We Both Walk Among the Dead: A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

Part 3

here's the next part, sorry it took so long :)

“Milord, what is my first mission?” my curiosity was burning me. Hades turned a twisted gaze on me, and answered, “You will be overshadowing and watching over the one who provided the key – my son Caleb, at Camp Half-blood.”

 

            In the few days that had passed since our little “adventure” with the key, we’d all been locked up in the Big House, waiting to finish healing. Ellis and Elliot weren’t harmed much, but they stayed in the Big House to provide comfort to us who were still in pain and healing.

            I also knew that they were there so that they could provide comedic relief, in the sombre after-events of the mission. It had been successful, but I hadn’t even gotten a thank-you from my father, and almost all of my friends had been badly injured on the mission he had sent me. I’ll admit, we never had a really “close” father and son relationship, but I was at least expecting him to thank me in some way possible. He knew how shaken up we’d all been at the sight of our two mangled friends, whom we’d left to the mercy of the Nemean Lion while we went off in search of the stupid key.

            Carson and Candice had woken up after we’d gotten back to Camp, and had immediately started moaning. I didn’t blame them, with the amount of wounds they had. We’d gotten them to the Bid House as soon as we could, and I’d tried to explain to Chiron and Mr. D what had happened while my mind kept flickering back to Finn and my friends. After repeating myself three times, and the first signs of shock had settled in, Chiron had ordered that we all stay in the Big House until we could heal – while he and Mr. D figured out what was going on. Even Elliot and Ellis stayed, for shock treatment, while the memory of Finn’s death hung heavy in the air whenever someone mentioned Carson or Candice. I felt this overwhelming guilt all the time, an actual heaviness that had settled itself between my shoulders, causing me to wince and physically duck a little whenever somebody mentioned their names. It was an unspoken agreement that they could have died, and it was my fault for dragging them along on my mission. Of course, Al and Ree had shoved that particular thought out of the back of my head with their reassurances, but I knew it still hung there, the small voice telling me that I was almost responsible for the deaths of three of my only friends.

            I jumped slightly as the blinds near my bed in the Big House were pulled, letting the blinding sunlight of the clear morning enter my lonesome, dark cave. I did a weird squint-glare at whoever had opened them, the room now too bright for me to focus on my depressing thoughts.

            “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” a familiar voice scolded me, and my spirits rose instantly at the sound of it, “You know perfectly as well as I do that wallowing around hating yourself isn’t going to help the situation much.”

            I blinked a couple times while my eyes got used to the bright light, and smiled a guilty smile at the woman standing in front of me, hands on her hips but a smile on her face, betraying her anger.

            “’Sup Rachel?” I asked her, while absentmindedly rubbing my sore shoulder, “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

            Her green eyes crinkled a little as she smiled back, and responded like my mother, “Well, nobody’s been allowed to see you for the past three days, ever since you got back. Chiron’s keeping the place locked up tight while he figures out what you guys were doing in the first place.”