The light through the water

Chapter 2

(Jacyens POV)
CHAPTER 2
"Wow. Small world," Lee replies, then looks away shyly. We sit in awkward silence as she finishes healing the right side of my face, her palm cupping my cheek. I know as soon as the warmth of her healing powers leaves that my face is repaired and the warmth is quickly replaced by the once again cold touch of the girl sitting next to me.
She drops her hand and quickly stands, stumbling for a second, looking suddenly exhausted. I swiftly follow her motion, grabbing her elbow to keep her from falling on her face. It's not like I need help standing anyway. I forget that until the pain in my leg shoots through my nerves, like a gun shooting a bullet.
"Whoa, you okay?" I ask, worried for my newfound neighbor, ignoring the pain at this point. Something I learned to do at Camp Jupiter. I steady her stance with my own and she looks up at me.
"Yes," she murmurs, closing her eyes. "as my dad says, 'With great powers... comes great need for a nap.'"
Oh.
Right.
She pulls away from my grip (Almost to my protesting. Almost.), and grabs one of the charts she left on the desk before she started healing my wounds. I don't notice the purple pen tucked into the messy bun on top of her head until she pulls it out of her matching purple hair. It matches her purple scarf, as well. Interesting. Everything purple.
I stare, observing how not many people can pull off bright purple hair, but she can. Her skin is the right shade of olive, bespeckled with freckles, and her eyes are the brightest blue I have ever seen, with shards of gray splintering through the vividity of cobalt. She's kind of cute.
"You like purple, huh?" I ask, stupidly.
"Any pain I should be worried about or treat?" She ignores me, writing a few notes down when I confirm that no, I'm not in any pain. Liar. She then asks:
"Last name?"
"Jackson," I answer, watching as her eyes lift to meet mine as I say it. All of a sudden, I realize she looks familiar...
"Your parents are Percy and Annabeth Jackson?" She asks, a look of incredulity crossing her face.
"I take it they're famous around here?"
"Well, yeah, but they're old friends of my dads."
"Huh," I say. That makes some sort of sense, I guess.
"Wait, who are your dads?"
"Nico di Angelo and Will Solace." I feel the realization flash over my face.
"That's why you look kind of familiar," I exclaim, recognizing her from the pictures of her family my parents had tacked onto the fridge over the years. I tell her so. She flashes me a smile, pink appearing on her freckled cheeks. Something tingly shivers up my spine.
"You should invest in a sweatshirt," Lee suggests, mistaking my shiver for coldness. I guess she noticed that it's kind of cold to stand here in the dead of winter in just a t-shirt and jeans.
"Yeah...I guess."
"One sec, and then you should be good to go," Lee says, holding up a finger that tells me to stay, turns around and already pushing her purple pen back into her purple hair as she returns the chart she wrote in back to the desk she grabbed it from. She passes my shoulder walking out of the infirmary. Now where is she going? I stand here for a few minutes, feeling a little stupid, until she comes back inside with a folded bright orange sweatshirt in her hands, walking back towards me.
"Here ya go," she tosses the comfy looking sweatshirt at me effortlessly. I barely catch it. She's already heading back to the desk to continue her shift when I finally open my stupid mouth.
"Thanks. I guess I'll see you around then?" I say, more of a question than a statement. Smooth.
"Yeah, later," she barely glances at me, as though I'm no longer worth her attention. As if she no longer finds me interesting. That was mean. I'm not portraying her as shallow, I just have trust issues. She's kind and considerate. She is a good person.
Once I remember that it's not cool to stand in the middle of an infirmary with my jaw hanging wide-ass open, staring in amazement at a girl, I slip on the sweatshirt. It says "Camp Half-Blood: Long Island, NY."
After a few more seconds of standing there like an idiot, I decide to try my hand at archery, one of the few activities I didn't learn at Camp Jupiter. Maybe the move won't be too bad after all. It takes me a couple of wrong turns and a friendly faun- sorry, satyr- to get to the archery range, but when I finally do find it, a woman named Kayla helps me figure out what bow I need.
I learn, over the course of only a few minutes, that archery is not my forte, and arrows end up flying everywhere. I'm pretty sure I sent a couple more campers to the infirmary. Needless to say I'm not welcomed back to archery. I also realize the reason I didn't learn archery at Camp Jupiter was by choice.
"I think you might be a natural," a familiar voice teases, one of the very few I know here. "They should give you an award for how many people you've shot in the ass in the last half hour."
"Thanks, sis," I say dryly, as I knock another arrow into my bow, aiming for the red bullseye five yards away. "Your support is always appreciated."
"A pleasure, as always," Sadie jumps off the fence line she had taken a seat upon -- quietly so I didn't notice her -- and saunters toward me and my arrows, which are shooting out of the ground haphazardly. I should not be allowed to do this ever again. I shouldn't be allowed to do this now.
"Your form's good," she nods her head, standing a significantly safe distance away. She would know. She's practically an expert at shooting arrows. "You're just missing one vital thing."
"Oh, yeah, and what would that be?"
"Have you ever tried aiming?"
Very funny. Hilarious, in fact.
"Mom and Dad want us back soon," Sadie informs me. "They say they have news."
She curls her lip at the last word. I know what she means. The last time our parents had "news," it was that we were packing up all our stuff and moving cross-country to the demigod camp they had grown up at. Great news, Mom and Dad. Just what I've always wanted. To leave my entire life behind for no fucking reason at all. I let the arrow fly loose. Not even close.
"Okay, just let me finish up here."
"What do you have to finish up?" She snorts. "It's not like you're going to get any better in the next five minutes. Besides, didn't you just get electrocuted? How are you still standing?"
"I met a healer today." A lopsided grin takes place on my mouth.
"I'm sure you did," Sadie snorts again.
I sigh, wishing my twin would take her sardonic attitude toward everything and just shove it. And when I say twin, I do not mean identical. We could not look any more different. Where I have our mom's blonde hair and steel gray eyes, Sadie has our dad's pitch black hair and sea green eyes. Our powers however, are probably one of the very few things we have in common: We both share our dad's ability to control water (him being a son of Poseidon and all). Though, Sadie probably got more of our mom's wisdom (as she is a daughter of Athena) than I did.
I resign myself to cleaning up the arrows that litter the ten yard radius around me instead of finishing off the rest of them that were in the quiver Kayla gave me before I started being an abomination to all archers everywhere. I return my bow and arrows to Kayla, and she gives me the stink eye, that very simply says I am not welcomed back here anytime soon.
Sadie and I start walking up the hill, heading back to the house our parents had us move into but will probably never be our home. At least Sadie seems comfortable here, although she's probably already casing the joint, trying to figure a way out. Or places she can put her shoplifting skills to use. She fidgets with unused energy, almost skipping beside me.
"So, what have you been doing today?" I almost want to hear her answer, but I'm afraid of what it might be.
"Oh, you know," she says secretively, pride rolling off her shoulders like she did something she wasn't supposed to do. As always. "Same old, same old."
"What did you steal?" I press, knowing she'll tell me sooner rather than later.
"Nothing!" Hurt flashes across her face, as if she can't believe I would suggest such a thing. And, of course, to add to the effect, she places a hand to her chest, as though I have personally offended her."Yet."
"Right."
I don't believe her, and I give her a look to prove it.
"All right, fine," Sadie surrenders, emptying her pockets. She pulls out two wallets, a watch, and some jewelry.
"Jesus Christ, Sadie ," I exclaim, examining one of the wallets she shoves into my hands. "Do you even know...'Vivian Charles?'"
"Who?" She asks, answering my question with hers. That's what I thought.
"Never mind."
As we enter the cul-de-sac, Sadie and I take to bickering over better things to do with one's time rather than pickpocketing random strangers. She should be a daughter of Mercury - sorry, Hermes - with her talent of theft and picking locks. We end up walking in silence, ignoring each other, neither willing to admit defeat. We walk up the front porch of our new house. Through the windows, I can see our blue christmas tree, with its white lights and blue ornaments. Everything blue. Something my dad had with his mom, and passed down to me and Sadie.
Sadie opens the unlocked door, stepping into the threshold of the Jacksons' home.
"Mom, Dad," she yells. "We're home!"
No response. Typical.
"Whatever," I say and plop myself on the living room couch in front of the TV as Sadie let's Goldie in from the backyard. I turn the TV on. Sadie plops down on the opposite side, followed by our golden retriever, who lies next to her.
Cartoons start playing. Next channel. Some weepy chick flick. Next channel. Batman. Place the TV remote down.
"I don't want to watch this," Sadie whines, grabbing for the remote. I slide it out of her reach. She tosses a pillow at my head. I throw it back at her. And the Pillow Wars begin.
When my parents walk through the door, we have littered the floor with throw pillows, hiding behind trenches made from couch cushions and tossing several objects at each other that, though are not fragile, are still not as soft as pillows. I'm pretty sure Goldie ran upstairs to avoid coming in contact with thrown objects. Smart dog. We probably look like a couple of toddlers, screaming at each other and grinning like a pair of idiots while the theme to Batman plays in the background.
"When did you guys get home?" Dad asks, completely unsurprised by the result of leaving the two of us alone together and unsupervised. Our mother on the other hand, looks like she's about to faint, pale as a cloud.
"What's the matter with you?"Sadie , asks ignoring Dad's question and taking note of Mom's state in probably the most insensitive way ever.
"Let's just get through dinner," Mom says, already heading into the kitchen to start chopping vegetables. "And, please clean this mess up." What the hell are we supposed to do with that?

"So, how was your day, Jaycen?" Dad asks as he helps himself to another serving of blue ice cream, breaking the silence that encased our dinner and half of our dessert.
"Yeah, Jaycen, how was your day?" Sadie repeats, looking me straight in the eye, a smug smirk resting on her mouth. Fuck. Thanks, Sadie.
"Oh, nothing much," I deflect, avoiding everyone's eyes whilst moving my food across my plate with my fork. "Didn't you and Mom have something you wanted to talk to us about?"
My parents share a smile, and I can feel the curiosity growing between me and my twin sister. I guess we can assume it's good news.
"You guys know what happens when two people love each other very much," Mom starts, while at the same time Dad says, "We're having another kid."
Wow.
Um, okay.
Sadie and I share a look, and I can tell she's thinking the same thing. Mom smacks Dad on the arm. Though, honestly, I don't think her explanation would have been that much better.
"Seaweed brain," she mutters under her breath. A few moments of no talking. Just the clinking sound our silverware makes when it touches the plates. The mood of dinner quickly shifts from content silence to a quiet that is so loud, I can feel a headache starting to throb behind my temples.
"Is that why we moved?" Sadie asks softly, as my thoughts travel down the same rabbit hole as hers. Of course. That is why we moved, literally in the middle of the fucking school year.
"We wanted this baby to grow up at the camp we grew up at," Dad reasons simply, holding Mom's hand. Bullshit.
What about us? We had a life. We had friends, and school, and camp. And they just decide this new kid is suddenly the center of all our lives? I didn't want to be here in the first place, but this just sets me over the edge. I glare at my ice cream. Sadie does one better. She scrapes her chair against the floor as she quickly stands up, and angrily stomps all the way out the front door.
"Sadie !" Mom yells, standing up to follow her, worry etched across her face.
"I got it," Dad reassures her as he walks out the door at his own calm pace, while me and Mom sit at the table in utter silence.
"What do you think?" she asks after several minutes of me staring daggers into the dining table. Is she fucking serious? I stare at her incredulously, then get up and walk upstairs to my room, where I slam the door and flop face down onto my bed.
Why? Why now? I hear a knock on my door before I fall asleep with that question running through my head, unanswered. At some point in the night, my door opens, and I feel someone plopping on the other end of my bed, practically sitting on my feet. Sadie. I open my eyes and sit up, crossing my legs to face her. We don't speak. She fidgets with the hem of her sock, and doesn't meet my eyes. I do the same.
What do we say to this news? How do we put our feelings into words? We grew up at Camp Jupiter. Our parents had lived there for years before having us, and we were fine there. So why did we have to change now?
"What's a healer?" Sadie asks, suddenly curious. I guess I'm happy we're choosing not to talk about the giant-ass elephant in the room.
"Her name is Lee," I try to say without a grin, remembering the cute girl who helped me. I'm pretty sure I failed.
"That doesn't answer my question, asshole."
I roll my eyes.
"She has healing powers." Now it's Sadie's turn to roll her eyes.
"It's unfortunate she hasn't healed your brain yet."
"Well, without my unhealed brain, who would you have these fun conversations with?"
"Fine, don't tell me."
"Fine, I won't." We are engulfed in silence again.
Eventually, I toss Sadie a pillow, and fluff my own.
"I'm going back to sleep," I say with finality. She does the same, curling her small form into a ball at the foot of my bed and we drift off into silent sleep once more.
"Thanks for kicking Damian's ass for me today," Sadie murmurs, half asleep.
"What are big brothers for?"
She tosses her pillow at my head. I groan, without energy to toss it back.
"We both know I'm the oldest."

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