First Lie || Deception Book I ||

Leaked Information

Today was June 14, the third day since Percy, Annabeth, and Grover had left. I hadn't gotten a chance to speak with Mr. D yet, but I had larger issues to worry about. The entire camp had larger issues to worry about. The day after Percy, Grover and Annabeth had left, Luke had let slip, anonymously, about the missing bolt. And the entire camp was in an uproar. Demigods were taking sides, and the entire camp was now a miniature Trojan War all over again. Granted, I'd helped Luke with that, but a mission was a mission and now I was paying for it.

I sighed. Lunch had just finished and I'd been so done with the food fights that I'd taken to eating with Ally at the lake.

"Stressing about the bolt?" Ally asked.

I nodded absently. "They only have a week left. What if they don't get in time?"

"It's not your quest," Ally stated simply. "Try not to worry too much. We have enough going on as it is."

She wasn't wrong. Fights were springing up methodically and Chiron even had to break up a couple.

"Enough of me worrying," I said. "How are you holding?"

Ally shrugged. "The cabin's great. Castor and Pollux are fine. Nothing much."

Ally had gotten settled in almost immediately when she'd moved cabins yesterday and as far as I could tell, she was happy about sharing an entire cabin with only two other people and not having to worry about campers stealing her stuff left and right.

"Everything's fine. But this is worrying and very annoying. At least our cabins are somewhat neutral in this. Well, mine is. Yours is just messing everything up. But still, we have it better. The rest is like a war zone."

I nodded. "It is. Hopefully, Percy finishes his quest soon. I wish I could have gone with them, instead of sitting around and waiting stuff out."

"Yeah, same," Ally said. "But it's also nice to not be worrying about monster attacks every ten seconds."

"Easy for you to say. I'd rather have monster attacks than my cabin mates attacking my stuff. They even figured a way to get past my shield. How the hell did they do that? This morning, my denim shorts were missing, and I had to hunt them down in my pyjamas. When I found them, my black hoodie was gone. I need to speak to Luke about that."

"Us children of Hermes are masters at breaking traps and stealing stuff," Luke said as he walked towards us. "And you should have told me that your hoodie was missing. I would have helped." He tossed me my hoodie.

"What did you-" I asked as I caught it. "Really? How did you get it back? I turned the entire place upside down and threatened to slit some throats."

Luke smirked. "Talent, Ri, nothing else."

Ally rolled her eyes at me. "See? Your boyfriend will take care of your problems."

"You just won't drop that, will you?" I asked her.

"Nope," Ally said. She stood up. "I have archery class. See you two after."

"Try not to kill your brothers too many times!" I called after her. Ally was hopeless at archery, yet somehow amazing with fruit missiles. I hadn't realized how much a blueberry could hurt until she'd hit a camper with it right between the eyes.

Ally gave me a backward wave and jogged off to meet her brothers at the archery field.

I turned back to Luke. "So, what's up?"

Luke kissed me quickly on the cheek. "You seem stressed. Is it the cabin fights?"

I leaned my head on his shoulder. "Is it that obvious?"