Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
ℑ knew as soon as I let Andi disappear down into the hole in the ground that contained the Labyrinth that it was a bad idea. Not least because this was the first time that I wasn't going with her on a quest, but also because I knew what her luck was like and how she would most likely end up annoying some immortal person in her first five minutes stuck down there. Not to mention she now had Annabeth, one incredibly anxious satyr and a cyclops who didn't really want to be under the ground with Grover.
"Hey." A hand hit his shoulder and Luke twisted, finding Clarisse standing behind him. She narrowed her eyes. "If you look stressed, everyone gets stressed. You can't show it."
My face hardened and I straightened up, towering over the girl. She had to tilt her head to look up at me.
"What are you going to do?" Connor and Travis had approached, watching me with wide eyes. "You staying or going back to New York?"
"I'll stay for a bit. How bout that?" I grinned at them, ruffling Travis' hair as both boys grinned. Shooting Clarisse one last look, I followed my brothers towards Eleven. We still had activities, not that I'd take part apart from maybe sword fighting.
The days consisted of joining my siblings for activities, doing my work in the afternoon and then worrying about not having heard from Andi. The fountain in her room didn't pop up again, nothing was heard of them, and it was stressful.
I couldn't sleep in Eleven because despite our loss of campers, there were still too many unclaimed and children of Hermes, so I took to sleeping in Andi's bed, waiting for her to come back. I'd got so used to the feeling of her in my arms when I slept that her not being there was throwing me off, and I missed her like crazy. I missed her perfume, though I swore that sometimes I could still smell it when I turned.
I'd also taken the time to visit Chris Rodriguez, my brother that had been practically unclaimed for most of his life because our dad had forgotten him. When Clarisse couldn't sit with him, I did instead. I talked to him, telling him that I was sorry that I got him into this situation because if it wasn't for me then he wouldn't have ever had the notion to join Kronos. He'd seen me as a bitter seventeen or eighteen year old and had followed in my footsteps and I regretted it.
He was only young, barely just sixteen and I often wondered how many other kids I had condemned to die because I'd allowed Kronos to settle in my mind and given him a foothold into our world. Without Andi here to knock the thoughts out of my head, my anxiety was becoming even more of an issue than it normally was.
"Luke, you're being mean!" Vivi was only eleven, one of the younger daughters of Hermes and our newest in terms of being claimed. She still had that childish innocence about her, not afraid to make friends with everyone and anyone and not afraid of me in the slightest. We had sword fighting and she was still too young to be taking part truly, so I had taken it upon myself to do some training with her, though it was disguised as a game.
