Second stage: Anger

[ Luke pov ]

As he saw Christina pass out from panic, feeling her breath getting quicker with each passing second, Luke gritted his teeth while consoling her, desperately trying to get her to calm down yet knowing in the back of his mind there was nothing he could do about it, just like when Thalia died...

"Its fine..." muttered Luke as eh continued to hug Christina. "I am right here and we are safe now, so don't worry... I swear I will protect you." he repeated over and over again. Eventually Christina's trembling stopped, her attempts at screaming ceased as well and her breath calmed down.

As he broke the hug and separated from Christina, he saw she had fallen asleep, or passed out perhaps. Her expression was still brimming with fear and sweat still covered her body.

Putting her to rest once more and covering her with the bedsheets, Luke kissed her forehead and exited the infirmary to take some air. Annabeth was still inside the cabin and Luke knew that the screams of Christina must have woken her up, even if she pretended to continue sleeping, so it would be fine if he went on a walk and left Annabeth in charge.

As he walked around the now empty camp, he focused his attention on the moon, which was glowing brightly in the night sky. He entered the woods and headed to Thalia's tree, though to him it was just Thalia's grave.

Resting against the tree while siting down on the cold grass, Luke touched the ground and felt the soil coming in contact with his fingers.

"Tell me Thalia... what am I supposed to do now?" he asked, his voice breaking a little. "I don't know how to help Christina, I don't know how to keep Annabeth safe, I just don't know what I am supposed to do..." he muttered.

"Why did you have to leave?" he asked, the howling of the wind being his only answer. "Why did it have to be you? It could have been me, it should have been me, so why?" he continued asking, once more receiving no answer.

Standing up, Luke pressed his forehead against the tree and felt the bark of the tree hurt his skin, slowly breaking it and making blood flow out and stain the brown tree. "Why! Why did you leave us? I should have been the one! It was my fault! It was my fault, so why did you have to pay for me! If I had been stronger, if I had been smarter, if I had been better.... if only I had done something differently...."

Luke's tone rose as his words kept breaking the silence of the night, blood still pouring out of his forehead and flowing down through the tree. His expression slowly turned bitter as he kept asking Thalia questions over and over again.

Taking a deep breath, Luke tried to calm himself down and sat once more with his back on Thalia's tree.

"Do you see the moon?" he asked, his gaze wondering across the night's sky and focusing on the glowing moon. "Its beautiful as always, lighting the dark of the night with a silver colour... "

"Tell me, Thalia, do you regret not joining the hunters? Perhaps you would be alive now if you had just left us before... if only you had abandoned us earlier, things wouldn't have ended like this... if only you had been a bit more selfish..."

Pausing for a moment, small tears began forming on the corners of his eyes as he placed his head between his knees and hugged his legs.

"Thalia... Chiron told me a couple of days ago that the gods indeed hear prayers..." said Luke while burying his head deeper into his knees. "In my anger I began recalling every time the gods ignored our prayers, and so I eventually arrived to the most recent time, the moment when I was getting Christina out of the burning building."

Luke's voice broke a little as small drops of water began hitting the soil beneath him, mixing with the blood that continued to flow out of his forehead.

"I prayed to all the gods that I could think of, every single one of them. I prayed to my father and yours, I also prayed to Christina's father and to Annabeth's mother... and I prayed to the god of death as well, the same god of death who sent his hoards after us." continued Luke, his mind going numb as the pain in his heart threatened to break him apart.

"If gods can indeed hear prayers, then that means that the god of death knew where we were because he heard me..." Luke said while tightening the hug on his legs.

"It was because I prayed to him that the monsters that killed you found us..." Luke's expression broke as despair became evident. "I killed you Thalia!" he said as the tears got mixed with the blood that continued to flow from his forehead.

Luke's scream got lost in the woods, his words becoming one with the emptiness of the forest.

Silence filled the environment as Luke slowly got up. He spent a few seconds feeling the roughness of Thalia's tree on his back.

"But it won't happen again..." said Luke in a low tone, his gaze changing from one filled with despair into one filled with anger. "I won't be weak anymore, I won't call for the gods anymore, I won't depend on others to protect our family..." he continued, the anger leaking through his words. "I swear I won't let anyone hurt them, so don't worry... "

As he stood up, Luke watched the moon one last time, his gaze filled with hatred. "It must be comfortable watching from above... looking down on everything that isn't yourselves."

As he made his way back to the infirmary, Luke's hatred didn't diminish, however his fake smile and kind expression improved.