Meanie ➪ 𝙲𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚎 𝙻𝚊 𝚁𝚞𝚎

Chapter Four

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙧 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙𝙡𝙮. 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙘𝙮 𝙡𝙚𝙛𝙩, 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙠 the monster attacks his strong aura would most definitely attract.

Before he left, on the last day of the summer session, Percy was dragged into Camp by a couple of nymphs, a pit scorpion wound on his leg. The poison was slowly crawling up his leg, turning his skin and weird greenish hue. According to him, Luke was working for Kronos, and was the one who stole the lightning bolt.

Luke. Just the name left a sour taste in Andy's mouth. He was a traitor, plain and simple. She never liked him, but she didn't expect this. It kind of scared her, how easily he faked his kind and caring attitude. Now he worked with monsters, with beasts.

Andy felt almost bad for Annabeth. Almost. She was pretty obvious, with her crush on the older son of Hermes. She felt even worse for the Stolls and Luke's other siblings. They had to be actually related to the backstabbing jerk.

Clarisse and Andy continued their sword lessons, Andy improving rapidly. Andy was still in the Hermes cabin, unfortunately. The rest of her cabinmates avoided her even more, giving her a wide berth anytime she entered the cabin.

𝘼𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙘𝙮 𝙡𝙚𝙛𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚. Not immediately, but almost halfway through the school year, Thalia's tree was poisoned. Nobody saw him do it, but they all assumed it was Luke.

That idea seemed to weigh on the Hermes kids. They all seemed more stressed, most of them stealing more and becoming aggravated easier. Andy would know. She liked to make people angry.

The tree's needles started to turn yellow, and they fell off, piling up at the base of the trunk.

Then Argus got fired, and Chiron was under inspection. He was going next, Andy could tell.

Tantalus was hired in his place. Andy hated him. He was creepy and gross. He had sunken cheeks, and his bones looked like they almost were sticking straight out of his sagging skin. He always wore the same dirty, threadbare, orange prisoner's jumpsuit. He had dark under eye bags, dirty fingernails, and a horrible haircut, like someone had taken a pair of children's scissors and just gone wild.

Food would run away from him, and Andy had never seen him eat. She felt like it was familiar, but she couldn't remember what myth it was from.

Tantalus was incompetent, and spent most of his time planning activities, and not being responsible. He left the magic barrier to weaken, instead encouraging canoe races and climbing wall races. Monsters managed to get through, slipping past the wall of magic that Thalia's tree provided.