The Unclaimed

Chapter 1: My brother bribes me into going to sword training

   "Hey Jess," rolling onto my side so I could peak over the edge of the bed, I looked down and saw Michael staring up at me. I smiled at him. The only perk of being still being an unclaimed was it meant that I got to stay in the same cabin as Michael. The fact that I was still with him almost outweighed all the cons of not knowing my godly parent; almost. In the past two years he had had gotten stronger and more confident then he was before. The first time I saw him interact with the fellow campers of Hermes cabin, his other half-siblings, I could tell that he would fit in perfectly here. My prediction had come true; Michael got along perfectly with the other kids from the cabin, they had similar personality traits and interests.

     "Hey Michael; wait aren't you supposed to be at sword training right now?" A quick fact about me, I knew Michaels schedule better then I knew mine. That way if there was a time when I needed to track him down quickly, I could. With the exception of archery, which I always went to, I only showed up to the others when I was forced or when I actually remembered to. I still trained, I just liked doing it on my own.

     "That's not for ten minutes, which you should know since you're supposed to be there as well." Quick as a cat, I jumped off my bed and landed perfectly on my feet.

     "How'd you know that," As far as I was concerned the only people who knew my schedule were me, Chiron, and Dionysus. I hadn't attended a full day of sessions in over a year and a half; I preferred to train alone as it is and the longer I remained unclaimed, the more the other campers looked at me like a ticking time bomb. It didn't help that someone overhead Chiron and Dionysus talking about the fact that I was blessed by Artemis and told the camp about it; it's been over a year but me being the first non-hunter to receive Artemis's blessing was still one of the hottest gossip topics that circulated around camp. I knew he hadn't read my copy of the schedule, I had it folded up and kept it in a locket that I always wore. So the question was, how did he get it? Michael looked down at his feet sheepishly,

     "I snuck into Chiron's office and broke into his files." I raised my eyebrows. Michael was skilled liar, except for when he was lying to me; he could never make eye contact with me when he was lying or hiding something. "Go on," I said.

     "That's it," his shoes were suddenly quite interesting. I sighed, I was tempted to push the topic farther but I decided to let it slide for now; after all he, I mean we, had to get to sword training. I exchanged my comfortable hoodie with my jean jacket; it stayed out of my way better then my sweatshirt did during training. Michael looked at me with hopeful eyes. "You're actually coming to training?" I paused and realized that this was my chance to negotiate.

     "I'll come to training if you promise to tell me what you're hiding from me by the end of tonight." When I saw him bite his lip, I knew he was mulling over my deal. Apparently whatever he didn't want to tell me was less important than me coming to training because he nodded in agreement to my deal. "Ok let's go; I haven't been to one of these in a while and I don't want you to be late." Without saying anything, Michael gave me a quick hug and then started pulling me to the doors of the cabin. You can do this, it's just one session. I mean how much could go wrong in one forty minute session I asked myself. Little did I know just how wrong I was.