38 Chapter 38

His chest seemed to tighten as he read it once more, the words jumbling with each other, and Alex's eyes straining. He didn't know what to think. Was he supposed to feel bad? Hunter had tormented him simply because he couldn't take a loss, insulted his dad, and tried to fight him to repair his ego. 

And then he had beat the lights out of him to a point they had to take him to the hospital. He felt like shit that day, and he still did whenever he thought about it. He'd never been as mad since then, except perhaps when he fought Echidna after the Chimera had killed his dad— but it was mostly grief he felt at the time. 

Nothing had ticked him off as bad as Hunter did... why? Alex knew he had temper issues; his dad used to joke he couldn't work a customer service job lest he yelled at them through the phone. 

He guessed the demigod life of constant fighting had kept his anger under control; the monsters worked as an outlet for him to dump all of his accumulated frustration on. 

His gaze drifted over the destruction again. He could still picture the hallways, hear the buzz of conversation between classes, smell the mix of cafeteria food and gym sneakers. Now, all that remained was the smell of smoke, the silence where voices used to be, and the shouts of firefighters as they tried to extinguish small fires and remove the debris.

"Alex?" A distinct voice rang from his left. "Alexander Sinclair? Is that you?"

The sheepish tone of the voice was rather familiar, but he couldn't quite put the finger on where he knew it from. He turned his head to look, and his eyes popped open so wide they almost jumped from the sockets. 

"Grover?" His voice cracked. 

The young satyr dropped the large duffel bag in his hands and opened his arms.

"Alex!"

It was undeniably him. The curly brown hair and brown eyes, the small horns poking from his crown, the wispy teenage beard, and the goat fur peeking from his ankles. He had an orange T-shirt, a bit too big for his size, that spelt 'Camp Half-Blood'. At least he thought so. 

Grover ran towards him, almost skipping like a little boy playing on a playground. Alex, though he shared the same excitement, stood rooted in his place, a smile playing on his lips that didn't quite reach his eyes. He wanted to do the same really, but looking again at the flowers and portraits, he didn't know if he could at the moment.

The satyr slowed down, eyebrows knitting in confusion. Still, when he got close to Alex, the half-goat bear-hugged him, crying happily as he did so. 

"I can't believe you're really here!" he exclaimed between sobs.

"Hey- hey, relax, dude. No need to crush me." Alex pushed him gently away, tapping his shoulder, trying to calm him down.

But Grover kept on going. "You can't even imagine the stuff that happened when you left," he tried to clean his tear-smeared face. "We had to steal clothes, Gleeson thought you were dead, we saw your house exploding in flames, even the council of Elders told me to give up— but I didn't! And then Mr. D told me you were alive, but had some kind of protective veil around you, so I tried to do some pinecone divination, but it wouldn't work, so I had to request permission from the council to let me leave camp to look for you,"

Alex wondered how big Grover's lungs were for him to be able to talk so much without taking a break to breathe.

"They didn't let me at first, but Mr D and Gleeson backed me up, so I was able to come. I tracked you down to Virginia, then to South Carolina, but I lost your scent there. I did some pinecone divination on a whim again, and it told me you'd be around Brooklyn today! So I guessed— you probably already knew roughly where Camp was, but you'd definitely want to stop by your old spots. So here I am!" 

When Grover finished, he was breathing heavily, but the tears had stopped, replaced by a wide grin and a proud pose with his hands on his hips. 

Alex laughed lowly. "I'm glad to see you too," 

When the young satyr followed Alex's gaze to the memorials, he didn't seem surprised. Grover bit his lip before looking at Alex. "It's not your fault," he quickly said.

He snorted, running a hand through his light-brown hair. "'Course. It was a gas leak," 

"I'm not sure what it was..." Grover muttered loud enough for Alex to hear. "But it doesn't make sense. You've been gone for more than a year already. The scent dissipated long, long ago."

"...when did this happen?" Alex asked. Some of the firefighters were trying to move a large metal beam he was pretty sure belonged to the gym's roof.

"A few days ago," Grover answered quietly. "A day before I arrived."

Alex kept quiet. What could a monster possibly want here? Unless there had been another demigod like him in the school— that would explain some of it, but not this level of destruction. 

If there hadn't been another demigod, then he was stumped. The memory of his fight with Echidna was still sharp in his mind, and he clearly remembered her saying that normal mortals weren't important enough for them to spare even a thought. 

He wished he had Annabeth's mind for times like these. He just couldn't figure out the need for such chaos— not to mention, if there really had been another demigod enrolled in Thornbrook, he doubted the satyrs wouldn't know, seeing how close to Camp it was.  

Normal people dead because of monsters brought bad memories to the surface that he didn't want to remember. Looking at the memorials again, if it really had been his fault Hunter and the rest had died, he supposed he had to add more numbers to the people-Alex-killed-indirectly counter.

"Well, I'm happy you're alright anyways," Grover said out of the blue. He looked at the celestial bronze sword hanging from Alex's belt. "And I see you've learned a thing or two." His eyes drifted to the long scar on the left side of Alex's mouth, between his lips, but he refrained from saying anything about it. 

Alex took a deep breath. He'd think about all of this later. For now, they had to get to Camp.

The sharp sound of the truck's honk blasted through the air. "Hey, chop chop, people. We ain't got all day!" Luke shouted from the pickup, a smile plastered on his face.

Grover nearly jumped out of his fur, while Alex shot his older friend an annoyed look. He motioned for Grover to follow as he walked back to the truck. The Son of Hermes lowered the windows, looking with curiosity at the new arrival. 

"Grover, these are Luke, Annabeth, and Thalia," he said tonelessly, pointing at each one. "You three, this is Grover, the satyr I told you about."

"H-Hey," Grover greeted shyly. 

Thalia poked her head through the window, running her eyes over Grover's figure, noticing the horns and fur peeking from the ankles. 

"Holy shit," she said, flabbergasted. "He's really half-goat."

"'Course he is," Alex arched an eyebrow and folded his arms. "With all the things we've seen, this is the one that surprises you?"

The Daughter of Zeus shrugged. 

And then there was Annabeth, the youngest of them all, who looked at Grover with wide, curious eyes. "Hi, Grover! Are you really a satyr? I read all about satyrs! Do you like architecture?" she bombarded him with questions, her enthusiasm bouncing off the walls of the vehicle. 

Grover looked a bit overwhelmed but managed a shy smile. "Uh, yeah, I am a satyr. But I don't know much about building stuff," he admitted, scratching the back of his head. 

Luke turned the ignition key, and the truck's old engine roared to life. 

"A reunion is nice and all, but are we going to chit-chat all day, or are we hitting the road? Camp's not getting any closer."

"Grover here can help with that," Alex slapped the satyr in the back. 

They all piled into the truck, Annabeth sitting between Alex and Thalia in the backseats while Grover took her position as co-pilot. He unfolded the map that they had in the glove box and pointed his finger to a part of the north shore of Long Island.

"The camp's here," He said. "From Brooklyn, it's about a one-hour drive, so if we want to get there before sundown, we have to get going." 

"Say less," Luke said. As they drove away, Alex spared one last glance at the now-ruined Thornbrook, the police tape covering the entrance, and the shouts and yells from firefighters trying to put out small fires that, for some reason, refused to extinguish.

Annabeth was bouncing in her seat with excitement, eager to get going. Alex smiled a little. Despite the worry and guilt, the feeling of being part of this ragtag group of demigods and a satyr gave him a strange sense of peace.

Catching Grover's nervous glance, Alex patted him on the back. "Relax, dude. We're all gonna get there in one piece."

Grover offered a small, grateful smile, but he kept looking around, warily eyeing every strange movement outside. 

"I hope so," he swallowed dryly. "I doubt any other satyr ever had so many demigods in their hands."

Thalia laughed. "Don't worry, goat-boy. We know how to take care of ourselves."

"It's just..." Grover paused for a moment. "Four demigods is a bad number..."

"What'd you mean?" Alex leaned forward on his seat.

"I suppose you wouldn't know... Since ancient times, demigods were often sent on quests," Grover explained. "Either by nobles, kings, and even gods. These demigods— heroes, as the tales call them, either adventured alone or in groups of three. Never more than that; three. Only on special occasions did a larger group gather."

Luke eyed him from the corner of his vision. "That still doesn't explain it."

"In ancient Greece, three was considered as the perfect number, the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding. It was also the number of time; past, present, future; birth, life, death; beginning, middle, end – it was the number of the divine,"

Grover rubbed his arm uncomfortably before continuing. "Our world is full of magic, so it's not hard to believe some numbers may possess different properties. The truth is, any number that destabilizes the harmony — the number 3 — is often considered unlucky. Such is the case of... well, four."

There was only silence in the truck for a hot minute. Alex thought back on their journey until now— sure, they might've had some unlucky encounters with monsters, but they always ended up coming out on the winner's side. 

And one could argue the frequency of monster attacks was caused, not by them being four, but because his and Thalia's scents were stronger than the usual demigod. 

"The fours of us still have all of our limbs," Alex noted. "So dare I say it worked out in the end."

Annabeth, Thalia, and Luke voiced their agreement, but Grover just shook his head. 

"You guys don't get it," he sighed desperately. "The Camp sometimes issues quests for the campers. It's mandatory that the group is to be composed of three members; only in rare cases do more people go, and those cases often involve prophecies— and those don't just pop out any other day."

If Alex hadn't met Halcyon, he would most definitely not have believed such things as prophecies were real; but the fact that Apollo imprisioned his son for having such a gift and using it to save someone spoke volumes about the nature of them. 

"Why's that?" Thalia asked. "Did they just decide to limit the groups to three? Because I'm pretty sure, in most cases that involve monsters, the more fighters the better."

Grover fidgeted with the map in his hands. He looked like he wanted to say something, but it was stuck in his throat. Eventually, he spoke.

"The reason is simple," his tone was sombre. "When quests were issued to someone, and that someone took more than two people with them, it usually had the same result."

Everyone was looking at him. Alex gathered the courage to be the one to ask: "What result?"

"They'd never return."

**********

A/N: If you guys could leave reviews, I'd be pretty grateful.

Anyway, see you in the next!