Blackened (a PJ/HoO fanfic)

Chapter 1

I look out my cabin window to Thalia's Pine on Half-Blood Hill, where pretty much all of the campers are being picked up or loading onto the camp bus to go home.

Needlessly, I sigh. My mom and stepdad won't pick me up because this whole school year they're going to be in England, leaving my thirteen-year-old clear-sighted mortal sister, Mia Verday, with my stepdad's parents. I'm all alone with only Will Solace, my half-brother, for company.

"Peyton, don't be so upset. It's not that bad spending the whole year at camp!" Will says cheerfully.

"Easy for you to say. My family has never came to get me! This place has been my home since I was five and Mom dropped me off. Then she ran off and got herself pregnant and engaged and ignored me and only brought me home when it was spring break!" I rant. Then I pause and run my fingers through my long, straight, dirty blonde hair.

"Well, you're seventeen, Peyton! Next year you can get a place of your own instead of staying at camp like I do because I have no life!" Will jokes, and a faint smile graces my lips before it vanishes.

"I'm going to go train, Will. See you at dinner." I say. As I walk away from the Apollo cabin, my heart sinks even lower. This past year I have had more of a connection with my family, and I really thought they'd want to keep me for the year. But no, I stay at camp. At least I've been here longer than anybody now, even Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson's girlfriend.

Will is nineteen, and that's why he's head counselor, not me. I don't want the duties anyway. 

As I get to the training arena, I begin by taking out my sword, δέσμη, or Beam. I begin to practically kill all of our training dummies.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, there, hotshot. What are you doing, Peyton?" a familiar mischievous voice says, and before I even think, I have pinned Leo Valdez to the ground, Beam at his neck.

"Sorry, Leo," I say, helping him up, and he nods. "Yeah, I know how you feel."

See? I didn't need to say anything. Leo is my best friend other than my half-sister Mia who I barely see and that one really sweet nymph, Willow. He just gets me.

"So, how's killing the dummies going? Because I think we're going to have to ask the Hecate kids to fix them up a little, okay?" Leo says conversationally, kicking the head of one dummy who, in addition to being decapitated, has been gutted and neutered.

Yes, neutered.

"Kay, Lion." I say, and Leo smiles at me. "The Argo II is doing very well, thank you." he says. I smile back at him.

He knows me too well.