Chapter Six

(Mutt)

I turn around and cross my arms. “Well?” I ask after a minute of silence. “Look, I know I’m awesome and you can’t stay away but you don’t have to lie and say you want to talk to me.”

“Why do you hate me?” she blurts out.

For a second my smirk slips off my face, then I had to remind myself that it was better if she hated me. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

Moon looks desperate, “Please, just tell me. If I did something to upset you then I really am sorry. Please. Tell me, what did I do?”

The rational part of my mind told me that it was better this way, while the other part wanted me to reassure her that she had done nothing. I never did listen to my rational side anyway.

I shrug, “You didn’t do anything Moon.”

Her face relaxes and she starts to smile.

“But,” I continue, staring into her eyes as her face falls. “I would rather eat the Minotaur then be seen with you.”

Tears shine in her eyes and she looks crestfallen.

I sigh, “That was very rude, look, I’m sorry ok? I don’t mean it like that.”

“Then how do you mean it?” she whispers, voice barely audible.

I glance off towards the ocean's horizon. The dreams have been getting worse since she had set foot in camp. “I can’t be around you Moon. I don’t want you to get hurt. And that’s what would happen if you come near me. It’s better this way, I promise. This way you’re safe.” I back away from her, the same way I did the day she had come.

“Safe? What do you mean?” Moon asks. “Please! Tell me what you mean!”

I don’t answer, instead I turn and sprint back to my room. Barely closing the door before the tears came.

۝

Moon’s POV

Everyone else seemed to have a different opinion on Mutt. In the few times I had met him he had been nothing more than a complete dick. Yet according to everyone else, I seem to be the only lucky one getting said treatment from him. Joy.

I was slightly confused by his behavior towards me, what did I ever do to make him want to be so mean to me? I had literally just got here!

I was walking next to James Tanner, a son of Zeus, and apparently my brother. He was also Head of the Zeus House. Turns out Godville was basically a town for demigods and pretty much everything else mythical.

I hadn’t gone with Derek or Nikki to meet the gods and goddesses, also known as our parents. Instead I had wandered aimlessly through town and my feet had lead me to Mutt. I was still slightly confused by his words. He claimed that he wanted to protect me, but he in no way seemed to want to do that. He just seemed to want to be a dick.

“Earth to Moon?” James says, waving a hand in my face.

I turn to him, “What?”

He sighs, “If you want I can still take you to Olympus, to meet our father.”

He seemed to believe that’s what had me so lost in thought. “No thanks. I don’t want to see him.” After a second I sigh, “What’s he like? Our dad I mean.”

James hesitates for a moment, “Don’t know. Never bothered with him long enough to find out.”

“Why not?” I ask. Slightly surprised, yet semi-grateful that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know.

“Because,” James pauses like he really had no idea himself. “Because I’m afraid to.”

I look up at him surprised, in the time I had known him he didn’t seem afraid of anything really. But I guess everyone has a fear.

“Why are you afraid?” I ask.

“Because the minute I see him, the minute I talk to him. That’s the minute that it becomes real. And I’m not sure if I’m ready for it to be real yet.”

I frown at this, “Isn’t it already real? You live in a town full of demigods.”

He sighs, “I know. But right now I can go to sleep and tell myself it isn’t real. If I meet and have a conversation with Zeus, well then, then it would be real.”

“So what then?” I ask. “You’re just going to pretend that it’s all a dream?”

He laughs as though he heard a joke somewhere in my words, yet I was certain there hadn’t been one. “Don’t you see?” He says, stopping. “Look around Moon. Right now it is a dream.”

Taking his words into consideration I did begin to understand how he might’ve been seeing it. None of this is real to a lot of people. It’s a bedtime story. A dream. A hope that kids hold on to. A feeling that maybe they are part of something great.

I was once one of those kids. Now, not so much. Because over the years I had done the thing every kid does. I had grown up. I had allowed those childish dreams to

crumble away and disappear. After all, it wasn’t always good to dwell in dreams, no matter how much better it seemed than reality.

I was glad that I wasn’t the only one who saw it that way. “Well, it may be a dream. But sometimes you just have to grow up. Though some seem incapable of it.” I said, glaring in the direction of Mutt.
James follows my gaze. “Don’t take his personality lightly. Mutt may be childish but he is also one of the smartest, and best people I know. I haven’t met someone in this town that didn’t love him.”

I snort, “Well you just did. Me.”

James frowns, “Why not?”

I didn’t want to tell him the truth. I didn’t want to crush what this guy thought of his friend. I wasn’t that rude. “Because he’s too damn childish.”

James shakes his head, “You don’t know anything. You don’t realize that it’s all just a front. You haven’t been here at night yet. You don’t know what it’s like for him.”

I shrug, “Doesn’t seem to be much to it.”

James suddenly stiffens, and I knew I had crossed a line. “Do not act like you know anything. You don’t. I can’t make you understand. Understand how he cries himself to sleep every night. Or how he keeps us all up screaming from nightmares he won’t talk to anyone about.

“The fact that whatever he sees in them always will come true, and how hard he tries to make it so it doesn’t happen. He distances himself from everyone that he has nightmares about. Hoping to change fate, to protect them, yet knowing that it's useless. You don’t know what it’s like to watch one of your best friends, one of the best people, fall apart and go insane because he was cursed by our father.”

I stand there, mouth open slightly, completely shocked. Was Mutt telling the truth? Had he seen me in a nightmare? He had said that he wanted to protect me. Could I have just found out why?

James doesn’t stop, “I feel guilty every single time I see his bloodshot eyes or hear him scream. Because my father is Zeus. Zeus who was so jealous that he cursed Poseidon’s first children. And then, after watching Mutt break apart ever so slowly, slowly being driven to insanity. That’s when our father felt sorry. That’s when he decided that he went to far. And that’s when we all figured out that Zeus couldn’t do anything about it. Mutt puts on a childish facade so that no one is sorry for him. So that we don’t worry about him. But at night, at night that slips away. At night he screams and at night he can’t control anything.”

James turned away from me, leaving me there, still horrified at the information I had gathered. But before he walks away, he stops, and half turns towards me.

“Don’t be so quick to judge him, not you. These last few days, he’s been screaming for you. Whatever nightmare he is having, you’re in it. I only hope that it’s not as bad as the last one.”

And then he was gone, disappearing into the Demeter House without a backwards glance. I turn back to Mutt in time to see him turn away and jog towards the ocean.

Not really processing much of the information James had just told me I turn on my heel and walk the other way. Turning around once to meet a pair of ocean blue eyes staring at me from across town. That’s when I break into a sprint. Not caring where I was going, or where I might end up.

Just doing what everyone does. Running away from problems and hoping they can outrun them forever, but knowing it’s impossible.