Chapter Text
Isaac Newman slept fitfully, as he had for the past three nights, as if restful slumber had decided to stay behind when he left Oneida. He laid still in a borrowed sleeping bag, staring up at the unfamiliar rafters of the Hermes cabin, his heart thudding so hard it felt like it might wake everyone else. The week had already been too much. Maybe it was the goat-man. Maybe it was the monsters. Maybe it was the activities director who couldn’t eat or drink and smiled too sharply, or the god who smelled like grapes and called him Isaiah.
He had only been in the Hermes cabin three days, but Isaac already knew it was never quiet. During the day, its overcrowded residents came and went in a constant churn of laughter, arguments, and slammed doors. At night, bunks creaked as their occupants tossed and turned, night owls whispered until the early hours, and the boy in the sleeping bag beside him snored loudly. No, the Hermes cabin was never quiet. But the thin, high sound of someone crying and trying desperately to stop was new.
He tried for several moments to ignore it, but eventually, curiosity and concern got the better of him. He swallowed, slid out of his sleeping bag, and began creeping over the sleeping forms of the other campers who didn’t have bunks.
The sound led him to the wide covered porch just outside where someone had lit a lantern. Travis Stoll, one of his counselors, sat on the top step, a little girl curled into his side like a burr. She couldn’t have been more than seven. Her tawny blonde curls were a mess, her freckled cheeks blotchy and red, and her fists were twisted into Travis’s shirt as though letting go would mean falling off some unknown precipice.
“I want my mama,” she sobbed, her voice muffled by Travis’s sleeve. “I want my mama. The monsters are gonna get her, Travis. They’re gonna get Mama and Bubbe and Zayde—“
“Don’t say that,” he said, awkwardly rubbing circles over her back. Isaac vaguely remembered someone saying Travis and Connor had only recently become counselors because the previous one had left camp to work for someone evil. The specifics still weren’t clear to him and he got the feeling the older campers made it that way on purpose. Whatever the reason for his recent promotion, Travis was still obviously adjusting to his new role. “They’re ok. You’re ok.”
Isaac hesitated at the edge of the light. He didn’t want to intrude, but she looked so small. Smaller than he felt and he already felt like he was drowning.
“They won’t get them,” he blurted out.
They both looked up.
The girl’s eyes were wide and wet, her dark gaze furious. She obviously didn’t like having been caught crying. Travis raised an eyebrow, half skeptical, half curious.
Isaac swallowed nervously under their attention and squared his shoulders. He was eight years old, alone, and desperate to be useful.
“Monsters only go after demigods, right?” He said quickly. “That’s what everyone says. So if you’re here, the monsters won’t want to get your mom.”
For a moment, he thought he’d fixed everything. Then, her face crumpled completely.
“Then I can’t go home,” she said, the start of something like panic growing in her eyes. “If they’re only safe because I’m not there, then I can never go home!” She buried her face in Travis’s shoulder, sobbing harder than before.
Isaac’s stomach dropped. “That’s—that’s not what I meant,” he said, panic creeping into his voice. “I just—“
Travis stiffened, looking just as dismayed as Isaac felt. “That’s not—“ he said, a little too quickly. “Laila, listen to me, it’s—“ his mouth pinched in a frustrated line, but he didn’t finish the sentence.
Isaac might’ve only been eight, but he could hear everything that silence contained. Travis didn’t assure her that everything would be fine and she could go home to her family and they would all be safe. He couldn’t. That would be a lie.
Trying to fix things, he reached for the next thing that made sense. “Your dad’ll protect them. He’s a god, he’ll keep them safe.”
The silence that followed was almost worse than the crying. Laila went very, very still. Slowly, she pulled back from Travis’s shoulder and gave Isaac an incredulous look.
“My dad doesn’t care,” she said flatly.
Isaac blinked. “What?”
“He doesn’t care about me or my mama,” she said. Her voice shook, but her eyes were sharp. “If he did, he wouldn’t have ruined her life.”
Travis inhaled sharply. “Laila,” he said, suddenly looking very nervous. “Let’s not—“
“I hate him,” she said with every ounce of loathing her little body could produce. “He’s the reason people are mean to my mama. He ruined everything. Zayde said he did.”
Isaac stared, horrified. “You—you can’t say that! He’s a god!”
“So?” She snapped. “Then he should’ve done better!”
Travis shot to his feet and stepped between them, forcing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Ok, let’s all chill for a minute.”
Isaac felt cold all over. Gods were powerful and, from the stories he’d heard since arriving at camp, easily angered. To say something like that, about your own father, no less, felt like tempting fate.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” Isaac said, pleading. “What if he hears you?”
“Good!” She spat, glaring at the sky as though she could see her father among the multitude of stars. “Maybe then he’ll know that I hate him.”
Something ugly and hot twisted in Isaac’s chest. He didn’t know her. He didn’t know her family or where she came from or what had happened to make her so certain her dad didn’t care about her, but he knew she was wrong.
“You’re ungrateful,” he said without thinking.
Her eyes went wide.
Travis groaned and raked a hand through his hair. “Ok,” he said firmly. “Isaac, go back to bed. Now.”
“Oh yeah?” She challenged, ignoring Travis as she glared through red rimmed eyes. “If your dad’s done so much for you, why are you here? Why are you here if he kills the monsters and keeps your mom safe?”
Isaac didn’t move. He didn’t have an answer.
“You don’t know anything,” she said. “You think you’re so smart—“
“I was just trying to help,” he snapped.
‘Well you didn’t!” She yelled back, a new wave of tears starting to fall.
Years later, Isaac wouldn’t remember this moment, but it was then that something between them snapped in two.
Face burning, he turned on his heel and stormed back into the cabin, ignoring the indignant half asleep protests that followed him as he stalked back to his sleeping bag without care for the inhabitants of the many other sleeping bags covering the floor. He laid there for hours, stewing as he listened to her quiet sniffles taper off into exhausted silence.
He told himself he didn’t care. He told himself she was mean and reckless and stupidly unafraid of her actions consequences. He told himself he hated her.
Much later, when Manhattan fell asleep and titans rose and the space beside his sleeping bag went empty forever, that hatred would still be there. It would still burn hot as a branding iron and Laila Goldberg would still look at him like he was the worst thing to ever happen to her.