Invisible ― Jason Grace

i. the invisible optimist

What Camilla could say was that she liked Jason Grace as more than of friend. 

But he was gone now. The one person who saw her, who didn't look through her like she didn't even exist, had been missing for eight months, and Camilla had all but lost hope.

She hated thinking like that—she was an optimist at heart, something Jason always said he admired about her (even when her optimism stood in direct contrast to the dismal facts of real life). But after eight months of absolutely no clues as to where Jason had disappeared to, most of the camp had started to accept the idea that Jason Grace was simply gone. 

And no invisible optimist could change that. 

◈

June nineteenth started like any other day. Camilla ate breakfast with her cohort (namely Hazel Levesque and Frank Zhang, who were pretty much the only people at camp now who even knew who she was, and that was mostly because Hazel was her bunkmate); she went to training and monster class and tried not to fall asleep during the latter; she ate lunch in the mess hall; she went through her chores (the Fifth always got the grunt work, but she'd learned long ago that complaining wouldn't change anything); and she worried about Jason. 

Camilla was in the infirmary with Heather, another girl from her cohort, organizing the medical supplies like every Wednesday. Heather was a quiet girl, not much different from Camilla, so the tent was mostly silent, save for the occasional clacking of glass vials and the gentle rustle of a breeze on the tent fabric. 

It was an ordinary day in the post-Jason's disappearance era Camp Jupiter found themselves in—until the disturbance at the Little Tiber.

Camilla dropped the vial of unicorn draft she'd been trying to push onto the top shelf—a struggle for her five-foot even stature—when the watchtower horns blew across the camp. She squeaked in surprise, barely catching the tiny vial before it fell. She placed it on a lower shelf (the wrong one, but she figured the mistake was justified) and swiped a bottle of nectar before sprinting after Heather to the camp gates, silently praying it wasn't yet another monster attack at the camp boundaries. 

The scene was fortunately more confusing than horrific. An unfamiliar boy was standing on the near side of the Little Tiber, an old woman hunched over next to him. Hazel was on that side as well, staring at Frank in horror as a pair of snake-haired gorgons held him suspended above the water. 

The sentries above them yelled, but there was no clear shot that Camilla could see. She tucked the vial of nectar into her pocket and drew her gladius along with the other campers around her. 

But apparently the strange boy had a few tricks up his sleeve. 

The dark-haired teenager thrust his hands out, and the river responded. Whirlpools formed on either side of Frank, and giant, watery hands sprang from the surface of the water. The hands copied the strange boy's movements, grabbing onto the gorgons, who dropped Frank in surprise. Then the hands lifted the squawking monsters in a liquid vise grip. 

Camilla was jostled back by the suddenly apprehensive crowd, though she was more stunned than afraid. She'd never seen someone control the water like that, like it was an extension of his body. It was incredible. 

The boy made a smashing gesture with his fists, and the giant hands plunged the gorgons into the Tiber. The monsters hit bottom and broke into dust. Glittering clouds of gorgon essence struggled to re-form, but the river pulled them apart like a blender. Soon, every trace of the gorgons was swept downstream. The whirlpools vanished, and the current settled. 

The strange boy stood on the riverbank, his clothes and skin steaming like he'd stepped out of a hot tub and into freezing air. 

In the middle of the Little Tiber, Frank stumbled around, looking stunned but perfectly fine. Hazel waded out and helped him ashore, and Camilla hurried over to them, handing the bleeding Frank the vial of nectar. He took it in silence, his wide eyes stuck on the stranger.