Raging Seas [pjo au] || 1

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CHAPTER FOUR
( CAPTURE THE FLAG EXCITEMENT )

KALI WAS ONLY SOMEWHAT ashamed to admit that she avoided Percy to the best of her abilities after that slight revelation at the campfire. She didn't immediately bolt from there, no, but she did drop her s'more from the shock it gave her. Percy was nice enough to split his with her. It made a small mess but neither of them minded that much, though Kali still used it as an excuse to leave so she could wash her hands. She ended up going to the beach instead.

There, she had crouched on the balls of her feet in the shallow shore and asked the water in shocked indignation, "I have a half-brother?" Her volume had apparently been too loud because not even a second later, a wave larger than the calm ones that washed up around her, crashed onto her and sprayed her face. The message was clear: quiet down. Or 'shut up'. Kali decided to pick the nicer of the two mental translations.

It's been three days since then.

Turned out, avoiding him was easier than she thought it would be. It took very little work, in the end. Their camp schedules were different for the most part. Kali really only saw him during the hours everyone ate, or during the free hour before dinner, or just passing by as they headed in different directions. At those times, Kali still smiled and waved just to be polite. He mostly stuck with Grover and sometimes Annabeth, and Kali didn't bother to drift away from her own group of friends.

The real struggle was during the campfires. He kept inching away from the Hermes cabin to sit or stand with her so he could get more marshmallows and s'mores. Kali didn't mind at all – her friends did the same thing when their siblings were being too stingy to allow seconds or thirds – but it was hard to not blurt out the truth to him. He deserved to know it, but she had a feeling their dad wouldn't take kindly to not being able to properly claim Percy – dramatics and all. That was, if he did. Poseidon might not because of the pact.

Kali just hoped that Percy couldn't tell that she was hiding something from him.

It was now Friday afternoon, and in a couple of hours Capture the Flag would begin after dinner. Kali, Arianna, Grant, Adelaide, and Oliver were hunkered down in Poseidon's cabin for the simple fact it was always guaranteed to be empty during this time of day. It was starting to become a tradition of things: gather together during the free hour before Capture the Flag in Kali's place and hang out, playfully goad each other, and share some laughs. It started last summer before her and Grant's first game. The idea had been Oliver's to calm down their nerves, and it's kept on since then. It was one of Kali's favorite times with them.

Well, the others were doing that. Kali stood in her bathroom and stared at her reflection to see if there was any resemblances between her and Percy. From what she could see, there wasn't. Where Percy had white, barely tanned skin, Kali's was naturally light tawny brown. He had their dad's sea green eyes, and she inherited Amphitrite's dark eyes that even she herself couldn't tell if they were dark brown or pure black. Both of their hair was as black as midnight, though. His was straight and a messy; Kali's hair was messy in a way like it couldn't decide if it was wavy or curly (her bedhead was horrendous most mornings).

She leaned forward to inspect her features more, but soon got distracted by the new scar just under her eyes along the highest part of her cheek.

Lee hadn't been wrong when he said it would scar, she realized. It wasn't a shock, really. More like a disappointment. There had been little hope in her heart that she wouldn't have a reminder of that awful fight that night. Her lips shifted down into a slight frown, and she poked at it. It was pink and new, an inch and half or two inches long, and it was the first time she had really looked at it.