Chapter 24

The following morning saw the unlikely group gather in the kitchen/living room. Alex watched out the window; the sky was still rumbling, the rain still heavily attempting to drown them.

"Well, you look better," he said after Luke, now properly washed and with clean clothes, came down the stairs. "Breakfast's on the fridge."

"What are you looking at?" Luke asked curiously, opening the fridge and being greeted with the soft smell of bacon and eggs, covered by a small sheet of tin foil.

"Nothing in particular," Alex answered truthfully. His eyes scanned the dirt road that led outside of the property, and the tall red maple trees that circled the clearing. "Just in case…"

Heating his breakfast in the microwave, Luke took a seat at the table and began eating. He hummed, surprised by the delicious flavour, before noticing the used plates to his right. He turned his head to the living room and saw Annabeth messing around with a styrofoam tower.

"Where's Thalia?" he asked, grabbing his and the other plates and putting them in the sink. He didn't know how a dishwasher worked, so it was better to leave it to the other boy.

Alex just moved a bit to the right, giving Luke a line of sight outside the window.

In the heavy rain, Thalia was striking the cloth-covered dummies with all her might. Occasionally, sparks of lighting would follow her trail, like myriads of past movements. She swung the tip of the spear in an arc, slashing across one of the dummy's throat, then spun, twirling the weapon in her hands, and pierced the dummy straight through its chest. Her dark hair was soaked. Her clothes — well, Alex's shirt and hoodie — were soaked. Yet, she kept on twirling and spinning, each strike being more fierce than the last.

"She seems mad." Alex pointed out.

"Really? I would've never guessed." Luke said.

They kept watching her until Alex finally broke the silence: "What really happened before you got here?" he asked, turning to look at the sandy-haired older boy.

Luke chuckled self-deprecatingly, "A… a lot, really."

Thunder rumbled, and Alex took a seat by the table. "In this weather, we're not going anywhere. We got the time."

"Where do I start…" Luke sat back down and leaned to the front, using his elbows as support. "Remember the owl I mentioned?"

"Yeah," Alex frowned. He never got to try the ice. Didn't help he was pretty sure the olive tree on its neck was one of Athena's symbols. "Met her once. Not nice. Tried to lead me to my death."

"It's a she? Anyway, a few hours before we met her, me and Thalia were… following a goat." The Son of Hermes admitted.

"You lot like animals that much?" Alex smirked.

"Shut up. This wasn't any goat. It was Amaltheia."

Alex had to work his mind a bit to remember who the hell that was. "Goat… Amaltheia… the one that nursed Zeus-" The sky rumbled. "-to adulthood? The one he later skinned for its pelt?"

"Yeah…" Luke leaned back on the chair.

"Me personally, I wouldn't have followed it. But that's just me," Alex admitted sarcastically. "Because, with all due respect, following a Tartarus goat that probably has a vendetta against Zeus WITH a daughter of Zeus as company doesn't sound like uh… how do I put it— a sound-minded idea."

Annabeth snickered from the living room, but Luke ignored it.

"We didn't remember that last part, alright?" Luke said, running his hand across his face. "Short story: it led us to a Drakon's nest."

"Another dragon?" Alex asked. Hadn't they met at a dragon's lair? He didn't know Greeks liked the creatures so much. You learn something new every—

"Drakon, Alex," Annabeth said, abandoning her styrofoam project for a moment. "They're different. A drakon is a giant, monster serpent-like creature several millennia older than dragons. And it doesn't have wings."

"How was I supposed to know that, kiddo?"

"It was in one of the books we read…" Annabeth deadpanned, and Luke was a bit confused because he'd thought the caretaker here was Alex, not the little girl.

"Meh, must've missed it," Alex shrugged. "Still, what happened next?"

The other two noticed Luke's face darkened. "The mother must've migrated from somewhere because the nest looked recent. When he noticed them sleeping, we turned tail."

"T-them?" This time, it was Annabeth who asked. Her voice seemed tinged with fear.

The son of Hermes nodded. "A family of them. We didn't see the mother per se, but when the babies came after us…"

"Like bears, then?" Alex noted. "Whenever you see the cub, you know the mother must be close."

"Pretty much. Even if they were newborns, they were the size of a pickup truck. I doubted we could take one on, much less five."

"Here," Annabeth gave a book to Alex, opened on the page where it described the drakons.

Silence settled, only broken by the occasional shout from Thalia, followed by the rumbling of thunder and the downpour of rain.

"We just ran for our lives," Luke continued. "My… powers aren't that useful against beast-like enemies, so Thalia had to be the one to push them back whenever they got too close. Creating a bit of electricity or sparks is one thing, but summoning a full-blown-out thunder; exhausts her. There were some close calls."

Monsters the size of vehicles brought bad memories to Alex. Briefly reading the book, he understood their fear; five giant lizards, chasing them through the city with the only intent of eating demigod flesh, not to mention the fact that these could smell them from afar, spit acidic vomit (or breathe fire in rare cases), extremely though skin, and some could even paralyze you with their eyes. Not something he wanted to fight anytime soon. Then there was the mother — he didn't want to imagine that.

"And then…"

"…we ended up here."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," Luke sighed, then smiled. "We thought it was just a simple, abandoned cabin from the looks of the garden. But I guess our luck finally gave us something."

"Like I said, divine intervention," Alex chuckled, but Annabeth and Luke saw through his sarcasm. "And pipsqueak, I'm pretty sure it was your turn to water the flowers last month."

"Nuh-uh," Annabeth crossed her arms and pouted. "The calendar said it was your turn, Alex. You just forgot."

"I don't forget stuff, kiddo."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't."

They kept arguing until Alex got tired and sat up. He stopped by the window for a brief second, eyes running over the edge of the forest. Just in case, he told himself, again and again. He knew he was just being paranoid, but his gut feeling always seemed to lean to the truth. And that feeling was telling him to prepare… just in case. Thalia seemed to be done with her training, or at least sitting down on the wet grass and looking up at the sky like in a movie indicated so. Whatever was troubling her, Alex didn't want to deal with it. One preteen girl nagging at his head was enough.

"Well, I'm gonna pack," he announced.

"Uh?" Luke was confused. "Why?"

Alex smiled and winked at Annabeth. "It's better to be prepared than not have a plan at all."

"Oh, yeah, and tell Sparky there to take her boots off when she comes in. Don't want the carpet to get ruined."

==========

The light-brown-haired demigod hummed a song as he folded some of his t-shirts and stuffed them into a large beige rucksack. There were so many different ones he knew he would've to leave some behind; that pained his heart, but if he took them all, no space would be left for pants and underwear.

He looked at his sneaker collection. That, too, would've to be left behind, and it looked like boots were going to be making a comeback. Hmm… but which one? The black, military ones were nice, but the brown worker ones were more comfier. Black didn't go really well with anything in his wardrobe, did it? So maybe…

Then there were the vynils; he couldn't just leave them.

It was the middle of the night. After putting Annabeth to sleep — who, no matter how grown-up she tried to act, was still afraid of the spiders — Alex retreated to his room. The rain had stopped, but he could see, through the dark of the night, that the grey clouds still hung over.

At some point, he must've been too loud with his indecision, because he heard a soft knock on his door.

He reached for his sword. "Come in," Just in case.

The door creaked open.

"Can you quiet it down? I'm trying to sleep."

Thalia peaked with her head through the gap in the door. Her hair was sticking to the left side of her face, and her eyes looked drowsy. Alex sometimes forgot other people really slept. Must be nice…

"My bad," he said, but didn't sound very apologetic. "You can go and have your beauty sleep, princess. I'll keep quiet."

The dark-haired girl didn't move from her spot. She had a frown plastered on her face, one that preceded a barrage of questions incoming. She leaned against the doorframe, fully opening the door, and crossed her arms. Alex couldn't help but notice she was wearing another of his T-shirts, this time a Rolling Stones one. He was a bit taller than her, so the piece of clothing reached the middle of her thigh.

"You don't sleep?" She asked bluntly. Alex rolled his eyes. "And what're you packing for?"

"Just in case. And what gave it away? My eyebags? Me being always awake in the middle of the night? Maybe I'm just a night person."

"Yeah, a night person that goes into the woods at 4 a.m. with no light source whatsoever."

Alex dropped the sword on the bed and gave her a smirk. "Someone's been curious about me."

Thalia's face flushed in embarrassment, and a scowl appeared on her face.

"Don't get any ideas, scarface! I was just awake by chance. And I barely watched you," She said loudly. "Who the hell just remembers and goes into the woods like that!"

The boy snorted. "I was just checking the barrier you and Luke somehow broke. Or you'd prefer for the monsters to swarm this place?"

"That's not what I meant," the Daughter of Zeus retorted. "And it's not my fault you look so damn suspicious walking in circles around the house."

"You know an awful lot for someone who just 'barely' watched me." Alex teased her. The AD-HD part of his brain wondered if he should take more than one Black Sabbath t-shirt.

They were so absorbed in their little quarrel they didn't notice the little girl walking down the corridor.

"Alex?" She called, barely sparing a glance at Thalia due to how sleepy she was. Her wavy blonde hair was all messy, and she was holding onto a large green pillow.

The boy tilted his head to look past Thalia.

"What's wrong, pipsqueak?" He asked.

"Can't sleep," was Annabeth's simple answer. She rubbed her eyes tiredly and walked past the two, tucking herself in Alex's barely used bed.

Alex smiled sadly and patted her head, before remembering the punk girl was still leering in his doorframe.

"What's wrong with her?" Thalia asked, thankfully letting the other subject go for Alex's sanity.

"Recurring nightmares," He answered in a lower tone. Annabeth was breathing evenly, meaning she'd fallen asleep rather quickly. "Or at least, that's what I think. Dreams and nightmares are separated by a blurry line when it comes to demigods. Poor kiddo tried to be brave and didn't call me. She's exhausted."

"What do you know about demigod dreams?" Thalia snorted. "Mr. TheDarkDoesn'tScareMe."

Alex looked at her with a blank gaze. "That one was terrible."

"Yeah, not my best work," Thalia stood up straight and scratched her arm.

They spent a few minutes in silence, with Alex caressing Annabeth's cheek while she slept peacefully, and Thalia looking at her, her gaze soft and tender for the first time since Alex had met her two days ago. Maybe she had a soft spot for young kids. So they had something in common after all.

"You're right if that makes you happy," Alex said softly. "I barely sleep. Maybe once a month if I'm lucky, twice if I don't move as much. Could probably go without it longer if I just stayed put, but that doesn't ever happen with demigods, does it?"

For a split second, Thalia seemed to ponder on something. Sighing, she smiled and walked to the other side of the room, grabbed the chair from Alex's secretary, and sat near Annabeth.

"What're you doing?" Alex raised an eyebrow.

"She feels safe when you're in the room, right?" Thalia said. "I'll stay to protect her as well. Just in case."

Alex smiled without meaning to, before turning away so the punk girl wouldn't see. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.

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A/N: Don't forget to leave comments and stones!