❝In a fight, they're lethal. Around each other, they melt❞
"I'm fine." I said, trying to hide the frown and tears that threatened to spill.
Percy looked at me once.
"I'm not going anywhere, unless you tell me what's wrong," he declared and I would h...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I hadn't seen Caelan in a little less than a year and it was scaring me. Scaring me so much. I thought about where he could be as Blackjack flew across the cities. We were going to pick up Percy for some mission we were "on call" for. It was odd but I had agreed when Chiron said Beckendorf and I needed to pick him up.
I spotted my best friend's step dad's car and pointed down to it. Blackjack nodded and swept down to it. He decided it was a good enough landing spot and set down on it.
"Blackjack!" I exclaimed, sweeping my hair over my shoulder. It was a lighter shade of black, closer to midnight purple than a pitch black and I had it in a half up style, much like when I was captured in the Labyrinth. In fact the entire outfit was the same, minus the knives in my hair. My sword was no longer around my neck, but around my waist in a holster and accompanied by several daggers, explosives and matches. "This was a nice car. You can't go ruining a nice car just because you need to land."
"Blackjack," Percy sighed as I stepped off the pegasus and onto the ground with a grin. "What are you—"
Then he saw who was riding on his back and standing in front of him, and knew our day was about to get a lot more complicated.
" 'Sup, Percy."
"Fish Face." I said, scowling at the girl behind him. A blush was spread across his cheeks and I had a feeling it was from her. Rachel smirked and stuck her tongue out at me.
Charles Beckendorf, senior counselor for the Hephaestus cabin, would make most monsters cry for their mommies. He was huge, with ripped muscles from working on the forges every summer, two years older than me, and one of the camp's best armorsmiths. He made some seriously ingenious mechanical stuff. A month before, he'd rigged a Greek firebomb in the bathroom of a tour bus that was carrying a bunch of monsters across country. The explosion took out a whole legion of Kronos's evil meanies as soon as the first harpy went flush.
Beckendorf was dressed for combat. He wore a bronze breastplate and war helm with black camo pants and a sword strapped to his side. His explosives bag was slung over his shoulder.
I looked similar. Black armor was wrapped around my body, as if it were clothes, a gift from Persephone when she found out I wasn't going to sit there and let my friends risk their lives without helping them in the slightest. The armor would move and shift as I grew so I could always use it. Every once in a while, when I was flying or using my powers other than becoming a ghost, they'll have these purple veins of poison that go up and down the edges, where seams would be.
"Time?" Percy asked.
Beck nodded grimly
"Hey, but we'll be fine, you know." I said despite a clump formed in my throat. I'd known this was coming. We'd been planning for it for weeks, but I'd half hoped it would never happen.
