the two have always been closely entwined. Part of her body is melting away, the other part is drying, burning. 

  "Am I dead?" She asks the empty darkness. It is strange. Never before has she been able to speak in a dream before. Never has she remembered who she was. Never has she been sentient enough to think in coherent sentences. Ironic that it is the most painful of dreams that she can remember like this. The one that she would prefer to forget, to be someone else.

  Even the effort of asking takes too much; it is too much. Her jaw aches; blood runs down her chin. Her hand rises, about to wipe the blood away, but it is too heavy. Gravity pulls her hand down — and then her head, until she is lying on the ground. It tries to pull her deeper, but the floor — earth —whatever is below her — resists, and now she is being torn in two. Wouldn't it be easier to fall through? To give up? "I must be dead."

  Must you?

  She isn't sure where the voice originates; perhaps behind her, above, below. But once it starts, it seems to multiply, until they surround her, calling for her to listen. 

  She has no choice. She listens. 

  This is not death. This is life. 

  " How?" This is the worst pain she has ever felt; the idea that it is what life is, the notion itself is laughable. 

  This is pain. Death is peace. 

  "No," she whispers, and the voice seems to laugh, until she listens closer and realises that it is not laughing, but crying, and now she is crying with it, sobbing into the floor that she cannot rise from. "No. That cannot be." 

  The voice falls silent, cogitating an appropriate response. Her pain grows deeper — it seems to stop sobbing for a moment.

  Do you feel that?

  She feels a number of things. None of them pleasant. 

  Help me. Help me and I will end your pain.

  She opens her mouth to ask why, ask how, ask who she is speaking too. Where is she? The voice rumbles, as if it can hear her. But how can it? It is formless, senseless, a void. 

  You are with me. This is my mind. My cage. You must free me. 

  How?

  I will show you the way. And when you are finished, we will have peace.

  Her mouth opens, and suddenly she is not nothing anymore, now she is face-down on forest-green ground, mouth filled with grass. "Lila!"

  She sits up, and rubs her head — her nose is bleeding, but she can wipe the blood off this time. She is awake. This is real. Palpable, corporal. 

  "Are you okay? What happened?"

  Lila stares into the earth-green, concern-dotted eyes of Willow, staring at her in confusion. Lila looks around; she is in the forest, near Zeus's Fist. "I don't know."

  But she intends to find out.

☆━━━━━━━━━━━☆

  LILA SITS AND WALKS ALONE; NOT PHYSICALLY, BUT MENTALLY. 

  She is not like Percy and Annabeth and Grover, who over the years have formed an unreachable trio of friends that she will never be part of. They have their inside jokes, their dangerous experiences that have bonded them together in a way Lila is sure she will never be able to match. Sure, she spends a lot of time helping Annabeth with research, and yes, perhaps she understands Grover in a way that Percy and Annabeth will never. And, true, she has a crush on Percy, and has for over six months. But it isn't the same — she will never be the same as them.

  Lila doesn't even have her siblings, the same way Annabeth has Malcom and whoever else (Lila can't remember), Percy has Tyson, and even Clarisse has her siblings (even if they hate each other at the best of times). She's just alone. All her friends seem to run away from camp or join Luke's Army without a second thought about her.  

  "You miss them," Annabeth tells her again. There's no need for explanation; Annabeth can read minds, after all. "Right?"

  "No," Lila lies, sweet half-truths slipping from her lips with an effortless smile. What has she become, that is so easy to lie? "No, I don't."

  Annabeth doesn't believe her — the girl was born and raised with skeptics and cynics. "They're probably dead, you know." Well, isn't that a comforting thought? Annabeth seems to realise how withdrawn she sounds, and the reticent girl winces at her own words. "I mean — I don't mean it like that. It's better that, than joining Kronos."

  "You mean, like Luke?" That was a low blow — Annabeth pales further, cutting into her sausage a little more violently. Lila winces internally as her knife scrapes the bottom of her plate with a harsh, raucous sound.  "Sorry. I didn't mean that." Lila says immediately, unable to meet her friend's eyes. (If there was a way to take back words, Lila would use it in a heartbeat.)

  "No — it's true."

  "That doesn't make it okay," Lila murmurs quietly, smiling at the blonde ; Annabeth's hard gaze softens, and her knife stops scraping her plate, peace filling the taut atmosphere once more. "I hope they're alive. That's all."

  Annabeth nods calmly, understanding shining through the metal of her eyes. "Who do you miss the most?"

  That's a hard question. Lila has a pathetic track record of befriending every unclaimed demigod in the Hermes Cabin — of course, the unclaimed are always the first to leap at the chance to join Kronos, to be wanted by their family. They aren't evil, Lila is sure. They just want to be respected; to be loved like Annabeth is by Athena, and Percy by Posiedon. It doesn't help that after one unclaimed demigod leaves, the rest of the camp begins to watch the others as if they will be the next to desert, practically forcing them out. The entire Demeter Cabin is waiting for the day when Lila joins the Titan (Lila, of course, knows that it will never happen). 

  But Lila can understand why her friends leave. If she wasn't Lila, if she had a useful gift (not just gardening) then she would be angry at being abandoned and forgotten, too. She would know that she is worth more than being thrown aside like garbage, and she would hate her parents for it. But Lila knows that she is pretty forgettable — that's just how it is. And Lila has made her peace with that. 

  "Nico," Lila says after a moment. She's not sure why; of all her friends, she knew Nico the least amount of time, but in the short few weeks he spent in the Hermes Cabin, he was a bundle of joy. Whether it was teaching her how to play Mythomagic ( she really sucked ) or trying, and failing to use a sword, he was just so endearing. He is — was — like a younger brother to her. "I don't think he's dead. He's out there, I can feel it."

  She might be imagining it. It's probably best to exclude that part.

  "I'm sure he is," Annabeth says consolingly, though she looks guilty for a moment — Lila is sure that she imagined it (why would she look guilty?). "Anybody else?"

  Lila blinks for a moment, knowing the answer. Ethan. Ethan Nakamura was five foot eight inches of darkness and anger. Claimed by Nemesis, and yet he still didn't have a home, nowhere to call his. Lila could understand his anger. His mother was a minor goddess; not worthy of a throne, a cabin, of notice. He was a weak demigod,  designed to back up the heroes. If you were a minor demigod, you couldn't be a hero, of course. It just simply wasn't done.

  In the end, Ethan had befriended Lila, purely because he thought he could find a kindred spirit; someone feeling abandoned, angry, cruel, lost. He thought she was like him — she wasn't — and then they had become friends anyway. 

  But Lila can't tell Annabeth any of this, purely because when Ethan left, he told her exactly what he planned to do — and while Lila is easily tricked and very naive, she's always striven to be loyal and trustworthy. So Lila smiles a tight-lipped smile, and says only "No, just Nico."

  "Right."

  "Yeah."

  They sit there a moment, slipping into the kind of comfortable silence you can only have when you know somebody so well, you can decipher the strange code that they follow, the set of rules that defines which action they take and what they do next. At least, it can remain like this until a person thinks of something to say next. 

  (Usually in this situation, it would be pensive Annabeth who breaks the silence first; but for once it is Lila, who is suddenly struck with a question that has been bothering her since breakfast.)

  "So, I saw you talking to Percy earlier," she begins tentatively, as a tiny smirk rises at the corner of Annabeth's lips. There's a strange unspoken rule at Camp Half-Blood, that demigods must only sit with people of their own cabin — it's never broken. If Mr D had seen, he might have turned Percy and Annabeth both into dolphins. Quintus didn't seem to care, but everybody had noticed anyway. (Lila is only allowed to sit with Annabeth because one of Connor and Travis' pranks went wrong, and now the Hermes table is about twelve inches shorter, with singed ends). "What was that about?"

  Annabeth shrugs, peering around Lila to eye Percy; Lila makes a conscious effort not to turn her head and watch him too. That would be weird... and too obvious. "I was just telling him about everything he missed; the labyrinth, Clarisse's quest, finding Chris, Ariadne's String... He missed a lot, didn't he?"

  "Yeah." Lila pauses, gulping down her water (Lila always drinks water, it's healthier) and watching Annabeth closely; the girl seems casual, eating her food as if nothing is wrong. Perhaps nothing is. Annabeth has always been hard to read; she prefers not to talk about her feelings, or even think about them. "If there was a quest — " Annabeth's back straightens, her posture as if she is being awarded a prestigious medal in front of a crowd of a thousand people. "— would you lead it?"

  "Yes." Annabeth says instantly, before frowning slightly, rethinking her words. "Well — if Clarisse didn't want to. She's done as much — more than me. But I don't think she'd want to." There's something reassuring in the matter-of-fact tone in which Annabeth speaks; no malice, just cold truth. 

  "I want to be on that quest."

  "What?" Annabeth frowns, eyebrows furrowing. "You want to what?" 

  It's not a surprise she's shocked; Lila has been at the camp for almost two years, and not once has she ever displayed any desire to go on a quest. In fact, she's outwardly professed her distaste for them. (If the gods want something done, they should do it themselves, right? She's lost too many friends to their stupid requests.) Lila doesn't know why she needs to go; she can sense it. Her dream is not a coincidence — and now there is a hunger, some need inside her, to find out what it all means.

   Lila looks around and leans forward, ingenuous. "You ever get this feeling — that you have to do something? That if you don't something really bad is going to happen?" Annabeth says nothing, but Lila knows she understands, as she sees a flicker of apprehension in her cloudy irises. "I have these dreams — I just have this feeling."

  Of course Annabeth understands. Despite the girl's mind being ruled by logic and rationality, she knows that there is always a level above demigod, a level of omnipotence that they cannot begin to understand. "Okay."

  "Okay?" Lila stammers, confused for a moment. She expected more resistance. "That's it?" 

  Annabeth shrugs, meeting Lila's eyes. There is no malice there, no irritation. Just simple understanding and agreement. "If you really believe that you need to go, I'll support you. I trust you."

  The problem is, Lila isn't sure she trusts herself. What if she's wrong? What if her dreams are telling her the opposite, to not go on the quest? What if she ruins everything by being there? It sounds strange, but part of her had been relying on Annabeth's resistance to the idea she proposed; then she could argue her case, lose, and that would be it. She would have tried. She didn't actually expect the girl to agree.

  "Hey," Annabeth says, perhaps noticing how pale Lila is all of a sudden. "If you don't want to go — "

  "No! No, I do," Lila disagrees awkwardly, not sure what she's planning on saying. Her mouth and brain seem to have disconnected; the words coming from her mouth are not at all what she means. "I just, I mean — what if I mess it all up? I've never been on a quest before — I'm not even very good with weapons — actually, I'm really bad, it's a little embarrassing — "

  "Calm down," Annabeth says, entirely calmly. "Percy and I'll both be going, and — "

  "Percy!?"

  Annabeth giggles slightly at the blushed (but still somehow deathly pale) expression on Lila's face. "Yeah, sorry, I forgot about your crush on him —"

  "I don't have a crush!"

  Annabeth raises an eyebrow. "Sure you don't."

  "I don't!"

  "Yes, that's what I said," the grey-eyed smartass rolls her eyes, snickering quietly to herself. Lila resists the urge to kick her from under the table (it would only put a target on her back for the training games later, and she doesn't want to be hunted down by every Athena child). "That's why you can barely look at him right now."

  Lila stiffens in indignation, gripping her knife so hard she's surprised it doesn't break. "I don't—" Annabeth looks unimpressed, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Okay, maybe I have a slight crush on him."

  "Slight?" Annabeth laughs.

  "I have a massive crush on him." Lila snaps, sticking her fork into her bread so hard it wobbles there for a moment, impaled in airy carbohydrate. "Are you happy now?"

  "I didn't expect you to actually admit it!" The other girl cackles, covering her mouth with her hand. When Annabeth laughs she always seems to cover her face as if she's embarrassed; it's a strange habit, though rather endearing. 

  Lila blushes deep crimson, sinking lower into her chair. "I thought saying it out loud would make me feel better." It didn't.

  "Better about what?"

"Well, he obviously doesn't feel the same," she hisses, trying to pry her knife from the bread she had stuck it in. Connor Stoll looks over and raises an eyebrow in mirth at her struggle; the knife is securely fixed there. "I thought saying it would help me get over my feelings, you know?"

  "Did it?"

  "No."

  Annabeth smiles, brushing her dusty blonde hair back with a grin. "He's watching us."

  "Really?" Lila swivels in her seat, widening her eyes as she meets Percy's. His eyes widen in return, before he swallows his food rather rapidly and takes a quick sip of his soda, trying far too hard to look casual. "What's he drinking? Is that water?"

  Annabeth narrows her eyes. "Of course not, it's bright blue. Water has no colour."

  "Sea water — "

  "Sea water is only blue because blue is one of the only colours that water doesn't absorb," Annebeth rattles off, as though from memory.

  Lila blinks. "I thought you were dyslexic."

  "Yes. But I still study."

  "When have you ever needed to know that? What class?" Lila demands, somewhat irritably since Annabeth is staring at her rather condescendingly (it's not her fault she doesn't know science. At all.) "That's probably the most useless piece of information I have ever — "

  "I think it's soda." Annabeth says, wrinkling her nose in an expression of distaste and changing the subject abruptly. Lila turns; sure enough, she can see tiny bubbles bursting from the cobalt blue liquid. "He's drinking blue soda." She raises another eyebrow (this has turned into Annabeth's signature expression now, the raised eyebrow) in horror. "Are you sure he's the one you want to date?"

  AFTER DINNER, THEY SUITED UP AS IF THEY WERE ABOUT TO PLAY CAPTURE THE FLAG. 

  (They weren't, mercifully — Lila always lost at that game.)

  "Right," Quintus said, his voice successfully quieting the raucous campers without needing to strain at all. Lila wasn't sure what she thought of the new supervisor. He was strange. Lila was both intrigued and scared of him — but he was a good sword-fighter, and that was really all that mattered in wartime. "Gather 'round."

  Mrs O'Leary bounced around him in giddy circles, and Lila grinned. Despite the fact that Mrs O'Leary was twice as tall as her, with midnight black fur and glowing red eyes, Lila had never been the least scared. She was adorable.  Sure, maybe she was a hell-hound, but one can't judge other based on appearances. Plus, Lila knew the oversized-puppy would never harm her — Mrs O'Leary adored her. 

  "You will be in teams of two," Quintus says, meeting Lila's eyes. She's never quite understood this; he always watches her, as if he's expecting her to attack him. Wary. What is Lila supposed to do against him? He'd annihilate her in a fight — not that she'd ever attack him. 

  Lila turns away, meeting Percy's eyes across the crowd. Annabeth stands beside him, her sword already prepared in her palm. Lila turns to Grover; the two have an unspoken rule that they team up for training exercises like this — that way, they can both hide out in the woods until the game is finished, and don't have to actually try. There's no point teaming with Percy or Annabeth, for they're both far too competitive to be good partners for anyone but each other. (Last time Lila partnered with Annabeth, she vowed never to repeat the experience for fear of being murdered by her own team, after "not trying hard enough".)

  "Which have already been chosen!" Quintus shouts, and Lila deflates slightly. With her luck, she's be paired with Drew Tanaka or something (not that Lila has anything against Drew, but Drew certainly seems to have something against Lila. Well, against everybody.) 

"Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silk package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurels. You must find the wreath before the other teams. And, of course...you will have to slay the monster to get it, and stay alive."

  Percy nods, looking pleased, as though this is an extraordinarily simple task for him. It probably is, considering it was just yesterday he was attacked by flame-haired, blood-sucking cheerleaders (Lila is so glad she isn't the subject of a deadly prophecy, or a child of Poseidon.) For Lila, this is the most strenuous physical activity she's done all week. 

  "I will now announce your partners," Quintus announces, glaring at each camper prone to complaining (mainly the Ares, Aphrodite and Hermes Cabins). "There will be no trading. No switching. No complaining." He narrows his eyes at the Stoll brothers in particular, though the two are likely to be paired together. 

  He grabs a massive scroll, so long it scrapes along the ground and Mrs O'Leary sniffs it for a second before deciding it isn't interesting enough for her, and moves on to devouring pizza. 

  Beckendorf and Silena Beauregard. Lila grins at Silena — the Aphrodite Counselor is sweet, and always lovely to Lila, and Lila knows she has a massive crush on Beckendorf — Silena blushes back, before sauntering over to her partner, flirtation exuding in waves that Beckendorf is swallowed up by. 

  Travis and Connor Stoll; typical. It was probably just to stop them complaining. "Have fun losing again," Connor grins, patting her back as he saunters over to his brother.

  Lila folds her arms over her chest, glaring at his back. Is that what people thing of her? That she really sucks? "I'm going to win today," she announces, strolling over to where Annabeth and Percy are standing. Quintus keeps rattling off names, but she pays no attention. Annabeth is probably listening, anyway. "Carpe Diem, yeah?"

  "You don't even know your partner yet," Annabeth points out with a smirk, tossing her blonde ponytail over her shoulder. "It might be someone really terrible...like..." she trails off, not wanting to badmouth any of the campers. 

  Percy grins, looking at Lila rather intensely. The force of his gaze causes her to blush, which, in turn, causes him to blush. "You don't even have a weapon."

  Lila grins, reaching into her hair and pulling out a hairpin that had been tucked behind her golden locks. "Watch this." She throws it into the air with the grace of someone who has done this a million times (she practiced a lot, facing a mirror to ensure she looked as cool as possible) and when she catches the pin, in grows into a spear, about two metres high. It weighs about a kilogram in her hand, but she barely feels it, for she's gotten so used to the feeling of holding a weapon like this. "Cool, right?" She asks, as Annabeth and Percy's jaws drop. They don't say anything. "Right?"

  "Where'd you get it?" Annnabeth gushes after a second, admiring the weapon with the eye of a warrior. Percy is still staring at Lila speechlessly. "It's beautiful."

  "Well," Lila begins, having told this story many times already. "You know Willow — " Annabeth shakes her head; she doesn't. "Well, she's a dryad, for a, uh, Willow tree, and she found this and thought it would suit me and it does ! So she gave it to me and — "

 "She just found it?" Annabeth says suspiciously, narrowing her eyes in horror. "She didn't say where?" 

  Lila blinks. "No, she just — "

  "That's suspicious." 

  "No, it's not!" Lila laughs; the suggestion ridiculous, so much so that her mind can barely fathom it. "You know her, you saw her yesterday, right? She brought me over to the clearing for Grover's Hearing —"

  "No," Annabeth says, shaking her head as her eyes narrow. "You were alone."

  Percy nods seriously. "I wasn't there."

  "You must not have seen her," Lila rationalises. Annabeth raises an eyebrow, looking slightly sympathetic. "Don't look at me like that! What other reason is there?" 

  "Well..."

  "I'm not hallucinating!"

  "You said it, not me."

  "Clarisse La Rue and Lila Bellerose," Quintus announces, Lila raises an eyebrow at Annabeth, grateful to have Clarisse as her partner. The girl may hate almost everybody in the camp, but she's deadly with a weapon. "You have two minutes to prepare!"

  "Hey," Lila says, smiling at Clarisse as kindly as she can. Clarisse has always been perfectly civil — in fact, she's the one who taught Lila how to use her spear. "Do you have a plan?"

  "Why would I have a plan?" Clarisse snaps, turning her flame-hot, anger-filled gaze onto Lila. Lila doesn't really mind; Clarisse is always angry, whether at her dad, Percy, or just the universe in general. She has a good reason to, in all honesty. 

  "I just thought — seeing as your dad is Ares — never mind, sorry." Lila apologises instantly, caving after the slightest snarl of aggression. She's always been like this; anytime someone is angry, she tucks her tail between her legs and backs off. Confrontation is terrifying. 

  "Why are you apologising? You didn't do anything." Somehow, Clarisse still sounds furious. 

  "Yeah," Lila trails of awkwardly, not sure what to say next. "Sorry."

  Clarisse meets her eye, her glare softening as she sees Lila blush, the reality of what she's saying fully hitting her. And then they are both grinning — Clarisse with a tiny smile, and Lila bending over to clutch her stomach as she giggles. When Lila laughs, she laughs with her whole body — a strange habit, but she rather enjoys it. Laughing makes her feel...happy. Annabeth would probably say it's the release of chemicals in her brain.

  "We're totally going to win," Lila says, nodding to herself. She told Percy and Annabeth she would, so now she has to. Otherwise it'll be quite embarrassing for her, and hilarious (especially to Annabeth). "But I shouldn't come up with the plan, or we'll lose." 

  "Alright," Clarisse nods, as the campers start to dissipate into the woods, the two minutes for planning over. Clarisse starts to march forward, so Lila follows, holding her spear out, reading to attack at a moments notice. Clarisse is also holding a spear, though hers is much longer and scarier-looking than Lila's slim, graceful weapon. "I say we follow Jackson and Chase until the scorpions go for them."

  "How do you know that the scorpions will —"

  "Have you met them? I bet they're surrounded by four scorpions already," Clarisse mutters, looking both jealous and furious. "The six scorpions probably banded together on a manhunt, just to see who could kill Percy Jackson first."

  Lila watches the taller girl for a moment, tilting her head. "You almost sound jealous."

   "Whatever." Clarisse stalks forward, gripping her spear tighter. "Let's not do that. I have a better idea."

  "Oh, thank the gods." Lila sighs in relief. She's pretty sure Clarisse's first plan counted as cheating, and Lila does not want to win by being a cheat. That would be just as humiliating as losing, if not more. 

  She follows Clarisse through through the woods for a few minutes, jumping at every slight noise and twig that snaps. Connor and Travis charge through a clearing beside them, whispering loudly and arguing with each other about which way to go, and it occurs to Lila that she has been following Clarisse around a little aimlessly for over ten minutes. "Hey, what's the new plan?"

  Clarisse points at the ground, where marks made by something with definitely more than one leg have scraped against the ground, and Lila blinks in surprise. She hadn't even noticed. "Follow the tracks."

  "Great idea," Lila mutters, regretting her decision to participate. Not that she had much of a choice. Clarisse gives Lila an irritated sort-of look. "I'm serious!"

  Together, they follow the tracks until they reach a ledge looking over a small precipice — not high enough to kill them if they fall, but enough to be inconvenient, especially at the wrong angle. A few broken bones, perhaps. 

  Lila hears the sound of scuttling legs from behind, and whips around, readying her spear. "Clarisse!"

  Clarisse turns, her expression morphing into one of the utmost hate as she stares at the gigantic insect like it is the source of all her problems. She's clearly channeling something else here; Lila almost backs away, before she remembers that on her other side is a ten-foot long scorpion. "Two on one; we can take it. I'll distract, you spear it in the back. It should have a gap in it's armour —  the tail is the poisonous part, so be careful."

  "Venomous."

  "What?"

  "Scorpions are venomous. Annabeth told me — "

  "I don't care! Just kill it!" 

  Lila swallows, nodding as she tightens her grip on her spear, backing away to try an give Clarisse the space she needs, as the Ares-girl snarls at the monster. The scorpion hisses, scuttling forward, tail waving.

  Lila stops watching and creeps forward, ducking behind a nearby tree as she readies her spear. You can do this. You trained for this. The tail is waving, trying to get a good shot at Clarisse, but the girl is moving too fast for the scorpion to follow. She's yelling insults, probably to distract it from how not-stealthy Lila is being behind it.  She's tiring though — she can't keep this up forever. 

  Okay, Lila thinks. Without the tail, it's much easier to steal the package tied to the back. What would Annabeth do? Annabeth would — her thoughts are interrupted as she notices a chink in the side of the armour — perhaps the scorpion has already had a run in with another camper, as it seems to be slightly dented. Perfect. 

  She steps back, placing her feet apart as Clarisse taught her, before pulling her arm back and angling her feet. It's harder to hit a moving target, but the scorpion is quite slow, and the spear deadly. It should be fine. 

  Her arm swings forward; her body follows, and then the spear is slamming into the scorpion, which falls to the side, wiggles slightly, before laying there, limp, dead. 

  "Nice," Clarisse says, wiping away a bead of sweat. "Next time, be quicker."

  Lila nods as Clarisee ducks forward, carefully prying the package out from under the scorpion. Lila doesn't know if the scorpion's tail is still deadly, but it's probably better not to risk it. "Is it the laurel?"

  Clarisse opens her mouth to answer, before her eyes fall on something behind Lila, and widen, her face paling considerably. She takes a step backward; her foot hits the precipice that Lila had forgotten about, and she falls out of sight with a screech. 

  "Clarisse!" 

  Lila whirls around, to see another scorpion snarling at her, jagged pincers clicking together. Lila lunges for her spear, still impaled in the body of the other scorpion, but she isn't fast enough and she thuds to the ground, a gasp of pain escaping her lips. 

  The scorpion advances; Lila screams in horror as the tail moves toward her. She scrabbles backwards, but the scorpion is faster and suddenly the stinger is flying toward her heart. Her breath catches, hands shaking slightly. 

  Her hands come up to block her face as she screams, shutting her eyes in horror as the scorpion lunges forward with a deadly hiss. 

  Nothing happens. 

  Nervously, she opens her eyes, looking around for the scorpion ; she sees nothing, only the crimson package that was tied to it's back. She blinks, and there on the ground where the scorpion once stood, is a sunflower. 

  A sunflower.

  Did she just turn a scorpion into a sunflower?

  She doesn't give herself much time to think about it as she scrambles off the cliff awkwardly, grass and flowers parting as if to help her see. Her eyes scan the ground below for the silhouette of her fallen friend. "Clarisse!"

  Dropping down onto the ground, she finds the girl's body — turning it over, she finds Clarisse mostly unharmed. Clarisse blinks, dazed. "Gods, what happened?"

  "You fell off a cliff," Lila tells her friend quietly, helping her to her feet. "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah, I'm fine," Clarisse says, swatting away Lila's hand and helping herself up. Lila steps back, feeling a little hurt, but it's just Clarisse's nature to refuse help from anyone. Even from Lila, the girl who wants (needs) to help everybody. "What happened to the scorpion?"

  "It's up there," Lila says, pointing at the top of the cliff, far above them. It looks further away from down here. "Uh..." How should she put this? "It's incapacitated, don't worry." 

  "You killed it?" Clarisse looks astonished. "How?"

  "Well, technically it's still alive..." Lila trails off, Clarisse narrows her eyes. "I ...turned it into a sunflower."

  "A sunflower?"

  "It was an accident?"

  "How do you turn something into a plant by accident?"

Lila doesn't know how to answer that, but she shrugs, hoping Clarisse isn't about to lose it and start calling her freak. Even for a child of Demeter, turning people into plants is not normal. Perhaps that's why Lila hasn't been claimed. 

  Clarisse does no such thing, as she pulls out the package from the first scorpion they killed, presenting the laurel wreath. Lila's jaw drops, and Clarisse grins. "We won. Piece of cake."

"THEY'RE PROBABLY FINE, RIGHT?" Lila tells Clarisse, biting her lip nervously, the torch shaking inner hand. "Nothing would have happened to them. Right?"

  They are searching for Percy and Annabeth, who disappeared after the game finished. They simply — vanished, without a trace. The laurel around Clarisse's neck seems a poor replacement. Lila would give anything to just know where they are, especially now that there's a dragon prowling outside the camp. 

  (It appeared there last night, while Lila was sleepwalking in the woods. It still hasn't backed off.)

  "No," Clarisse agrees, sighing. "I would never get that lucky." Lila looks at her in horror. "Come on, it's Jackson. He's definitely alive. Stop worrying."

  "But where could they go?" Lila says, her voice wavering. "There's nowhere!"

  "We found them!" One of the boys in the Ares Cabin yells, rushing over to his Counselor. Lila leaps into Percy's arms as he stumbles out of the woods, looking confused.

  "Where have you been?" His arms instinctively curl around her waist, pulling her in closer as she shivers, feeling his warmth. "I was so worried."

  He stiffens beside her, turning to Annabeth for reassurance. "But we were only gone a few minutes."

  She hits his chest hard as he looks down at her, emerald green eyes swimming with confusion. "We've been looking forever!" She steps away from him, regretting it as she suddenly feels cold, glaring at Annabeth. "What were you doing?" 

  Chiron canters in, Tyson and Grover following — Tyson has an ear-splitting smile on his face, while Grover's eyes flit around nervously. "Percy? You are okay?"

  "We're fine," he says, scratching the back of his neck as they stare at him. "We fell in a hole." Lila looks at Annabeth, who is staring at Zeus' Fist with a peculiar expression on her face. "Honest! There were three scorpions after us, so we ran and hid in the rocks. But we were only gone a minute."

  "You've been missing for almost an hour," Chiron says, shaking his head. "The game is over."

  Lila meets Willow's eyes from across the clearing, and suddenly remembers her sleepwalking the night before. She had walked here...been drawn here by something. That can't be a coincidence.

  "Yeah," Grover mutters. "We would have won, but a cyclops sat on me."

  "Was an accident!" Tyson sneezes.

  Lila shakes her head at the satyr. "You weren't even close to winning."

  "A hole?" Clarisse asks, white as a sheet. 

  "Chiron...maybe we should talk about this in the Great House," Annabeth says, shifting nervously. 

  "You found it, didn't you?"

  "Yeah. We did."

  Chiron raises his hand for silence, as campers begin to crowd, bursting with confusion. "Tonight is not the right time, and this is not the right place." He stares at boulders as if he's just noticed how dangerous they are. "All of you, back to your cabins. Get some sleep. A game well played, but curfew is past!"

  "This explains a lot," Clarisse says, stepping away from the rocks in fear. She looks pale, drawn ; this must be hard for her. "It explains what Luke is after."

  "Wait a second," Percy insists, turning to Lila. "What do you mean? What did we find?"

  Annabeth''s eyes turn dark. "An entrance to the Labyrinth. An invasion route straight into the heart of the camp."

a/n: the amount of effort that went into this chapter... i don't even know how to explain how it was both draining and exciting. Every time I write I plan what needs to happen at the beginning of the chapter, and i expected this to be about 4500 words which is what i planned to make the average word count here... then i wrote it and it's 6000 words !!! it kept growing lmao. the end might seem rushed but it's like nine on sunday evening and i have revision to do and i just wanted to publish this. i am EXHAUSTED . I want to sleep for ten hours but i have school tomorrow and two tests to...oh well, who needs sleep?

but seriously, i spent so much time and effort writing / editing this so please, comment !! tell me what you think !!

QOTD: Favourite Rick Riordan Book?

Honestly, for me, while I ADORE the Kane Chronicles and PJO, it's anything in HOO except House of Hades and the Lost Hero. The Tartarus parts were too much for me in HoH lol and the lost hero just makes me too excited lmao i'm like a puppy, i can't deal with that much excitement.

Lyra x

gif made by kaliprasads

word count: 6156