Where You Go ― Jason Grace

i. not so sweet dreams

"Can you do me a favor?" Ophelia asked, hooking an arm through Jason's as they reached him.

"Sure," Jason said, not even asking for context.

Maren liked to say he was a golden retriever turned human being—always looking to people-please and make friends. Ophelia just thought he was so nice and accommodating that it toed the line between a virtue and a character flaw. 

"If anyone asks, we've been with you since..." She glanced down at her watch, checking the Roman numerals that the hands pointed to. "Eleven-fifty."

Jason let out a resigned sigh. "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Ophelia insisted.

"Then why do you need me as an alibi?"

Ophelia bit her lip. "Preventative measures?"

The blond rolled his eyes, but there was a fondness in them. There always was when he looked at her—according to Maren, anyway.

"Fine, you were with me since eleven-fifty," he conceded. "But if I get in trouble for lying, I'm throwing you under the bus immediately."

Ophelia grinned. "I wouldn't expect anything less."

The three split back apart as they reached the mess hall—Jason going to sit with his best friend, Reyna, and a few of his other friends from the Fifth, and the girls off to claim their usual table at the back.

"You know he's got a crush on you, right?" Maren asked, her tone carefully casual. Ophelia saw right through it.

Ophelia rolled her eyes. "Well, I've got a girlfriend, so he'll have to get over it," she said, her lips tilting up in a smile as she reached across the table to place her hand in Maren's.

"Damn straight," Maren said, stealing a grape off of Ophelia's plate.

"Damn not-straight," Ophelia corrected.

Maren laughed, and it was a sound so sweet Ophelia wanted to bottle and seal it so she could keep it in her pocket forever.

❖

Ophelia woke with a heavy heart.

It wasn't the first dream she'd had of Maren, and she doubted it would be the last. So often she dreamed of before—before the Titan War, before Maren's betrayal, before Ophelia's world fell apart and she was left to glue it back together again.

Somehow, those dreams hurt more than the nightmares of after.

It was still dark outside, and a glance at her alarm clock confirmed it was only just past one in the morning. 

In about seven hours, Ophelia and the rest of Camp Half-Blood's Argo II crew would be sailing for California. After a few setbacks, the ship was finally ready to go. Soon, Ophelia and Jason would be back at Camp Jupiter.

Maybe she should have been happy to be returning to the place she'd grown up in. Camp Jupiter was supposed to be her home. She'd spent her childhood in New Rome, running around with the other legacies and dreaming of the day she'd join the legion.

But it was also the place where she'd lost her aunt and her mother, where she'd waited for a brother who never came home, and where she'd suffered her first ever heartbreak and the worst betrayal or her life.

Not all of the memories at Camp Jupiter were ones she wanted to remember.

Ophelia shook her head, as if she could shake away the negative thoughts, if only for a moment. She got out of bed quietly, careful not to disturb her sleeping cabin-mates. She slipped on her sneakers and snuck out of the cabin.