[ the second book in the drops of sunshine series ]
As much as she ended up loving her first one, AJ Hood never wanted to go on another quest. But somehow, she ended up on one anyway. And this time, it's not going to have a pretty ending... but at...
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~ ☼ ~
2 months passed before anything else happened that relates to my story. I'd give you more, but I think the scribe already wrote down Percy Jackson's account.
I guess that's the first thing - Percy didn't die, after all. I can't say why, but when he came stumbling back to camp, a week and a half after I did, I was relieved to say the least. He felt not only like our biggest hope for winning the war, but also like an omen that not all the good die young.
I was recovering. I had fitful nightmares every summer, but none of them involved the woman. Some days I laughed with Alec and Riley, but some nights I cried for hours, having to go out to the porch to calm down without waking up my siblings. Then I'd sit there, and, absentmindedly, wait for Lucas to come out and comfort me... only to remember he never would.
What haunted me the most, though, was the potential lost. The potential for Kiera, of course, to develop her powers. The potential for what she and Aria might've been had they learned to work things out. Maybe Aria was meant to be in the hunters - but maybe, too, she could've had just as much fun had she just been claimed earlier.
And with Lucas... I wished, again, that I could ask him more about his life. About his dad, and his angst with Athena. He'd never get to give Athena Pallas' last wishes now. Which meant, of course, that that duty fell on me. I obviously didn't plan on seeing Athena any time soon, so I should've just found some trusted child of Athena and asked them for help, but I didn't. I wanted to keep it to myself, even as I saw his siblings finally start to realize he was gone.
He and Kiera were only two of several demigods lost that summer, anyway. I lost Lee Fletcher, too, probably my favorite sibling beyond Alec and Riley. When we burned his shroud, too, I fell to my knees once again. I don't know who exactly I was mourning.
But camp was camp, still. Or at least, they tried to make it so. When we finally reached the bead ceremony, I savored that second bead with relish. It was decorated with a design of the labyrinth, to match Thalia's pine tree from last year. And to my deep, deep joy, the Hunters of Artemis visited us for that final night.
"AJ!" I was standing by the dining pavilion, scanning the crowd for Aria amongst a hundred silver coats. Then I turned at the sound of my name, and saw her approaching. In her puffy jacket and circlet, her hair tied back in a braid, she looked aglow.
"Aria!" I exclaimed. I met her quickly, and she pulled me into a hug.
"How are you?" I asked her.
She was silent for a moment. Then she said, "It's hard, you know? On one hand, I'm so happy to be a Hunter, but on the other hand..."
I nodded. "I know."
We didn't have anything to say for a moment. Then I reached in my pocket, remembering why I was looking for her in the first place, and pulled out a bead. I had procured a second bead - I wanted to pretend it was because I was clever, but really it was because the demigods who made them were sad and when I pleaded with them for a second one, they sympathized.
