THORNS [heroes of olympus]

1-doom and gloom

THE DRONE OF THE BUS ENGINE was enough to drive Lydia Yue up the wall.

       She had sat in the back, and because of her dark and brooding reputation, none of her classmates sat next to her. Maybe it was her dark clothes, maybe it was the combination of her multiple ear piercings and her black eyeliner, or maybe it was the way her cold energy radiated in waves. Whatever it was, she didn't mind at all. In fact, the isolation was optimal for her. The less people attempting to hold a conversation with her, the better.

       Lydia never appreciated companionship. She never made friends back home and she didn't want any from this freak show boarding school the court had appointed her to attend.

       Growing up, Lydia was the weird kid that showed up with bruises on her arms and legs. The girl that teachers whispered about in lounge rooms, the student they reported to social services that they thought might be experiencing some form of abuse, the child whose house somehow always passed an inspection.

       Lydia never told anyone, but the teachers were right. The blotches that found new homes on her skin after their first ones faded away were from studying shotokan at her dad's insistence. It was a way for her to learn self-defense, a way for her to strengthen herself and toughen her skin. But every few days, a couple of those bruises would appear at the hands of her father.

       She didn't understand why he fought her. Despite his spiraling life, there should've been at least one reason for him to still love his daughter. But there was nothing she could do to make him see that.

       When her mother left him, her father became disconnected from the world and stumbled into an alcoholic depression. After a few years of giving him the benefit of the doubt, the biomedical research facility he worked for fired him for his lagging productivity. From there he got worse, and Lydia spent as much time as possible at the shotokan dojo in order to minimize the anger she faced at his hands. Her life in and out of her home taught her discipline and reservation, how to hold back until the wave of power was on your side, how to control your anger and fight your rage until the time was right.

       Then one day last year, it was over. Lydia's father died suddenly, leaving his daughter on her own until she was caught shoplifting at the mall in downtown Seattle. It should've been an easy job, one that she had done many times during the spring months she'd been on her own, but Lydia was caught with a backpack full of supplies a few blocks from her house. From there, the court sent her to The Wilderness School, a curse all in itself. Filled with kooks and runaways galore, Lydia felt she didn't belong there at all. When she was caught, she was trying to survive, not spite a rich mommy and daddy. She didn't need reform for a crime she had no remorse for.

       But here she was anyway.

       The back of the bus was quieter, but the bumps on the road were more jarring. Lydia was used to giving up bodily comfort for clarity of mind. She reveled in the silence her reputation afforded her. Her all-black outfits and dark eyeliner paired with her icy stare kept anyone from approaching her most days of the week. The only person it didn't seem to ward off, despite her best efforts, was Jason.