It All Started With The New Students... And The Murder

Chapter 6 : Catching Up - Reyna

Reyna's POV

"I guess I should start with what happened right after the last time we met." Reyna began, with Thalia nodding in agreement. "I'm not going to go into all of the specifics and such because I'm just not ready yet, but my situation at home got a lot worse. My dad went clinically insane, throwing shit and yelling at me and Hylla. We started teaching ourselves how to fight, and when I told Percy, he joined us as well. One night, Percy was over as well and my dad went absolutely ballistic saying something about me not being allowed to be in love yet. Hylla defended me but he was drunk and pissed, so he shoved her away. She hit her head pretty hard on a wall and he started coming towards us. He tried punching me, but I dodged it. The Percy, being the loyal little shit he is, shoved me out of the way and took a punch in the gut for me. Hylla got back up but he just started hitting both of them. I- I- I grabbed something from the kitchen counter and threw it at him, b- but- but it was a k-knife. It hit him in the head and I- I killed him."

Reyna felt her usual panic attack from talking about that night kick in and started shaking violently, tears welling in her eyes.

Suddenly, Reyna felt a pair of calming arms wrapped around her. She inhaled deeply, trying to calm herself and smelled a familiar but long lost scent of pine trees. Reyna instantly relaxed, remembering the hugs she used to share with Thalia, how much she enjoyed them. Thalia was one of three people Reyna would ever hug, the other two being Nico and Percy.

Reyna felt shock run through her body as she realised that Thalia was managing to almost completely stop her panic attack. How was that even possible? Nico couldn't do that, and Percy couldn't fully stop them either.

"Don't even think about calling yourself a monster or a bad person. You saved your siblings, that couldn't possibly make you a bad person." Thalia whispered softly, playing with her hair. Reyna couldn't help but smile when she heard Thalia say "siblings".

"We ran away, all three of us. Hylla went in another direction and I was going to follow her, but Percy convinced me to come with him. Since then I've been living with them, me and Percy even turned and old garage/shack in the back garden of our house here into our own big room where we live in now." Reyna said, smiling as she mentioned the Shack, but missing Thalia's warmth, as the girl had pulled back.

Reyna couldn't quite explain it, but she felt some form of indescribable feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Oh I'm so seeing that." Thalia chuckled. Reyna smiled, but didn't know exactly what Thalia would think of their "Memory Wall", as they so affectionately called it.

"Anyways, back to the topic at hand." Reyna said, continuing her story. "Life was good for a while, we met Nico, Bianca and Luke at camp, but Gabe was losing more and more money and getting more and more drunk. He started lashing out. Percy mainly took the punishment, refusing to let Gabe anywhere near me or his mom, but there were days when Percy simply couldn't. Maybe he was tired from training, or he was simply in the bathroom, sometimes Gabe did manage to lay a hand on me. When Percy wasn't around, it was always me. I'd sworn to Percy that I'd do whatever it takes to keep Sally safe, so I did. One day, me and Percy were walking in an alley near our apartment when we heard screaming. We knew it was Sally, we'd heard the scream before. But we were with some friends, including Luke, so we told them we had to leave. We ran into the apartment and saw Sally lying in the ground with a broken nose. Percy... he turned into someone, no something else. He snuck up on Gabe from behind and slammed a fist into the fuckers' liver, before breaking his neck."'

"Holy shit." Thalia muttered.

"Yeah. Then Luke somehow found about both of them and decided to report us. We were cleared of all charges and it was ruled as self Defense, but the attorneys fees ruined us. That's where Paul came in. He met Sally a few days after the final hearing and it was apparently love at first sight." Reyna said.