Perfect Little Blue Boy (Percy Jackson)

Chapter Forty Three

Jack

I don't know what happened over the next two hours. It was... We were shoved into a building and told not to leave by some buff chick.

It took Dad twenty minutes to call us. I put the phone on speaker.

"Dad!" We all said at once, excited that he called.

"Oh my gods," Dad remarked, and sighed. "Are you guys okay? Percy and Nico aren't answering their phones. Are they with you? Sally left, she was really pissed off. Said she was going to take care of something."

"Uh, we're fine." I told Dad, and looked around. "But I don't know where Percy and Nico are. They were pulled away from us and some girl shoved us into a building and told us not to leave. I'll look..."

I looked out the window.

"That's a lot of blood."

Percy

We uh... Nico and I got out of everything fine. It was the gods. Not all of them. Some of them. Using monsters and their slaves to declare war on us.

There were people that didn't make it. Hazel, Piper, and Frank were just three of them.

That's why Mr. D and Hades were there. To warn us that my dad and Poseidon and Hers and whoever else... They weren't happy with us.

But once the bloodshed was over and everyone had retreated, the bodies were still there. And as we were going to head to the Big House to get ready for pick up, Nico was in front of me.

He found Hazel and Frank. Both of them had slit throats.

"Nico, what are—"

I saw their bodies and instantly grabbed my boyfriend and turned him around so he wouldn't have to see that.

That was his sister. His little sister. The one that meant everything to him. The one that helped him so much to be him again after Bianca died.

And she's gone.

I guess that... I knew the feeling. To lose someone like that.

The reason I was so far in denial about Tyson when he was claimed was because I had a brother before. I had a brother and a sister. We were triplets. My sister killed herself in 5th grade, my brother ran away three days later.

And that's another thing I haven't been able to face yet. That I had other siblings. And they're gone now. Because Patrick is either dead or never coming home. I don't know if I want to know what's the real scenario.

If he's not dead, he must be a pretty lucky bastard.

The council was dragged to Olympus. I was the voice of reason. Camp was hoping I wasn't insane. We didn't want to fight. We don't want this.

Too many people are already gone.

Zeus called my name and I stepped up, slightly bowing to show I acknowledged them.

And I told it to them straight.

"We will not fight." I told the remainder of Olympus. The ones that had gotten pissed with us. We had Hades, Dionysus, Ares, Apollo, and Artemis on our side. And then Persephone. Everyone else wasn't... It was...

"And why not, my boy?" He thought it was a good time to use that, my father did. And I still had a grudge.

He's the reason why Paige killed herself. Had he not... Had Gabe never...

"Don't," I snapped at him. "You have no right to call me your son after everything you've done."

I returned to the question at hand.

"We won't fight simply because we don't find a reason to." I explained to the gods. "We've been through a war. Some of us two. Our friends are already dead. If you guys are actually mad, if you have a problem with us, you have to tell us. You don't go and just kill all of your kids because you're frustrated with them. That's not how you gain respect. That's not..."

I took in a breath, trying to explain this to people who would never get it.

"You guys are gods." I went on," When kids come into camp, you're literally the coolest thing that could ever happen to them. It's not until you treat them like the worst thing that could ever happen that they get mad and pissed off with you. It's not until you say that you'll show up for their next game and never show up that they start to feel like they're not worth anything. Whether you guys realize it or not, how involved and how much respect you decide to out towards us makes the difference of having a kid and not having one."

And they laughed. Because they didn't think they could lose a kid to neglect. They don't believe that suicide is an actual thing that at least half of camp has attempted before. At least.

I have. Nico did once after Bianca died. Annabeth did after Luke left. Luke did after meeting his dad. Grover did after finding out his parents were MIA. Leo did many times because his dad was never there after his mom died. After his aunt rejected him. Clarisse had a couple times. So had Silena. That was their things. If they went down, it was together. And Clarisse tried once or twice after Silena died. But Chris fixed her up.

I could go on and on.

The point is that it's a problem. One that the gods don't want to address.

And I'm at the point where I'm either all in to fix their problems or I'm walking away and never coming back.

When I mentioned suicide, they insisted it wasn't a problem. I was the only one and I was the first in a long time.

So I went on for five minutes. Just giving examples of what was going on. Who has tried to kill themselves. When. Why.

How long it took them to realize that they were pretty shitty parents was too long.

We all walked out of there saying fuck you guys. We've gone this long without you. The rest of our lives won't be any different.