For the next couple hours, I took turns sparring with Darius and Damien, while Brady worked mostly with Layna. Because she was an archer, Hannah chose to simply sit back and watch the rest of us run the exercises over and over again. If I had been her, I would have been pretty bored, but Hannah seemed to enjoy relaxing for a while and laughing playfully whenever one of the twins or I made a mistake. It's safe to say that battling gladiator-style is harder than it looks.
When the sun started to set, the six of us agreed to stop practicing for the night, and Brady, Layna and I headed back to the armory to put our weapons away. However, the underage twins had to wait until everyone else had cleared out of the old shed in order to return their weapons, since they would have gotten in a huge amount of trouble if they had been found training. We still had dinner together, though, and we purposely sat as far away from Jason and Layna and Brady as possible. After dinner, many of the people stayed in the mess hall to discuss plans for Alec's upcoming birthday party, but because Jason was in charge of the meeting, the twins, Hannah and I decided to go to bed early.
.
The next morning was a slow and sad one. The entire camp met for a quiet breakfast in the mess hall before splitting up to do different jobs, though Pericles's funeral, which was to be held in the afternoon, was at the back of everyone's minds. Although Pericles had been buried almost immediately in order to prevent the foul stench of death from spreading and the body from becoming bloated, we still had to give the brave Warrior a proper burial ceremony. Not to mention the party in memory of him that would wrap up the day.
Again, Jason selected a group of experienced Warriors to go hunt down the minotaur, after he revealed to the rest of the camp that it had been spotted wandering about the hills the night before. Once Jason was finished with his announcements, the Knowing teens, including me, helped out the women in setting up the funeral venue, instead of sitting in on a lecture. There wasn't much to set up, however. We would have planted flowers, but there were no flowers around for miles, and no one was willing to trek into the nearest town with the minotaur still on the loose. We would have brought chairs from the mess hall, but the ceremony wasn't expected to be very long and people would have no trouble standing.
After lunch, Jason led the procession of people wearing all black in a long line towards the cemetery. As the leader, he was the first to say a few words about the Warrior, followed by a couple members of Pericles's family. They all said pretty much the same thing: he was a great Warrior, a wonderful son, and a proud member of the Knowing. All true, but after a full two hours of gushing endless compliments about Pericles, I was ready for the party, even if it was going to be relatively small.
Sure enough, the so-called party was really only the regular buffet with slightly fancier options and more wine than normal. It was really more of a socializing event for the adults, the Warriors in particular. As I had been doing for the past few days, I stuck in a group with Hannah, the twins, and a few other young Warriors in training, while Brady hung out with his usual posse, who made sure everyone in the mess hall saw them flirting with Layna. This was actually a good thing, though, because it meant that they weren't picking on the more helpless kids. And yes, I caught Layna's gaze more than a few times, but neither one of us made a move to meet in the middle. Which was completely fine with me. Meanwhile, Damien, Darius, Hannah and I were preoccupied with ducking behind people and hiding under tables to avoid Jason, who seemed to be searching for me, if not all of us, for much of the party. He had yet to find the time to hand out our punishments for disobeying his orders. Also completely fine with me.
That night, however, I didn't get a wink of sleep. Neither did the twins. What was keeping us up? Just the fact that Alec would be arriving the next day, of course. If we found a way to make friends with the hero, we would be free from the terrible punishments we so deserved. But there was always that if. Alec had never been very friendly, and becoming a hero seemed to make him even less so. As I said before, Layna, who was new to the Knowing and who had a clean slate, had a much better shot at becoming his friend than did the twins, Hannah, and I.
Eventually, my tossing and turning paid off, and I fell asleep sometime in the early hours of the morning, though I could have sworn I had heard a scream just a minute earlier, but I convinced myself that I was only imagining things. Nevertheless, the sound of nervous chattering awakened me much too soon. I could not tell if it was just unusually foggy or if it was so early that the sun had yet to rise, but I got dressed anyway before following Damien and Darius out of the tent.
"This is crazy," Darius whispered to no one in particular, watching all of the Knowing members in front of us race around the mess hall, running between different tables and exchanging knowledge. Had Alec been sighted? No, not yet. But supposedly he would be there soon. Any minute now.
"You can say that again," Hannah muttered as she bounded up beside us in the line for food, grabbing herself a bowl of cereal, and Damien smirked. "Did you hear about anything weird that happened last night? Apparently Jason has another announcement to make, and it doesn't have anything to do with Alec." She then raised her thin eyebrows at us, as if she expected us to be involved in the mischief somehow, but the twins and I shook our heads no.
As it turned out, the announcement that Jason had to make was about the minotaur. He said that he was going to wait until Alec arrived before he sent out more Warriors to look for the beast because it had killed yet another Warrior who had been guarding the camp while everyone was asleep. It appeared as if the scream I had heard was not imagined by my overtired brain, and so I couldn't help but feel a little guilty about the man's death. Perhaps I would have been able to help him.
A few minutes later, once the rest of the camp had settled down as much as they possibly could on such a hectic day, Layna came to sit down with us. Like Hannah's and the rest of the girls', Layna's hair was styled perfectly, not a strand out of place, and she even looked like she was wearing a little bit of eye make-up, making her green eyes seem even brighter than usual. She was obviously ready to impress Alec the minute he walked up. "Hey," she said in English, a cautious smile playing across her soft pink lips.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, also in English, my voice tight. After all, we hadn't been on very good terms since her arrival at the base camp, so I didn't know why she would have wanted to sit with the twins and I. With Hannah, however, I supposed I could understand.
Layna frowned. "You don't have to be so tense, Jace. Can't we just get over whatever differences we have?" she scolded me, stirring her bowl of cereal and milk with a spoon. "I won't be here for long. I just wanted to sit with you guys because Hannah told me that Brady and Alec pretty much hate each other, and so I thought I would have a better chance of talking to Alec if I hung around you guys for once."
"You would have an even better chance if you hung out with Jason. We don't want you using us just to gain popularity," Damien pointed out to her rudely, just as I sent Hannah a questioning look wondering why she would give such information to Layna, who was definitely not a close friend of ours. Hannah opened her mouth to retort, but then I remembered that she and Layna were tent-mates as of the night before. Jason had wanted Layna out of the infirmary before Alec arrived, since the hero usually slept there when he was visiting.
Ignoring Damien's comment, Layna asked curiously, apparently thinking along the same lines as me, "I was wondering, where does Alec live? Why doesn't he live here anymore?"
I sighed, exchanging awkward glances with Hannah and the twins, pondering how much of the truth we should tell her, since we didn't even know the whole story ourselves. When it became obvious that none of the others were going to answer Layna, however, I slowly admitted to her, "Well, Alec lives in the Woods - you know, where the gods lived before they died. You'd have to ask him why yourself. He was never very happy here at camp, but I can't imagine that he's much happier out there on his own. Some people are surprised he's still alive."
"Yeah, doesn't he have to be, like, a really good fighter to survive all on his own?" Layna asked, appearing quite amazed, her eyes wide.
"Duh. That's why the gods named him a hero," Damien said bluntly, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. Which it kind of was.
Noticing the edge to Damien's voice, Layna rolled her eyes and turned to me. "Speaking of the gods, how did the last generation die? No one will give me a straight answer."
"That's because there is no straight answer," Darius informed her, crossing his arms.
"Why not?"
"My, you are just full of questions today, aren't you?" I mused at Layna, annoyed that we had to explain every little thing to her (Why hadn't Jason told her everything about the war himself?), but she only frowned at me and waited for me to continue. Therefore, I sighed before explaining reluctantly, "You see, each god in a generation finds out they're gods at about the same time, so they also die at about the same time. Unfortunately, only a couple living people in the Knowing, Alec included, knew about that rule before the war. What we know for sure about their deaths is that Hades was the first one to be killed, starting the chain reaction. We don't know how he was killed, though. Alec is the only one who knows the full story because he was there with a few other gods when Hades died, and he won't tell anyone what really happened. Hell, he won't even tell anyone about the times he went down to the Underworld."
"Doesn't anyone find that suspicious?" Layna questioned, leaning forward in her seat. "He obviously knows who killed Hades, so he could be covering up some sort of conspiracy, or something like that."
Darius grinned, his blue eyes shining mischievously. "Oh, he most definitely is. But knowing Alec, he probably has a good reason for keeping this a secret. You'll understand when you meet him."
"I hope so," Layna whispered thoughtfully, eating another spoonful of cereal just as Jason started to call for people to start cleaning up. I knew that lessons would be cancelled again for the day, so the entire camp could prepare for the arrival of Alec instead.
For the next few hours, every single Knowing members lent their hands in picking up trash, cleaning dishes, and tidying up their tents. Since no one knew exactly when he would be showing up, we did our chores as quickly as possible, and because we had time afterwards, we began double-checking our work. Some of the lazier folks, including Brady and his crew, chose to socialize back at the mess hall during the second part, though. Meanwhile, Layna, Hannah, the twins, and I were anxiously milling about the stage at the center of camp, knowing that Alec would be led there for a report as soon as he arrived. The entire camp even skipped lunch and reluctantly stayed put, since no one wanted to be in the middle of eating when Alec finally came.
I estimated it to be around two o'clock in the afternoon when excited screams began to sound from the south edge of the camp, a sure sign that Alec had finally arrived. Like magnets, the screams attracted the attention of more Knowing people, who then ran over to the edge of the camp and started screaming as well. But Hannah, the twins and I stayed directly in front of the stage to keep the best view and plugged our ears with our fingers to block out the noise, while Layna curiously peered at the growing crowd, trying to catch her first glimpse of the hero. Unfortunately for her, the mob of people surrounding Alec moved along with him, completely blocking our view of him, until they stopped right at the edge of the stage, eagerly pushing at the four of us from behind, but somehow we still managed to hold our ground.
And then he rose up, step by step. He only had to walk up three little steps to reach the stage, but it seemed to take him ages. Then again, maybe that was just because I was so anxious. Nevertheless, he strode up the steps very fluidly, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his dirty jeans. His blue t-shirt was covered in a slimy, greenish-gold substance, and a thin stream of his own dark blood was running slowly down his arm from an ugly puncture wound just above his right bicep, not to mention the couple visible scars he had recieved in previous battles. Apparently he had come all the way from Washington with only a sword and the black backpack on his shoulders, but without a single piece of armor. Crazy.
"Oh, why is he always covered in blood?" Hannah whispered worriedly to no one in particular, covering her face with her hands, and I shrugged absentmindedly, still studying the mysterious boy on the stage.
"What's that gold stuff on him?" Layna suddenly piped up from beside her, interrupting my thoughts again. I only rolled my eyes, and Damien groaned in annoyance.
Darius, however, actually decided to answer her. "Monster blood," he replied bluntly, crossing his arms, and Layna finally shut up, probably in awe.
Turning back towards the stage, I watched as the hero took several heavy steps across the wooden platform, keeping his head lowered so the crowd could see only his dark brown hair, not his face. The time for that wasn't quite right yet. Only when he halted at the center of the stage did he lift his head, thus revealing the ruggedly handsome features he was known for. However, he still kept his eyes tightly shut, possibly cringing at the rising sound of cheers coming from the crowd, and every one of his movements seemed to require extra effort. It was obvious to me that he did not like the spotlight. It always had been.
Then the cheering quieted down for a moment as Jason jogged up the steps to take a stand next to the hero, whose eyes were still closed. "Let us give a warm welcome to the one and only Sir Alec, first official hero of Mount Olympus of the twenty-first century and unofficial knight of the Woods!" Jason shouted at the top of his lungs in English, probably so Layna could understand what was going on, and the audience erupted into shouts and whistles and screams once again.
"Unofficial knight of the Woods? What does that mean?" Layna yelled at me for clarification over the background noises, her pretty little head cocked sideways in confusion. I was about to respond that this was one of those things that no one but Alec knew the truth to, when the hero's bright blue eyes suddenly flew open and immediately settled on Layna, as if he had somehow heard her question, though I honestly wasn't sure how he could have. Layna immediately lowered her head in embarrassment, and I saw a light pink color rise to her cheeks as Alec tore his eyes away from her to look back at Jason. But one thing was for certain: Alec did not seem happy at all to see a newcomer. I wondered why.
"Alec, before we introduce you to our new Knowing member," Jason began as the people in the crowd shut their mouths again in order to hear, "we have some very serious business to attend to." Jason paused to reach out to place a hand on Alec's shoulder in a fatherly way, but Alec quickly rolled his shoulder back, just out of Jason's reach. Seemingly unfazed by Alec's rude reaction and cold hard glare, Jason pulled back his hand and continued, "You see, we've been having some trouble with the minotaur, and-"
"The minotaur," Alec repeated flatly as he raised his dark eyebrows in disbelief.
Jason nodded impatiently. "Yes, it killed two Warriors in the last three days-"
Again, Jason was interrupted by Alec, who said in a mixture of indifference and annoyance, "I killed that thing, like, an hour ago. Problem solved." Suddenly the fact that he had monster blood smeared all over him made much more sense. When a state of amazed silence ensued, Alec only sighed and scratched his head, as if we were wasting his precious time. He really had plenty.
"Well then," Jason announced lightly but very awkwardly, "Alec, meet Layna. She's an orphan. Jace and Brady ran into her when they were on a little mission in New York." I noticed how Jason conveniently left out the part of the story about the minotaur, but then he paused to motion for Layna, Brady and I to join him on the stage. We did so nervously, not used to having everyone's eyes trained on us, though Brady appeared extremely smug about being on the same platform as Alec. Our leader continued, "Layna had never come across anyone with the Sight until then, but we think she might be related to a past generation of gods - you know, the ones that were never heard from. She can't speak Greek, and she says she developed the Sight when she was twelve."
Alec shrugged. "That makes sense," he said, but no one else seemed to think so.
Therefore, Jason slowly ran his fingers through his cropped, light brown hair in obvious confusion. "How do you figure?" he asked, stroking his chin.
"Puberty," was the single word that came out of the unimpressed hero's mouth, and I had to smack myself in the forehead for overlooking such a simple answer, as did Jason. The immature Brady, on the other hand, started cracking up like an idiot. Oh, wait, let me rephrase that: he wasn't like an idiot; he was an idiot.
But Brady finally shut up when Alec glared at him impatiently, and then Alec turned back to face Jason. The crowd quietly and curiously watched on. "Now," Alec began in a flat, dry tone, "tell me how long the girl has been here. And don't even think about lying to me."
Staring evenly at Alec with his flaming green eyes, Jason reluctantly admitted, after quite a long pause, "She arrived here about a week ago."
I considered it a miracle that Alec didn't burst into flames right then and there. Instead, he simply clenched his fists by his sides as he whirled around, facing away from our leader and closing his eyes once again. I could feel the anger rolling off of him in powerful waves as he growled at Jason, "She's been here one whole week...and you didn't even try to call me. Not once." He paused for a second, slowly pulling a small flip phone out of one of his pockets. Next, he spun back around on his heel, waving the cell phone directly in Jason's face, and exclaimed, raising his voice, "WHY THE HELL DID YOU GIVE ME THIS STUPID PHONE IN THE FIRST PLACE? You obviously never planned on calling me! Maybe I should've thrown this away after the gods died! Because apparently it's useless now!"
With wide eyes, Jason threw his hands up in the air, as if to surrender somehow. "Now, just wait a moment, Alec, and let me explain."
"No, let me explain," Alec hissed, his face still reddening. "If you had just called me, I could've told all this to the oracle, even brought her along with me. We would've been one or two steps closer to finding out more about where this girl came from. Now I have to go all the way back to the Woods just to speak with her and then come back here again. You're wasting my time, Jason. I don't know how many more days I have left to live, and I've already wasted far too much of my life stuck in this goddamn camp."
The crowd was now dead silent, completely dumbfounded. Without another word, Alec hurled the crappy phone as far away from the stage as he possibly could, clearly making his point, and then stormed down the steps, muttering to himself in frustration as he headed straight for the infirmary to get his wound patched up. A single brave nurse ran after him, and the crowd disbanded in fright and confusion, while Layna, Brady, and I stayed on the stage, frozen in shock. Lucky for the twins and Hannah and I, Jason retreated back to his own tent for the time being. He was obviously too preoccupied in dealing with his own embarrassment to start yelling at the four of us again.
"So, Layna, what do you think of our wonderful hero now?" I whispered as I raised my eyebrows at her, feeling confident that she would finally be turned off of him, and Brady smirked as well.
But instead, the attractive blonde just said with a grin, "I think...that he is one badass dude." I hated to admit she was right.
.
Alec wasn't going to show up for dinner. That was clear to us about five minutes after the twins, Hannah, Layna, and I arrived in the mess hall together. We knew Aec was never late, unless there was a real emergency. So, after a quick discussion, we all decided to take our plates (even one for Alec) and dtich dinner before Jason could stop us, though we knew this little act would make our leader even angrier. But at least Alec would be there to protect us.
As we strode up to the purple infirmary tent, however, I couldn't help but get cold feet. Hannah and the twins also looked a bit nervous, but Layna was just excited. The strange blonde kept walking faster and faster, eagerly leading the way. She didn't realize how important the first few seconds with Alec would be. Sure enough, when we burst into the tent, I immediately regretted coming. At the far end of the tent by a small square table, Jan, the middle-aged nurse who had run after Alec earlier, was organizing some bandages into neat piles, but she turned around when she heard the five of us walk in. The friendly woman didn't even crack a smile in greeting, though, and instead her eyes worriedly flicked towards Alec. It was only a quick, almost involuntary reaction, but it told me our visit was a bad idea nonetheless.
As it turned out, Alec, who was sitting upright on a skinny cot in the corner of the room, already had dinner with him, and I noticed the puncture wound on his right arm was now wrapped in bandages. He had been in the middle of eating a bite of pasta, and he had dropped his fork on the plate with a loud clatter before Jan or anyone else could have said a word. He then set his plate off to the side and folded his hands in his lap, though this gesture was anything but polite or inviting. "What are you doing here?" he asked in English, his blue eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Layna was the first to speak up. "Oh, I just thought we should bring some food to you, but I guess you already have some," she stammered, staring at her shoes. She then forced the extra plate into Jan's hands. "Here, you can have it instead."
Jan just blinked in surprise, and so Alec continued, "All five of you came? There's got to be another reason. That's probably one of the worst excuses I've ever heard." He frowned, and the rest of us blushed guiltily, even though our story really was plausible.
Next, Damien, Darius and Hannah looked to me in expectation, so I cleared my throat and explained, "We're pretty sure that Jason hates us."
"What? You didn't tell me about this!" Layna exclaimed, turning to look at me in confusion, her eyebrows knit together. After all, she hadn't known about our disobeying of Jason's orders on the night of Pericles's murder.
I simply shrugged at her, trying to look like this was no big deal, since I didn't want to appear weak in front of her. Alec, however, began chuckling in his usual hollow, sarcastic laugh. I had honestly never heard him laugh for real, out of happiness, and I was beginning to wonder if I ever would. "Jace? In trouble with Jason? Wow, I never thought I would hear those words," the hero said, and then it was my turn to frown. Although I used to be known as somewhat of a leader's pet, much like Brady was now, I didn't think Alec had a right to judge me like that.
"Look, Alec, we need your help," Hannah pleaded nervously, clasping her hands together dramatically. "Can we just hang out with you until all of this drama dies down a bit? You're supposed to be mentoring Layna anyway."
When Alec jumped to his feet, his fists clenched, I knew our conversation had taken a turn for the worse. "What on Earth makes you think I would let you all hide behind me like that?" he asked with a mixture of anger and wonderment in his voice, pausing to touch his forehead and shake his head in disbelief. "Do you think the gods protected me every second I was with them? No, of course not. I had to learn to be brave and to protect myself, and so do you."
Then Damien and Darius snorted in unison, and I couldn't help but cringe, silently agreeing with Alec's point and realizing how stupid I was to even think of asking him for help to begin with. Meanwhile, Darius protested from beside me, "But you have to help us. You're a hero!"
At this, Alec only raised his eyebrows, his expression unreadable. He sighed, and then his piercing blue eyes met Darius's as he whispered solemnly, "Well, maybe I'm not a very good one."
But I, on the other hand, believed this very realization was one of the things that made Alec a great hero, even if he didn't see it that way.
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ALEC IS OFFICIALLY BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited that I'm practically bursting into flames :) Are you excited too??? I'd absolutely LOVE to hear your thoughts right now! Please, whatever you do, don't hold back!!! Alec's crazy birthday party should be in the next chapter, with some real action and more on the gods xx