Tell Me You Love Me

Lava Wall Rescue(Onety-Onety-Seven)

Sammy's POV

It was mid-July when it happened. All summer so far I had been following Ariana and Maria around, trying to find where I fit in. Milo took me to the forge to see if I was any good at building things, but Dad's main skills seemed to have passed me by.

I have no idea what I'm supposed to be good at. 

Of course, Ariana has known she could harness and create earthquakes for awhile now, and Maria fits in quite well with the Aphrodite cabin, being a child of Aphrodite herself. But me, I don't fit in anywhere. Just the Legacy cabin, and that's not personalized. I want something to myself that I can be good at. I want something that is mine. Not something that I could share with my brother and sister. Something that I was uniquely good at.

And then it happened. 

I had been working up my courage to climb the lava wall all summer. I sat watching Luke and Milo race at it with Ariana on the ground. Milo was just ahead of Luke at the top, laughing maniacally at his ability to climb right through the lava without getting burned. Luke was quicker, but Milo was fireproof.

When the got down to the ground, our brothers spotted us and came to see what we were doing. Luke was shoving Milo, who was bragging loudly over winning the race.

"What are you two up to?" Luke asked, nudging Ari's shoulder.

"Watching you two dorks climb the wall," Ari answered.

"Pretty awesome, huh?" Milo boasted, "Ari, I've seen you give it a try, but Sam is too chicken."

"I am not too chicken!" I said defensively.

"Are too," Milo said with a shrug.

My face flushed and I stood up. "Fine! I'll do it right now!"

Milo stepped aside, hands up in surrender, sharing a victorious smirk with Luke.

I shoved him a bit, annoyed, and stomped right past him. It wasn't until I was at the very base of the lava wall that I realized how scared I was. It was really high up and lava poured along the side(not that it would bother me) and obstacles that threw people off...I was starting to realize why I never tried climbing it before. I was about to turn right around and walk back to Milo, Luke, and Ariana with as much dignity as I could muster when Milo cupped his hands and shouted, "C'mon, Sam, you got this!"

I took a shaky breath, glancing again at all the obstacles I had to climb and jumped up before I could change my mind. My arms were shaking the whole way up. I was going slowly but surely. And finally I was almost to the top when I heard a scream.

I looked down(immediately regretting this decision as I felt quite nauseous) and saw a girl that I recognized as Lavinia from the Hermes cabin. She was about my age with short dirty blonde curls, pale blue eyes, and mouse-ish features.

And she was handing from a bar over open air by one hand as the lava crept towards her. I had to backtrack to get to her, afraid I would fall all the while. A crowd was gathering below, watching in tense silence.

"Lavinia!" I called.

She gasped with the effort of hanging on and looked up at me.

"Just hold on a second, I'm gonna help you," I said. I didn't exactly know how I was going to help her, but I just knew I was going to.

She shrieked as the lava got closer and I swallowed back my fear and leaped directly in the lava's path, grabbing frantically to a handhold and turning so I was holding off the lava with my back, some of the stuff streaming through my hair and running over my ears.

I quick glance confirmed that Milo was scaling the wall, also intent on saving Lavinia.

And then things took a turn for the worst. The handle Lavinia was holding started to shake and obstacles from all around shot out, intent on knocking demigods off the wall. Lavinia screamed in terror and I threw my hands out, as if that would stop them.

But it did. Somehow, I stopped the obstacles in their paths of destruction. I glanced down at my hands in wonder. Purple waves of magic pulsed from my hands, surrounding the obstacles and holding Lavinia in place.

And then Milo was there, coaxing Lavinia onto his back. He stared at me with a mixture of the same wonder...and pride.

He grinned and gave me a nod, disappearing down the side of the lava wall with Lavinia in tow.

I slowly let the obstacles go and climbed around them. I opted to climb through the lava, as is Milo's preference, as there aren't many obstacles to push you from the wall inside the lava.

Once I got down to the ground, Ariana tackled me in a hug. 

"Sammy! You were awesome!" But then her hand hit some of the lava still in my hair and she pulled back quickly, sucking on the burnt part of her hand. Luke summoned some water and wrapped it like a bandage around her hand, holding it in place to cool it down, leading her to the infirmary.

Milo's arm was around my shoulder then. "You did good, little bro. No wonder you don't like to build things. Looks like you took after Mom. You'll be needing to talk to Chiron to get some activities scheduled with the Hecate cabin."

"Yeah," I said, staring at my hands, excitement and adrenaline coursing through my veins, "I will."