Deception | p.j.¹

-03

CHAPTER 3 | LATE NIGHT TALKING

—RAVEN WAS QUITE SURPRISED TO hear the news of the bathroom incident with Percy and Clarisse. You see, Clarisse had this honorary inauguration for new campers that always involved some type of prank, and Percy was the first to ever successfully fight back. She, herself, had almost been a victim, but she managed to get on Clarisse's very small good side and they formed a delicate truce. That was something Raven was good at; getting on people's good sides.

After a long, and most uneventful, shift in the infirmary, Raven was let off by Lee and told to go meet up with Annabeth at the pier. After hearing of Jackson's bathroom story, she was very eager to get back to him.

She finally found the two, Percy sitting on the edge with his feet dangling off and Annabeth leaning on the railing. Well, they weren't fighting verbally or physically, that was a good sign.

"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned, looking into the lake. "Naiads are terrible flirts."

"Yeah, you would know." Raven teased the other blonde who jumped and started blushing furiously, disguised poorly it under a scowl.

Percy glanced back and forth between the two blondes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Raven could feel Annabeth's warning glare on her. "Oh, nothing. I'll tell you when you're older."

She could easily recall the first time she and Annabeth went to the pier. The Naiads became infatuated with Annabeth's princess curls and stormy grey eyes. And Annabeth, dear miss I-always-know-what-to-do, was so flustered she couldn't even speak. Raven ever let her friend live it down.

Percy peered back down at the girls in the water and his face shadowed with a sense of overwhelming. "Naiads. That's it, I want to go home."

Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"

Raven was about to interject, but she considered some of the kids here and had to agree with him.

"She means not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human." Raven said.

"Half-human and half-what?"

"Take a guess, Jackson."

Percy turned his head and stared back out over the shimmering lake like he could find the answers he was searching for beneath the surface. That, or he wanted to jump in and drown himself. "God," he said. "Half-god."

Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead. Percy. He's one of the Olympians."

"He could either be Ares, Apollo, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Hermes, or, of course, one of the minor gods." Raven told him, watching his eyes light up with the question she knew would come next.