xi. cyclops

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SURPRISINGLY, THEA LIKES CAMP HALF-BLOOD. When she told Percy that over email, he emailed back not even an hour later, asking if she had "been replaced by a monster who actually liked people." He was right, the Thea he first met was scrappy, constantly angry, and chronically tired.

And she still is, but she's at least happy. She has friends, something she never had before, and she has her cousin. She has somewhere to sleep at night where she doesn't have to worry about monsters or her screams from nightmares attracting the monsters. She has people who understand her, or understand her for the most part. It's nice—refreshing, even, after being on her own for so long.

The flip side of that, though, is that she had an entire year to herself. While she discovered new hobbies, she discovered more about herself, things she would have been fine without knowing. She doesn't like people touching her shoulder unless she knows them well enough. She doesn't like salads because the texture is too weird for her. Her nightmares about the chained man in the dark are getting gradually worse and he's beginning to speak to her.

She told Annabeth about the last one, and she thought maybe it was a minor god trying to contact her. They aren't sure. Thea told Charlie, which only worried him further, and he had no idea either, all he said was to talk to Chiron, which Thea most certainly would not do.

But it's fine, the creepy man from her dreams doesn't mean anything, even if he is saying things that don't make any sense. It's fine, she's fine, it's all fine.

Everything is fine except for the kid wrapped around her leg. His name is Reggie, another unclaimed from the Hermes cabin, and he's seven, the youngest camper to arrive since Annabeth. He has nightmares nearly every night, and since he thinks Thea is "the coolest demigod ever," he always comes to her for comfort. And she does not know how to comfort.

"Do you ever have nightmares? You never scream like everyone else."

She pats Reggie's curly hair as she sits down on Travis' bunk with him. He won't mind, he's at sword practice anyway. "Of course I do, everyone gets them. I'm just . . . not as loud as everyone else."

"Why?"

Why does he have to ask so many questions?

"Because when you're running from monsters, you can't be loud." That isn't the right thing to say, it only seems to upset him more. "...Look, Reg, nightmares are just part of us, okay? You grow with them and they grow with you. Eventually, you'll get used to them. They won't even scare you anymore."

"Are yours not scary?"

"Not really, just confusing." She bumps her shoulder with his. "Come on, Reggie, isn't that kid waiting for you?"

"Sam, yeah." He wipes at his nose with the back of his hand. "Thanks, Thea."

He hugs her tightly and her eyes go wide with surprise before she hesitantly returns the hug, patting the small boy on the back. When he runs out the door, she lets out a sigh of relief. She never wants to do that again, it was terrifying.

"Dang, who would've thought?"

She startles and falls off of the bunk to grab a sword that is still on her bed. "Dammit, Charlie!"

Her cousin laughs, a deep, cackle-like laugh. "Gods, you should've seen your face. Priceless."

"Ha-ha, very funny." She gets to her feet and fixes a strand of hair that had come loose while she straps her sword to her back. "One day, I'll stab you, and it won't be funny then."

"Oh, sure you will." They walk out of the cabin together, toward the forge. "Do you go anywhere without that sword?"

"Nope," she says. "You never know when someone's going to attack."

"We're in a magically bordered camp," he deadpans.

"The border's weakening," she corrects. "And even if it wasn't, what if someone else attacked me?"

Luke Castellan, someone Thea briefly met when she moved into the Hermes cabin. He was the Luke she saw in the Iris Message at the car wash, the one that Annabeth talked about. He had tried to kill Percy before he betrayed them all—something that makes Thea weary of the camp, as much as she likes it.

"Loosen up a little, Thea, it's been a year." He glances at her sword. "And I can make you a better sword, I made that when I was eleven, it's awful."

"And ruin my monster-killing streak? No thanks." She smiles. "Maybe someday, but I like this one. It's reliable. And sharp."

"Hey, what do you think about—"

Screams erupt from the hill and Thea's stomach sinks as she sees bronze glinting in the sunlight. It looks like bulls.

"Oh shit," she whispers. "Charlie, go get your sword, I'll meet you there."

"You can't—"

"I'll be fine, go!"

She runs as fast as she can, sword in hand, as the older campers usher the younger ones into the cabins, away from the bulls that are starting to charge down the hill. The Ares cabin will be there soon, they're always quick to jump into battle, but until then—

"Hey, you ugly fuckin' bulls!"

They both turn to her, smoke pluming out of their noses as they exhale, and she tries not to focus on how they have little to no weaknesses. She can't remember what her mother said about them—she can't even remember the name—and she wonders if maybe there is a hole in the bronze. Hooves? Stomaches? Eyes? There has to be something, everything has a weakness.

She jumps to the side and the heat of the bull makes sweat bead on her forehead. She has to think of something, she can't dodge two of them.

"Border patrol, to me!"

Oh thank the gods.

"Thea, you idiot!" Clarisse bellows as her cabin charges into battle. "What were you thinking?!"

"That the bulls were going to scorch the camp, that's about as far as I got!"

"Well do your magic thing before they kill someone!"

She mutters under her breath, her sword tight in her hand, and a nearby tree falls, splintering in the middle as it falls onto one of the bulls. The bull falls onto its side, the tree crushing it as it writhes, trying to kick free. But its skin begins to heat up, the flames licking across it, and the tree begins to smoke.

Clarisse yells for her patrol to form a wall, and Thea obeys. She doesn't have a shield, but she can stand behind the others.

The bull that isn't trying to break free charges, crashing into the shields, fire raging from its mouth. Thea lets out a yelp, rolling on the ground as she feels the ends of her hair singe from the flames.

The rest of the border patrol are running around, their helmets aflame as they try to gather a plan. Clarisse has already been knocked toward the woodline, leaving one thing for the bull to focus on: the person that had trapped its friend under a tree.

"Shit."

She can't cast anything else, she used too much energy on the first one, and she's already done ones earlier to clean the cabin before inspection—she's screwed.

Thea stares down the giant ruby eyes in front of her, holds out her sword, and aims for the bull's mouth, the only thing that can possibly damage it. She has to distract it, and it's fast, so if it focuses on her she will most likely be fine—

As she feels the heat from the bull begins to scorch her skin, someone crashes into her, knocking her out of the way. She cries out as her head slams into the ground, her skin still unbearably warm from the flames.

"What the shit, you ass—Percy?" She blinks, eyes wide. "What are you doing here? Chiron said you weren't coming back because of . . . you know."

"I like your hair." He helps her to her feet, uncapping Riptide in the process. "And—wait, what's going on? How are the bulls in here? And what's the border patrol?"

"Not enough time to explain!" she yells. "And—thanks! But since there's two of us, we each charge one bull before the other gets up. We can tag-team it and try to slice its head off, it's the only thing that'll do any damage."

"Okay, let's do it."

They charge together, toward the bull, but Percy's foot catches on a root and he goes sprawling. Thea curses and dives out of the way of the bull, only managing to slice off its snout while Percy gets a hoof. The bull stumbles, off-balance on one foot, panicked as its head whips around, incinerating any blade of grass near it.

"Shit, move!"

Thea grabs Percy by the collar of his shirt, yanking him off the ground as they sprint away from the bull. The other one is getting to its feet and throws the tree trunk off of itself. Its ruby eyes glint with rage.

She helps Percy stand on his wobbly ankle as a young cyclops runs toward a bull—a cyclops?

Thea can only watch with wide eyes as Percy cries out for it—"Tyson," apparently—only to relax slightly once he sees the flames do nothing to him. Of course, cyclops are immune to fire.

"Can you stay here?" Thea asked. "Just—don't do anything stupid while I help Clarisse."

"I'm fine."

She doesn't believe a word he says, because his ankle is the size of her fist, but she sprints off anyway, skidding to a stop beside Clarisse. Clarisse's side is seared, smelling distinctly like burnt flesh, and it makes Thea's stomach twist.

The ground shakes.

It's the bull without a snout or hoof, but it's blasting fire in every direction to compensate, preventing them from getting any closer.

"You distract it, I'll go in," Clarisse says.

"K."

Thea yells a slew of colorful insults as Clarisse runs in an arc around it, out of its eye line. The bull turns to the Vasquez girl, ruby eyes narrowed as it wobbles. Thea makes a quick prayer to Charlie's dad that he won't let the fire kill her.

As a column of flames reaches toward her, she dives to the side, flames flicking across her as she rolls, and the flames drown out in the scorched grass. When she gets to her feet, panic still high in her chest, the bull is on the ground, a spear in its chest.

"You should've waited for the rest of border patrol," Clarisse huffs as she walks past.

"Yeah, whatever." She shoves a bag of ambrosia into her hands. "Take this, you smell awful."

Thea jogs over toward Percy where Annabeth is kneeling beside him giving him Nectar. "Okay, you two better explain this shit. First, how are you two here, you live in San Francisco—and two, why in the hell is there a cyclops over there?"

As if he hears himself being talked about, the cyclops bounds over, a goofy grin on his face. Thea is uncomfortable at the proximity, a nasty memory appearing in her head of when a cyclops had cornered her in New Jersey.

"I am sorry," he says. "Came to help. Disobeyed you."

"My fault," Annabeth says. "I had no choice. I had to let Tyson cross the boundary line to save you. Otherwise, you would've died."

"Let him cross the boundary line?" Percy asks. "But—"

"Percy," Annabeth says, "have you ever looked at Tyson closely? I mean . . . in the face. Ignore the Mist and really look at him."

Percy does, and it takes a few seconds, but his eyes widen with shock. "Tyson, you're a . . ."

"Cyclops," Annabeth offers. "A baby, by the looks of him. Probably why he couldn't get past the boundary line as easy as the bulls. Tyson's one of the homeless orphans."

Thea always feels a little sorry for the cyclopes, she knows what it's like to not have a home. But they also try to eat her, and her sympathy is lessened since then.

"One of the what?"

"They're in almost all the big cities," Annabeth says distastefully. "They're . . . mistakes, Percy. Children of nature spirits and gods . . . Well, one god in particular, usually . . . and they don't always come out right. No one wants them. They get tossed aside. They grow up wild on the streets. I don't know how this one found you, but he obviously likes you. We should take him to Chiron, let him decide what to do."

"But the fire. How—"

"He's a cyclops." Annabeth pauses and it's clear she, too, has had unpleasant experiences with them. "They work the forges of the gods. They have to be immune to fire. That's what I was trying to tell you."

Thea looks at the hill, aflame and with injured campers stumbling around. "C'mon, we have to get the injured to the Big House and let Tantalus know what happened."

"Tantalus?" Percy asks.

She winces. Does he really not know anything that's happened? "Uh, Percy, Chiron and Argus got fired. They think Chiron poisoned the tree. And Mr. D hates Argus, so this is his excuse to get rid of him."

Her tone is sour at the last part. She loves Argus, he's nice, and he plays cards with her. He's one of the few people in camp that actually likes spending time with Thea. And now he's going to leave.

"...Poisoned?" Percy looks at Thalia's tree, and it's clear he understands now. "There's—there's no way . . ."

"Yeah, you've missed a lot, dumbass. It's time for you to catch up."