Half Blood High

Part 7 ~ Octachel

Octavian. A bright kid. He always did his homework. But he also liked to follow the other kids around, especially the popular kids and Jason Grace. He would draw pictures of them bleeding. He would rip open the other kids projects in home ec. His pockets were checked every day before he was allowed on school grounds, and yet he always found a way to bring weapons in.

Octavian was over Jason the moment the red-head enchantress walked past him in art. And sat near him at another of the school’s pep rallies. Go Warriors! And bumped into him in the crowded hall.

He turned to fast from his locker that he hadn’t noticed her until it was too late. Books and papers fell across the ground and they hastily picked up their things.

“These are nice. I like the use of light in this one especially.”

“That’s private.”

He snatched the notebook from her.

“Sorry, it fell open on that page and I couldn’t help looking. I’m Rachel. Art is one of my passions.”

“Octavian. Right, I think I saw you in Mr. Phoebus’s class yesterday.”

She nodded as the bell rang. “Well, I’ve got to go. Perhaps I’ll see you around.”

Rachel set her recorder to be on pause. “Percy, can I ask you something? Something that won’t be used in the interview?”

“Well, yeah. You can ask me anything to a certain extent.”

“So, I’m still new to this school. I’ve only been here a couple weeks. And you know everyone in school.”

“Is this going somewhere?”

“Well, there’s this guy and-”

“I think this would be a better question for Piper. She’s the one everyone goes to for relationship advice.”

“No, it’s not like that. I mean, I think he likes me, but I know nothing about him.”

“Name?” Rachel looked at him curiously. “What’s his name?”

“Oh, uh, Octavian.”

Percy looked like a deer frozen in a pair of headlights. He quickly stood up, knocking his chair over at the same time. “I’ve got to go.”

“But what about Octavian?”

“He’s a creepy stalker and harasses people.” Percy walked out the door and didn’t look back.

“Hi.”

Rachel nearly fell out of her seat. She had just found out that the blonde-boy that liked to stare at her would be her science partner. The one, that in the two months attending Half-Blood High, she may have spoken to twice, and only for a few seconds at a time.

“Hello. Since we’ll be working together, I had a couple ideas for our science project. You like blood…and guts…so I thought we could do something on the human body.”

“That sounds great.” He gave her the look of wanting to tear something apart.

Rachel stood up when the bell rang and handed him a piece of paper. “So, you probably could have figured this out on your own, but here’s my address. I’ve got to go, but meet me at my house after school at, say, 4?”

Rachel ran off before she could hear his response. She hoped no one else noticed everything that went down.

Her day continued as normal. There was no art that day, but she always had time after school, if she didn’t have to do this report with Octavian.