Hate is a Strong Word (PAUSED)

Chapter 4: I Feel Bad for Medusa...

For the second time in a week, Emily woke up in the infirmary. Chiron had placed her there overnight after yesterday's war games. For the most part, the ambrosia had done its job, closing her cuts and settling her burns from the electric spear. She would've felt as good as new if it weren't for the throbbing in her head.

On her right, she saw a young girl with a sling around her arm. The girl was still unconscious, her face paint fading on her cheeks. She wore overalls over her camp t-shirt, Emily could smell the fertilizer on her clothes.

The cot to her left was empty but the sheets were pulled back, as though someone had slept there, but had left earlier that morning. It was obvious that no one took the no-maiming rule seriously. Or at least the Ares kids didn't.

Emily found Luke training in the arena, destroying a dummy that resembled Medusa if she were made out of potato sacks and hay. His sword was different from the others she'd seen. Instead of being pure Celestial Bronze, it was split down the middle. While one side was bronze, the other was silver.

"What'd she do to deserve death by weedwhacker?" Emily joked, moving over to grab a sword and train with him.

Luke whipped around, sword out. Emily could feel the cold metal against her skin, he wasn't putting enough pressure for it to draw blood, but something told her it wouldn't take much to provide that response. His eyes were narrowed, reminding her of a scorpion about to strike. Recognizing she wasn't a threat, it was like Luke stepped out of a trance. Lowering his sword he cleared his throat.

"Sorry, I've been a little on edge since the solstice." Sheathing his sword, Luke stepped back.

Sol spice? Is that like Sol de Janeiro?

"A little on edge is an understatement, you almost cut my head off," Emily muttered. She barely caught the sword Luke threw at her. Aren't summer camps supposed to be super safe?

Since she had arrived, Luke and Chiron had tried to find something she would excel at. Apollo kids could shoot apples off her head from miles away, and she couldn't even knock an arrow. Demeter kids seemed to be making a strawberry empire to fund the camp and Emily was struggling to keep the fake plant in Chiron's office alive. It seemed like every cabin had some sort of special talent, whether it was warfare for Athena kids or being assholes like Ares kids! While Emily was exceptionally strong and fast, she didn't have a lot of skill. At anything.

Like he was reading her mind, Luke tried to reassure Emily. "You do realize that this doesn't always come naturally right? Most of these demigods have been training here for years."

"Yeah, it's just kind of embarrassing to have my ass kicked by a 9-year-old."

"Well, you managed to best the head of the Ares cabin in your first week. So you can't be doing that bad." Emily would've laughed with him if she hadn't heard the gravel behind her crunching and the crackle of a certain someone's electric spear.

"I let her do that," Clarisse said through gritted teeth. The cut from Emily's sword was hidden underneath a strip of medical tape. Other than looking at Emily like she was about to kabob her with her spear, Clarisse didn't look bad at all. Her curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was almost completely unscathed. You couldn't even tell she had been in a fight.

"What are you staring at punk."

Luke cut in for her, "Are you really gonna do this right now Clarisse?"

"Get over yourself Castellan. I'm not doing anything." She walked over to the Medusa scarecrows, spear at the ready. "I'm here to train." In one fluid motion, Clarisse had impaled the dummy right where the heart would be. "Not everything is about you." Pulling her spear out of potato sack Medusa's chest, Clarisse slammed the butt of her spear on the ground. 

The air was filled with static and crackling from it, Emily was convinced Clarisse was about to spear her next. Instead, she turned back around and started torturing that poor dummy. Emily never thought she'd feel so bad for Medusa, but better it than her. 

Taking advantage of her distraction, Luke came at her striking for her knees. The flat side of his sword slammed into her legs and she fell backwards. Clarisse wasn't even trying to hold in her laughter. Did Luke really have to embarrass her in front of Clarisse? Rolling her eyes, Emily pushed herself up. 

"What the Hades Luke?" 

"Rule number one of combat: never take your eyes off of your opponent."

"Rule number two: make sure your opponent knows that she's supposed to be fighting in the first place," Emily muttered irritated. 

With Emily back on her feet, this time Luke struck for her shoulder. This time she parried the attack. Emily figured sword fighting was a lot like dancing, too bad she quit dance when she was 7... Every time she practiced with Luke, it was only a matter of time before he would disarm her and put her in a fatal position.

"Checkmate," Luke smirked, lowering his sword for what seemed like the 100th time. 

"You do realize you sound like a grandpa right?" 

Luke responded by slamming the hilt of his sword into her chestplate, then kicking out her legs from under her. 

"And you fight like one." Touché.

While a lot of things at camp were stupid, the dumbest of them all was that Emily had to burn part of her pulled pork sandwich for her dead-beat Olympian mom. She'd seen the appeal at first, she gave her mom some good-smelling pork smoke (or whatever the gods were into) and her mom would answer her prayers. Yeah, that didn't happen. She'd been praying for months, from winter to early June, and nothing. Nada. Thanks, Mom! Best Parent of the Year award goes to you!  She didn't even have a clue who her mom was. 

Chiron had told her of the thousands upon thousands of minor gods, so there was no way that process of elimination would work. The only thing Emily could do was sit and wait to be claimed. And just look how that was going. At least she wasn't freezing her kólos off anymore. 

"Do you think any goddesses of heatstroke are missing a kid? Because I'm pretty sure I'm getting claimed." Emily joked, sweat rolling down the side of her temple. You'd think it wouldn't be as hot at 6 pm, but the gods had proven her wrong. 

"Well, there's Helios, but he hasn't had any kids in millennia..." Connor answered, shoving a cheeseburger in his face. "And he's not really the god of heatstroke so much as the god of the sun."

"I thought that was Apollo?" 

"It's confusing," He assured her, brushing his curly brown hair out of his eyes as he reached for a potato chip. 

"You realize you have ketchup all over your face right?"

Connor didn't even flinch, he just shoved another handful of potato chips in his mouth and answered, "Yeah, I'm going for a look."

"Looking like a pig? Because it's working." 

Elbowing her in the ribs, Connor rubbed his cheek against the back of his hand. "Gone?" She could barely understand him with his mouth full of food. She would've told him he'd only smeared it further if Chiron hadn't blown a conch shell. 

Emily saw a dozen Ares and Apollo kids racing in the direction of Thalia's tree, Chiron leading the way. "How much do you want to bet it's a gorgon?"

"All I have is $2 and a stick of gum I found lying on the ground."

She whipped her head around in disbelief, "Why'd you pick it up???" It sounded like she was scolding a toddler, but a lot of the time that's how Connor acted. He acted like a kid putting things in his mouth that he shouldn't. 

He shrugged, unwrapping it and chewing on it. "Down to $2 now."

Since Emily had arrived, and according to Luke since the Winter Solstice, monsters had been finding ways to sneak into camp undetected, so it wasn't all that out of the ordinary for Chiron and a few campers to have to run and get rid of them every now and then. 

People had learned to shrug it off. It was no big deal, the Ares and Apollo kids always took care of the monsters in less than 10 minutes. At least, that was before they came back carrying a boy.