The Mighty Ones' Fall

Chapter 9: Secrets

.

I had to hand it to Hannah. She really tried her hardest to talk to Alec. But still, her hardest wasn't good enough.

She had run over to Alec and Jan to try to help the hero regain stability, and I saw the three of them exchange a few words, but Hannah was sent away again almost immediately. She returned to us with a defeated look in her eye, like she was already preparing to give up. But I knew Hannah better than that. She wasn't one to give up easily.

Sure enough, she informed the twins and I that she was going to go brainstorm in her tent and offered for us to join her, but we declined. Battle practice was starting early that day, with or without Alec.

"Hey, Jace," Layna greeted me as she bounded over to me on our way to the sword fighting arena, and I felt my insides start to squirm. "Do you know if Alec is going to be teaching us or not?"

I sighed, a little disappointed. After all, I should've guessed that was what she wanted to talk about. But part of me still hoped she would get over Alec, preferably sooner rather than later.

"I would guess no," I responded slowly, scanning the crowds of Warriors at the bottom of the hillside. "But who knows? Alec is tough. He might show up later."

Layna only frowned. "Why doesn't he like me?" she mumbled, more to herself than to me, sticking her lower lip out in a sort of pout. I thought it strange that she chose to dwell on this, since it only seemed to make her unhappy. Plus, Alec acted the same way around everyone - rude and insensitive. Granted, I'd seen him have episodes of PTSD, but still, I thought he needed to draw a line somewhere. Maybe Layna and the other girls just didn't see him that way.

From there, Layna and I split up, as we had to go to different groups for the different skill levels. The rest of my morning was spent sparring with Darius and Damien. However, the practice wasn't as good as it could have been because it rained off and on every couple of minutes. Instead, we watched from the stands as a few of the adults fought all out against each other, and a couple were even sent to the infirmary. Most of them only had a few cuts and scrapes by the end of the fight, but one unlucky fellow received a deep stab wound to the back of the leg and had to be carried away, blood streaming steadily down his calf muscle.

When it was time for lunch, all of the Warriors put their weapons and armor away and headed to mess hall. Surprisingly, I caught sight of Alec up ahead of me, and so I figured he must have felt too overcrowded in the infirmary, or maybe he was just being forced to attend lunch with everyone else. He was still flanked by two Warriors watching his every move, but they were different ones than before. Jason must have been giving them shifts.

"Want to try sitting with Alec?" Hannah suggested, obviously having caught sight of the hero, too.

Damien raised his eyebrows. "Do you really think that's a good idea? You know he might blow up at us again, and I'm getting kind of tired of that."

Hannah only rolled her eyes at him. "Don't worry; I have an idea. And it's foolproof."

"But Alec isn't a fool," I mumbled, more to myself than to anyone else. Nevertheless, I reluctantly followed Hannah and the twins over to Alec, our sandwiches in hand.

When we arrived at the table, Alec was flipping through one of the leather journals again, looking distressed. His dark eyebrows were knit together, and his hands were shaking, maybe from stress, maybe from something else. The Warriors standing guard over him didn't seem to notice, however. Or maybe they just didn't care. That seemed to be the running theme of late, since even Jan had snapped at the troubled hero earlier that morning.

Hannah didn't ask the hero for his permission to sit down. Instead, she just pulled out a chair for herself and said cheerfully in Greek, "Hi, Alec. What's up?" The twins and I nervously followed her lead and sat down in the chairs beside her, facing Alec.