Hellfire

01: Capture the Flag

ONE

             Jason was in a bad mood.

            He was always in a bad mood after fighting with Piper. He hated it. It was Jason’s least favorite thing in the whole world, next to pickles.

            But fighting with Piper was worse when he had to see her the very next day. There was a huge game of Capture the Flag today – the one that would decide whether it was the Poseidon cabin or the Athena cabin that would take the laurels Chiron had offered (and the free month without chores). Jason was on Annabeth's team, while Piper was on Percy’s team with Leo. (Chiron had decided that having Percy and Jason on the same team would never be a good idea.)

            Jason didn’t think he’d ever seen Percy and Annabeth go this long without talking. They weren’t fighting (Jupiter forbid they were), but neither of them wanted to give the other a chance to exploit any weaknesses. It had been one week since the final game was announced, and since then, Percy and Annabeth hadn’t even held hands.

            Jason didn’t understand how they could do that; his hand was feeling cold and empty already, and it had only been five minutes since Piper stormed away from him. He didn’t even know what he’d done wrong. All Jason knew was that Piper had gotten mad at him when he reminisced about Camp Jupiter. She’d told him that he’d chosen Camp Half-Blood after the Giant War, and now he had to live with his choice. Then she’d stormed off.

            Now, Jason was wandering around camp by himself. He could feel the kids from the Aphrodite burning holes in the side of his head as he passed, and was suddenly very glad that none of them could fight as well as Piper. He had a feeling they’d chop him into little pieces if they could fight like his girlfriend.

            “Jason!”

            Jason turned around when he heard his name. Percy Jackson was running towards him, grinning from ear to ear. “Guess what,” he said breathlessly, skidding to a stop beside Jason.

            “What?” Jason said, starting to walk again.

            Percy fell in step beside him. “No, you have to guess.”

            “I don’t want to.”

            “Yes, you do. Guess.”

            “No.”

            Percy groaned. “Come on, man,” he whined. “I thought you were the fun Roman/Greek hybrid.”

            Jason glared at him. “Shut up, Percy.”

            The son of Poseidon raised his eyebrows. “Touchy, touchy. Did you and Piper have a fight or something?”

            “How’d you know?”

            Percy grinned. “I passed the Aphrodite cabin. They were throwing darts at a picture of you.”

On any other day, a good old game of Capture the Flag would’ve cheered Jason right up. Today, though, he didn’t know if he should try to win or lose. If he tried to win, Piper would probably get angrier at him and accuse him of trying to show-off. But if he lost on purpose, Piper would think he did it because he didn’t think she could beat him; that would make things worse.

            Why were girls so complicated?

            Piper was on the other side of the playing field. Percy mentioned that she was in a bad mood today. “I wonder why,” he’d added slyly, grinning at Jason.