Heart Pierced - Kayla Knowles (1)

XLV. Let's Get Ready To Rumble!

Alternate Chapter Titles: Secrets And Files, Part Two; Beginning Of The Second Giant War Arc, Part Four

(A/N: Three chapters left after this one. Again, I thank everyone for all the comments and stars left on this fanfic — on Wattpad, that is — as well as to all of the kudos and bookmarks on Archive Of Our Own and those who favorited and followed this story on Fanfiction as well. You all are amazing. Truly amazing indeed. Anyways, here's the chapter.)

Fortunately for me, the vault turned out to have a staircase that led back up to the basement which was nice to be honest. But I did stick around a while at least to get it open. What I found inside was enough loot inside it to make everyone at camp lose their minds at the same time. I took a few items for myself, a couple for Kayla, then basically left the door to the vault propped open so that the others could come in and take anything they wanted.

Which to be fair, there was most likely something for every cabin in that vault, and this is not an understatement at all. Because I'm pretty sure that a list of its contents would most likely extend from Zeus' throne on Olympus all the way down to the elevator leading down to the Empire State Building. Like holy shit.. was it the mother-load.

But enough talk of that.

It took me a while to walk up this pathway and all of these steps — gosh, I hated it. Like, why couldn't it have just been a portal honestly? But still, I got all the way back up from there and came out through a secret door in the wall that opened when I pulled a lever nearby. It opened up to reveal the upper level of the basement, where the group was still searching through the contents of the area. Well, mostly everyone.

Kayla had been up and running the minute the secret door opened. She engulfed in a hug, understandably anxious. I didn't blame her at all. She may have come a good long way from who she was at the start of her times here at camp, but because of how close she was with me, it was understandable that anytime I wasn't with her, unless she knew that I wasn't getting into anything dangerous, she was a nervous wreck.

I hugged her back, just calming her down. "I hate it when you have to do those things by yourself.." Kayla said to me, a relieved but also partially miffed look on her face illuminated by the lit torch nearby on the wall as she stared up at me. I gently pet her head, and she simply released a happy moan in response. "If my fatal flaw wasn't caring too much for others, trust me I would have insisted that you come with me.." I said back to her. "..and to be fair, in this case, I honestly think it was wise that I was guided by my fatal flaw.. since I had to go through a fight in an arena at the end of the tunnel to prove myself — I won, of course.. despite the fact that given that I was dealing with some highly skilled ninjas — I definitely was in something a bit more difficult than fighting monsters."

"But you're back.." she said simply. "..and that's all that matters to me. We're in this together."

I smiled. God, I love her so much. I just kissed her forehead and she sighed happily. "Together we are. Forever and always.. as well as always and forever and however else one wants to say that.." I said back.

She glowed brightly, once more as bright as her father. It was just a perfect moment, until..

"Umm.."

We both turned. Clove was standing there next to us, a little bit amused. "How is it that you fell for a child of the sun, dear brother?" she asked curiously. Kayla and I looked at each other. Our story.. man, our story wasn't a normal one. That was for sure.

From the dark days of that summer we met in 2007 to now, I had gone from a hungry, vengeful, and mostly cold person to who I was now — a better man — thanks to her coming along. It hadn't been easy for either of us — the birds, Tantalus, the labyrinth, asshole suitors, Kronos, the Battle of Manhattan — but we had survived through all of it. Now, here we were — getting ready to survive another war soon — but as long as we had each other, we had hope that we would survive this together.