Missing

Fire

Thalia's POV

"I can walk on my own. It's really not that bad." I insisted.

"Alright fine," Reyna frowned, letting go of me. She watched as I limped along, my leg nearly giving out twice. "I wouldn't call that walking." 

"I'm doing fine. I'll be perfect in no time." I replied my stomach fluttering nervously. It figured. It would fucking figure that I would get injured. Neither of us said anything but we both knew I was too wounded to participate in any of the fighting. Reserved or not. "Damn it."

"I'm sorry Thalia," Reyna sighed. "But I think that maybe you got lucky. The fates are giving you something good for once."

"What do you mean? How is this good?" I asked.

"Come with me." Reyna said. I'd noticed how pale she'd gotten since wandering off.

"Okay." I grunted trying to take another step when my leg buckled. Reyna was quick to catch me.
"Like I said you can't walk." She helped support a majority of my weight as we headed to the far tower. "It's graphic."

Graphic was a simple way of putting it. I don't think I'd ever seen something so grotesque and horrible in my life. The way the body was shredded as if it'd gone through a meat grinder was nearly unbearable.

"Lycoan did this?" I asked my voice quiet.

"Yes," Reyna said simply.

"He's never done...that before at least not to a human. He only gets this bad when he's hungry." I said.

"Well it seems to me he's taken more of a liking to human flesh as of late." Reyna turned her head away unable to stare at it any longer. "Like I said. You're lucky."

"Yeah." I nodded. Sure, Reyna was right in a way. I was luck. I didn't have to fight which meant I didn't have to worry about ending up like human soup. But Reyna had to worry. Reyna wasn't 'lucky'. She had herself to worry about and knowing her, she was worried about everyone else as well. "But I'm sure you'll be fine."

"That's the thing." Reyna said her voice shaky. She explained to me her conversation with Hazel. That she'd been so worried and angry that's how the whole sharpie incident started. It's what she seemed to continuously hyper focus on because it worried her. "If things continue to go wrong I can only imagine what will happen."

"Reyna they aren't going to turn on you." I said. "The entire Roman camp looks up to you. You're a kid! They have to understand that."

"Thalia, out of the past fifteen praetors three have been assassinated." Reyna muttered, her hands shaking uncontrollably. "I know I should be focused on the war. On what's going to be here in an hour or so...but this is a turning point in more ways than one."

"War brings change but maybe it's good change. You don't know if it'll be bad." I said trying to reassure her.

"I just have this feeling. This feeling that everything is going to go wrong. That after today I'm going to lose everything." Her grip tightened on me slightly and I felt-well, I felt sad.

"I'll be safe. Not like I can fight much anyways so you won't lose me." I assured. But I knew that wasn't what she meant exactly. It wouldn't matter if I was safe as long as she wasn't. We made it slowly down the ladder of the wall where Reyna waited for me at the bottom.

I glanced about and it seemed like things had started to calm down a bit. Those who had been wounded were being tended to.

"Where have you two been?" Percy asked jogging over.

"Sorry, sorta got stabbed in the leg." I explained. His expression turned to one of worry.