ONE LAST TIME . . . heroes of olympus

95.5

THE NEXT MORNING, Katerina woke up surprisingly early. However, it probably would've been more effective had she not slept for nearly a day. She thought so, at least. Oops.

She didn't wake up completely by herself. Her phone went off, and she groaned and attempted to go back to sleep for around twenty minutes before accepting defeat and sitting up, grabbing her phone.

Plane takes off the day after tomorrow, 8 am, the boss had texted. Don't be late.

Katerina rolled her eyes before setting out to do some chores. She groaned and started one cycle of her laundry because damn, she went through a lot of clothes during the Manila trip. Then she went to her bathroom and did her routine, realizing that she didn't have food and that she'd have to eat out. Whatever. She had to go to Jules's to drop off the ambrosia and nectar anyway, and then she'd go to Jason and Piper's.

Piper and Jason . . . ugh. It had been far too long since they'd been separated. Katerina's attachments were coming back again, which were definitely not a good thing, but whatever.

She'd zoned out for so long, she could hear her laundry machine incessantly beeping. Thank the gods she'd decided to install one in her apartment because she would've hated to go to the communal one. She went back to the laundry machine and dumped that load in the dryer and dumped another load in the washer before letting them go at the same time. Then she set off to shove some more clothes in her suitcase, because she needed some for Stockholm. And she needed to treat her burns and scratches before she left.

Katerina hated being an adult. Too much to take care of.

She decided to call someone while doing her chores, because she was actually feeling like she was starting to go back to her old ways, when she was sixteen and clingy and she actually talked to her friends more than . . . maybe five times a year? Gods, she's such a shitty person, but she doesn't know how to fix it.

Her finger had blindly pressed on a name as she was healing her injuries. Anxiety consumed her as the phone rang, Hazel's contact name stark against the black, cracked screen.

Finally, Hazel picked up. "Hello?"

"Hi," said Katerina, almost feeling shy. "What's up, Hazelnut?"

"Kat!" She could practically hear Hazel's smile through the screen. "Wait, do you need help? Are you here right now?"

Naturally, that's where her mind went to. Katerina understood. The last time she'd called that hadn't been for their birthdays or something, it had been because she'd been in need of some serious help after a mission. Oops.

"No, I'm okay," Katerina said quickly. "I just wanted to check in."

"You're sure?" asked Hazel, concern laced in her voice.

"Yes, of course I am," insisted Katerina. "I'll come over after my next mission, okay? I promise. I have to visit Leo anyway, to repay him for saving my life."

"You'd better," Hazel said. "I miss you, Kat. It's been forever. Even Jason and Piper have seen you more recently than we have."

"Yeah . . ." Katerina trailed off, before she realized what Hazel had said. "Wait, you know about that?"

"They mentioned it during our monthly call," recalled Hazel. "The nine of us. They were talking about the possibility of a call with all of us, for the first time."

Their monthly calls.

Katerina knew about them, mainly because Leo talked about them, but Frank and Hazel had told her about them. She'd seen it herself, the linked Iris Messages between all of them, when she was staying at Frank and Hazel's. But she refused to participate, instead going into her room and calling Julia and blasting music just so she didn't have to hear that call.