Gone Girl.¹

𝟬𝟭𝟲. visions of death

gone girl.
━━━ chapter sixteen

❀

Amaryllis could sense something was wrong.

She had asked to be on patrol with Silena, because the daughter of Aphrodite had been acting really strange ever since she found out that Beckendorf would leave for a quest. To say that she simply was worried would be an understatement - it really took a toll on her mentally. She had begged her boyfriend not to leave, but he couldn't not go. After Charles left, Amaryllis was there to comfort her during her mental breakdown.

She thought that maybe Silena being on patrol duty would distract her, but she was wrong. The dark-haired beauty was barely paying attention, her glassy eyes staring at the horizon like she was hoping to see Charles and Percy flying on a Pegasus.

Amaryllis tried several times to cheer her up or just distract her, but nothing worked. She assumed that simply being around someone was helping, even a little bit.

Then her ears started ringing.

Amaryllis clutched her sword, not immediately realising what the ringing meant. Only when she glanced at Silena, who didn't seem to be hearing anything like that, did she understand. The realisation was even worse than the ringing itself - her skin went ghostly pale and she felt nauseous, like she could actually throw up.

Someone had just died.

Silena seemed to finally register what was happening to her friend. She instantly got worried and stood in front of her, trying to get her to look at her by touching her face. "Mar, love, what happened?" Silena asked.

Amaryllis felt like the voice from inside her throat was stolen. She could barely handle standing up, the ringing becoming stronger and stronger by the second, to the point that she could barely hear anything else - she heard Silena say something about a meltdown, but that was it.

The only two people outside Camp at that point were Percy and Charles. They were supposed to be on a quest to explode Princess Andromeda, Luke's ship. Once she thought of the name Charles, the ringing stopped, as if the victim had been identified. A mixture of relief and terror washed over her.

She avoided Silena's eyes, because she couldn't bear to look at her, knowing that her boyfriend had died. She was right, Amaryllis realised. He shouldn't have gone to that quest. She clenched her jaw so hard that it felt like it would break. She couldn't tell Silena about it, because that meant exposing her secret.

"Food poisoning," Amaryllis managed to say, but it still didn't explain the tears forming in her eyes. Silena wasn't dumb - she clearly knew it was a lie.

"You're okay. You're safe. You feel relaxed and calm," Silena said. Her voice was persuasive, her words sank into Amaryllis' blurry mind and made it clearer. She had closed her eyes and when she opened them, her heart beat slower, steadier. Silena cupped Amaryllis' face and had their foreheads touch to calm her down entirely.

"Did you use charmspeak on me?" Amaryllis asked a moment later, when she pulled away.

"Yes," Silena admitted. "I didn't know what else to do. You were having a full blown panic attack."

Then Amaryllis remembered why she had the panic attack in the first place. She remembered Charles - he was the definition of a gentle giant, he always had that kind smile on his face and treated Amaryllis like a little sister, his attitude not even changing after she broke up with his brother. He was a good person and now he was dead, just another casualty of that damn war.