Amaurosis

III: Celestially Twin-Napped

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The di Angelo boy fell to the ground, hitting every branch harder than the last until he collided flat with the grass. My eyes widened in shock and I jumped down from the part I was resting against. When I landed firmly, I bent down beside him, panicking heart pounding.

"Are you dead?" I asked, frantically checking for any injury.

"I must be in Hell since you're here, too," he stated bluntly, groaning as he sat up. I just watched him face plant from fifty feet in the air. There's no way he's perfectly fine.

"Yeah, right. You're so funny," I mumbled sarcastically, turning away quickly to see if anyone else saw his fall. No lights were on in any cabins; everyone must have been asleep. I faced him again only to see him staring back at me. It was unsettling, yet I liked that he was looking at me. Something in his face just seemed so relaxed. Strange. "What?" I asked a little too loudly, almost shouting in his face.

He shook his head once then squinted his eyes at me. "Why were you in a tree in the middle of the night? Shouldn't you be in your cabin? Sleeping?" He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, but he didn't know.

"No," I said shortly. "But I could ask the same about you." I turned the tables so the spotlight was on him. "You have your own cabin, don't you?"

"How'd you know tha-"

"You said it earlier," I interrupted him, brushing him off. He didn't respond but gazed up at the sky, and I sat quietly beside him, leaning against the tree trunk.

"Right." He eyed me suspiciously, his wary gaze raking up and down as if I were about to bite his head off. Well, sometimes I can be quite unpredictable, but I've been trying to keep a low profile for almost twelve years. Why would I break my facade now? "How long have you known Annabeth?" he asked me.

Finally, I thought. A question I can answer truthfully.

"Since I arrived at camp." I said it casually, trying not to reveal anything too personal. Personal just wasn't my thing.

He made a small 'o' with his mouth. "Which was..." He continued. What is this? Twenty questions?

"What's with all of the questions?" I snapped, getting to my feet. I brushed the dirt off my jeans and started back to the Hermes Cabin, pure dread running through my veins. Who does this guy think he is?

He reached out and grabbed my wrist, making me stumble backward a few steps. "There's something up with you, Dusk. There always has been." Words of mistrust flowed from his mouth, his voice low and accusing, and his fingers tightened. "Don't even think for a moment you're fooling everyone."

Enraged, I snarled and yanked my wrist away from his death grip, a ring of red rashes where his touch once was. I leaned in close, disgusted, and whispered darkly, "Try me." A wolf howled in the distance as the moon took on its highest form, and power flourished through me, entwining itself like vines around my bones.

I left him there underneath that tree as I walked away, but that doesn't mean I didn't hear what he muttered next. "I will expose you, Dusk. Mark my words." Then he vanished into the shadows, a puff of ash gray smoke dispersing into the night where he once stood.

I threw myself onto the cool, unmade mattress in the Hermes Cabin and stared up at the wooden arched ceiling. Still, I was in no need of sleep and my eyes remained open and untrained, but that didn't stop the nightmare.

Her light hair flowed with the brisk wind in long, elegant curls, the strands never covering the natural beauty of her face. Her full lips, bright red, and small pointed nose reeled him in, but who?