Jaimie Solace and the Unavoidable Affliction of Love

Chapter Sixteen

"What do you mean?" Nico questioned, not unkindly. Alice's words were concerning, but no one wanted to make her feel worse than she already clearly felt. Whatever reason it was that Alice thought her mother knew the location of Camp, it wasn't the girls fault.

"I just remembered this, of gods I don't know why I didn't think of this before, I know I should've, gods I'm such an idiot–"

"Woah, slow down there, Alice. You haven't done anything wrong. Just take a deep breath and let us know what you remembered," Jaimie soothed.

Alice did as her sister said, although it was completely unnecessary seeing as she didn't technically have to breathe anymore. It seemed to get her together though, enough to tell everyone what had happened.

"My mom is, was, pretty controlling at times. I mean, it varied. Sometimes she decided she couldn't care less where I was or what I was doing, other times she needed to know every one of my movements down to the minute. It usually lined up when she was busy with those men. And when she was really controlling, she tracked my phone," Alice said, as she watched the adults dawning realization.

"I rarely even thought about it, I never went anywhere, just to school and home but then one day, it was getting really bad with her so I.. I went to Camp," the guilt was clear in her voice. "I didn't even realize that she would've been able to see where I was, and I can't even use the mortal phone she made me keep on me so I barely even remembered I had it and I'm so, so sorry."

"None of that, Alice, that's not your fault. If we had any idea you were living like that we wouldn't have let it happen," Will's voice was breaking. "I'm so sorry we failed you."

Alice shook her head, if she could still cry she probably would be doing it. "No, it's me who failed you guys."

"Never, ever think that. And you're being much too hard on yourself, we don't even know if Amanda noticed you had left, or if she was actively checking on your whereabouts. And even if she was, the technology would've stopped working once you were in Camp's vicinity, so she would only have a rough location. Trust me Alice, everything is going to be fine," Jaimie said her words with enough heat behind them that she desperately hoped Alice could believe them.

Jaimie hoped she could believe them too.

Even with only a rough location, Hydra could probably narrow it down pretty quickly. It's a relatively empty area, they would figure out pretty fast what a random invisible, impenetrable wall in the middle of the forest was. Just because they couldn't get in Camp, doesn't mean the demigods were safe.

What would they do if Hydra set up a temporary camp of their own outside the magical border? Sure the demigods inside the borders would be fine, they had unlimited food and water and company, even if they sent their mortal families into a panic by disappearing off the face of the earth. But what about the demigods outside of Camp, who would show up looking for a safe haven, and get ambushed by Hydra troops?

Technically what Jaimie said wasn't wrong, it wasn't guaranteed that Amanda even looked at Alice's location before she got inside Camp's borders. But if she did, the results would be disastrous.

Not that Jaimie even had a fleeting thought of blaming any of this on Alice, no, all of the woman's anger was directed squarely on Alice's bitch of a mother. A girl so sweet didn't deserve having someone like as a parent.

But Jaimie wouldn't get a chance to tell Alice any of that, because only a second or so later one brave soul made a dash for the offering pool, and Nico only just stopped them. The souls were getting restless and Nico was losing energy quickly. Everyone could see as he stumbled forward, Will catching him quickly and propping him up.