Nemesism

1)

DURING THE THIRD ATTACK, I was bound to curse the world. Jason and I were doing most of the fighting. We were scouting most of the times and was usually awake all day and all night. I sat down for a second on steps to the deck before I heard the ship alarm bells.

Jason groaned lifting his sword to get ready to fight anything that was coming our way.

We were trying to make it through the mountains. It was foggy and I wanted to kill myself.

Everyday was harder. Everyday I had less and less time with Leo. Everyday I had more bruises and less sleep. Everyday I cried silently not wanting anyone to know I am hurting. Everyday seemed harder and harder.

Finally making pass the mountains, I sat down by the steps feeling light headed.

"I'll let Leo know we made it pass the mountains," Jason tapped my shoulders. "Go to the mess hall and have a break. Eat something. We have been at it for a while."

I knew that Leo had designed the mess hall's walls to show real-time scenes from Camp Half-Blood. At first I had thought that was a pretty awesome idea. Now I wasn't so sure.

The scenes from back home—the campfire sing-alongs, dinners at the pavilion, volleyball games outside the Big House—just seemed to make all of us home sick. The farther we got from Long Island, the worse it got. The time zones kept changing, making me feel the distance every time I looked at the walls. Here in Italy the sun had just come up. Back at Camp Half-Blood it was the middle of the night. Torches sputtered at the cabin doorways. Moonlight glittered on the waves of Long Island Sound. The beach was covered in footprints, as if a big crowd had just left.

With a start, I realized that yesterday—last night, whatever—had been the Fourth of July. We had missed Camp Half-Blood's annual party at the beach with awesome fireworks prepared by Cabin Nine.

I decided not to say anything to the rest, but I hoped our friends back home had had a good celebration. They needed something to keep their spirits up, too.

I sat next to the head chair playing with the plate of food I got. Even though I was alone, I felt myself alone in so many different ways. Everything seemed to remind me of Annabeth and Percy. Blueberries reminded me of Percy and his love for blue. The book I was trying to read reminded me of Annabeth and her smart ass. I truly missed them.

Everyone started to come. Leo immediately sat next to me. These were the only moment we were able to be with one another. Leo was always with the statue of Athena and I was alway with Jason fighting stupid monsters. Our hands found each other almost immediately. Leo and I were never about PDA, but the lack of being with one another was killing us alive.

"So," Jason said, "now that we're here..."

He sat at the head of the table, kind of by default. Since we had lost Annabeth, Jason had done his best to act as the group's leader. Having been praetor back at Camp Jupiter, he was probably used to that; but I could tell he was stressed. His eyes were more sunken than usual. His blond hair was uncharacteristically messy, like he'd forgotten to comb it. Jason and I would switch spots once in a while, but usually Jason sat there. At this point, Jason, Nico and I were the most experienced in all of this.

I looked at the others at the table. Hazel was bleary-eyed, too, but of course she'd been up all night guiding the ship through the mountains. Her curly cinnamon-colored hair was tied back in a bandana.

Next to her sat her boyfriend Frank Zhang, dressed in black workout pants and a Roman tourist T-shirt that said CIAO! (Leo was asking me if it was even a word). Frank's old centurion badge was pinned to his shirt, despite the fact that the demigods of the Argo II were now Public Enemies Numbers 1 through 8 back at Camp Jupiter. His grim expression just reinforced his unfortunate resemblance to a sumo wrestler. Then there was Hazel's half brother, Nico di Angelo. He sat back in his leather aviator jacket, his black T-shirt and jeans, that wicked silver skull ring on his finger, and the Stygian sword at his side. His tufts of black hair stuck up in curls like baby bat wings. His eyes were sad and kind of empty, as if he'd stared into the depths of Tartarus —which he had.