Melancholy Kaleidescope | PJO

Ch. 21: Older Brothers Suck

Alex stepped carefully on the dry leaves as October turned into November. Normally, he would be home for the school year, but his mom had been deployed and it was either remain at camp or stay with his grandmother. Logically, he chose to stay at camp.

He had set out searching for a certain eleven year-old who had disappeared during her free time and hadn't shown up to any of her afternoon scheduled activities. While it wasn't uncommon for Jinora to skip a couple of activities here and there, forgoing the entire afternoon was way out of character.

She'd been acting strange since the end of the summer session, and he knew why. Luke's betrayal hit the entire camp hard, but especially the kids in the Hermes cabin–even more especially Jinora. His betrayal hit her harder than the rest of them. It made sense, given that they had arrived at camp together. They had always been very close, along with Annabeth. But when she had become very quick friends with Percy and then Luke tried to kill him...well, a betrayal like that was bound to cause some serious damage. It also didn't help that many of the campers had started treating the Hermes' cabin like they were infected with some plague. Not all of the campers were acting like that. Will, Lee, and some of the other Apollo kids refused that notion, along with Charles Beckendorf and some of his siblings, the Dionysus and Demeter kids, and a few of the Aphrodite kids hadn't treated them differently. Still, those campers were far outnumbered by those who decided the rest of Cabin 11 deserved a target on their backs because of Luke's betrayal.

He found her sitting at the edge of the dock, laying on her stomach and peering over the side. If Alex had to guess, he'd say she was talking to Dina, one of the many naiads that lived in the lake. Sure enough, as he walked closer to the girl he heard the naiad's voice.

"Shut up," Dina responded exasperatedly. Her hand flew over her mouth and her eyes widened at whatever Jinora had just told her. The naiad reached up and repeatedly smacked Jinora on the arm. "Just wait until Lorelei finds out!"

"Finds out what?" Alex asked. Dina squeaked and disappeared back under the water. Jinora quickly pushed herself up off of her stomach and to her feet, staring at Alex wide-eyed with rosy cheeks. Alex smirked, having a pretty good idea at this point what this might be about.

"N-nothing," Jinora stammered, picking at a splinter in the palm of her hand. She successfully pulled it out and dropped it back on the deck. Alex raised an eyebrow.

"That didn't sound like nothing," he teased. He walked over to the almost-twelve year-old and flung an arm over her shoulder. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you have a crush on someone."

Jinora scoffed and shoved his arm off her. "Good thing you know better."

Alex chuckled. He pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and passed it to his sister. "You got mail from your new favorite camper." He cleared his throat dramatically and read the name on the envelope with a Shakespearan accent. "To: Jinora, from yours truly, Percy Jackson. Man, this kid sure does write you a lo–"

"Just give it to me," Jinora whined and snatched the letter from his hand. He chuckled as her cheeks turned a deeper red. Alex had an inkling of a feeling that it wasn't because of the late autumn chill. She opened the envelope and read the letter, smiling slightly as she did so. It fell off her face when she looked back at her brother who was smirking at her.

"Shut up," she grumbled as she stormed off. He laughed and caught up with her.

"I didn't even say anything."

"Your face did."

Alex shook his head. "I don't know what you're getting so flustered about. I mean, if he is just your friend, then why do you turn the shade of an apple whenever he's mentioned or around?"