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Annabeth rubbed her hands together ferociously in front of the small fire. The gloves she’d spied hanging out of a dumpster earlier were threadbare, and the left hand was missing the ring finger, so they weren’t doing much to keep her warm in the February air. Still, they were better than nothing. At least that’s what Thalia said.
She looked up to the daughter of Zeus, stirring a can of soup on the other side of the fire. The low flames cast deep shadows across her face, accentuating her already striking features. Annabeth had found her incredibly intimidating the first time she saw her a few weeks ago, but when she’d crouched down to her eye level and smiled softly when she’d told her she wasn’t alone anymore, Annabeth couldn’t help but begin to trust her.
She’d quickly learned that that trust wasn’t returned, though. Not the way she trusted Luke. Annabeth wanted to insist to Thalia that she could fight, that she’d been doing it all on her own before the two of them had found her. She wasn’t very good yet, but she could learn. She could be useful. But Thalia always made her stay behind, taking Luke with her if she took anyone at all.
Sometimes Thalia fought monsters on her own. Those were the scariest times of all. Annabeth would sit beside Luke while they hid, fingers gripping his jacket sleeve tightly, and her mind would spin with all the possibilities of what could be happening to Thalia. Luke would smile and say not to worry, that Thalia was tougher than any monster, but she could see the anxiety in his furrowed eyebrows and clenched jaw.
But eventually, Thalia would always come back.
“Ugh!” Thalia groaned, breaking Annabeth’s train of thought. The can hit the ground with a loud clunk.
“What’s wrong?” Luke asked, crossing his legs as he sat down beside her.
“I’m so tired of beef stew,” Thalia said. “I want real food.”
Luke looked into the fire for a moment, considering. “We could go back into town. There was a Chinese restaurant on the corner.”
“Luke,” Thalia warned. “You know that’s not a good idea.”
“We have the money for it right now, after…” Luke looked at Annabeth from the corner of his eye. “After that nice man let us borrow his wallet.”
Thalia snorted. “Right. Still, it’s safer in the woods.”
“I bet they have a buffet.” He added, smiling a little.
She fought the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Buffets are my favorite.”
“I know.”
They stared at each other in silence, the orange light illuminating the sides of their faces. The way Luke looked at Thalia reminded Annabeth of the way she’d sometimes seen her father looking at his new wife, before she’d run away. She thought Thalia deserved to be looked at in that way much more than her stepmother.
“I like Chinese food, too,” Annabeth said.
Luke’s head jerked towards her, like he’d forgotten for a moment that she was sitting there. “Well, I think that settles it, then,” he said with a grin.
They quickly gathered their meager collection of essentials, stuffing everything down into their backpacks haphazardly. Luke would complain later, he hated when his clothes got wrinkly, but they were all so excited by the promise of fresh food that it didn’t matter now. Thalia stamped the fire out underneath her heavy boot before they set off down the trail back towards the little town they’d passed through earlier that day.
As they tramped through the woods, Annabeth watched Thalia’s head slowly rotate back and forth as she scanned the darkness. She’d noticed Thalia doing this anytime they moved at night, so Annabeth had been trying to remember to do the same. She synced her movements so that she was looking left when Thalia looked right, and felt a thrill of accomplishment when she finally got the timing down.
Soon the glow of the town lights began to shine through the trees. Annabeth’s stomach growled in anticipation as the road came into view. Only a few cars were out and about this late in the evening, and no one spared a second glance for the three kids walking down the edge of the pavement.
A small, dimly lit restaurant sat to the left of the road. A big sign that read CHINA WOK in red letters hung over the front entrance. Only one truck sat in the gravel lot — a promising sign.
“Let me take a look,” Thalia said, holding out an arm to push Annabeth and Luke out of the streetlight.
They watched on as Thalia jogged up to the building, her quick breaths clouding in the cold air. She examined the side of the restaurant before crouching below a window and peeking in. Her face split into a grin, and she waved the two up.
“Buffet,” she confirmed giddily. Annabeth bounced on the toes of her feet as Luke laughed quietly.
As soon as they stepped in the door, a bell jingling over their heads, the smell of food wrapped around them like a loving hug. Annabeth’s mouth started watering so much she was afraid she might start drooling like a dog. The three of them nearly floated to the booth the server led them to, and they barely stayed in their seats long enough to give their drink orders before speeding over to the buffet table.
Rice, soups, egg rolls, skewers of meat, even Annabeth’s favorite — lo mein noodles — all piping hot and ready to be devoured. Annabeth grabbed a dish from the top of the stack and made a beeline to the lo mein, being careful to not let any noodles drop as she piled them onto her plate. She made sure to stop and spoon a couple kinds of chicken over top of her noodles, carefully avoiding any onions. Grumbling internally, she did pluck a couple pieces of broccoli out and added it to her plate.
She walked back over to the table, where Thalia was already sitting with nothing other than a bowl of soup in front of her. She sipped broth off her spoon and did a little happy dance in her seat, and for a moment she looked as young as she really was.
“I thought you didn’t want soup,” Annabeth said as she slid into the opposite booth. She tugged her sad looking gloves off and shoved them in her jacket pockets.
Thalia shook salt into the steaming bowl in front of her, pure joy lighting up her eyes. “This isn’t just any soup, Annabeth. This is wonton soup.”
“What’s a wonton?” She asked.
Thalia fished around her bowl with her spoon and lifted a dumpling out of the broth. “See? It’s filled with meat. It’s delicious, especially with lots of scallions. I used to get a big container of this and share it with — um.”
Thalia did this sometimes, where it seemed like she was going to mention someone but stopped herself before she said their name. Annabeth always wondered who that person was to Thalia, but she knew what it was like to not want to talk about your past, so she never asked.
“Anyways,” Thalia said, plastering a smile back on her face. “Do you want to try one?”
Annabeth shook her head. She didn’t want to take any of the food Thalia was so excited about, even if she could get more from the buffet. Plus, she really did hate onions.
“What you got looks good,” Thalia said. “I like broccoli, too.”
Annabeth smiled, suddenly very grateful that she put something green on her plate. She didn’t want Thalia to see her as a baby that thought vegetables were gross, even though she still kind of did. She speared a piece of broccoli and popped it into her mouth for good measure, and did her best not to make a face.
Luke, on the other hand, sat down next to Annabeth with two plates stacked high with nothing but crab rangoons.
Thalia and Annabeth stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
Thalia pinched her lips together for a second before a laugh burst out of her mouth. Annabeth joined her, giggling so hard she had to set her fork down to clutch at her stomach.
“Oh, come on, they’re my favorite! Whatever,” Luke said, rolling his eyes. Annabeth saw the way Thalia winked at him, though.
They all ate their fill, Luke going back for a third plate of real food while Thalia had another bowl of soup and a rangoon off Luke’s plate. That earned her a glare from him, to which she stuck her tongue out in reply. Annabeth ate her whole plate, broccoli and all, and was sharing a bowl of banana pudding with Luke as Thalia handed the waiter money for their bill.
“You have to leave extra for a tip,” Luke reminded her.
“Oh, right. Americans,” she grumbled as she fished more bills from her pocket.
Luke laughed, then leaned over and ruffled Annabeth’s hair. “Let’s get out of here.”
She smiled up at him and scooted out of the booth behind him.
Back out in the cool night air, Thalia in front as usual, they trudged back down the road and into the woods. Annabeth put her head on a swivel again, and she heard Luke snicker behind her.
“What’s so funny back there?” Thalia asked over her shoulder.
“Oh, nothing,” Luke replied. “It’s just nice to have another person watching out for us.”
Pride and something that felt dangerously close to belonging warmed Annabeth. She made sure she stayed vigilant in her watch, carefully scanning each shadow under the trees.
They’d almost made it back to their campsite when she saw the eyes.
Annabeth stopped dead in her tracks, so suddenly that Luke ran into her back.
“Oof— Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.
She stayed silent, staring straight back at the pair of orange animal eyes peering at her from the dark. Fear crept up her neck, sending goosebumps down her arms. She blinked, and two more pairs appeared beside the first, higher up off the ground than her head. Luke cursed in Greek.
“Luke?” Thalia asked, backtracking to where they stood. She followed Annabeth’s line of sight and gasped. “Hellhounds. They must’ve smelled our camp.”
“What’s the plan?” Luke asked, putting a hand on Annabeth’s shoulder and moving her behind him.
“Get Annabeth out of here. Go back to town.” Thalia pulled her spear out, weaving it through the air. “The restaurant has a basement, get in there and wait for me.”
“You’re going to fight all three of them on your own?!” Annabeth cried. “You can’t!”
“Sure I can,” Thalia said. “And I won’t be on my own.”
She murmured, and Aegis sprung to life around her wrist. She brought the shield in front of her and positioned her spear above it, glaring fiercely towards the eyes that had slowly started to approach. Annabeth thought she’d never looked so brave.
Luke hadn’t moved. “Thalia.”
“What? Go! What are you waiting for?”
“Just…” He shifted closer to her. “There’s three of them. Do you have the juice for that?”
Thalia looked at him then, and a ghost of a smile tilted her lips. “Of course I do. Thanks to you, I’m full of wonton soup. That’s enough juice for anything.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, and Annabeth decided that their expressions didn’t really remind her of her father and stepmother after all. Thalia and Luke looked at each other with such openness, like they could share thoughts without speaking them. She’d never seen anything like it before, and somehow it comforted her even as fear threatened to steal her breath. If they believed that Thalia could handle it, then it must be true. She didn’t think either of them would lie to her, but she definitely knew they wouldn’t lie to each other. She hoped she had a bond like that with someone, someday.
“Okay.” Luke finally said, moving Annabeth to his other side back towards the road. “Be careful.”
A confident smirk twisted Thalia’s mouth now as she turned back towards the woods. “I always am.”