Here?
The word echoed in the sterile silence of the infirmary, a frantic drumbeat against the rhythmic beeping of a machine I was hooked up to. My son was here. In this camp. While I was laid out like a slab of burnt meat, he was somewhere out there, probably being fed lies about his father, about who he was.
Manny's warning—imagine how much harder it will be to stay here—was a distant whisper, drowned out by the roaring in my ears. If I stayed in this bed one more day, one more hour, he would find the stupid Oracle. He'd be sent on a quest. He'd be fed to the meat grinder, just like every other half-blood.
I couldn't let that happen.
Adrenaline, raw and potent, flooded my system. It was a filthy, agonizing fuel, but it was enough. I didn't listen to Manny's sudden, panicked screaming in my head. I ripped the IV from my arm, swung my legs off the bed, and pushed myself upright.
I stumbled, catching myself on the bedframe, my vision swimming. But I didn't stop. I lurched out of the infirmary, ignoring the startled shouts of an Apollo camper.
I ran past the big horse—Chiron—his face a mask of shock as I shoved through the Big House door. The cool night air hit my lungs like a punch, but I kept going. My bare feet pounded against the grass, each step a fresh agony. The camp was a blur of firelight and shadows, new half-blood faces turning to stare at the burned, shambling man sprinting through their home.
Hermes... cabin... WHERE WAS THE HERMES CABIN?
"ASHTON, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Manny's voice was a siren in my skull. "STOP! YOU'RE GOING TO GET US KILLED!"
I ignored him. My eyes scanned the U-shaped rows of cabins, a frantic search for the caduceus symbol. There. Number 11. I put on a final, desperate burst of speed, my lungs burning.
"SONNY!" I screamed, kicking the door open with a splintering crack. "SONNY!"
But the scene inside wasn't one of welcoming, chaotic Hermes energy. It was a war room. A half-dozen burly kids in blood-red shirts were gathered around a table, sharpening weapons and playing a brutal card game. They all looked up, their faces a mixture of surprise and irritation. Not a single one of them looked like my son. They were Ares kids.
Before I could process my mistake, a voice boomed across the green. "SEIZE HIM!"
It was Chiron. The Ares campers didn't need to be told twice. They were on me in a flash, a wall of muscle and leather. I didn't even have the strength to fight. My legs, pushed far beyond their limit, finally gave out. I fell to my knees in the doorway, a wave of dizziness and nausea washing over me. I heard a few disappointed grunts from the Ares kids; they'd been hoping for a real fight.
Rough hands hauled me back to my feet and dragged me across the green, back toward the porch of the Big House. My head hung low, the fight completely drained out of me.
They dropped me unceremoniously at the feet of the camp's leaders. Percy looked at me with a mixture of pity and confusion. Annabeth's face was a cold, hard mask of calculation. And Chiron... Chiron just looked disappointed.
I stayed on my knees, gasping for breath, the reality of my failure crashing down on me.
Annabeth stepped forward, her voice sharp and cutting as glass. "We've checked the records. We've checked every cabin, every new arrival."
She knelt down, her grey eyes locking onto mine. There was no sympathy in them, only a relentless, piercing curiosity.
"Who was Sonny?" she asked, her voice quiet enough to be a personal, devastating blow. "There is no Sonny in the cabins."
My mind was a blank wall. The name was a raw nerve, a desperate shout into the void, and now it was being used to dissect me. The stares of the campers felt like physical weights, pinning me to the ground. Sonny. My son. The word was on the tip of my tongue, a truth so profound it ached more than the burns covering my body. I was about to say it. My son. He was my son.
"DON'T!" Manny's voice was a razor's edge in my mind, slicing through the grief. "Ashton, do not say that word. You will say brother. He was your brother. He died in the crash with you. It's the grief, the trauma. The burns. The saltwater. Sell it. It's the only way you survive this."
Survival. The word was a cold bucket of water on the fire of my paternal instinct. To claim Sonny as my son here, now, would be to unravel everything. It would be a death sentence for my mission, and possibly for both of us. I had to bury the truth. I had to bury my son all over again.
I let my shoulders sag, the weight of my real pain and my fabricated grief crashing down on me. I looked at my hands, at the raw, pink skin that would never be the same. A tear, hot and genuine, traced a path through the grime on my cheek.
"Sonny..." I choked out, the lie tasting like poison in my mouth. "He's... he was my brother." I took a ragged breath, forcing the words from my lungs. "He was on the plane with me. He... he didn't make it." I looked up at them, my eyes wide with a manufactured horror that was all too easy to summon. "I saw him. I thought... I don't know what I thought."
A heavy silence fell over the porch. Annabeth's analytical expression faltered, replaced by a flicker of something else—pity, perhaps, or at least the understanding of loss. Percy looked away, uncomfortable.
Then, a slow, sarcastic clap broke the silence.
"Oh, splendid," Mr. D drawled from his chair. He hadn't moved, but his eyes were fixed on me, glittering with malicious amusement. "A tragedy. A grief-stricken hallucination. It's so much more entertaining than the usual 'I want to find my destiny' drivel we get from you lot."
He took a long sip of his Diet Coke, his gaze never leaving mine. "You play the part of the grieving brother so well," he said, his voice dripping with a condescension that only I could truly understand, "one almost forgets you're just a man who fell out of the sky."
Just a man. He knew. He was taunting me, dangling my mortality over my head like a toy.
He waved a dismissive hand at the Ares campers still lingering nearby. "Take the broken toy back to its box," he said, his voice already bored with the spectacle. "He's no use to me until he's patched up. And do try not to break him again."
Rough hands grabbed me under the arms, hauling me to my feet. I didn't resist. I let them drag me away, my feet scraping against the grass. As I was pulled back toward the sterile white prison of the infirmary, I looked over my shoulder.
Percy was watching me with a troubled expression. Annabeth was already scribbling in her notepad, her mind racing. And Mr. D... Mr. D gave me a final, slow wink, a gesture that said, The game is just beginning.
Manny was right. Everyone now knows me... and it was gonna be hard to
OF COURSE I'M RIGHT! He screams in my mind. Why can't you just stay still?!