The Little Lightning Girl

35- I Get Invited to My Own Party

Adrian and I trained the next day by the tree that we'd claimed as our spot. We worked on individual moves first, then technique, then worked our way up to sparring. As always, I could feel the stares of new campers on us as we fought, but after all these months of being stared at at Hogwarts, I easily blocked it out to focus on training. I got the feeling that it wasn't in awe, how they were looking at me. More... in horror.

It had been hard for me to walk out of my cabin this morning in shorts and a tank top, all of my scars on display. I'd debated leaving my hair down to cover the ones on my upper back that were exposed by my shirt but... this might be one of the few places in the world where battle scars weren't uncommon. So I pulled my hair into a high ponytail, tied my shoes, and left the safety of my cabin. And anyway, it wasn't the opinions of strangers that really mattered to me, but those of my friends. Adrian didn't even glance at my exposed scarred flesh, and I could have kissed him for it.

We barely spoke the whole time, and when we finished hours later, we sat with our backs on the tree and gulped down water.

"I'm so glad to have you back," Adrian spoke suddenly.

His storm-filled eyes caught mine and held them, his face intense as his eyes searched for something in my face. I didn't know what to make of his expression, so I ducked my head and took another drink of water.

"I'm glad to be back, more than I was before."

"Alana," I managed to turn my face back towards his as he spoke hesitantly, "If you ever need anything..."

I smiled, "Like what? A shoulder to cry on?"

He smiled but I could tell he knew I was just trying to lighten the mood, "Yeah, I could be your shoulder, but seriously, anything."

I let my smile fade and nodded, "Thank you."

There was something different about the way he looked at me now. Something sharper in his gaze that I hadn't seen before. But maybe I'd just been oblivious and it had always been there, I had no way of knowing. I also didn't know what it was or what it meant, but I had enough to think about. So I stood up and we went to the Dining Hall together. I couldn't help but notice that when his hand brushed mine as we walked, I felt none of my usual fear and disgust. I felt nothing but a spark and a strange blooming warmth in my chest. And it didn't go away.

....................

I threw myself into training more than I ever had. I spent hours each day fighting, whether it was Adrian or Maya or an animated straw dummy. I worked on swords and knives, and Noah even taught me how to shoot a bow and arrow. I could totally hit someone if they weren't too far away or moving too fast. To me, it felt as if I'd grown into a woman's body overnight. Of course, I'd had some time to get used to it in those few months at school, but training was a different story. The adjustments were small, a slight change in posture, a shift in my balance, but it took awhile for me to feel like I was even in my own body. Soon enough, I was back in good shape. At school I'd gained back the weight I had lost, but now I was gaining some muscle too.

Somehow, in the midst of all this, I had also gained back a sense of self. An acceptance of who I was now. Unfortunately, acceptance didn't stop the nightmares, it didn't get rid of the memories. But slowly, I felt more normal. Very few people at camp knew that I'd been captured, and they didn't have any reason to ask. For all they knew I was at school the whole time, as they were. Even if they had thought of asking, Noah and Adrian were scary enough that any questioning souls probably took one look at my guard dogs and ran the other way. Thankfully, this made it so that I didn't get stared at, as I had at Hogwarts, at least not nearly to that degree.

But one day, I got a letter from Rose Weasley, with a surprising birthday gift inside. Her family's owl had tapped on my window early in the morning, and I recognized the ruffled bird immediately and let him in. The letter was, as usual, written in Rose's hurried scrawl, that I could only read because I had practice.

Dear Alana,

It has occurred to me that we never celebrated your birthday. This is a tragedy beyond measure. Kaley and I have been conversing, and we have put together enough money to go to Hawaii. Adrian and Maya are also invited. It's only a week long trip, but thankfully we know how to have fun. We aren't going without you, but we figured you might appreciate an invitation before we kidnapped you. Your mum has agreed to let us go as long as we go everywhere together and check in with her every day. We're leaving next Monday, meet me at the JFK airport in Queens at noon. Happy Birthday!

Rose Weasley

I looked up from the letter, still shocked, halfway thinking it was a joke. But Rose wouldn't be so cruel to joke about something like this, and the letter was unmistakably in her handwriting. I immediately ran to the Poseidon cabin with the letter still clutched in my hand. Pounding on the door resulted in a very frazzled-looking Maya Jackson, angrily whipping the door open.

"Do you want to go to Hawaii?"

It burst out of my mouth before she could growl at me. I was grinning, and laughed at her confused expression.

"Why would we be going to Hawaii? Do we have a quest?"

I snorted at her, and Adrian quickly surfaced and came to stand behind his sister. I shoved the letter from Rose into Maya's hands and she quickly glared at me, "You know I hate reading English, Alana."

I snatched the paper back from her, "It's from Rose, she and Kaley have invited us to go to Hawaii. We're going for a week."

Both of the Jackson siblings looked stunned and confused, but neither of them protested. In fact, they both just froze for a good twenty seconds.

Adrian was the first to respond, "I've always wanted to go to Hawaii. Great surfing there, I've heard."

Is forgotten that the Jacksons could surf. Of course they could, the two of them were probably born in the ocean.

My grin only grew, "The best. Are you in?"

"Of course we're in," Maya said, "we'll have to tell our parents but they'll probably be fine with it, they know we can take care of ourselves."

"Dad will be fine with it, mom might take some convincing, but we're going to Hawaii," Adrian sounded quite determined.

The preparations for the trip began immediately. We were surprised to find that my mum had already contacted Chiron and he'd given his permission for us to go to Hawaii even though it wasn't an official quest. I wondered what the reason for his lenience was, but I certainly wasn't going to waste time arguing with him about it.

I was going to Hawaii. I was going to show my best friends my home.