That's Not My Life Anymore | Percy Jackson Chaos || COMPLETE

Chapter 6

Alpha and I continued to talk for the rest of the time before dinner. We had moved on to a different, more relaxed topic of conversation, but the thought of Nico was still in the back of both our minds.

At some point we had sat down on the couch, with our backs resting against the arm rests and our feet beside each other in the middle. It was nice to sit here casually, and pretend that everything was right in the world. I had pushed what Dawn had said about Alpha liking me to the back of my mind, and tried to act like everything was normal. The last thing I needed was for things to get awkward between us.

I glanced over at the clock that was above one of the windows.

"Ten minutes til dinner," I said. Alpha groaned.

"Are you sure we have to go?" she asked, throwing her head back and staring up at the ceiling. I couldn't help but smile. Everyone was hoping that we could get out of eating with the campers, but Alpha was certainly being the most vocal about it.

Hey," I said, nudging her leg with my foot. She looked back down at me. "It won't be that bad. Besides, even if we skip dinner, we'll have to go to the meals tomorrow, and every other day we're here."

"We don't have to," she muttered grumpily, crossing her arms.

I chuckled a little, "I don't know about you, but I personally don't want to starve. Especially not this soon before a war."

"The war won't be for a little while," Alpha pointed out.

"But we'll be training even harder than usual," I countered.

She opened her mouth to reply, but some yelling came from one of the rooms.

"Has anyone seen my mask?" Mustang asked anxiously, running down the hall.

"How did you manage to lose your mask already?" Alpha asked in disbelief. "We haven't even been here for a full hour!"

Mustang crossed her arms. "It's not my fault the boys wanted to get back at me," she said defensively.

I raised my eyebrows. The boys had never been able to do anything her before, so I had no idea how they managed to now. And I didn't even want to guess why they wanted to get back at her.

"How did they suddenly manage to prank you now?" Alpha asked her, voicing my thoughts.

Mustang shrugged, "I didn't get the chance to set up security around my room."

"Ah."

"Well I suggest you find your mask soon, because we leave for dinner in five minutes," I told her.

She groaned and spun back around, probably to attack the boys. That would be interesting...

Alpha turned back to me. "So what's the plan?" she asked, suddenly serious.

I didn't need to ask what she was talking about. "We need to keep you away from that boy, at all costs. If he figures out who you are..."

"We're screwed," Alpha finished for me.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Well won't this be fun?"

***

It turned out not to be as difficult as we thought. Nico kept to himself even more, and since no one was here that he really liked, he had no reason to come out of the shadows.

It actually made me kind of sad. It reminded me of how he was when he first came here. Of how he acted after Bianca died- yet another death I blamed myself for. I hadn't left on very good terms with Nico, but I still wanted him to be happy. I just hoped that he would find people who loved him.

Nico wasn't our only problem though. Everyone stared at us whenever we left the cabin, and it wasn't long before the whispers started.

There were rumours going around about who we were and where we were from. A couple people were actually brave enough to actually ask some of us face-to-face, but most just kept away from us. Those who did ask were disappointed- no one would tell them anything. They'd keep their voice neutral and say something along the lines of, "I'm sorry, I am not allowed to tell you that" or "I'm afraid that information is classified."

We kept up an image. We acted like we never fooled around, never had fun. We acted as if the only thing important to us was training.

Throughout dinner, we were the only topic of conversation. I could hear some of the things people were saying, but I ignored them. I had a little bit of a problem at my own table; love problems, yet again.

Alpha and I were each sitting at a head of the table, directly across from each other. She would occasionally look up, look at me for a couple seconds, give me a quick smile (that was slight guessing on my part, cause of the mask, but it seemed like she was smiling at me), then look back down at her food. Dawn would notice this, and glance at Alpha, then send me a meaningful stare. I would glare back at her, and shake my head a little, signalling that it was not the time, but she ignored me.

No one from my army talked during dinner. Barely anyone even looked at each other. They all just focused intently on the plate of food in front of them, and tried to ignore what the campers were saying about them. Thankfully, that also meant no one noticed the staring contests between me, Alpha and Dawn.

Looking back on it, my life was seriously messed up.