Walk With the Shadows [ Percy Jackson OC ]

FORTY-NINE | Alex

ALEX’S BODY BURNED, but the sharp stab of pain emanating from his back felt like he’d been stabbed with ice. A strange combination. He had no other words in his addled mind to describe the agony filling every nerve, ligament, even bone of his body.

His skin ached. Someone had stretched it too far. Pain like a hundred thousand pins and needles spred up his spine to his shoulders and down his arms. Alex couldn’t move his fingers. The joints throbbed.

Sometimes the ache felt fuzzy, though no less painful. A numbness that wasn’t quite numb. As he wrestled with control of his consciousness, Alex felt nausea crash over him. It wasn’t normal. Not like food poisoning or the flu. Not from an illness. The nausea twisting his stomach in knots came from the agonizing pain all throughout his body. Too much pain.

After countless battles, fighting a war, dueling monsters, and even falling into the Underworld, he had never experienced pain like this. Overloaded with adrenaline, he wanted nothing more than to lie in a soft bed and sob.

He felt soft hands grip his head, massage his neck. He knew those hands. They were smooth, free of callouses and cold as ice. Ophelia’s hands provided such a balm amidst burning agony. But he didn’t dare open his eyes.

Alex wasn’t sure he wanted to look at Ophelia. What if she had gone through with her plan? What if she still wanted to slay the Olympians, corrupted by the images Eris put in her mind. That wasn’t the girl he’d fallen in love with. If he opened his eyes and found his girlfriend, mind lost to the darkness, he knew he couldn’t stop her. He'd stand in her way, but he could not draw a blade on her. She'd have to kill him.

“Alex, please.” She whispered in his ear, warm cheek against his forehead. “I need you. Please. This has to work. It has to work.”

Her hoarse voice stuttered with sobs, quiet gasps for breath between chilling tears. They fell against his skin and Alex shuddered. He had pain everywhere but his right abdomen. He felt nothing there.

Alex groaned as he tried to shift to look at his girlfriend. When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking into her blue eyes, the golden flecks dull. They glittered from the tears staining her cheeks and plastering her hair against her dirtied skin.

The shadows darkened as she sobbed and grabbed him to her chest. Alex tried not to protest. Every movement made his muscles ache. But he had little choice. He had to get up. He had to check his girlfriend. He had to find Kitty. Hopefully she’d run when she had the chance.

“Hey,” Alex said. He tried to smile. “Did you kick her ass?”

Ophelia let out a single laugh through her tears. She just shook her head, helping as gently as she could as Alex sat up. The River Lethe lay a several yards away from them. But the sight of blue hair in the dirt sent him scrambling.

“Hey! Hey!” Ophelia stopped him. It didn’t take much effort, with Alex crying out in pain as she touched his shoulders. “She’s ok. She’s just unconscious.”