Chapter Text
Chapter 1- An Ivy League Murders A Pinata
I’m waiting. Whoever thought sending me a yale for my birthday would be funny, fess up. Because let me tell you—it was not funny. It wouldn’t even have been funny if you sent me to Yale, but sending me a yale—not funny at all.
Alright, alright, I’ll do the thing, calm down!
My name is Percy Jackson. As of today, I’m thirteen years old. My dad is the god Poseidon, and my best friend is also my bitterest enemy. If any of this is sounding strange to you, you should probably just stop reading. It only gets worse from here.
There, I did it. Now onto the story.
I was fairly certain I was going to die, but that was nothing new. As my feet pounded against the cement, I let out a string of curses, and weaved into a back alley. The yale chasing me had long horns which stuck out to the side, so I was hoping that if I found an ally small enough, it wouldn’t be able to follow me. Unfortunately, the city has been cracking down on just that type of alley in their war against drugs, leaving me nowhere to hide. If I died, I was definitely suing the city.
The path in front of me came to a dead-end, and towering apartments rose to either side. In front of me, there was a tall wire fence, and behind me, a lumbering brown yak with horns longer than my body. Since I was more Aquaman than Spiderman, and I didn’t feel like becoming a Percy-kabob, I decided to take my luck with the fence. It was lower than the climbing wall at school, and no lava, so I figured I could manage.
I should have just capped Riptide and put her in my pocket, but it’s against my personal code to ever do the logical thing. Instead I tossed the sword on the other side, and began to climb, squeezing the toes of my sneakers between rungs, gripping tight to the steaming metal. It was hot out, and sweat poured down my face.
All week I’d been wondering if my water powers worked on sweat, but I hadn’t tested it out. Maybe now I’d get my chance.
The yale rammed itself into the fence, its horns just missing me. Thank the gods! I thought, continuing to climb. But, of course, I jinxed myself. The yale’s horn had missed me, true, but it had gotten stuck between two rungs of the fence. As it tried to pull free, the whole fence shattered and shook. I flew off of it, landing with a hard thud on the ground. The fence fell with me, the yale’s horns still stuck within it. The monster thrashed about, throwing the fence like it was a bucking bronco.
I hissed in pain as the rusty metal scraped at my skin, but managed to jump out of the way. Just then, the yale tossed its head. The fence broke in half around its horn, pieces flying everywhere. A large chunk of metal hit me in the gut, winding me. I couldn’t breathe, never mind move, but I didn’t have much choice. The yale was angry, howling. For some reason, though it looked like a cross between a bull and an antelope, when it howled it sounded decidedly like a very annoyed tabby cat. It sent chills up my spine, especially as it charged the broken fence in retribution.
Then, before I could even catch my breath, it remembered its real target. I might as well have worn a fancy Spanish suit and waved a red flag.
I took off running the moment it charged. As I hoped over the broken fence, I felt Riptide reappear in my pocket. I didn’t take the time to uncap her though, because the yale’s horns were ginormous, and I’d get skewered long before I got a hit in. Instead, I did what all smart demigods do when faced with monsters.
I ran.
In NYC, you don’t really get a backyard, but there were backstreets which people used as their own. As I ran from the yale, I found myself passing straight through what appeared to be a Mexican birthday party. A cute little girl in a fancy dress she swung at a pinata while her tíos y tías chattered in Spanish.
Enter me. I plowed straight through the party, yale right behind me, causing them all to scream. I don’t know what they saw through the mist, maybe a giant cow because the girl shouted ‘Vaca!”
I didn’t really have time to remember what I’d learned in 5th grade Spanish, because suddenly I had to worry about the yale killing them as well. Normally monsters wouldn’t hurt mortals if there was a demigod around to eat, but this little girl and I were birthday twins, so I didn’t want to take any chances with her life.
I drew Riptide and fell into a fighting stance. The family screamed, no doubt seeing a gun or something, but I didn’t worry about them. I didn’t have time to worry about them; the yale was charging at me, horns spiny like a drill. As I watched it charge, I knew I was dead. There was no way I was going to be able to stab it before it stabbed me; it’s horns were twice as long as Riptide. My only change would be to jump to the side last minute and I hope I could skewer it before it skewered me.
A flash of color flew over my head and smacked the yale in the face. It was the pinata, and the yale quickly turned to its newest enemy. It let out a bleating meow, then stabbed the limp pinata. Candy bled out of it, but the yale wasn’t satisfied. It stabbed the poor pinata again, then spun its horn.
Friendly advice, don’t put pinatas in a blender. That’s basically what the yale did, and it wasn’t pretty. I never knew it was possible to have nightmares about pinatas, but as I watched the yale mutilate snickers bars, I doubted I’d ever sleep again.
Then I realized I would be sleeping in Hades if I didn’t take advantage of the yale’s distraction. Without further hesitation, I charged the beast, hacking off its head with one quick stroke. The monster burst into dust, but one of the horns remained, the entrails of the pinata hanging off it.
I don’t know why I found it so disgusting, but I did. I turned away so I didn’t vomit, and found myself staring face-to-face with a little girl holding a baseball bat. Only then did I realize that in order for the pinata to go flying like that, someone must have hit it. Considering the rest of the party-goers were cowering, it was clear who’d helped me. This little girl, five years old according to the candles on her cake, had saved my life with a pinata.
When the girl saw me looking, she beamed brightly, then exclaimed, “Hooray! A pinata!”
I blushed. I didn’t quite know what to say to that, not that I got the chance. The girl’s mother came running from behind the table, scooping up her daughter and looking horrified at me. Sighing internally, I prepared to run for it before they called the cops, but then I heard the woman whisper, “Hermes?”
It was like a baseball bat to the gut, like I was the pinata. I turned to look at her, really look at her, and realized she wasn’t looking through my sword the way mortals usually did. She was looking right at it, the little girl as well. My heart dropped. I studied the girl’s face, and sure enough, I could see Luke—I mean Hermes—in her features. All the children of Hermes had that same mischievous glint, and it would explain how she’d managed to hit the pinata straight into the ram. I remembered from my own childhood the strange things half-bloods could do when threatened. This was nothing.
The woman was still staring at me. Stop getting distracted Percy! I opened my mouth, though I had nothing to say. I didn’t exactly look like Hermes, not that a god couldn’t look like me if they tried. But still. I doubted Hermes had fathered a child with this woman looking like a thirteen-year-old with acne. I had to remind her of Hermes in another way.
Probably with my talent for getting in way over my head.
“Uh… no,” I answered, which was about as good a response as anyone would come up with in my situation. “I know him though… I mean. Sort of. We’ve met a few times. I know his…”
I trailed off completely there. I’d been doing really well all summer in my quest to forget all about Luke. It had almost gotten easier too. But now my progress had been demolished like the pinata. This little girl didn’t really resemble Luke. She was Latina; Luke was pale as ice. Plus, this girl was five years old and chubby cheeked; there was nothing about Luke which resembled innocence what-so-ever. But the glint in their eyes was the same, so Luke had to be her brother. Her big brother.
I pitied her immediately. I knew what it was like to have Luke as a big brother, and it wasn’t pretty.
“But you are like her?” the woman finally whispered, accent thick, but words sure. “You are un mestizo?”
Now that one got me. I distinctly remembered one of my history teachers hitting me over the head with a hammer in a desperate attempt to teach me the difference between a mestizo and a mulatto in colonial Latin America. It hadn’t worked, because I still couldn’t remember it, but that had been in 5th grade, before I came to Achilles Academy. Somehow I doubted my teacher was saying there were a bunch of half-bloods running around the Spanish colonies.
Then it occurred to me that maybe other cultures had different words for things, words that didn’t necessarily translate directly. Her meaning was clear enough after all. Hermes must have told her what to expect when she realized she was pregnant. Not a surprise. I’d known for a while that he was one of the gods who actually tried to be a half-descent parent.
“Yeah, I am,” I admitted with a shrug. The little girl had her eyebrows all scrunched up as she looked between me and her mom. It was kind of cute, though I worried she was about to throw a fit. Didn’t kids normally do that?
Her mother didn’t say anything else immediately. I realized after a moment of us all just standing there that she didn’t have anything else to say at all my the looks of it. Awkwardly rubbing my neck, I backed up.. The mutilated candy, already melting in the heat, smooshed beneath my sneakers, the chocolate staining them a putrid shade of brown.
The yale’s horn twisted horn was still just lying there, and I picked it up, slinging it over my shoulder. Then I turned to leave, only pausing for a moment to say, “Nice job with that baseball bat. When you get to AA, you should definitely join the softball team. Happy birthday!”
The daughter of Hermes gave me a look of disapproval that was frighteningly familiar, and I took off towards home. I’d need to find someone to stash my little trophy; my mom hated it when I brought monster parts into the house.
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I ended up tossing the horn into the dumpster outside my apartment; it wasn’t like I actually wanted the thing. Then I went inside, hoping to wipe away the grime before my mom got home from work. I’d made the mistake back in July of mentioning to her the kerastis which had attacked me by the basketball courts, and she’d almost had a heart attack. It didn’t matter to her that these mythological snakes were hardly the size of my shoe, they had horns, and so they were monsters. Μοm didn’t like it when I got attacked by monsters, which was understandable, but since it wasn’t really something I could prevent, I’d taken the easier path of just not telling my mom when things happened. I was fine; I knew how to fight. There was no need to worry her.
Unfortunately, my mom must have come home early for my birthday, because I could hear her in our apartment. I did my best to scrub the dirt and chocolate off the bottom of my shoes. When that didn’t work, I just took them off, brushed the monster dust off my shirt, and tried to act cool.
“Surprise!”
I’ll admit it—I jumped. I’d come to expect the unexpected, but somehow the idea of my mom throwing me a surprise birthday party hadn’t even crossed my mind. Since most of my friends from school lived in different states, I’d told her I didn’t need any sort of party. Because she was awesome, she hadn’t listened.
When I looked around, though, I realized it wasn’t really a party. The only ones there besides my mom were Celia, Bianca, and Nico. I was strangely disappointed that Annabeth hadn’t come, but pushed that away. Then I realized that, with Luke gone, I really didn’t have any male friends, and decided to work on that once I got back to school. Because Nico was ten, and didn’t count.
Speaking of Nico… the scrawny kid came running up to me, smile bright across his face as he said, “Happy birthday Percy.”
“Uh, you too,” I dumbly answered. Then I promptly smacked myself. Really Percy? Nice going. Whatever, wasn’t my fault. I was *surprised* after all.
“Happy birthday Percy,” my mom echoed, pulling me into a bright hug. I blushed slightly; it wasn’t exactly cool to hug your mom in front of your friends. But then I decided that was stupid, because once you lose your mom to Hades, you stop caring if people know you love her.
Speaking of Hades, I caught sight of Bianca standing off to the side, green cap hiding her face. She looked strangely tired, weary even, but smiled when she caught me looking. “Happy birthday Percy.”
I greeted Celia, who chatted eagerly about how I needed to come visit her so we could go sailing. Then my mom pulled some enchiladas from the oven, and we all sat down to eat. It was a little awkward. My mom had never met any of my friends from school, and I could see her hesitation to mention the whole Greek-gods-are-real thing. But then Nico happened to slip up and admit he’d given me a mythomagic starter pack as my gift, we all laughed, and the mood chilled. Really, we were just normal kids.
If my mom happened to do a spit-take with her water when Bianca mentioned being born in the 20’s… Well, normal-enough kids, at least.
After dinner, we opened presents, and Nico showed me for the millionth time how to play Mythomagic, so I could get good use out of my starter pack. Bianca gave me a cool looking clay pot she’d apparently made and decorated herself, and when I looked at it, I realized it bore scenes of my quest from last winter. There I was, blowing up the water park in the Lotus Casino, talking to Hermes outside a YMCA, and fighting a Hellhound in the middle of a rest stop. It was absolutely beautiful, though the image which started it all—Luke stealing the lightning bolt while I slept—made me sad.
I pushed that down; surely I’d thought about Luke enough for one day. Instead I turned to Bianca, telling her, “This is beautiful. How did you make it?”
She blushed, and pulled her cap further over her head. “I uh.. I’m good with things from the earth, I guess.”
Oh. Right. I forgot that Hades was also the god of riches from the earth. I would never have considered pottery as akin to gold and jewels, but Bianca’s really was beautiful, so I could see how it was equally as priceless.
Celia admitted then that she hadn’t gotten me a gift, which made me feel better, because her birthday was in like four days, and I didn’t have a gift for her either. Then we all played a round of Mythomagic, which I had to admit, was strangely amusing. Especially when I decided to improve the game by making my own cards for heroes we knew. Was it mean to give Clarisse ‘ugly face’ with 700 attack points? Yeah, probably, but it was fun.
Celia left first, because her mom and she were spending the night with family in Connecticut. Once she was gone Bianca, Nico, and I stayed up talking, but soon enough Bianca sent Nico to bed as well. Then it was just the two of us.
I never new quite how to feel about Bianca. The daughter of Hades was my cousin, the only other person who knew what it was like to be a child of the Big Three, but we weren’t all that alike. Bianca tended to fade into the background, and no matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to stand out. Just looking at her you’d never know she could open up cracks in the earth which led straight to the Underworld, but she could. I’d seen it, and when I thought about it, it freaked me out a little.
But the real thing that weirded me out about Bianca was how we met. Try as I may, I couldn’t forget that Aphrodite had sent me to the Lotus Casino on a quest for tragic love. So far as I could tell, I didn’t like her, but how could I ever know? Every time I saw her, I remembered I was supposed to love her, and felt stupid or embarrassed. That made it really hard to know how I actually felt about her.
So as we sat on the floor of my living room, I took every effort to keep a certain distance between us, and wondered just how red my face could get before Bianca noticed. Not that she was paying me much attention at all. She seemed lost in her thoughts, and I discovered why when she admitted, “I’ve been looking into our history.”
She looked up and her cap fell off. She didn’t bother to fix it, instead pulling it into her lap and wringing it like a wet rag. Her nervousness was evident, and so I took it upon myself to ask, “What did you find?”
“Nothing,” she admitted with a sigh, leaning back so her head was on the couch, looking up at the ceiling. “Absolutely nothing. All I can remember is that we lived in Washington D.C. after my father wiped our memories, but there were dozens of families named di Angelo in D.C. then. I can’t even remember my mother’s name.”
I couldn’t imagine that. Sure, I’d spent most of my life without a clue of who my dad was, but it was different for Bianca. Most likely she’d known—and loved—her mother. Then, Hades had wiped her memory and left her in a hotel for sixty years. Why? Hiding them from Zeus I got, but why wipe their memories? I just didn’t get it, and clearly Bianca didn’t either. From the looks of it, it was driving her a little insane.
“And sometimes I feel… I feel like Nico doesn’t even want to remember. All he wants is to be normal, to be accepted. But I’m not sure that’s possible for us. I know it’s not possible for me.”
I felt for Bianca. I really did. Her own father took everything from her and then left them flat. Now she had a little brother to take care of and a million secrets she couldn’t share with anyone. She didn’t even know how old she was, which was important, because if she was any older than I was…
Three years. It felt like a long time, but I knew it really wasn’t. In three years one of us would either save Olympus, or destroy it. There were times when both prospects were equally horrible, especially when I admitted that it would probably come down to the choice between joining Luke and stopping him.
I scooted closer to Bianca, my awkward self-consciousness forgotten. It was clear she was hurting, and I couldn’t deny her the little comfort of a hand upon her shoulder. Our eyes met, and I told her firmly, “No, it’s not possible for you to be normal. But it’s not possible for me to be normal either. That doesn’t mean we can’t be happy though. If you can’t figure out where you’ve come from, figure out where you’re going. My mom is always telling me not to let anyone else determine my path, not even my father. Don’t let your father determine yours. You’re lucky in a way. You have a clean slate. So don’t live for everyone else; live how you want.”
I thought my words sounded pretty darn encouraging, but Bianca mustn’t have agreed. She frowned, sticking her hands deep into her pockets, “It’s not that easy. I have Nico to think about. What would make me happy might hurt him, and I can’t do that, can I?”
I wished desperately that Annabeth was here. She was the smart one. She’d know what to tell Bianca. But Annabeth was still in Virginia, hopefully finding some peace with her own family. It was up to me, even if I was definitely the wrong person to be giving such advice. “I guess… I guess it depends on what you want, and how it would hurt him. I mean if you plan on stabbing him and joining the circus yeah, that’s probably not a good thing, but if it’s something else… You can hurt someone without harming them, you know? Sometimes the things we have to do for ourselves can hurt those we love, but if we really love them we’re not going to do anything that would actually harm them. Does that make any sense at all?”
I doubted it. It was hard for me to find the words to describe something so complex. But Bianca got something from it, because her eyes lit up, and she nodded, “Yeah, it does. Sometimes we have to do things which hurt those we love, but it’s for the best in the end. Thanks Percy. You’re kind of smart when you’re not trying.”
I chuckled at that, then silence fell over us. After a minute, Bianca climbed to her feet. “I’m going to go to bed. Nico and I need to get back to camp pretty early tomorrow or Chiron’s going to tie his tail in a knot. He really didn’t think it was safe for us to come, but your mom can be pretty scary when determined.”
I smirked, imagining my mom yelling at Chiron and Mr. D, not even caring that they were both immortal. I was glad she’d planned this. It was a good reminder that for the first time I had friends to return to at school. It made me almost long for summer to end, and school to start once more. (But then I thought of math class, and decided to enjoy the present.)
ΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέαςΠερσέας
My mom had generously offered Bianca and Nico my room for the night, so I was sleeping on the couch. Once Bianca was gone, I sat on the floor for a few more minutes, before ducking into the bathroom to get ready for bed. I’ll admit it, I was sitting on the toilet when a rainbow appeared before me.
I’d never received an Iris message before, but I’d heard of them, so I scrambled to pull on my pants before the image appeared. I didn’t know who’d be calling me maybe Annabeth, maybe my dad—though that was likely wishful thinking. Whoever it was, I didn’t want them to catch me with my pants down.
Luckily I was quick, and by the time the image fully formed, I was fully clothed. Though in a way, when I realized who the caller was, I was caught with my pants down in another sense.
It was Luke. I shouldn’t have been surprised, this was exactly the kind of thing he’d do, but I was anyways. He looked exactly the same as he’d looked last June—tall, strong, confident. He wore a suit and tie, something I never would have expected to see him in, but it made him look like a proper adult. I supposed, at nineteen, he almost was.
“Happy birthday, Percy.”
I didn’t get Luke. I really didn’t. He and I were enemies. I’d made I very clear that I wouldn’t join him. Whether or not his cause was good, I didn’t trust Kronos, and he shouldn’t either. But he did, so that made us enemies.
But he certainly didn’t act like my mortal enemy. Instead, he acted like I was his wayward little brother, like I was the one who needed to see sense. It infuriated me. It also confused me. It would have been easier to hate Luke if he didn’t keep acting like my friend.
“Thanks.”
What? I wasn’t going to be rude. My mother taught me better than that. You still said your ‘p’s and ‘q’s to your traitorous best friend.
Luke ignored my tone. There was music in the background, and the sun was just setting behind him. He must have been on the west coast, at some sort of fancy party. Maybe it had something to do with that cruise ship of his I’d seen in port by school at the end of the year. It was certainly a step up from the over-crowded Hermes cabin, I’d say that.
And a part of me was just jealous. I wasn’t the kind of kid who got to go to fancy parties on cruise ships. This summer I wasn’t even getting a vacation. We’d hoped to go to the cabin, but mom’s tuition was expensive, we’d decided it just wasn’t a good time for her to take off from work. I didn’t resent her for that, but a part of me resented Luke for living the high life while we had nothing.
You could have that too if you just joined him, a little voice whispered in my mind. I told myself it was Kronos, but that wasn’t true. No, it was just me. The darker parts of me, sure, but still me. Unlike Luke, though, I didn’t give into these selfish parts. I’d rather be poor than a slave, and however nice Luke’s life might look, Kronos was still using him. We’d learned in school how important the slaves of Rome’s emperors were, but that didn’t mean they weren’t slaves.
“I can’t talk for long,” Luke continued, smiling softly. “But I realized it was a lot later there, and I needed to catch you before you went to bed. Have you had a good day?”
I told myself Luke deserved the silent treatment, then promptly answered him anyways, “Yeah, it was pretty good. I got attacked by a yale and met your little half-sister. Then my mom threw me a surprise party. Not big or anything, but a few people from school, Celia, Bi...”
“Wait a second,” Luke interrupted, looking nervous. His eyes were bright and he wrung out his hands. “Did you say you got attacked my a yale? You didn’t kill it, did you?”
What, were we only supposed to kill the monsters with state schools named after them? “It was trying to kill me and a five-year-old. Of course I killed it!”
Luke shook his head, and cursed under his breath. I was getting annoyed with him by the time he deigned to actually explain, “You shouldn’t have done that, Percy. Yales are an endangered species of monster. You’ll be lucky if Artemis doesn’t shoot you for that.”
What? Endangered monsters? “Wouldn’t it be a good thing if monsters were to go extinct?”
Luke waved a hand in a vague gesture of ‘don’t ask me’ and explained, “It has something to do with biodiversity as a goal of conservation biology. Don’t ask me. What matters is you have to be careful. You don’t need to give the gods more reason to hate you.”
“But I didn’t know! And it was trying to kill me! Artemis wouldn’t really kill me for defending myself. That’s not fair.”
Luke raised a brow, and I knew, even before he opened his mouth, exactly what he was going to say. I bit my lip hard, though, and listened to him say it, “Percy, when have you ever known the gods to be fair?”
Let me get something straight from the start. Luke wasn’t wrong about the problems with the gods. Actually, he was right. The gods stunk. They were selfish and cruel at their worst, and at their best, they were indifferent. But they were family, and they were better than Kronos, so in the end, I would defend them. I would even fight for them. That didn’t mean though that I was blind to the truth.
Luke ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it. If he really was on a cruise ship in California, he’d embraced the surfer-boy he’d always resembled. The only thing which ruined the look was the long scar beneath his eye, a permanent sign of his grievances with the gods. It was as much a part of his face as his nose, so generally I didn’t even see it, but it seemed more prevalent that night.
Finally, he sighed and said, “Hopefully Artemis will let it go to avoid angering your father, but you should check out EndangeredMonsters.com for a list before you do it again. But Percy, you need to be more careful.”
I suddenly felt very bitter. Who was Luke to tell me to be careful? He was the one who’d made himself the enemy of the gods themselves. If either of us needed to be careful, it was him, but Luke wasn’t the type to live carefully. “Look who’s talking.”
I had intended to sound bitter, but it ended up sounding like I was teasing him. Maybe I was, and Luke knew it. A smile spread across his lips. “You’re a proper teenager now, snark and all.”
Snark—what a word. Still it made me smile as well, and I chuckled, “Yeah, but you’ve got angsty teen down-pat.”
Luke laughed, a real proper laugh that made my heart ache. Gods I missed him. We’d spent months sitting up all night, talking just like this. There was no one else I could do that with anymore. They were all a lot more serious, and they just didn’t get it the way Luke did. Probably because they were all girls—or ten.
Then Luke’s gaze darkened, and I remembered he could be pretty serious at times as well. “I need to get back to the party. There are some big benefactors here tonight, but I called to tell you about your present. I’ve rented out that cabin in Montauk for you and your mom for the last week of August, and in your mom’s bank account she’ll find more than a week’s wages. You two deserve to have some fun, and I have more money than I know what to do with these days.
I was more than a little embarrassed, and angry as well. I didn’t need Luke’s blood money… and yet… yet I did. My mom deserved a break more than anyone, and this was the only way she was going to get one. Maybe you had to beware Greeks bearing gifts, but you couldn’t look the gift horse in the mouth either.
So I swallowed down my pride, and accepted the gift for what it was- part bribe, part apology. “Thank you. I appreciate you thinking about me.”
Luke laughed, and I didn’t know what he found funny until he said, “Please, Percy. I think about you ever day. This is for you, remember? Even if you’re not ready. Even if you’re too selfish to help. What I do, I do for you, and for all of us.”
Maybe it was the cake in my belly, or maybe Luke’s bribe was just working, but I didn’t bother fighting with him. Instead, I asked a dangerous question, “Can I… can I call you like this again?”
He held back his smile, but I could tell how thrilled Luke was with my words. “You shouldn’t. It’s not very secure, and if the gods find out we’ve talked, you’ll be in danger. But if you ever need anything, I’ll be here. Though, Percy, we’ll see each other sooner than you expect anyways. Until then, stay safe, find me if you need help, and enjoy your vacation. Oh, and happy birthday.”
Before I could say anything, the image flickered out. I stood in the bathroom for a little while longer, leaning against the wall and trying to sort out my feelings for Luke. He was such an idiot, but it took a true friend to buy you a vacation with their newfound wealth. Never mind the fact that he’d taken a big risk calling me. (And I certainly didn’t miss that my father had not taken such a risk at all).
Finally I decided just to go to bed. I would never really sort out Luke’s problem; I just had to keep trying to save him in any way I could. Though, as I fell asleep, I found myself wondering just why I’d be seeing him again sometime soon.