Finding out your mom has been presumed dead for two weeks after your step dad hid it from you while your brother started to rack up felonies has to be the worst way to end your school year.
I don't know how I'm supposed to respond to this.
What am I meant to do? Just go back home and live with Gabe? Run away and look for Percy? I mean I could track him easily but he's already wanted by the cops.
I feel like I'm going insane! Everyone has been telling me that "it'll get better", or that "he's gone now, you won't have to worry about it anymore."
Not worry about it anymore? I just learned about it. All I'm able to do is worry about it.
The moment I found out, something cracked in my head, like a pane of glass spider-webbing under pressure. I couldn't sleep without thinking about Mom—where she'd gone, what the crash looked like, if she was really even in the car when it happened. Gabe didn't even tell me that much, just that she was "gone" and hung up.
The worst part? It wasn't even news to him.
He'd known for weeks. Weeks. And just kept living like everything was normal, like it didn't matter whether I ever found out. From what I could hear over the phone he was already dating —or something similar. There were two female voices with him while he was on the phone.
I started losing it a little after that.
I couldn't pay attention in class. Every time someone said the word "family" or "loss" or "perseverance," I wanted to throw something. The teachers didn't know what was going on, not really. They'd just give me a pitiful look or call me aside to ask if I was "ready to talk yet," like I was a bomb they were trying to defuse.
A couple nights ago, I got into a screaming match with one of the squad captains during lights out. I don't even remember what started it. All I remember is Iridían and a few security guards pulling me off of him.
The nightmares haven't stopped either.
Most of the time it's just Percy. Him fighting a half human half bull thing, then sparring with some blonde guy with a sword, one of him in a river with a glowing fork over his head. The most recent one was of him on the bus fighting these weird monster women wielding whips while a shadowy figure stared from the corner.
Is this my brain just trying to get me to believe that all the things Percy did was in self defense? That he's innocent in what he's doing?
The instructors started marking me as "uncooperative." I got detention three times in two days for "attitude." They're threatening to bump my graduation date again—even though I've been here five years and was supposed to be out of here next week.
Five. Days.
I should be excited, my things are already packed, I should be figuring out where to go next in life.
Instead, I'm barely holding it together.
At breakfast, I just pick at my food while Iridían watches me out of the corner of her eye. I know she wants to say something. I know she's worried. But what is she supposed to say? "Hey, sorry your family's imploding. Let's go polish our boots?"
I don't blame her.
I wouldn't know what to say to me either.
The only real "hope" I have in life now is the hope that my day of Graduation Week goes well. I may be spiraling into depression but I still spent years of my life working my ass off; if I'm completely alone now I'm going to get out of here.
But to do all that I have to worry about Coach Anders and he's… a lot.
He's the kind of guy who'd rather chew out cadets than actually instruct us. Always wearing this faded, too-tight windbreaker that reeked of old cigars and icy-hot. Forty-five going on fossil, with a buzz cut so sharp it could slice drywall and a permanent scowl etched into his face like August Rodin's worst sculpture.
His main personality traits were yelling, screaming, and cursing out seven to eighteen year olds.
And lately, I've been giving him way too many excuses to scream at me.
"You think this is a daycare, Jackson?" he barked yesterday when I was late for morning drills. "You want me to tuck you in and read you a story? You move your ass on my schedule, not your own!"
"Uh, Coach Anders, I don't think you should yell at students," one of the new Cadets said.
It was sweet of him, too bad Coach Anders didn't have much of a sweet tooth.
Coach Anders being the Hank Evans wannabe that he is, reacted accordingly.
"What was that you lily lipped, spineless, sucker sucking, fatherless, philistine mound of excrement?!"
Dumbledore asked calmly.
I wanted to knock his lights out.
But I was too tired to raise my fists.
Instead, I stood there, fists trembling at my sides, trying to breathe through the heat crawling up my neck. My jaw was clenched so tight I could feel it ticking, but I bit my tongue, swallowed the storm building in my chest, and kept staring straight ahead like Coach Anders was just a gust of wind trying to knock me over.
He didn't like that.
"Still got that attitude, huh?" he barked, stepping right into my space. His breath smelled like burnt coffee and spearmint. "Figures. You Jackson boys always think you're above the rules."
I flinched. Just a little.
He saw it.
"You hear about your brother blowing up a bus in New Jersey?" He teased, flicking me in the forehead. "That's strike, what—four? Five? The whole state's looking for him and you're out here acting like you're the victim."
My vision tunneled.
"Don't you talk about my brother—"
"Or what?" Anders grinned, teeth yellow. "You gonna follow in his footsteps? Get yourself a nice orange jumpsuit too? 'Cause let's be honest, Jackson—you and that whole cursed gene pool are just ticking time bombs. Brother's a criminal, mom's probably in a ditch somewhere—"
I punched him.
I didn't think about it. Didn't brace for the consequences. I just moved, fast and furious, and my fist connected with the side of his jaw hard enough to crack something in my wrist. There was this pop, like a mic shorting out, and then Coach Anders staggered back, caught totally off guard.
The silence after was deafening.
Someone gasped.
Someone else muttered the words, "Holy crap."
Coach stumbled, holding his face in shock and pain. I think he might've spit blood on the ground. My knuckles were already starting to throb, but I didn't care. For the first time in days, I felt something that wasn't panic or grief. Just clean, sharp rage.
He blinked at me, stunned. "You're done, Jackson. You're done! I'll have your ass locked in solitary until graduation, you hear me?! You're done!"
"Cool," I muttered, wiping my hand off on my pants. "Looking forward to it."
"Straight to Mr. Augustine's office, now!"
I didn't wait for anyone to drag me there. I was already halfway across the training field before Coach even finished barking. My heart was pounding like I'd just ran sprints, but I kept my shoulders square and my walk steady. Kids were staring but I didn't care.
Let them.
The main hall loomed up ahead, that cold marble front trying to chameleon the steps of Rome. It always felt out of place, while the whole school was modern and built akin to a prison, this place looked as if it were torn straight out the past. I climbed the front steps, two at a time, and pushed the doors open without knocking.
Mr. Augustine's office was at the end of the corridor—top floor, corner room, above all of us like a king in his tower. He'd made the place look like something out of an oil painting: red velvet chairs, gold trim, floor-to-ceiling bookcases that seemed to tower over me. The flag of Indiana stood in one corner, but the Roman bust behind his desk always stole the spotlight. A marble head of one of those roman emperors.
I didn't bother knocking. I never had to.
"Mr. Augustine," I said, not even hiding the sarcasm. "Coach Anders politely requested I drop by for tea."
He looked up from whatever document he was reading and set his fountain pen down.
"Ah," he said with that warm, heavy voice that filled the room like incense. "Argos Jackson."
He stood, hands folded behind his back, and walked around the desk. Always calm, as if the problems of the world never existed for him.
"Your knuckles are swelling," he noted, reaching out to take my hand. "You must have hit him hard."
I tried to pull it back, but he held it gently—fingertips ice-cold and weirdly soft for a military man. "That was unwise, but not… unjustified."
I blinked. "You're not gonna yell at me?"
"Yell?" He smiled faintly, the idea amusing him. "What purpose would that serve? I know Coach Anders. I know you. I know what's happened to your family."
He let go of my hand and motioned to the chair across from his desk. "Sit."
I did. Mostly because I didn't know what else to do.
Mr. Augustine moved with a weird kind of elegance, like every muscle in his body knew it was being watched. Even when he sat, he did it akin to a man who never questioned his right to power.
"I heard about your brother," he said, steepling his fingers. "The media paints him a villain. But I've found that those who are called monsters often started as victims."
My throat was suddenly dry.
"I also heard about your mother."
I stared down at my hands. My fingers were still shaking.
The bruises were already blooming across my knuckles like rotten fruit, purple and angry. I flexed my fingers once, twice, and pain shot up my wrist.
"I don't even know if she's really dead," I mumbled.
Mr. Augustine didn't respond right away. I glanced up, expecting the same generic nod or practiced sympathy I'd been getting from the other adults—"I'm so sorry for your loss," as if that meant anything.
But his face was… different.
Not cold. No pity in his eyes. Just very still.
Then he leaned forward, folding his hands on the desk.
"Grief is not a wound that heals easily," he said softly. "Especially when it comes paired with doubt. Uncertainty. That kind of pain… it festers."
I looked away, suddenly hot in the face. "Yeah, well. No one around here seems to care. They just want me to be quiet and obedient, ready to leave without causing a scene."
"You're not like them," Mr. Augustine said, and his voice dropped to something almost reverent. "You're stronger than that."
I frowned, confused. "What does that even mean?"
"It means," he said, rising again to pour something from a glass decanter—water, thank God, not whatever weird stuff he usually drank—"that you were never meant to fade quietly out of this place like the rest of them."
He handed me the glass.
I took it and downed the whole thing.
"You've always stood out. Even when you tried not to. Your instructors see it as defiance. I see it as resilience. Fire."
That last word hit strange. Fire.
"You punched a grown man today," he continued, walking slowly around me. "You knew the consequences, and you acted anyway. That takes conviction. Most people your age… they don't have that. They're all noise and no direction. But you, Argos…"
He stopped behind me.
"You were made to succeed."
I felt something cold ripple down my spine.
"…What do you want from me?" I asked.
There was a pause, then he chuckled low under his breath. "Only for you to see yourself clearly."
I turned to look at him, but he was already walking back to his desk. His voice returned to that smooth, practiced tone—the one that he usually used while on a podium.
"You're not going to be punished," he said. "I will be sure to speak to the board. Anders will recover, and your record will remain intact. You've earned your graduation."
I shot up. "Wait. Seriously?"
"I'm not in the business of destroying promising futures over a single moment of… passion." He waved a hand, dismissing it like I'd broken a pencil and not a man's jaw.
"Thank you, sir," I said quietly.
He looked at me—no, into me. Like I was a page he was reading cover to cover.
"Argos," he said, "I know you've been alone for a long time. I know how it feels to be failed by those who should've protected you. But I want you to remember something."
I swallowed.
"You are not weak. You're a beautiful young man. You are becoming."
I sat with that. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't even sure if I agreed, but hearing it—believing it, just a little—felt so… just entirely wrong.
He moved to sit again, then glanced at the door and spoke lightly, "You're dismissed—for now. But if you ever need anything… anything at all…"
His gaze lingered.
"My door is always open."
I stood slowly, nodding once. "Thank you, sir."
"You're welcome, now head off to your dorm. You've experienced enough bullshit today."
I left the room like I was walking through syrup.
Every step out of his office felt heavier than the one before it. Not because of fear. Not even guilt. Just this weird, sinking tightness in my chest, like I was leaving behind something I wasn't supposed to understand yet.
I didn't know what to make of that conversation—of him. Mr. Augustine had this way of speaking that made everything sound like prophecy. Like no matter what I did, it had already been written, and he was just the narrator letting me peek ahead a few pages.
It was comforting.
It was terrifying.
I didn't head back to the training fields, obviously. By then, it was nearly third period and word of the punch had probably spread like a wildfire in a wheat field. Coach Anders was probably pacing his office with an ice pack and a vengeance list.
So, I went straight to my dorm like I was told.
Second floor, west wing. Room 213.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside, shutting it behind me before the hallway could swallow me whole.
My side of the room was still mostly packed—neat stacks of folded shirts, duffle bag zipped halfway, toothbrush wrapped in a washcloth on the desk. It looked like a goodbye in progress. It was supposed to be. Just five more days.
I sat on my bunk, staring at nothing.
The bedsprings creaked under my weight, and the silence pressed in like a second skin. My hand still throbbed. I pressed it to my chest, feeling the pulse racing underneath.
"You were made to succeed."
The words wouldn't stop echoing.
Mr. Augustine was… different. He didn't just talk at me like the others. He didn't make me feel like I was a walking problem that needed managing. He talked like I was a person. No, more than that—like I was important to him.
Like I meant something.
And maybe that should've raised a red flag.
But right now? I didn't care. I just wanted someone—anyone—to look at me and not see a liability. A meltdown. A ticking time bomb.
I reached into the drawer next to my bed and pulled out the tiny photo of Mom , Percy and I that I kept tucked between the pages of an old field manual. It was bent at the edges and had a faint from when I spilled a monster on it, but it was still clear enough to see her smiling.
Dark eyes. Laugh lines. The kind of smile that made you want to do better.
I traced the corner of the photo with my thumb.
"I don't know where you guys are," I whispered, "but I'm still here."
A knock startled me out of my thoughts.
It was soft. Hesitant.
"…Argos?"
Iridían.
I didn't answer.
She opened the door slowly, peeking in like I might throw something.
She looked… tired. The kind of tiredness you didn't get from just bad sleep. Her eyes were red-rimmed and heavy, like she'd been carrying too much for too long.
Her curls were tied back in a loose bun, and her uniform was wrinkled. Her jacket was unzipped, and the collar sat crooked on her shoulders.
"I heard," she said softly, stepping in and shutting the door behind her. "About Coach Anders."
I stared at the floor. "Yeah. Let's hope he's only missing a few teeth."
That got a laugh out of her—short and a little nervous. She sat on the edge of the bean bag across from my bunk, knees bouncing.
"Are you okay?"
"No."
She nodded, likely having expected that.
"Do you wanna talk?"
"No."
"Okay."
Silence again. The good kind.
She didn't push me. Didn't prod. Just sat there with me.
After a minute, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of gum. She peeled one out and offered it to me.
I took it.
We chewed in silence.
It was nice.
Even if everything else was falling apart—Percy, Mom, Gabe, the whispers, the nightmares—I still had this. I still had Iridían. I still had five days.
Five days to get out.
Five days to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do next.
And somewhere, far off in the dark corners of my mind, I kept hearing his voice again.
You were made to succeed.
I just didn't know where it was leading me.