The Third Camp

Chapter sixteen: Carrie

I layed in my bed, glaring at nothing in particular. Grace still hadn't told me what had happened to Neptuna, the idiot boy Cameron had showed up, and I couldn't sleep. I let my mind wander, hoping to guess what might have happened with Neptuna. Had she been injured? No, Grace's reaction told me not. There was a knock on my door.

"Yes?"

"Come here!" Grace whispered. "And in normal clothes, not with the praetor cape."

"Alright." Was she finally going to explain?

I jumped out of bed and quickly changed from my sleepwear into a pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt. Grace grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of my room once I was changed. She pulled me up two flights of stairs and into the attic. That was always our sanctuary, from life, from stress, from people, from everything.

"Hit it." Grace crossed her arms and nodded toward a dummy.

I touched my watch and my bow appeared on my shoulder. I quickly readied an arrow and shot it straight toward the dummy's head. It never got there, suddenly a door appeared in front of the dummy.

"Really you're going to play that game?" I smirked at Grace.

"Heck yeah! What did you think, I would go easy on you?" She crossed her arms too.

This time I aimed three arrows, all at the dummy's head. Three more doors appeared. I shot one arrow so that it narrowly missed her ear then I shot another into the dummy's head. This time I didn't miss. I laughed triumphantly and grinned at Grace. She smirked and held out a fist. I gave her a quick fist-bump and aimed another arrow at the dummy. But a door appeared in front of it.

"Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you." Grace snickered.

"Hey, I already won." I pointed out.

"True, true." Grace sat down in front of the giant window that acted as a wall then she motioned for me to sit next to her.

I slid down next to her.

"Sometimes I just wonder if the gods purposely screw up our lives, just so they could have a little bit of fun. Do you ever wonder that?" she sighed. "Like sometimes you can have this perfect, fool proof plan and then bam! Something happens that you have no control over. I'm sick of it."

"That's just the point, we have no control over it."

"But we dedicate our lives to the gods and how do they repay us? No honor from the camps, heck they don't even know about us! We train till we pretty much pass out then we do the same thing the next day! I'm just sick of being a shadow."

"We aren't shadows. We work our hardest so that when our time comes, the gods will have to recognize us as what we are; heroes."

"But we'll never be heroes if we never get time to prove ourselves."

"We prove ourselves everyday. We train so that we can prove ourselves to be great."

"B-but—" Grace looked like she was about to cry.

"It's okay, just breathe." I hugged her and started patting her back.

She immediately broke into tears as I tried to comfort her. I understood the pressure she was under. At Camp Ops if you show the slightest bit of emotion—except with your cabin mates—then almost everyone sees you as weak. Since either Grace nor I have a cabin all we had was each other. She has been and always will be my sister. And I will always act as a brother to her. I couldn't stay angry at her, my thoughts about the whole 'Neptuna' thing melted away. I looked Grace in the eyes.

"You can always act like yourself in front of me, you know that right?"

"I know." She wiped her tears away and sniffled. "I know."

"Good." I smiled warmly and hugged her again.

She hugged me back.

"Come on, you need some sleep." I sighed.

"I don't want to get up." She moaned.

"Then I'll carry you." I got up and laughed.

"Don't drop me." She sniffled and reached up to me.

I wrapped her arms around my neck and I hoisted her up like a child. By the time I had reached the steps Grace was already snoring in my arms. She wasn't very heavy compared to the workouts I have to do everyday at Camp Ops. I approached Grace's door and went in. I could've sworn that my eyes were deceiving me.

Doors. Doors everywhere. The windows looked like doors. Everything looked like a door. All kinds, glass doors, french doors, dutch doors, and so, so many more. I laid Grace on her bed (that also looked like a door!) Like, I know she's a daughter of Janus (the god of doorways) but this was definitely overkill. I saw a necklace hanging on a hanger, with the charm of a door, and some door-shaped earrings. I tried not to laugh when I turned around and couldn't remember which door was the exit. But then a flashy "EXIT" sign has hanging on one of the doors. I walked through it and then went into my room. You could say that my room was overkill too but instead of Janus overkill I have Apollo. I hate having to sleep in that dang room. The ceiling was made of glass so there was lots of natural light and I could see the stars. The walls were all light gold so the second the sun rose the whole room went pure light. To the left were some targets and scattered throughout the room was random symbols of Apollo, including lots of pictures of dolphins.

I thought about what Grace had said about the gods not recognizing us as heroes, I had won so many battles, so many wars, I push myself to my limit everyday and it's still not good enough. Would I ever be a true hero? Would I ever be honored? The truth was probably not.

Ever since I found out that I was a son of Apollo all I've ever wanted was for Apollo to say something to me, good or bad, as long as someday he recognized me as his son I would be happy.

All I ever wanted.

I sighed knowing that my moment would never come. I just hoped that I was wrong.

I touched my watch and my bow appeared on my shoulder yet again. I aimed an arrow at one of the twelve targets. I let out a short breath and let go of the string. Bullseye. I always got a bullseye, no matter what. It gets boring sometimes.

I kept shooting until I felt drowsy then I barely made it to my bed before I crashed.

When I woke up I looked toward the targets. At least fifty arrows in each of the twelve targets. All of the arrows were centered in the three-by-three inch circle.

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