Sunlight | Luke Castellan

VI. i watch a sword fight

   BY THE TIME I reunited with Percy, three campers had already told me about watery explosion in the girl's bathroom.

"What did you do?" I cried out when I saw him, his face bright red as I approached the canoeing lake, Ethan sprinting behind me to catch up. Annabeth stood next to my brother, her clothes still not fully dry and her hair looking weighted from whatever amount of water had soaked her.

"It wasn't my fault!" he said back, his tone almost as equally shrill. He, unlike his counterpart, was completely dry. Annabeth didn't looked pleased about that. Ethan reached us, placing his hands at the top of his head to try and regain his breath. "She was asking for it!"

"Which one was holding you?" the older camper asked.

"Clarisse," Annabeth answered for him.

"Oh. She probably deserved it, anyways." The smirk fell off of his face when he saw my glare. "... or not." He looked over at Percy with curiosity. "Is it true that she threatened to kill you?" I covered my face with my hands. When Chiron had asked me to let my brother find his own path, I didn't think that meant becoming someone's enemy.

"It's not too bad," Percy tried to reason with me. "Nancy Bobofit got away with a lot more."

"Nancy Bobofit wasn't the child of a war god." I had heard stories about his bully back at Yancy. This was the first time we were staying at the same place, meaning I would be able to see his problems instead of hearing about them.

"We should go," Annabeth said, taking a look toward Ethan before staring at Percy. "Think about what I said." She began to march off on her own, leaving the other camper stranded. He gave a helpless shrug.

"See you at the cabins?" he offered before following after her. Percy waited for the two to fall of out sight before giving me a glare.

"What?" he snapped. "Don't tell me Clarisse is your new best friend or something."

"I haven't met her, but you should definitely point her out when every camper is sitting at dinner," I shot back, crossing my arms against my chest. "What is up with you?"

"What is- I want to go home!" he shouted. The facade of anger flashed away for a moment, revealing the sad twelve-year-old I had seen back at the Big House. "I want Mom." His voice shook, and I felt like I had been punched in the gut.

"Percy..."

"That thing killed her," he continued over me. "I watched her explode into golden dust. All I heard were your screams. When they stopped, I didn't even know if you were gone too." Percy's bottom lip was trembling. "My dad is a god, and he did nothing to stop it. Why didn't he do anything to stop it?"

My arms fell to my side, my anger being replaced with guilt. "I don't know."

"Did you know he was a god?"

"No."

"Did you know about all of this?"

"No!" I exclaimed before wincing. "Well, technically yes, but that shouldn't even count." Percy stared at me, waiting for an explanation. I groaned, dropping to sit down on the pier. "She mentioned wanting to tell you about camp on the way to Montauk. There was nothing specific. I was just as in the dark as you are."

There was a soft thud, and Percy joined me on the wood. He didn't say anything. We just listened to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. I felt him take my hand. A normal middle-schooler might have called it gross, but he didn't care. He never did.