stollen things || c. stoll

4.6 ~Spy Kids In Real Life

Within the next few days, some rumors began surfacing. Rumors that me and Connor had 'done it' in the hayloft of the stables (we had not) along with rumors that had started as ghost stories and became common belief. But the most important and disturbing rumor was that of a spy within camp.

During the two weeks after the quest began, the rumor grew and grew to the point where no one trusted anyone anymore. My friends seemed to be the only ones that still believed each other were innocent. I knew none of them would be feeding information to Luke because of how they were. Beckendorf? He was the perfect picture of a hero, he'd never do that. Silena? As feminine as she was, she was brave and stubborn enough to not crack under any pressure. But the brothers were a different story. Obviously I still trusted them, but they were Luke's family. There had to be some good feelings left. I wouldn't accept anything against them, though. As many campers began turning on the Hermes cabin, I tried to stay on their side. It was hard, being harassed over sides I was taking in this horrible fight.

I had all of Hermes backing me up, so anyone that threatened me got some sort of trick the next day.

That was when Connor started acting weird. He didn't seem to want to be around me that much and would look away whenever I tried to catch his eye. I'd look for him during the day or after campfire and he'd be gone. He did spend a lot of time looking at Silena, though. She was absolutely gorgeous, but he had literally just asked me to be his girlfriend. I knew he was a player but was he really that bad?

When I told Madge this, she said I should talk to him. I didn't want to. Maybe if I ignored him for a bit he would notice.

A few days later, when he came to Demeter for cabin checks, I had Madge answer the door. He and Travis walked in and took a peek at the cabin. I stayed facing away from them, braiding my hair. After the brothers had given us our number, I heard Madge shut the door. I thanked her, and we collected our siblings and headed to breakfast.

I was on watch again after breakfast, with Silena and some Ares kids. I tried not to think about Silena and Connor, but it was hard when she wasn't talking to me either. It was obvious that there was something going on if she wouldn't even speak to me. She was constantly on edge as if I was going to blow up on her. When Lee came to switch with us at 3:00, it was just a half hour to free time.

Madge was at canoeing for the rest of the block, so I headed to the cabin to freshen up and wait for her to come back and change. When she came back, we went to the volleyball court for me to blow off steam. I never could control myself with a volleyball, and ended up having to bring Madge to the infirmary and stay with her for the next hour until dinner time. Lee told me she might have a concussion and said that I wasn't allowed to play volleyball for the next two weeks as a punishment. Not that I had  the time anymore, between guard shifts.

It was good to see Lee smiling again. The dark circles under his eyes were starting to fade after we had forbade him from taking the night shifts and making him sleep. We spent the rest of free time talking. When six o'clock came around, Madge agreed to staying in the infirmary to rest and having us bring dinner to her.

We quickly ran it by Chiron when we got to the mess hall and he agreed, so we grabbed our own dinners along with Madges and headed out. I barely caught Connors eye as we were leaving. My stomach dropped. I couldn't keep this up much longer. I needed to talk to him, but I couldn't shake the horrible feeling he still sympathized with Luke. That maybe, just maybe, he could be the spy. But it was impossible. Someone like him could never betray us. If anyone, it was an Ares camper or maybe one of Luke's other siblings. I couldn't remember any of his friends that weren't his siblings or Annabeth, but it was clear that she wasn't the spy.

After a moment of eye contact, I looked back to Lee and we continued to the infirmary. Spending time with Madge was my priority. We ate our lunch together and Madge decided that she wanted to come to campfire singalong with us, so we took our time getting back to the cabin area.

I sat with my cabin, next to Madge, and watched as Lee and his siblings led us all in song. It wasn't nearly as fun as usual, with everyone on such edge. The fire started out gray, but we made do. The one thing every camper could enjoy was the campfire. No matter what, everyone ended up singing and laughing.

We all stumbled back to our cabins, exhausted, and fell asleep quickly. It was one of my only nights off from watch, so I intended to get the most sleep out of it.

It was two days later when everything got so much worse.

•

hi lol short chapter but i'm trying to like extend the amount of chapters in book 4 because i'm getting closer to the end