chapter xi

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SIERRA, DOESN'T REALLY LIKE THE DINING HALL. She'd never thought herself a person petty enough to hold a grudge against a place, but she doesn't like it, and she can't bring herself to move past it. She's not great at the whole, 'moving-forward-and thinking-through-past-actions-heals' thing.

She finds though, that she doesn't hate it quite as much at night. It's quiet, empty, and it's almost serene to have a view of an entirely silent and empty Camp Half Blood.

This is her home, has been since ten and all the way to her current fifteen years of age, but she's never seen it like this. Never seen it so quiet, empty, peaceful, serene. Artemis cabin is shivering, the overflow of plants in Demeter seem to be breathing with their campers, even Ares looks almost calm. The barbed wire glints under the moonlight but the torches out front of godly fire are a slow simmer in the evening air, more warm than burning.

She's never really understood seeing this place as a home. Maybe she's just never understood what a home is. But honestly, she's realizing now that she's never considered it permanent. It's not something she was ever aware of until suddenly she was, that tight coil in her stomach waiting for this to all go wrong. For someone to finally realize she wasn't like the others here and send her packing and leave her, once again, alone in a world determined to kill her.

She wants a cigarette.

She hasn't smoked since she was in the circuit, a way of cooling her nerves and another self attack that settled something in her stomach in an unhealthy way. But now, she's craving the way the taste used to cling to the roof of her mouth, not her tongue, the way the smoke heated her throat and lungs but cooled her stomach from the contrast. She misses the way the nicotine used to steady her hands. She thinks this must be what addiction is like, that's why she feels this way, but it's a hated realization because if that's true, then that means she's addicted to other things too.

Still, Sierra's not sure she cares, not sure she knows how, and she grips the plastic of Sherman's water tightly, too tightly, as she crosses the green with soft almost imaginary steps to Hermes cabin before slamming her fist against the door.

It takes several minutes before Connor Stoll swings the door open, blinking hard and looking like if he leaned against the doorframe for too long he'd be out again.

"You guys got cigarettes?" She asks, and he perks up a little at the prospect of selling stolen goods. Hermes kids. All the fucking same.

"What brand ya want?" His speech is slurred from exhaustion. Sierra doesn't care.

"Don't care, high nicotine content," Connor nods and stumbles back into the cabin, lifting up the floorboard at the back where the kids store the goods they can't sell in the store because Chiron doesn't allow it.

𝕹𝖔𝖇𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖞 𝕭𝖑𝖊𝖊𝖉𝖎𝖓𝖌 ( percy Jackson )¹Where stories live. Discover now