¹Royal Cries, p. jackson

008.

ROYAL CRIES
━━ chapter eight

━━ ELISA KNEW WHY she had taken it too far. But she had two reasons. One; Percy was annoying and crossed her boundaries ( and she simply had set them a little too firmly when she snapped at him ), and two; it had been two years since she had run away from Durango, Colorado.

               She had stormed off to Cabin Twelve, not knowing where else to go. She was a stranger at Camp Half-Blood, she didn't have an established set of friends there besides Bianca and Nico ( maybe Grover was her friend, but Elisa knew he was much closer to Percy than he was with her ), and Bianca had dropped her for the Hunters of Artemis, and Nico was always with Cabin Eleven.

               It's not like she held grudges for any of them. She was simply out of her element, confused and irritated, something she should be accustomed to by now. Elisa glanced at Cabin Eleven, stupidly expecting Nico to just be outside the cabin, waving to her as he normally did anytime she caught his eye. He was a pain in her ass sometimes, but she had promised Bianca to stay by his side and do her best to keep him safe. She'll never admit it, but he and his Mythomagic game had grown on her over the months.

               Nevertheless, Elisa knew well that everything came with a heavy price. She could never bring up Bianca without Nico giving her the cold shoulder for a few hours. Granted, she didn't blame Nico for reacting that way. His sister—someone who had been with him his whole life—had practically abandoned him for a band of girls that hated men. And they didn't react that way because Nico was a boy, either. Elisa could barely even get a glimpse of Bianca without some Hunter whisking her away.

               It was like the Hunters of Artemis wanted Bianca to abandon everything that she had known before them. Elisa didn't like it. That wasn't who Bianca was, and they were changing her—in Elisa's opinion—for the worst.

               In Elisa's mind, they had made it there together, the three of them, so she expected the three to stick it out together, but it wasn't looking that way. Soon—if Artemis was actually ever found safe or miraculously got away from her captors—Bianca would leave with the Hunters of Artemis and the goddess, leaving Elisa and Nico at Camp Half-Blood, a duo instead of a trio.

               She tried telling herself that life will always move on, that people will always leave—voluntary or not—and that she just had to roll with the punches. However, the bruise that seemed to be forming from Bianca's leave was going to last longer than Elisa ever expected.

               It seemed Nico was taking it even worse than Elisa, though. Which wasn't shocking considering that was his blood sister, the one who had been there his whole life. Bianca was there for him from the moment he took his first breath and first opened his eyes. Bianca wasn't like Elisa, who had shown up in his life a couple of months ago randomly.

               No one could ever say Bianca or the Hunters of Artemis without Nico getting a sour look on his face. Elisa tried getting him to tell her what was wrong—even though both of them knew exactly what was wrong—but Nico shrugged her off. She knew he doesn't hate Bianca, just hurt by what she had done. Elisa saw how when Nico did anything correctly, like when he rarely hits the target for archery or was told he was holding a dagger correctly, he would look around for Bianca, his grin dropping when there wasn't a sign of her.

               Elisa's heart stung for him, and she knew exactly what it meant. She cared for the two a little too much than she should. She wanted the best for them a little more than she should. She wanted to help them and protect them a little more than she should. Elisa had cared a little too much before, and it had gotten her scarred for life, but she couldn't make herself shut them out. It wasn't right, it wasn't what she wanted to do, and it wasn't what they needed from her.