Revenge

Chapter 28

"Hold still, Beck." Will said firmly. "I need to take a look at your shoulder."

Beck rolled her eyes. "It's just dislocated, fix it and I can go."

"I need to make sure there's not anything else, just sit still for a minute."

"Yeah, yeah, calm down Sunbeam."

Nico, sitting cross-legged on one of the empty hospital beds to Beck's left, snorted at the nickname.

Will rolled his eyes and Beck laughed a little. "C'mon, Will, I'm just playing around."

"You can do that once I've fixed your shoulder." He muttered, poking and prodding at Beck's shoulder. "Does that hurt?"

"Yeah." Beck winced.

"How about that?"

"Yeah."

"And that?"

Beck paused. "No, not really."

Will nodded. "Okay, you got it right. Dislocated shoulder. Nico, do you have something she can bite down on?"

"You particularly fond of this dagger?" Nico replied, holding up a small medical knife in a sheathe with a leather bound handle.

Will glanced up at it and shook his head. "Nah, give it to her."

Nico tossed the dagger into the air and Beck caught it with her good arm. She slipped it between her teeth and bit down, nodding to Will.

One swift movement and a muffled scream later, Beck could use her arm again. It was sore, but Will handed her a tiny square of ambrosia that she knew would fix that right up.

"Thanks." She nodded to Will.

He smiled, shaking his head in a good-natured manner. "You are without a doubt, one of the most accident prone people in this camp. And we have a freaking forge full of kids."

Beck laughed. "I've been told I'm exceptionally good at injuring myself."

"Well stop it." Will said teasingly. "I appreciate you single-handedly keeping me in a job, but that's not healthy."

She snorted, rolling her shoulder back to test for pain. Nothing happened, the ambrosia had done its work properly.

"Clarisse really did a number on you." Nico commented. "Get on her bad side?"

Beck shook her head. "We were just sparring. She suggested hand to hand combat, which I knew would hurt, but I did it anyway because I need to learn to fight better."

"And she screwed your shoulder up." Nico finished for her.

"Pretty much."

Will rolled his eyes. "The day I stop getting patients with injuries inflicted by Clarisse la Rue is the day I will officially retire."

"Can you retire from a job you don't get paid for?" Beck asked jokingly.

Nico snorted and Will chuckled. "In a way. I could just stop showing up."

"You do that." Beck laughed. "I'm going to go sit on the beach by myself."

Well, she probably wouldn't really be by herself. The Poseidon and Hermes cabins had almost identical schedules, probably an attempt by Chiron to keep her from being alone all the time. Some of the younger Hermes kids who couldn't swim yet or didn't want to be in the water would come and sit by her, and she had become popular among them for telling stories during the time they had.

Beck left the infirmary, starting towards the beach the cabins swam at. She could already hear kids yelling and splashing each other, laughing loudly.

Someone was sitting in the spot she usually took in the sand, looking out at the water. Several Hermes kids saw her coming and jumped to their feet, cheering happily, but the young man didn't look up. He seemed lost in his thoughts.

"Hi Michael." Beck said softly as she sat down next to him. The kids, waiting for their story, sat in front of her in a tiny mob. Beck couldn't help but smile at that.

"Huh?" Michael looked up. "Oh, hi Beck."

Beck smiled and looked to the small demigods that were staring at her eagerly. "What?" She asked teasingly. "Were you waiting for something?"

"Yes!" They chorused. "Tell us a story!"

Beck laughed. "What kind of story?"

She received a cacophony of yells in response, but spied a shy looking little girl sitting on the side and chewing on her lip like she wanted to say something, but was too scared to do so.

Beck shouted over the kids to get them to calm down. "Alright, alright, shhh!" Once she had gotten them to be quiet, she looked over to the little girl. "What's your name, honey?"

The girl looked up at her with big eyes. "Triah." She was barely even four, which made Beck's blood boil. The gods were so selfish with things like this, they were putting an innocent child in danger for no reason other than they had been unable to control themselves.

"Well hi, Triah," Beck smiled. "What kind of story do you want to hear?"

Triah smiled widely. "Magic story!"

Beck chuckled. "Okay, a magic story it is. Come here, you can help me tell it."

The tiny girl crawled over to her and into her lap. Beck brushed a few curls out of her bright eyes, then looked over to the other children.

"Are you ready?" She asked them.

The kids nodded eagerly.

"Okay. Once upon a time..."

[A/N I know I usually update this every Sunday, but I ran out of pre-written chapters and didn't realize it until Sunday afternoon XD whoops! And I'm apologizing right now, my updates might get farther and fewer between for a while, I'm working on applying for colleges and scholarships and such (Deadlines are coming up!). If I don't get on before the end of the month (I probably will, but we'll see what happens), happy Halloween in advance! Thank you all for being so patient with my procrastination and laziness]