There was a certain ugliness to adding emotions to things where they didn't belong. It smeared the realities, covered the truths with hopes and desire, and pulled poetics out of nothing. It was a cover, a masked way to view the world, and it was a way that Kassandra couldn't help but think -- letting her emotions flutter and exist around her instead of holding it all back, holding it all in. 

It was hard to repress emotions when she liked to feel as much as she did because music was feeling, being with her family was feeling, seeing her friends was feeling. 

Betrayal was a harsh emotion, a harsh feeling of searing, of scorching through her chest that presented her with the memories of the friendship they had once had like a marathon through her mind -- too fast for her to grasp, too grasp for her to keep here, with her, as if it was some symbolic representation of that friendship lost. 

It was hard to repress feelings when blood slipped between her fingers and she stepped back, adrenaline still running high enough for her not to feel the pain, but she knew that the shocked state she functioned in wouldn't last her forever and she wouldn't be able t keep him away. 

Because Chris had stabbed her all because in the familiarity of the actions she had lost her footing and he had gained the swift and sudden advantage. 

And Kassandra wasn't wearing armour and this wasn't a training blade. His sword was sharp and deadly, and she was really going to feel it later if she managed to get back to camp like this. 

"Don't move," Chris tells her, reaching out a hand to keep her steady. 

She sneers, waving the arrow tip before her threateningly. "Don't come near me." 

He rolls his eyes, moving toward her again. "Are you seriously doing this right now?" 

Gawking stupidly, she wobbles back on the sand quickly to put more distance between them. "Are you kidding? You stabbed me!" She growls. "I don't want you anywhere near me." 

Chris jumps forward, snatching her hand and pulling her to his chest. She gasps, fire flaring up her side and through her chest. Her legs shake, collapsing under her as she cries out. Tears blur her vision and she grits her teeth. 

"Just shut up," he snaps. "If you weren't so stubborn, this wouldn't have happened." 

She folds into his arms as he swings her off her feet and into a carry. She had an arm close to her chest, arrow tip placed precariously near his throat in an angry instinct to protect herself, the other pressed firmly to her side. 

Blood slipped between her fingers, cupping against her hand and pouring over. She made a displeased sound, shoving against her side more firmly until a soft cry pulled from her chest.

 "My bow," she gasps, the weapon lying forgotten in the sand flashing in her mind. "Give me back my bow." 

"Are you serious right now?" he demands.

"Yes, Chris," she seethes. "I'm dying anyway, what harm is there in giving it to me." 

"You aren't dying," he counters just as angry, squatting down by the weapon regardless. She takes it in her bloody hand. 

"Oh, well my open side wound says otherwise," she says, pulling the weapon so that the string lay against her body, the grip hanging under her. 

He doesn't answer and had she not known better, she would say that he felt bad, but then she remembered that he did this and was a traitorous, betraying asshole and that couldn't feel bad even if he wanted to, probably. 

The sunset lay above her, the light disappearing in the distance in rays of pink and orange. Kassandra loved orange and the Hesperides that cast such beautiful colours against Apollo's ending days. Sometimes, she likes to imagine that they heard her silent prayers and listened, letting the evening birth with a beautiful medley of colours. 

She sent them a silent thank you in prayer, showing her appreciation. 

"I like orange," she mutters dazedly, blinking up at the sky. She glances at him, shoving the tip of the arrow against his jugular. "I could kill you. We can die right here." 

"You won't," he says gruffly and she notices after a moment that he picked up his pace. "I was your best friend." 

"You stabbed me," she bites out, rage seeping into her voice before she can quiet it. "And I could. I can do a lot of things when I'm angry." 

The honesty of the statement is enough to give him pause. Chris knew that she could only speak the truth, "I didn't mean to," he says quietly, not bothering to try and lie to her. "It would have been so easy if you just gave in. I don't know what's holding you back, Kassie, you hate Apollo. You hate the gods." 

She breathes deeply, chuckling wetly. "Do you have any idea what it is that you're doing, Chris? Really? You're going to hurt so many people. You've already hurt so many people," she says, and wow doesn't her voice sound terrible. "I might hate my father, but I wouldn't tear apart the world fo- my hatred is personal." 

"But we can get rid of them all!" he shouts, the words jarringly loud. "We can be the new rulers, rebuild the world in our image however we want." 

Her eyes fall shut, a heavy feeling falling over her. She tries to search for the right words. "To what end? How much are you willing to lose first?"

"We don't have to lose a thing," he swears. "If you would just give in, join us. Luke doesn't want to kill anyone other than the gods and the order of things, but he will if you stand in his way."

Fury rages through her, waking her limbs with a spark. "And if I stand in your way, you'll let me die?" 

His jaw clenches. "You're one of us, no matter how much you pretend to be otherwise. You'll realize in the end that--" 

"Do you know how insane you sound right now?!" she shrieks, banging on the oop of his head with a closed fist. "Spewing a bunch of propaganda like you're trying to sell me on the perks of the Dark Side?" 

"You can't stop Luke. I won't let you," Chris says.  

Cold sweeps through her and her hand falls limp against her chest while the other struggles to stay at her side, blood still flowing freely -- so much blood, really, and the cold wasn't a good sign. She could practically hear lectures ringing through her ears on what to do in such a situation, the steps, but her head feels fuzzy. 

And Kassandra is harshly reminded that she was dying at the moment, for all the signs point to that, if she didn't get help. 

(Help that didn't include her father, not when she was left bare to the world, her beliefs and opinions thrown back in her face so accusingly that she couldn't even allow herself the thought -- not when Chris had known her so well to be able to plant that seed of doubt in her mind because wouldn't she sorta want the same thing, really, justice for the half-bloods claimed and unclaimed, cared for and not by their godly parent that treated them as little more than a means to an end?) 

(Really, though, in the part of her mind that was still a small, sad child instead of rage-fueled, Kassandra knew that he wouldn't come. She had given up on that after a full year alone at Camp, had abandoned the idea after pouring desperate prayers and pleas over her dying friend that she just couldn't save.) 

"You've already lost," she breathes decisively, thinking of the fleece already on its way back to camp. 

His fingers dig into her in a show of anger. "I guess that's it then." 

Kassandra's laugh turns into a cough. "That's been 'it'  since you stabbed me." 

There's no answer as he carries her across a dock unto a ridiculously large yacht. She has half a mind to pin it as the Princess Andromeda. From what she knew, the place was crawling with monsters and traitorous demigods alike. Luke was somewhere on this ship being a major asshole probably. 

What she wouldn't give to punch him in his smug little face, too. 

The aft deck had a pool with a fountain in it and around it stood Luke, Percy, Annabeth and Tyson amongst some other monsters and people. Glimmering in the mist of the fountain was the image of Mr. D and the campers at dinner, all watching the scene before them. 

"Kassandra!" her name is called, Annabeth's voice a couple of octaves too high. 

"When I told you to get her, this isn't what I meant," Luke drawled, raising his sword as if to emphasize his point. 

"There were unforeseen circumstances," Chris says. 

Her head drops to the side and she glares at Luke. "Traitor," she greets. 

"Kassie, nice of you to finally join us." 

"What did you do to her?" Percy demands, commanding Luke's attention once more. 

He levels his sword at the boy, head tilting as if he was looking at a particularly nasty bug. "There will be sacrifices made to make room for the new order," he announced and the words coming out a fatal blow as she finds the last of her energy drained away. 

There was a distinct sound of a lock clicking shut in her mind, a door shutting firmly against anything that she might have felt toward Luke once upon a time. Whatever hope for a redemption she might have had for him once gone as she knew she could never forgive him. 

(When she learned of the betrayal of Luke Castellan last summer, of him having summoned a pit scorpion to kill newbie and hero Percy Jackson, Kassandra didn't want to believe it. A lot of people didn't want to believe it. 

But there was no denying it when he was long gone, having fled the scene like it was nothing, to leave the son of Poseidon dead forcing everyone that cared for him to cope with the fallout. 

Those in the Hermes cabin had been treated with guilt by association for the first bit, those that were his friends, those that were known to be close to him, were gazed upon as if they had been the one to commit the act themselves.) 

(Even now as she looked at him, sword raised with a scar across his cheek, all she could see was the older camper, the Hermes councillor and his gentle smile as he greeted her, a hand falling onto the top of her head as he welcomed her home after her first year away from camp.) 

And she looked at Luke, clinging to consciousness by the grasp of her anger, and couldn't recognize him anymore. 

"All this? You call it guts? Betraying your friends? Endangering the whole camp?" Percy demands darkly. "Hurting the people that care about you?" 

"You don't understand the half of it. I was going to let you take the Fleece... once I was done with it."

"You were going to heal Kronos," Percy said.

"Yes! The Fleece's magic would've sped his mending process by tenfold. But you haven't stopped us, Percy. You've only slowed us down a little."

"And so you poisoned the tree, you betrayed Thalia, you set us up-all to help Kronos destroy the gods."

Luke gritted his teeth. "You know that! Why do you keep asking me?"

"Because I want everybody in the audience to hear you."

"What audience?"

They turned quickly, looking into the shimmering image of the fountain with wide eyes and just enough dramatics that her father might have been proud. 

She takes the time to search the faces of the campers, finding her table easily. Lee was on his feet, hands on the table as though he wanted to get closer to the image. Will was shaking in his seat, blue eyes shining with tears, blonde hair glinting, and she imagined that this is what looking at her father was like -- she knew that he resembled Apollo the most out of all of them. Michael had his hand on Will's shoulder as if he was trying to hold the boy into place. 

Her hand raised, arrow waving as she greeted them silently. 

Mr. D held his goblet in hand looking determinedly uninterested. "Well, that was some unexpected dinner entertainment."

"Mr. D, you heard him admit what he did," Percy says, steamrolling through the general shock. "Chiron was innocent. Luke did everything." 

The god sighed, "I suppose I shall have to reinstate Chiron as activities director. I suppose I do miss the old horse's pinochle games. We are no longer in need of your services Tantalus." 

The man in the orange jumper holding the hamburger, exclaiming some sort of muffled nonsense yelled in protests as he dissolved into a cloud of mist -- the burger landing back onto the empty plate. 

Campers exploded into cheering and that seemed to drive her siblings into motion as they burst up from the table, other -- Athena children she thought -- moved as well, a couple standing in order to get a better look at their cabin councillor. 

But Luke cut through the image in a bit of rage, cutting the message off and the look she had of them disappeared. 

Kassandra's head slumped back as her hand went limp, the pain flared through her side and darkness took her in its hold; she mumbles, "The sky is so pretty." 

☼ ☼ ☼

Vote,
Comment,
& Follow me on Wattpad

oops sorry its short 

unedited

written: 2021-01-27

posted: 2021-03-07