Prologue

Trystin stared out her apartment window across the street to the library, which was about to close for the night. She got up from her desk chair and crossed the room to open the window. As she looked out over the streets, she noticed a group of people running down the sidewalk. They looked to be around her age, eighteen or so. As she watched, they stopped running in front of her apartment building. They looked around before walking into the building, which was supposed to be locked. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Something's coming, spoke a little voice in the back of her head. Careful, they're close, Trystin, close. Shh, they're almost here. Trystin knew she should've listened to that voice. It had her back.

Instead, she ignored it, but when the knock on the door came, she knew she'd made the right decision.

The voice she'd heard was her other side, the part of her that was almost as old as the earth itself. It was her Titan side. Unknown to her, her mother was the Themis, the Titaness of Divine Order and Justice. As for her father, well, he was a mortal. The only thing amazing about him was his intense need to uphold justice in the world. He was a Supreme Court Justice. He believed that as long as there was order in the world, there would at least be peace to those who upheld it. Maybe that's what Themis saw in him. His extreme respect for order had called to her. After all, it was her element.

The voice had warned her about the demigods was because, buried deep in the Titan's nature, they had learned to resent the gods for taking over. Not all of them were against the gods, though; Themis herself sided with the gods in the second Titan war. Even though Themis was on the side of the gods, all of the Titans had it in them; a natural opposition to the gods. The Titans had ruled first; they thought it made sense for them to rule forever. The Titans that did side with the gods, though, managed to keep their inner struggle under control.

Trystin closed the window and grabbed her pepper spray out of her locked desk drawer. You could never be too careful in New York. Cautiously, she opened the door, blocking the entryway with her body.

Standing outside her door were seven teens. They looked curiously at her before a blonde girl with startlingly storm-grey eyes spoke up. "Are you Trystin Lycath?"

Trystin narrowed her eyes. "Yes. Do you need something...?"

"We need you to come with us."

Trystin frowned. Who are these people? They expect me to come with them who knows where for who knows what like that? No way. I need answers first.

"For what?"

A black haired boy with sea-green eyes let out a frustrated sigh and glanced around.

"We can't say anything here. They've probably set up surveillance systems throughout your apartment." Said a short Latino kid with a tool belt around his waist.

Trystin glanced back into her apartment. "I highly doubt that. But I'll listen, if only because I don't want people watching while I fail at trigonometry." She let out an irritated huff and closed the door behind her, stuffing her keys, wallet, and phone into her pocket. "But I'm not going any farther than two blocks away." The girl with the grey eyes frowned, then sighed. "Fine. There's a café around the corner. We can talk there."

As Trystin followed the small band of teens to the café, she noticed a person behind them. They were always the same distance every time she looked back. Not close enough to raise suspicion, but close enough that Trystin knew they were following them.

Oh my God. This is crazy. I'm outta here, she thought.

She ducked into a nearby store without any of the demigods noticing. She pretended to be looking at energy bars when a man around forty or so walked into the store quietly. His salt-and-pepper hair stuck out in several directions, and he wore a frustrated look on his face like he couldn't find something. The cashier didn't notice his entrance. Trystin ducked around the corner and hid behind a row of E-Z-Cheez Nips as the man looked around the store and spotted her hiding spot. When he casually began to walk toward her, she straightened and turned, walking quickly toward the bathroom.

After locking herself in a stall, she pulled out her phone and dialed her friend's number.

"Hello? Trystin, you ok?" her friend, Cathy, asked.

"Ok so I'm currently locked in a bathroom in a grocery store because this group of teens asked me to come with them somewhere and I agreed just to see what they were up to but then this person started following us and so I ducked into the nearest store and hid but the man came in and saw me and tried to come up to me and so I panicked and ran in here and then called you."

"Whoa, slow down. So you are locked in a bathroom because of some kids trying to show you something. Is the man still there?"

"I don't know. I'm not coming out of this bathroom to check, though."

"Hm. How do you manage to get yourself into these situations, Trystin?"

"I don't know. I don't want to know."

"Ok. I'm coming to see what's happening."

"No. I can take care of myself."

"Then why'd you call?"

"Cause I felt like I needed to tell someone so they'd know what happened if I disappeared."

"God, Trystin, you always expect the worst. It could just be some guy that wants to ask you out or something."

"A forty year old man?"

"Never mind. Well, it was nice knowing you."

"Gee, it's great to know I can count on you. Thanks."

"Anytime."

"No thanks." She shifted her weight onto her other foot. "I think I'm going to try to leave. It's pretty quiet out there."

"Good luck."

"I don't need luck. I have humor. Maybe I can make the guy laugh so hard he'll pass out."

"You do that."

"I'll send you a video," Trystin promised and hung up.