no matter how many times a snake shed its skin, it would always be a snake. no matter how hard kit dempsey tried to prove he was no longer a traitor, camp half-blood would always view him as the boy who betrayed them for kronos. but not leo valdez...
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CHAPTER THIRTY: KEEPING YOU AROUND
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WHEN, AT LONG LAST, Kit's feet hit the solid ground of the Argo II's deck, he was quick to disappear downstairs to his cabin, conveniently ignoring the stumbling footsteps of Leo and Hazel following behind him with the sheet of now dented bronze in between them.
Kit was tired. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to sleep away the past twenty-four hours, to wake up to the simplistic feeling of Leo's lips on his. Their kiss, just the beginning of a seamless day. No Nemesis wearing his mother's face, mocking him. No Narcissus, no groupies, not even Echo. His mind was a loose thread slowly untangling, caught between the fingers of a hidden higher power. His dad, knowing his luck, watching over him and laughing like the evil villain in a Disney movie. That bastard.
Kit just wanted to forget, to sew up the unravelling image and let it rest. He slammed his door shut behind him, sinking down onto the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. He sighed, ears ringing in the sudden silence. He reached into his pocket, unsure why it hurt to see the words he'd already committed to memory. It wasn't like they could've changed since the first time he read them.
You'll spend your whole life paying for mistakes you'll never truly learn from.
"Oh, yeah?" Kit scoffed, quickly crumpling up the piece of paper. He pushed himself off the edge of his bed, feet dragging him towards the circular window that filtered in the dim afternoon light. He flung the window open, feeding the piece of paper to the ocean before he could change his mind. "Fuck you, Nemesis. Learn from that!"
He then retreated back to his bed, kicking off his boots so he could curl up properly with his head pressed beneath the pillow. In the darkness behind his eyes, he could feel her; she scratched at the hollow crevices of his skull just enough for him to understand. Gaea. Maybe he was merely going crazy, searching for signs of the obvious. What everyone would already suspect. A villain reaching out to him. She'd whisper his name only, nothing else. Not quite present but haunting him just enough to flood his gut with panic.
"No," he blurted, sitting up with fingers tugging at the roots of his hair. As if the roots were Gaea planting seeds one by one, slowly invading the one thing left that was solely his — his mind. "Get out of my head!"
Gaea, if she was ever there, surprisingly complied. Now, Kit searched for new sounds in the silence — the steady pounding of waves against the side of the boat, the faint shout of Percy's petulant voice and Hedge yelling something vaguely insulting down at the water nymphs. After what seemed like hours, the engine began to hum again. The oars creaked and groaned while Kit's stomach dipped with the feeling of the ship lifting into the air. He waited for Leo to show his face, barely making it to a minute before the eager boy flung his door open. He was caked in a gross combination of sweat, lime dust and tar, and he smelled like the sewer they slept in that one time, but he wore an eager grin that set Kit's insides alight.
