Goodnight Moon ↣ P. Jackson + A. Chase

2.06

When Kassandra was thirteen almost fourteen Luke had stolen Zeus' master bolt and the gods were ready to go to war. It was the first summer of Percy Jackson, the first summer that she was spending in the Apollo cabin. The skin had turned dark, a storm brewing outside their border so powerful that the forces of weather had begun to creep their way into camp, the lake had flooded over with water from the rain and the nearby river creating waves that should have been otherwise impossible. The sky was so dark that they hadn't seen the sun in days.

None of it was compared to the hurricane that beginning to form around Percy, the water from melted snow whipping and twisting around his feet. Water splashed behind her and she whirled around to see the waves reseed back only to come crashing forward once more. Even with the distance, he had such an expert command over the water.

"What's wrong?" she asks, stepping closer to him and further away from the lake that was still boiling.

"You knew?" he asks, tone impossibly low.

Kassandra looks him over, taking in Nico behind him edging away from the water. She jerks her hand, motioning for him to back up away. She eyes the volatile water.

"You were eavesdropping?" she retorts, gaping at him stupidly. She takes a tense step forward.

"You knew about Annabeth and the cliff and you just didn't do anything!?" he accuses, angrily moving toward her. Her clothes quickly began to soak through, thin streams whipping at her exposed skin. 

Nearly staggering under the accusation, heat ripples over her skin, a curse on the tip of her tongue and she has to force herself to try and appease her angry friend instead of responding to his anger.

(Because he had just lost Annabeth too, had just watched her disappear over the edge of a cliff with no way of knowing if she was truly okay, with no way of knowing if they would get the chance to see her again regardless of lady Artemis' reassurances.)

(And Kassandra had apparently blown up a helicopter in her grief, had screamed until she felt numb, because she had thought that she could make a difference -- be the difference to hold her back.)

When she had left Percy to the manticore, it was under the assumption that the others were right behind him, that they would fight together in that room instead of leaving that damned school.

"I had a dream months ago," she says. "I didn't think all that much of it. I didn't even expect for you to need to leave the school."

He moves like waves, fluidly getting into her space, and it's like he trembles, rumbling just beneath the surface.

Her heart shutters, dropping to her stomach as she forces herself to stand still.

"It's your fault that she's gone," he hissed. "You could have stopped her."

"Stoped her? The Hunters were about to finish him! She didn't need to move at all but he was targetting you and Thalia and Annabeth just moved to your defence," she seethed, unable to help herself from pressing into his space. "I tried to stop her! I ran for her but I couldn't--"

Percy scoffs. "Maybe if you weren't always trying to just prove yourself--"

"Prove myself? We agree on that plan to split up. You practically boasted that it would only take you a few minutes to wrap up, or are you Big Three Kids really not what you crack up to be?"

Water swirled around her, breezing across her cheeks. She wondered idly if it was moving fast enough to cut her.

"At least it only took me a week to be claimed," he taunts, nastily. "It took you like three years, didn't it?"