The Traitor

I get caught, sort of

Alex's POV

It was almost five in the morning when we got out of the club. It had been a minute since I've had this fun. Maybe we should've thought before about the fact that we were going to feel tired the entire day, but I didn't regret my choices. But I couldn't get out of my head what Percy had told me.

The kids had to make their way back home with their part of the potion, we kept the other, and I still didn't know what it was for. We started to say our goodbyes. The first one to come up to me was Annabeth, maybe we had started off on the wrong foot, but we had managed to get along during the night, she was not mean, she was just defensive all the time.

"So I guess this is goodbye," Annabeth started. "Did Percy...?" She didn't have to finish the sentence,"

"Yes, he did." I stopped her. She nodded in silence looking at the floor.

"Just bring him home, ok?" It almost sounded like a beg.

"I promise I'll try." I smiled and hugged her. When we pulled away, I stopped her and said, "Annabeth, about the hunters, it's not that you're not ready. The truth is your skin will never be thick enough. None of ours is. And there's a lot of things that you'll have to give up, that I don't think you should. Take it from someone that couldn't choose."

She thought for a second then walked off. Behind her Percy appeared walking towards my direction.

I smiled, "Bye kiddo, take care." I hugged him.

While we were still holding each other he whispered. "Is Luke staring at me as if he wants to carve my heart out?" He asked. In cue, I looked up from his shoulder and noticed Luke jaw clenching in our direction, then moving his eyes away from us when he noticed I was looking.

"He is." I replied.

"Ok, then I'm right." He let go of me. "If there's anyone that can convince Luke to do the right thing is you." I froze for a second at the statement.

He patted my shoulder one more time before heading towards the group. Grover waved at me before turning around, he was a bit shy around me, I thought he might've been a bit scared of me.

And finally it was just Luke and me again. "So where are we off to now?" I asked him.

He stayed silent for a minute. "Where do you want to go?" I looked at him wide eyed, was he letting me choose? Wouldn't that ruin his plans? But at the same time he was giving me the perfect excuse to take him where I needed. But I felt like I was betraying him, something that didn't matter to me before but it did now.

Even though I didn't want to, I had to do what I was told. "I was thinking, I've never been to New York and we could also visit camp, I've never been." Maybe I was too straight forward, so I cut myself, "Sorry, maybe that diverts us from the mission and..."

"We'll go." He said, looking down at me from his height. "First I need to see Hermes, I have to steal something from him. Will you join me?"

"Of course," Why was I smiling? Damn it.

"Let 's go then." He started walking off. As he did, I started thinking about what Percy told me before.

When we splitted to look for the potion, I ended up alone with him. That gave us time to speak. I've got to confess at first I thought he was flirting with me. Then he explained to me how he had this theory of Luke having a crush on me, which was totally stupid by the way. He told me how they knew about my mission and they were sent to check on it.

But he was redundant about Luke and me.

"Are you really going to tell me you haven't noticed?"

"Percy, even if I did, I can't do anything about it."