Yay!

I've been working on this idea for a while. And I wanted to let you know that if you don't like it...

Screw you.

Because I like it. :)

But hopefully you like it too.

It's been kind of a bad day for me.

Not like, the-sky-is-falling-and-I-left-my-umbrella-at-home kind of bad. Heck, I don't even own an umbrella. Real men don't need them. But on a scale of one-to-ten, it might have been a seven.

It would have only been, like, a four on the Suck-o-Meter, except then the police got involved, and now I'm well and truly screwed over.

Okay. I realize that exploding a fast-food place is probably kind of high on the List of Things Not To Do Within Sight of a Policeman. But I was running out of options, and at that moment I only saw two.

1. Get eaten.

2. Make something explode.

So, by Jove, I made something explode.

Specifically, a grease-burner and a couple of snake ladies.

Unfortunately, a certain rather chubby policeman wasn't paying quite enough attention to his donut and saw me as I made my getaway, at which point he was probably like, "Oh, look! That vaguely Italian looking kid is a terrorist! That's way more interesting that my Krispy Kreme."

Which, long story short, led to my being chased by three police cars on top of the two dracaena that had managed to avoid the fiery fate of their brethren...sistren?

Eh. Grammar. Psh.

Anyway, just so you know, New York is not a good place to run from the police in. Avoid at all costs. Because you run into guys playing the fake Blues on cheap saxophones, and you see a cowboy in his tighty-whitey's, and you trip over hobos, and all in all it's just a sad time.

Also, my clothes were kind of on fire, and I was somehow hot and cold at the same time, and there were snake ladies in the crowd waiting to kill me, and I was under a lot of pressure not to die.

Because that would also be a sad time, and I imagine it's horribly unpleasant. Plus, all of you nice people would miss my excellent company.

Something hissed creepily behind me, and I lunched into a James Bond-esque somersault on the wet pavement just in time to avoid getting skewered by a really long spear.

The guy in front of me on the street was apparently 100% mortal, because the Celestial Bronze tip passed right through his business suit-clad chest. He stopped for a moment, looking down at the protruding deadly weapon, shook his head, and kept walking.

Gods, I love New York.

But the dracaena did not like me.

One of them wailed somewhere off to my left, and I realized that I would soon have major health problems (specifically, my organs would be on the outside of my body) if I did not get the heck out of there.

I slipped my secret weapon out of my pocket, which wasn't really a weapon at all. It was Annabeth's invisibility cap. And it wasn't really a secret either. Except that Annabeth didn't know that I'd taken it...

But I'm sure she would be okay with it, since it was about to save my life.

I shoved it onto my head somewhat frantically, and looked down at my hands. Or where they should have been. There was a significant lack of hands there.

A group of kids around my age were getting onto a big old school bus, and I followed. It would be easy to get lost at a high school. And it would be even easier to steal a taxi and get back to camp once I got lost in said high school. I would much rather face the wrath of an angry calculus teacher than snake women. Or at least an angry English teacher.

Calculus is tough.

So, once on the school bus, I sat on that stupid little half seat in the back that no one likes because it's different and kept an anxious grasp on the hat all the way to wherever we were going.

The ride was an interesting one. The kids were going crazy. It seemed like everyone had had a gallon on caffeine prior to their getting on the bus, and everyone was working to be louder than everyone else.

I have no idea who was screaming about hot wings, but whoever you are, you were winning.

There were two or three kids who were just sitting in their chairs, heads down, muttering under their breath or staring blankly out the window.

Personally, I've never been to high school, but these kids seemed a little more ridiculous than I thought they would be.

The bus pulled up to this huge school, and I was a little worried that it was one of those private schools for rich kids with behavioral problems. I would have problem blending in, if that were the case. I may have behavioral problems, but I'm not rich.

And in my burnt t-shirt and tattered jeans, I looked more like the hobos that I'd tripped over than anything else. Maybe a modern, Americanized Aladdin, except with a smaller nose and not Arabian.

But I shuffled off of the bus anyway. I would just keep the hat on until there was no one around, then I'd just slip out like the ninja I truly was.

For a minute, I considered shadow travel, but I was still tired from my little escapade in the McDonald's, so who knows where I would have ended up if I tried to pull that trick? You have to be focused, and right then all I could think about was greasy hamburgers and ghetto chicken nuggets.

The inside of the school was all white and sterile looking, which worried me, because everything I'd heard about high school made me think that it was a giant cesspool. In fact, the things I considered as quintessentially high school were nasty hallways and baby drama. And that's only because Annabeth made me watch The Secret Life of an American Teenager and baby drama is all that ever seems to happen.

Ever.

And, since it was a Sunday, this had to be a boarding school, which should have meant even more drama.

Yay.

But soon, all of the students had filtered out of the hallways into their dorm rooms, and I was alone with my thoughts. Which were now centered on food and American television.

Somebody give this man a freaking corn dog. This is getting pathetic.

I slipped the hat off. It was hot in the building, and my hair was plastered down onto my forehead with sweat already, and it felt disgusting. Not to mention Annabeth would kill me herself if I got my man-sweat on her cap.

And for a second, that was okay.

Until I heard someone walking down the hallways.

And like a n00b, I forgot all about the magical powers of invisibility. I just threw myself through the first door I saw and hoped it was open.

It was.

It was also a dorm room. And not only was it a dorm room.

It was occupied.

See? This day might even be more than a seven.

At first, all I could see was the sweater. It was huge, it would have been big even on myself. It was gray, with zigging lines of putrid green and zagging lines of rusting red and straight lines of faded something-or-other that might have been blue at one point. It was one of those sweaters that you hope to high heaven you're grandmother won't buy you at Christmas.

And here it was, right in front of my eyes. On a girl, no less.

There was a big red mark on her forehead, like she had been leaning up against the wall before my intrusion, and her skin made me think she might have been Native American. Her hair was caramel colored, and one of those weird styles where it was longer in the front than it was in the back. Her eyes were minty green and almost too big for her face, which made her look really young. But she had to been at least my age.

When she looked at me, she didn't look surprised or whatever. She just frowned. "I've never imagined a boy before," she said with a sigh, and went back to leaning her head against the wall.

"Um..." was all my intelligent brain could come up with.

"I'm going to name you Henry," she said. I wasn't sure whether she was talking to me or the wall.

"My name is Nico," I said like an idiot. Why I told her my name, I'm not sure. It was all that I could think of.

She turned and looked at me, blinking. "Weird. You all don't usually have names before hand. But, then again, usually you all have fangs and stuff. Do you have fangs?"

Her words came out like a flood.

"No..." I said slowly.

Her eyes narrowed, like she didn't really believe me. "They also usually try to kill me," she added thoughtfully. "Will you try to kill me?"

"Probably not?"

"Curious, very curious," she said, like that Olivander guy from Harry Potter. "Because you all usually try to kill me."

There was this really awkward silence. Or, it was awkward on my side. She seemed quite content to stand with her head pressed against the side of her room. I cleared my throat. "And when you say 'you all,' that applies to who, exactly?"

She waved her fingers dismissively. "The monsters." She sighed. "I know they aren't real. Like you aren't real. But they're scary."

"You think I'm scary?" So far, between the two of us, I was the one who should be worried the other was going to pull out a knife and stab me in the eye socket or something. Because that seemed to be the direction this conversation was going.

It was only then she stopped trying to osmosis the wall or whatever and look at me. And when she looked, it was more of a stare. "Yep."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "Because seeing things that aren't there are scary."

I blinked. "I'm not here..."

"And that also means they'll have to give me more medication." She shuddered. "I don't like medication. It makes the dreams worse."

..."Dreams?"

But she ignored me and just checked her watch. I don't know why she had a watch, because no one uses those any more unless they're old. The person. Not the watch.

"The man will be coming soon," she said, and this time she didn't just frown. She literally pouted. Like, with a lower lip and everything.

"Man?" I asked, and my voice cracked embarrassingly.

Then I heard someone walk up to the door and put their hand on the knob, and I did a major dive under the weird girls bed. Which is probably not the best thing to do, considering that she was a potential serial killer and there might be dead bodies under there or something.

So, just for future reference, always check hiding spots for rotting corpses. Or else you'll be really miserable.

Luckily, she hid her bodies somewhere other than under her bed, because the only company I had was a deranged looking stuffed bunny and an impressive stash of fruit snacks and Coca-Cola.

Unfortunately for me and the bunny, the only view we had of the proceedings was from the ankle, up. Which would have been really helpful if I felt the need to inspect the girl's bare feet and some guys fake-Italian dress shoes.

As it was, I was more or less unsatisfied.

And never trust a man with fake-Italian shoes. Also for future reference. Feel free to make a list of my tips on How to Hide and be Paranoid.

"Miss Pfeiffer," said the man who walked in formally. Something in his hand rattled, but I couldn't see what it was. Needless to say, Mr. Bunny and I were displeased.

But the worse thing was the way "Miss Pfeiffer's" voice sounded. It was cold and icy, like the man had kicked her grandmother and tried to say he was doing her a favor. "Nice of you to stop by, Archie."

Archie sighed. "You should call me Dr. Cortese."

Doctor?

I saw the girl's feet walk towards him, away from the wall, but her steps were slow and wary, like a animal that was looking through it's animal handbook and wasn't sure whether it was allowed to get closer or not. "After I've been here seven years? How upsetting." Her voice was squeaky.

He must have tried to give her something, because she backed up quickly and said, "No. I'm not taking them."

Dr. Cortese sighed again. "We can't do this every day."

"Then stop giving them to me."

"It's for your own good, Alberta."

Alberta? Alberta Pfeiffer.

I smothered a snicker.

Not quite well enough, though, because the doctor stopped in the middle of what he was saying and said nothing for a minute. "What was that?"

"What was what?" asked Alberta (Alberta! Priceless.).

"That sound. From the bed." For a scary second, I thought the man would look under and find me chillin' with the rabbit and the fruit snacks, but someone else entered the room before he could.

Specifically, three someone elses.

"Why, hello, Alberta!" someone said brightly.

She didn't say anything. Maybe she was too busy laughing at the fact that her name was Alberta.

Whoever had spoken first looked at the doctor. "Is there a problem?"

Dr. Cortese shook his head. Or I assume he did. "I can handle it," he said. "She just won't take the medication."

Medication. Again with the meds. Did this girl have cancer or something? Or was she certifiably crazy? I scooted up towards them under the bed as much as I dared to get a better view.

I couldn't see any of their faces (except for Alberta's, because she was shortest), but now I could see what Dr. Cortese had been rattling before. He had a little cup filled with pills. Like, five or six of them. He also had a clipboard, and a t-shirt that said Aberton's Psychiatric Unit in big letters.

As in, like, a nuthouse. For those of us who aren't politically correct. I wasn't in a boarding school. I was in a crazycave.

Gods.

She really was crazy.

She really didn't think I was real.

Then I looked over at the semi-new arrivals. The first man, at the front, was completely average in build. But the two guys behind him were built like brick houses. If brick houses had enough hair to make a shag carpet.

Monsters.

Forget a seven of the Suck Scale. This was like a nine.

And until the very heavens split and rained down dead cows and mucus, I don't think it could have gotten any worse.

"Alberta, you should do what we tell you," said the man with the monsters on either side of him.

"I think I know more about what's going on with my own head than you do," she told him, but her voice had lost it's edge and cracked a bit.

"If you don't take the medicine, the dreams will continue," he told her, like she was a child.

Which, I mean, she was. But he could have at least lost the tone.

I hate tone.

Her voice solidified, and I would have known she was crazy just from all of the changes in her moods from the past, like, two minutes. "The dreams are gone."

From the silence that followed, it was clear he didn't believe her. "And what about the hallucinations?"

"There are none." Which was rich, since she thought she had a hallucination hiding under her bed right at the moment.

"Then why are you still afraid of Mr. Ross and Dr. Ulric?" asked Dr. Cortese desperately.

She sniffed. "They're intimidating," she said, but her voice was weak.

Alberta was afraid of the monster-men.

Was she afraid of them because they were monsters or because they could break her in half like a toothpick by flexing their biceps in her near vicinity?

The man who was with them sighed. It seemed like a lot of sighing went on in that room. "You're a paranoid schizophrenic, Alberta. And with your dreams..."

"What dreams?" she said.

"What dreams, indeed," he sniffed.

Dr. Cortese handed her the cup of pills again. She was focused on the other man's face, like a challenge. But her eyes were so big she just looked really freaked out. The doctor put it in her hand. "If you don't take before we bring in your dinner, we'll have to force your hand."

"Understood." When she nodded, the long strands of hair in front of her face bobbed up and down.

Then all of the others left. Except for one of the two identical monsters. He hung back and stared her down.

Or, again, I think he did, because Alberta did her best to stare him down. But then she seemed to crumble and she looked down at the floor. He laughed darkly and left. The door shut and clicked as it was locked.

Locked.

I was locked in.

Alberta was possibly a demigod.

My only companion who was sane was a raggedy stuffed bunny rabbit.

I watched as Alberta shook the cup once, picked out the blue pill, and took the rest with a drink from the water bottle on her bed stand.

I climbed out, bones creaking, and stared out the window to see if there were any dead cows on the lawn.

TELL ME HOW AWESOME I AM!

Or not.

But you should review either way. ;)