Child of Time

Chapter Three: Let's go Shopping at Midnight

Annabeth slowly nods her head, trying to detect if I'm holding back information.

"Heard you had to go to the infirmary yesterday." The blonde girl said. "What happened?"

"The bite on my arm from the hellhound starting bleeding a lot and Luke took me there." Annabeth narrows her eyes at me. I swallow nervously. I think it's a bad idea to try and lie to a daughter of Athena.

"That's not the only reason though. Is it?" Luke furrows his eyebrows as he looks at Annabeth then to me.

"What are you talking about?"

Annabeth rolls her eyes as if it's obvious.

"I saw that bite from the hellhound and it wasn't deep enough for him to collapse because of blood loss." She crosses her arms. "So what happened."

I swore under my breath. I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut. That's what got me in this mess in the first place. Why do the gods hate me?

"Overexerted myself."

"Doing what?"

"Using my powers." I say quietly.

They both stare at me. "You know what powers you have? That could give us clues to who your godly parent is." Annabeth says excitedly.

"I doubt it." I mumble, walking ahead. The to demigod share a look before running after me.

"What does that mean."

"Means I don't know what I did. Just felt the energy drain out of me." I said. Oh the lies I tell them.

"Hmm. Weird. Were you doing something?"

I shook my head. "Just talking to Luke. I asked him if the gods were dicks."

Luke grins and Annabeth furrows her eyebrows.

"But he doesn't know how to give a straight answer."

Luke scoffed. "I can too! It was just hard to answer your question."

I rolled my eyes and turned to Annabeth.

"Can you answer my question?"

She looks at me with a conflicted expression being shown on her face. "Um, I mean sometimes they can be... difficult but they seem okay."

I sigh. I just want to meet someone who will tell me to my face that my siblings are dicks.

"You seem disappointed with my answer." She points out as we walk around some trees.

"It's nothing." I let out a breath of air. "You guys know how to sneak out of camp?"

Luke grins at me and Annabeth raises and eyebrow.

"Why?"

"I need to pick something up from the store."

Luke grins more. "I can get you out tonight. What do you need from the store?"

"Snacks." A cigarette.

Annabeth shakes her head but she has a small smile on her face. "Can I go with you guys?"

I look at Luke as he thinks about it. "Sure. We may need your wisdom or something."

———

After a long day at camp doing weird camp games, me and Luke sneak out of the Hermes cabin and meet Annabeth at Thalia's Tree.

"You guys took long enough." Annabeth taps her foot against the ground.

"They went to sleep later than we thought they would."