The Third Camp Trilogy: The Chaotic End

Chapter Thirty Six: Neptuna

Momentarily, Carrie descended the stairs and smiled at my mom and I. "Hello, Mrs. Chalfant. Good to see you again."

"You too, Carrie. Should we go?"

"Yes. Thank you so much for driving us."

"Oh, of course. It's not a problem."

We went and got in the car, Carrie and I in the back seat together. We reached the Fulton County fair in a little bit and my mom dropped us off.

"Make sure you two stay safe!" My mom waved. "Don't die!" She joked.

"She doesn't know how seriously we take that sentence." I snorted as she drove off.

"Alright. So what are we going to do? Watch a horse show?"

"Hell no. They whip those horses. Those horses complain like there's no tomorrow."

"Fine. Look at the pigs and the cows?"

"Sure."

We walked off to look at the cows, pigs, goats, and sheep. We went and watched a bunny judging thing, too. We got a bucket of fries and finished it off.

"This food is so greasy and disgusting... I love it." I cleaned my hands off with a napkin.

"What next?"

"Let's go on one of the rides."

"Hell no!" Carrie gave me a weird look.

"What? Why?"

"They can take those down and put them back up again in like, an hour. I'm not riding on them."

"Fine, then. I'll ride them alone."

"That's even worse. They could collapse. You're not going on those contraptions."

"Fine, fine." I sighed. "Wanna check out the games?"

"Alright. Doesn't sound as deadly."

We went to check out the games area. We found a strength tester, the one where you bring down a huge hammer on a button.

"Ooh! Carrie, go and freak those people out with how strong you are!" I grinned.

Carrie laughed. He went and paid for a turn. While he waited for his turn, some dude who was going to go before him smirked at me.

"Hey, sweetheart, wanna see me win you a stuffed animal with my strength?"

I cringed.

"Sorry bud, I'm taken. By someone stronger, no less." I pointed to Carrie.

The guy snorted. "That pipsqueak?"

Then it was the dude's turn. He went up to the thing and swung his hammer down onto the button.

He got all the way up to 97, which was pretty good. You could score up to 150 points.

Next was Carrie. The dude stood by, smirking and waiting for Carrie to fail.

Which would not happen.

Just before lifting the hammer, Carrie winked at me.

DING!

"Congratulations, sir! You hit the 150 mark!" The person running the game grinned.

"Good job, baby." I hugged Carrie and kissed his cheek.

"It was nothing. Now what?"

"How about we—"

"One sec." Carrie took off his dog tag and walked away. He must have gotten a call or something.

I shrugged and leaned against a building. I pulled the note out of my pocket that I had found this morning. I still hadn't read it.

I opened it.

Once I had read it, there were tears in my eyes.

"Ah, Nep, I've got to go, something urgent back at the house— Nep, why are you crying?"

"I— Carrie, this is beautiful..." I held up the note.

"Oh, that..." He blinked. "I wrote it last night."

"Thank you." I folded it and put it back in my pocket. "You said you had something urgent?" I wiped my tears away.

"Uh, yeah. Something back at the house. A helicopter's on the way. It'll pick us up in the parking lot."

"Okay. Let's go."

When we got to the mansion Carrie escorted me in a back door.

When he saw the two men sitting at the table, across from Angita, who was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

Carrie froze, eyes wide.

Never had I seen so much terror sketched upon his face.

"Neptuna." He murmured. "You should go."

"What is it?" I whispered. "Why are they here? What happened?"

"You should go." He repeated.

"... Why? Who are they?"

"Neptuna. Go." He pushed me gently back toward the lawn.

I wanted to stay with him, figure out who these people were.

But Carrie was persistent.

With one last scan of the mansion and Carrie, I slowly started walking to where I could open a portal to my house.

"Home so early?" My mom questioned.

"Uh, yeah." I nodded.

"How'd you get home? Those portal things?"

"Carrie called up his pil— his friend."

"Oh, okay. Did you have fun?"

"Yeah."

I was worried about Carrie, so I went up to my room.

"Sis? You okay?" Gage poked his head in.

"I'm fine. I don't know about Carrie, though."

"Demigod stuff?"

"I don't know. I really don't know."