“Draven agrees with me that they need to go. He was protecting me, not her.” The Hermes girl flips her hair over her shoulder.
“You really are delusional, aren’t you?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Thad, can you take her to Chiron, please? He needs to be aware of what’s going on here.”
“What? You’re going to tell on me?” she scoffs. “You’re supposed to be the one leading us, but you’re going to lead us to ruin if you don’t realize they are all against us.”
I step forward into her space and glare at her. “Have you been in a battle? Do you know what it’s like to almost die or fear for a friend’s life? I do. I have gone into battle over and over for you and everyone else on Earth and you just want more. The enemy just keeps regrouping. You have no fucking idea the horrors I have gone through.”
She takes a small step back, probably scanning the area for an escape, but I’m not done yet.
“Until you have seen the shit that I have or felt the things I did when nearly losing everyone and everything I care about, you don’t get to judge me. Ever. Maybe next time the world is spiraling, I’ll send you to fix it and sit here at the academy where it’s safe.” My tone is deadly calm and that’s the scariest thing of all.
“Um, B? Maybe we should just calm down. The world really will end this time if we send Bethany to save it.” Raven grips my biceps, pulling me away from the girl.
I sigh. “I was just making a point, Raven. I’m not going to leave the fate of the world in her incapable hands.”
“Good. I thought you had lost the plot there for a second.” Raven chuckles.
“Hey, I’m not that bad,” Bethany shouts.
“Thad, get her out of here before I show her how woefully unqualified she is to fuck with me.” I wave a hand dismissively.
Thad grips her arm and marches her to the academic building. Jayden grabs my hand, squeezing it in support as I turn to the Athena girl.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I was sparring with my brother. He’s the only one other than the Ares guys who can give me a challenge. She interrupted our sparring session and got hit accidentally as she was trying to flirt with him. It was seriously pathetic.” She shrugs.
“What hit her? She didn’t appear injured,” I say.
“I think the only thing wounded is her pride. I was in the middle of a combo move when she stepped between us at the exact same time I swept my leg out to take Dawson’s legs out from beneath him but got her instead.”
“What happened next?” I ask, trying my hardest not to laugh.
That shit is funny, especially after the vitriol she was spitting at me a few minutes ago. Everyone at this academy should knowbetter than to just waltz up to someone in the middle of a sparring session. What the fuck was she thinking?
“She got up and started screaming at me, calling me names. It was the same typical bullshit we have been getting for weeks.” She shakes her head. “I’m over it.”
“Yeah, all this hatred has blown up way more than I ever anticipated.” I sigh. “We all fought together in the battle for the academy. We’ve almost been taken out by them five times now and they can’t understand why you all wouldn’t want to side with your parents? That makes zero sense to me.”
“I don’t understand it either and you didn’t even see the half of it, honestly. When you went to save Artemis… well, let’s just say it was bad.” Her shoulders slump.
“How bad are we talking? We’ve been back for days and no one thought to tell us?” I ask.
“It was really bad. They decided to make it as unbearable as possible so we would want to leave. They stopped when you came back because everyone is scared of you. Or they’re scared you’ll just decide we aren’t worth saving and just walk away. I’m not sure which. Probably both.”
“I’m going to start beating people up if they don’t stop this bullshit. There are no more traitors here. Mia is in custody and the students that were brainwashed were just that. Someone has control of their minds. We will fix them.” I roll my shoulders back, clenching my hands at my sides.
“You can’t just go around beating people, baby.” Jayden rubs my shoulder.
“Why not? If they’re acting like idiots, they get treated like idiots, right?”
“I wish that were the case, but if you do that, you become the bully, and I know you don’t want that,” Jayden says.
“Why do you have to be all logical and shit? I just want to beat some sense into a bunch of assholes.” I hang my head.
“You would have to beat up more than half the school,” the Athena girl says. “I’m not completely against that, but it seems impractical when we are training for war.”
“You too? Are you all going to gang up on me?” I ask.
