CHAPTER TWELVE / VOL. I, FAMILIAR PATTERNS

LUKE USED TO LIKE HER SHARP EDGES. He liked all of the parts of her that everyone feared—the worst parts of her that wanted to set the world on fire and bask in the warmth that it brought. It should've been a sign. Everyone else saw her as a monster, but Luke was a monster in his own right. She wasn't like Annabeth, who for the longest time, could only see the good in him. Will saw the worst parts of him and loved him for it, not in spite of it. She understood his anger and before she knew it's full extent, she'd thought it was beautiful in some way. Each seed of rage was planted deep inside of him and every flower would bloom if nurtured long enough. That's how Will feels all the time. Like there's a darkness growing inside of her, taking root and snaking around every inch of her being. Vines that latch onto the most visceral parts of her. A garden of bitterness that Luke would have found beautiful.

But missing Luke never does her any good. It only makes her angry and sad and reminds her of all the things he did wrong. And yes, she can acknowledge that he was resentful and manipulative and hurt people just for the sake of seeing them in pain, but then again, who hadn't? Sometimes seeing people hurt can feel good. If you hurt them then they can't hurt you. Will was guilty of picking at the most sensitive parts of people just see them writhe—like pressing a finger to a bullet hole or pouring salt in an open wound. Sometimes you just want to see how people will react. Will they shrivel in on themselves or lash out like a caged animal who bites the hand that beats it? Either way, how people react to pain is always telling.

          You can learn a lot about a person through watching them suffer.

Will has seen enough broken people to know when someone is sundering under an unbearable weight. And Leo, still contending with his grief, looks like a ghost against the pale snow, cellophane skin illuminated by the dull glow of the moon. But the snow falls like ashes, and in that dim light one ghost starts to look like another. She's still bleary-eyed from the fall and the eeriness of the night does nothing to ease her apprehension. For a moment she sees Luke—golden-haired, bright-eyed Luke with the deep scar that would have been daunting had it not been so handsome in a strange way. Will stumbles to a stop. It's been a long time since she saw him in someone else, and an even longer time since she'd really seen him at all. But there he was. Looking so close and yet so far away. She yearns to reach out to him, take his hand in hers one last time. Even if it meant she could never go home again, she would have.

She is brought back to reality by a jarring hand coming down on her shoulder. Her body moves on its own, animal instinct driving her to press Éleos to the throat of her attacker in a swift and decisive movement. Jason swallows thickly, feeling his adam's apple press against the sharpened edge of the blade. He's quick to take a step back, rubbing at his throat nervously.

"Are you OK?"

Will slides the dagger into its sheath. She can still feel the tugging of her heart strings, all of the remorse that builds in her throat. But she swallows it down, tilting her head in a bored manner. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Jason shrugs, looking less sure of himself. "You froze for a second there. I guess I just thought that—I just thought that maybe..." He's not actually certain of what he thought. Looking at Will now, he doesn't quite know how he could have ever seen a moment of sorrow, a moment where the mask started to slip. Now all he sees is a girl with too much anger and nowhere to lay it down. The creature looking back at him doesn't falter, doesn't hesitate.

Will tuts, rolling her eyes though she regrets it as soon as she does. The quick movement sends a wave of pain to her head and she furrows her brow at the feeling of pins and needles. They're all looking at her now. She can feel their eyes boring into her and for once they are the ones dissecting her, picking her words apart piece by piece. The only difference is that Will doesn't wither or bend. Even Leo has stopped to look back at her, dark eyes finding hers through the shadows. There's no one else but them in the stark snow.

They are the only ghosts around.

But Will can see it in his stare—the pulsating spleen that holds him in a vice grip. The agony that turns beautiful boys into something less than human. That kind of suffering is enough to turn anyone into a monster. And Leo, with all of his anger and sorrow, will not get out of the labyrinth unscathed. Some part of him is dying a slow death and Will is the one watching him fall to pieces. She can't save him from this one.

"That's your problem," she bites, pushing past Jason to continue towards the faint porch light that glowed like a beacon. "You think too much about things that you can't control. Not everything that's broken can be fixed. Now come on..." she barks out before muttering under her breath, "I want this stupid fucking quest to be over."

          And she means it.

SURVIVAL IS EASY. It's human instinct that tells you that death is something to be feared, that death is a loaded gun waiting to be fired. But the truth is that death's palms are a bloodless, barren land. Still, fear of the unknown is a greater force than faith. That's why the urge to survive always undercuts sharpened morality. It should be as intrinsic as breathing, but Jason lacks basic instincts that have always come naturally to Will. Realistically, Will has had years to forge herself into a weapon and antagonism has always been weaved into her bloodstream. Jason, however, is a blank slate, devoid of any knowledge of warfare or weapon-hood. Every scar and callous on his hand feels carved into his flesh, as if this damage has always been a part of him. He can't remember a time where these scars didn't belong to him.

Will cannot fathom how Jason has survived for this long. Even Piper has the gut instinct that causes her feet to falter and her steps to be slow and wary. Jason doesn't show as much hesitation. It's Leo who pulls him back from stepping on the motion-activated trapdoor on the sidewalk, and it's Leo who stops him from walking through the lasers on the steps. He points out the nerve gas dispenser on the porch railing, the pressure-sensitive poison spikes in the welcome mat, and the exploding doorbell. Leo and Will seem to be the only ones who can identify each trap as they near it. But Leo is the one to deactivate them. Will has never been able to understand the inner workings. She's too quick to pull roots from the dirt, destroying good things that should have been enough to last. And when you only know how to tear things down, you never really learn how to build them up again.

"You're amazing, man," Jason praises as Leo finishes disassembling the doorbell that Jason had previously tried to press. This time Will had been the one to slap his hand away before it was blown off. He had cradled his hand to his chest as if her gesture was far worse than what would have happened if she'd let him ring the doorbell. At this point, Will thinks that it would have been better if she'd done nothing at all.

Leo scowls as he leans down to examine the front door lock. All he can see in the heavy darkness is flashes of bronze and gunfire and stoney eyes staring back at him. "Yeah, amazing," he mutters. "Can't fix a dragon right, but I'm amazing." He spares a glance at Will who leans against the porch railing by the deactivated nerve gas dispenser, seemingly unbothered by anything and everything.

Leo has never felt so envious of someone—not of altruistic Jason, not of the kids in his neighborhood whose lives had always seemed so charmed. How can she be so unaffected by the ugliness of the world? How has her loss not wrung her by the neck just as his has done? And why does it seem that everyone is burdened by grief but her? But Leo has to stop his thoughts from turning dark. He knows the truth, even if it's hard to admit. He saw the fire in her eyes dampened by remorse when she told him about her mother. Even if it didn't always feel like it, there was still something living beneath the surface.

"Hey, that wasn't your—"

Leo pulls his eyes away from Will abruptly, pushing himself off his knees and cutting Jason off, announcing impassively, "Front door's already unlocked."

Piper eyes the door dubiously before sparing a glance at the disassembled traps around them. "It is? All those traps, and the door's unlocked?" Her unease is justified. It's probably the first intelligent thing Will has heard from them in a while. She's busy pressing the tip of her sword into the stone porch, digging deep enough to carve a jagged line, but she watches warily as Leo turns the knob, swinging it open and entering the looming manor without another thought. She frowns, digging deeper.

Jason goes to enter but is pulled back by Piper who grips the crook of his elbow. A somber smile tugs at her lips, strange and sad. "He's going to need some time to get over Festus. Don't take it personally."

"Yeah," Jason mutters half heartedly. "Yeah, OK." He attempts a smile but it falls flat, weighed down by the guilt of his words. He hadn't meant what he said to Leo—or even if he had, he shouldn't have said it. Because while Leo was flighty and verbose, none of these were ugly qualities. It certainly didn't make him deserving of Jason's cruel words. He knows that. And it's not as if Leo didn't hold his own resentment towards Jason. That much had been unearthed at the department store. He wonders what it would take to bury it or if it could ever go ignored again.

"You too, Will. I—" Piper falters, frowning deeply as she spares the girl a glance. "I've never seen Leo like that before. He was just angry, that's all. He shouldn't have done that, but—"

          "It doesn't matter," Will interjects flatly. "We all lash out when we're in pain. Why bother holding onto that?" All that anger, all that venom is familiar to her. She knows better than most how the urge to ruin something beautiful carves into the lining of your skin. When you're angry, nothing good can stay. Bloody hands and viscera are the only acceptable forms of suffering and destruction finds a home in your bones.

          "It's still not right..." Piper mutters quietly—bashfully almost—like she doesn't know if this is the right thing to say or if it will only disappoint.

          "Right and wrong," Will drawls, dragging her sword across the porch to the gaping doorway. "Good and evil... none of it's real. Those are just names for what we like or dislike. Who's to say what's right or wrong—which acts make us saints and which condemn us to being monsters." Her hand tightens around the hilt of her sword, feeling the way the metal molds to the grooves of her fingers. There is power and spite coursing through her bloodstream, and nothing to swallow it, only enough to feed it.

          She spares a glance at Leo's ghostly figure that looks so small in comparison to the vast foyer. "So he wanted to make me hurt like he did. It felt right to be cruel, felt comfortable to be cruel. But that doesn't make him a bad person, does it? And we're all just people. We're not good or bad—we just are. Not everything we do can be limited to what's right or wrong, good or bad. Sometimes, we just want to watch the world burn. And we all do it. No one's clean—not really." Her gaze flickers to her hands. She can feel the blood stained into her palms. "We do ugly things to people just to lessen our pain. The hard part is learning to live with it."

With that, Will makes her way into the manor, seemingly less wary than before as the conversation leaves a sour taste in her mouth. Something that Will has learned over the course of her life is that she can never look in the mirror and like what she sees. She can never be molded or shaped into something that she can stand. Part of the reason is because the reflection she sees doesn't really belong to her. It hasn't for a while. She sees him in every part of her. And those words that fell so easily from her lips never really belonged to her at all. They're Luke's words in her mouth, tainting her lips and cutting her gums so deep that they bleed.

It was always Luke who bled into her life like poison seeping into the bloodstream.

          Always Luke, even in death.

ALL OF HER FAVORITE MEMORIES ARE STAINED WITH BITTERNESS. No amount of nostalgia can mask the way those moments were shrouded in rot that clung to the underside of each memory. And this might be the worst one, because some part of her had always known. Even if Will and Luke were cut from the same cloth, even if their wrath was born from the same fire—there would always be a line drawn in the dirt that Will could never cross. But part of her feared that she would. Part of her knew that she would. And Luke knew that too.

"Do you think that Blondie's gonna be back soon?" Will asks, voice riddled with longing. She's perched on top of the Hermes cabin, legs dangling over the edge as she eyes the darkening skyline. Luke is next to her, one leg tucked to his chest while a lazy smile spreads across his face. The glaring scar carved down his face should make him seem dangerous, and she knows that he was, but it never seemed like it at the time. He looked kind in ways that she never could, even with the matching mark of Cain scratched down her own cheek.

          "I'm sure Annie will be back soon. Her and Grover will make it home safe. I'm sure of it," he reassures her. Will's shoulders loosen at his words. Even if it was a lie, Will would have believed him. It wouldn't have been the first time. She wanted to believe him so she did.

          "And what about Kelp Head?" This question comes out flatter, weaker in a way. She doesn't care for him like the others, but her tone lacks any kind of resentment or sourness that Luke's does when he talks about the son of Poseidon. He thinks she doesn't notice, but she does. She can hear the way his name comes out like a knife; she knows that something lurks beneath the surface. She just doesn't know what it is—not yet at least.

          "Sure," Luke dismisses halfheartedly. "He'll be fine." Again, she doesn't miss the way his voice drops, the way a storm starts to form in his blue eyes.

She should have known then, seen the bad omens that lingered. But Luke had always been so good to her. She shouldn't have let it go, let it slip through her fingers in favor of keeping this moment good. But despite what Will wanted, this memory would always be stained by Luke's duplicity. It would ensure that she always remembered him for what he was.

          He continues, twisting Backbiter in his hand as he twists the conversation, "Why do you call her Blondie? I'm blonde too, you know?" His tone is light now as he quirks a teasing brow. There's no trace of ill will, just Luke and his charming smile that would put Apollo to shame. "Why am I not Blondie?"

          Will shakes her head, letting a smile ease onto her face. Any doubt in Luke disappears and he is golden in every way that matters. "You're just Luke. Always Luke."

And that's all he was. Just Luke, always Luke. And somehow that meant more than anything else. She should have known then how the rot would always seep in, how no memory could ever be untouched by Luke's potency. He always had a hold over her—his darkness that bled into her, his anger that became her. And she still hates what she sees when she looks in the mirror. And she still sees him in everything that she does, every word that ever used to be his. So when he tells her that good and bad are just methods of confinement, she knows he's right. People are just people. They're not innately bad or good. And it doesn't make sense that doing bad things can outweigh the good when doing good things will never make up for all the bad.

It's one of the many things that Will kept of his. She knows that good and bad are just words, but she wanted him to be good in that moment so he was.

But Will had always seen the darkness creeping in. And she loved him anyway. And if she could love him for all of the best and worst parts, then maybe someone else could love her the same.

          If only they could carry that weight.

LEO FEELS BILE RISING IN HIS THROAT. The guilt has yet to let him go and he starts to wonder if he is a monster after all.

If he could, he would dig out the anger that burrows in his gut, claw into his flesh until every inch of spleen is gone and he is pure again. And the fire will burn out and he could be reborn into something that his mother could bear to see again. Because if she could see him now, she wouldn't like what she saw. And neither does he.

He knows that he doesn't deserve friends like these. People who would bleed for him and bear the weight that he drags with him like an anchor. And still, he can't find it in himself to look past that anger and that pain to be grateful that he has people that love him like they do. He's glad he isn't alone, but at times like this he wishes he was. And of course, then he feels guilty for wishing that Jason and Piper didn't care for him so much. He knows that he has done nothing to deserve their devotion. He knows that they would be better off without him.

They don't deserve to be hurt by him and neither does Will. Leo looks back at her, watching how she grips her dagger like a lifeline, how it seems to bleed red under a certain light. He knows that they must be more alike than he'd like to admit. He thinks that he is a monster in his own right, because he knows that she saved him and he should be grateful, but he doesn't understand why she did it. And he can't help but feel angry that she did. Part of him wants to know what would happen if she didn't. That ugly, self-loathing, destructive part of himself that always makes itself known. It's trying to kill him. He wants to let it.

But Will had saved him and he can't possibly imagine being worth it. He wonders if anyone has ever saved her. But mostly, he wonders if she wishes that they hadn't.

Leo wants to apologize for lashing out at her, even if she wouldn't have done the same, but his fury stops the words from coming out. He won't apologize when Festus is gone and something could have been done to prevent it. And yet, deep down he knows that Will is not at fault. She went against every instinct that told her to leave him, that he was a lost cause. But he wouldn't know that because they are not the same. Will is wired for survival—no matter the cost. And Leo has always cared too much for his own good.

He looks back over his shoulder, peering through the dark room at the small window of light that the front door offered. There are three silhouettes casting shadows across the marble floor, hushed whispers echoing in the night, reaching Leo's ears in an unintelligible haze of voices. He desperately wants to know if they hate him now or if they have always hated him. He can feel the weight of his presence, how he's a burden before anything else. And now, he truly feels the distance between them growing. He's an outsider looking in, seeing a moment that doesn't belong to him. But then, one of the shadowy figures tips their head, a small indication of her watchful eyes on him. And all of those ugly, hateful feelings come rushing back. The sickening paranoia gets to him, clawing past any rational or reason.

Will has turned his friends against him. Like a snake lying in the grass, she waits, feeding them thoughts that aren't theirs, letting the distance between them grow wide enough to swallow all of that emotion. Leo bites his cheek hard enough that it bleeds, substituting pain for anger. He knows the truth—that Will doesn't have to turn them against him. He's doing it all on his own.

And the guilt eats away at him, re-consuming all the things he couldn't swallow.

BAD OMENS ARE EASY TO FIND. Will's mother always had a bad habit of looking for signs that something was going to go wrong. It was rooted in cultural superstition and a human fear that burrowed deeper than faith in anything. Will looks for omens too—more than she wants to, more than she should. But it's hard not to when there are so many forces working against her. And she knows it's true. Once you see them, they can't go ignored.

The traps were the first sign. Will knows the twisted, corrupted ways of humanity. She knows that there must be something in the mansion that is worth killing for, or someone inside that wouldn't hesitate to kill them.

The second sign is the gleaming statues, carved into that of Greek heroes. They're lined along the walls, catching the light that creeps in past the velvet curtains. Will knows it must be her nerves, but she can't help but feel like they're watching her.

Her hand moves to grip the hilt of her sword, but a sharp sting in her side when her arm knocks against her torso causes her to falter. When she peels back the hem of her sweat-soaked shirt, she is met with a sickening sight. Below her ribcage there is angry red flesh that will undoubtedly turn dark and ugly within the next few days, shifting into a plum-colored bruise. She sucks in an uneven breath, tugging the shirt down lower, and moving towards the shadows, away from the prying eyes.

"Where's the light switch?" Jason asks in a hushed voice, though his words still sound jarring as they echo around the empty manor.

"Don't see one," Leo says.

"Fire?" Piper suggests.

Leo holds his hand out, urging a spark to light. He frowns when his palm remains unlit. "It's not working."

This is the third sign.

"Your fire is out? Why?" Piper asks, concern evident in her eyes. She can't help but think it might be relating to recent events—or more so recent losses. She worries for Leo and unlike others in her company, isn't afraid to admit how deeply she cares for her loved ones. It's never been in Piper's nature to shy away from emotion, even when she feels that she should. That's her problem. She loves to easily, giving enough of herself away that the whole of her begins to dwindle.

Leo can feel the frustration come to a boiling point. "Well, if I knew that—"

"OK, OK," she soothes, wide-eyed. "What do we do—explore?"

"After all those traps outside? Bad idea," Leo disagrees.

"Worse idea," Will remarks, finally pulling her gaze away the statues. "Not clearing the building. We don't know what's in here with us."

Jason's skin starts to crawl at her words. He hadn't considered it much before, but suddenly the air seemed too still, the shadows too dark. It's perturbing how the silence embraces them—how their voices seem to be the only thing filling the void. Before, it had almost lulled him into a false sense of comfort—because silence equates to nothingness in his mind. But now he's starting to see like Will, that anything can be hiding in the silence.

Leo scoffs. "And that worked so well last time? If I recall," he jeers, "you aren't the best at checking for potential threats."

"Leo," Piper chastises, sending a disapproving look to the boy.

His arms are wrapped around his torso, closing him off from the rest of them, and still, he frowns at the disappointment on her face. "What? It's true," He defends.

Will opens her mouth to respond before Jason interrupts, earning a scathing glare from the girl. He doesn't notice.

"Leo's right," he says. "We're not separating again—not like in Detroit."

"Oh, thank you for reminding me of the Cyclopes." Piper mutters, a grimace firmly in place. She tugs at the sleeves of her jackets, giving her restless hands something to do. "I needed that."

          "It's a few hours until dawn and it's too cold to wait outside," Jason decides. He looks around the room, frowning at how ominous it all seems. "Let's bring the cages in and make camp in this room. Wait for daylight; then we can decide what to do."

Will grits her teeth, feeling the enamel chip away in accordance with her waning patience. "You can't be serious," she scoffs. Jason's offended expression tells her that he was in fact serious. "Are we really going to gloss over the arsenal of traps; all of which Flyboy here nearly triggered."

"It wasn't that bad," Jason mutters bashfully, trying to downplay how oblivious he was to the peril around him.

Leo doesn't bother biting back the bitterness behind his words. "If I didn't know better, I might start to think that you care. I guess it's a good thing that I know better."

Will doesn't miss a beat. "I guess it is."

The air is stifling, heavy as the culmination of their anger collides. It's palpable—some living, breathing thing come to life, cutting deep enough to draw blood. This time, Leo doesn't back down. He doesn't falter, doesn't hesitate. And Will can see the darkness collecting, pooling in the crevices that Leo was too scared to look at. She knows, she knows, she knows. She has seen it before. The way that wrath kills everything you once were, strips you bare for the world to see. You are not human. You are not alive.

          You are a monster.

See how history repeats itself.

          It's Jason that cuts through the tension. "We're all exhausted. No one's going to be of any use if we can't even think straight," he says in an attempt to placate her. "And the traps... well, rich people guard their stuff, right?"

          "They don't stay rich by giving it away," Piper adds in meekly.

          "Exactly," Jason agrees. He looks back to Will almost pleadingly. "We can't split up again."

What happens next is more unsettling than the heat of a fire or the things that lurk in the shadows. They can feel their skin crawl as Will capitulates. She says nothing at all. Instead, she turns stiffly and throws herself down on one of the couches, busying herself with scratching at the brightly color bandaids on her arms. The rest of her companions watch on warily—even Leo whose spite weakens at the sight. But as they begin to settle in, they know this is not a victory. It is not defeat, but rather apathy that seeps in. Her words ring in their heads. They are expendable. If any one of them were to die it would be easing her burden.

Falling back into familiar patterns, Will twists Éleos in her palms like she twists her anger. She should feel ashamed by her detachment, fearful of what it will turn her into. But she isn't. She knows what she is—what she has always been. Luke saw it too. The sharp edges, the unearthed rage, the floor of the slaughterhouse still coated with fresh blood.

Will can feel the guilt start to overwhelm her. It feels wrong that a monster should feel remorse, but here she is. As Piper curls into the back of the couch, and Leo and Jason speak in hushed voices, Will starts to ease into the shadows on the wall. She doesn't want to know what happens to creatures like her—those who have set little fires everywhere just to watch them burn, those who have destroyed good things purely for the satisfaction that comes with devastation.

Will only hopes she won't be around to find out.

note: haha i hate this chapter so much. aHHHH it's so hard to get back in the swing of things but i will try!!