He tries and explains himself

“Why are you listening now?” Matt asked, looking between them. Phoebe had stopped arguing with her own patrol, and Zoë was waiting for him to continue. He had barely managed half a sentence before. Now the silence was lasting long enough to become his responsibility.

“We intend to divine the truth from thy words,” Zoë replied. “Thou hast asked to be heard. Speak.”

His escort offered the waterskin, but he shook his head, keeping his attention on Zoë. That sounded enough like her earlier demands to be familiar, even if Phoebe’s willingness to let her finish did not.

“I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t know how six Hunters got caught in cord I bought at a shop. I don’t know why they started liking the traps, or me, or why asking to be left alone somehow ended with them dragging me here.” He glanced toward Phoebe, expecting an objection at that last part, and found her listening. “I was there for all of it, and it still makes no bloody sense.”

Her attention moved to the patrol without the accusing look he had expected to follow it. Beside him, his escort lowered the waterskin.

“He asked us about it,” she said. “We kept telling him we wished to stay in the traps. He was the one who insisted we could not remain there with our weapons caught.”

“Then we have been demanding an explanation he cannot give.” Zoë turned back toward him. “Thou dost not know what happened. That much is clear.”

Matt had already drawn breath to defend the account. With nothing to defend it against, he let it out slowly, watching her for some indication of where the catch was. She seemed content to wait. Apparently the same answer became acceptable if he gave it often enough, though he could not remember that ever working on a Hunter before.

“I thought you were concealing something.” Phoebe rubbed the blood from her fingers with the edge of her sleeve, speaking as though that settled how the mistake had happened.

His eyes followed the movement to the hand she had closed around his throat. Whatever had changed her mind had done nothing for the ache she had left there.

“So you tried to choke an answer out of me?” His voice scraped, forcing him to swallow before continuing. “What was I supposed to tell you while I couldn’t breathe?”

“I should have heard you.” The wiping stopped, and Phoebe met his eyes without reaching for another accusation.

For a moment, he could only look back. He had been ready for her to call him insolent again; agreement left him with the uncomfortable task of deciding what to do with it. His throat hurt when he swallowed, which helped.

“You had six other people explaining it as well.” Matt turned toward Zoë before either could mistake his hesitation for acceptance. “You saw the marks. Your own Hunters told you what happened, and you questioned why they cared. Would you have believed them sooner if they’d stood aside and let her have another go?

With the waterskin still in hand, his escort moved closer to his shoulder. “We could not let her attack him again.”

“I accept thy account,” Zoë told her, then addressed Matt. “Thou wert defending thyself. I should have acknowledged it.”

He looked toward his escort, half expecting her to question that as well. She seemed relieved, which presumably meant he had heard correctly. His cheek still throbbed, though, and Zoë had been given every reason to reach that conclusion before he shouted at her.

“Then why didn’t you? What did any of us say now that you hadn’t already been told?”

Neither answered immediately. Beside the tree, the Hunter who had carried his duffel watched Phoebe with her arms folded, while two others remained within reach of her. Nobody else appeared quite ready to trust the change either. Matt kept waiting for Zoë to object to his tone, but she let the question stand until he found himself continuing.

“How many times have you done this? Decided a boy deserved whatever happened to him, then treated anybody who disagreed like they’d betrayed you?”

Her attention moved toward his escort, who held her ground. “I gave thee cause to think so.”

“You did more than that.” The answer came readily, though he had expected to argue over whether she had given him cause at all. He turned toward Phoebe, whose expression offered no help in understanding why this had suddenly become so easy. “Your sisters got caught in my traps, so I must have done something to them. They defended me, and that became something I’d done to them too. There wasn’t an answer I could give that you hadn’t already decided was an excuse.”

“I was wrong,” Phoebe said, lowering her hands with the blood still on her sleeve. “You could not have given me the explanation I wanted.”

Matt’s eyes narrowed. He could not remember hearing those first three words from her at Camp Half-Blood, even when she had been demonstrably wrong in front of half the camp. Now she had offered them without making him drag the admission out of her, and he had no idea what she expected him to do with it.

A touch against his sleeve brought his attention briefly to his escort. He let her hand remain. She had stood between him and Phoebe when he needed somebody there, and accepting that small reassurance was considerably easier than deciding whether to believe the Hunter who had just tried to strangle him.

“I don’t know what happened to either of you,” he continued. “I don’t know who hurt you, or what made joining the Hunt seem like a good idea. Maybe you didn’t deserve any of it. But how does that become my problem? How many people have you treated like this who had nothing to do with whatever happened to you?”

Around the fire, several Hunters were watching him with expressions he recognised from Camp Half-Blood. Apparently he could be dragged here, attacked, and questioned about it, but there were still limits to how rudely he was allowed to object.

“You’ve had centuries. Millennia, for all I know. How much longer does everyone else have to put up with it? Your sisters have to defend your prejudices, boys you’ve never met have to answer for them, and when somebody hits back, you act like he’s the one who started it.”

His escort pressed the waterskin into his hand. He accepted it without drinking, distracted by Phoebe touching her split lip. She had been quick enough to name him when Zoë asked who had struck her. Explaining what she had done first had required somebody else.

“Whatever drove you into the Hunters of Artemis, whatever suffering you went through, get over it. All of you. Get over every last prejudice and grudge you’ve been taking out on people who had nothing to do with it.” He met Zoë’s eyes. “Stop making it everybody else’s problem. I’m sick of your shit.”

He raised the waterskin, regretting how much he had said when the first swallow scraped his throat. Before he could take another, Phoebe reached toward her belt, and he lowered it again, shifting his weight.

“Ambrosia,” Phoebe said, leaving the pouch unopened when she saw him watching her hand. “For your throat, if you will let me.”

“Why?” Matt had been expecting a knife. Even with her fingers resting harmlessly beside the fastening, he kept his weight ready to shift.

“I hurt you, Matt. You had done nothing to deserve it, and I am sorry.”

His escort accepted the waterskin when he passed it back, freeing his hand for the medicine. Hearing Phoebe use his name had unsettled him almost as much as the apology, and he watched her open the pouch and retrieve a wrapped piece before reluctantly extending his palm. As she placed it there, he caught sight of the blood still wet on her lip. “And my hitting you?”

“You were trying to get my hand off your throat. I gave you reason.” She withdrew to fasten the pouch, leaving him room to work his thumb beneath the folded paper.

He had punched her again after breaking free, something he doubted either of them had forgotten, yet she seemed prepared to leave the matter there. Matt abandoned the wrapper before he tore it. His duffel was still against the tree beyond her, and getting it back on his shoulder would at least give him something familiar to do while he worked out what the hell to make of her.

“Dost thou need somewhere to sit?” Zoë asked as he turned toward it.

“Am I allowed to say no?” The question brought an immediate assurance from his escort, along with a quieter admission that they should have listened earlier, but he kept his attention on Zoë. “I was asking her.”

“The choice is thine,” she replied, stepping aside as he approached. He passed her with the ambrosia still unopened, listening for a condition that never came.

With the ambrosia still wrapped in his hand, Matt crossed to the tree. The Hunter beside his duffel moved her foot clear of the strap without interrupting her conversation, leaving him to collect it. He slipped his free hand through the loop and hauled the bag onto his shoulder, turning back toward the fire as he settled its weight. Nobody had followed him. Zoë was putting her bow against a tent pole, and his escort waited where he had left her with the waterskin.

“I can hold that while you eat,” she offered.

“I’ve got it.” He kept his hand on the strap until she nodded and lowered herself onto the log, placing the water beside her where he could reach it. Apparently he would be keeping his bag this time. With it resting against his hip, he finally had both hands free to unfold the waxed paper.

Across the fire, Phoebe accepted a cloth from another Hunter and began wiping her chin. Matt paused over the exposed ambrosia when she looked his way, waiting for her to signal somebody behind him, but she returned her attention to the cloth. He broke off a small piece, keeping his bag on his shoulder. If the apology and the medicine were meant to make him lower his guard, they would have to wait. He still couldn’t work out when they intended to spring whatever trap this was, and the clear path out of camp was beginning to look suspiciously convenient.