A/N: Um, okay, so, yeah. This is Book Three in my lovely little series which has no name… ooh, I can call it a trilogy, can't I? If you haven't read HMPWI or HTTRI (don't ask, there's no way I'm typing out both those titles) then I command you to go to my profile and begin HMPWI immediately.

This, my friends, is THE story. I've got three of my best characters narrating, even though you barely know two of them and I'll bet you hate the other one. So without further ado, let's get going, and please put your hands together for Miss Regina Daniels… you didn't really think I was going to abandon her, did you?

Gina POV

Okay, so picture this.

A modest, beautiful, very blond girl is sneaking through an unfamiliar area with "borrowed" keys jingling merrily in her hand, approaching a cabin at about three in the morning, hoping desperately that the numerous teenagers inside are actually asleep at a decent hour.

I opened the door to the Kronos cabin and immediately muttered a curse. I'd forgotten Jack was in here – how did I forget that? So I had to wake up one person but not the other. Great.

"Anthony," I hissed, shaking his shoulder. "Come on, Anthony, wake up."

He buried his face in the pillow. "Go away, Rose."

I recoiled, almost insulted. "Hey, dipwad, it's Gina."

He was up so fast he hit his head on the bunk above him. I tensed immediately, knowing that Penelope was up there, and she's not exactly a heavy sleeper, last I checked.

"Gina?" he whispered. He let his head sink back into the pillow, but he turned toward me. "I thought you were gone."

"Not yet I'm not," I said under my breath. "Can you drive me to the airport? Please?"

He nodded sleepily. "What time is it?"

I checked my phone, trying to block the glow from Jack's side of the room. I would risk waking up Nick or Penelope, but no way in hell was I waking up Jack. I'd never get out of here, especially if they thought I was already gone.

"Almost four," I said softly.

"How're we gonna get there?"

I jingled Bunny's keys. "I already thought of that."

"Money?"

"Ker. I have enough for one ticket to Vermont."

He sat up. "Go get the car started. I'll be there in a second."

xxx

"I want to drive you as far as possible. Get you partway across Montana, at least."

"Why?" I asked, surprised.

He stared out the window, even though there was nothing to stare at, considering what time it was. "I don't know. I just need to get out of here for a few hours. And anyway, my aunt works at a restaurant in North Dakota. We should get there at about noon tomorrow." He looked at me and grinned. "I have to warn you, Gina. I'm not the best driver. There's a reason I followed you guys in a suitcase instead of a car."

"Would that reason be that you don't have a car?"

"Partly."

He paused for a second before he started moving the car, and I remembered hearing how his dad rarely drove anywhere. That was all I'd heard, though. Anthony and Aiko had arrived at camp as the cliché young siblings you heard about in books – one grew up fast so the other didn't have to. Anthony had been the one to grow up.

He didn't act like it sometimes, but when he was little, he'd been the most serious person ever. His friendship with Eric had helped that a little, but when Daphne came flying into the picture, Eric kind of ditched him and he'd retreated to Aiko again. I didn't remember him having any close friends besides Aiko ever since the Eric thing ended.

"You know," I mused. "Nina thinks you're some cocky popular-type boy, doesn't she?"

He froze.

"She's wrong," I continued. "Just show her that you're actually kinda sweet and kinda nice, because you're not some cocky popular-type boy."

"I should've figured you were going to give me this lecture," he snapped.

"Sorry."

He glanced at me, a biting look in his eyes. "Well you know what? You let some girl get between you and Jack."

My turn to freeze up. "It wasn't just one girl. It was, like, five."

"And he couldn't see any of them. He only saw you, and you ditched him for it."

"I couldn't take it anymore."

"Five girls?" He continued on as if I had never spoken. "Oh, Gina, if you only knew how jealous I am of him. I'm the son of Aphrodite, aren't I supposed to have all the girls just by default? But no. He's the son of Percy Jackson, oh my gods, let's go hit on him."

"Wait." I fought a smile. I was losing. "You don't like Jack because of… girls?"

He blushed. "I know it sounds stupid. It wasn't like I wanted you or Adrianna or Poppy or anything, but it was just the principle of the thing, you know?" He laughed bitterly. "You're the one who's wrong, Gina. I am just some cocky popular-type boy."

We were silent until we reached a sign saying Welcome to North Dakota.

xxx

Mike's wasn't a huge place, just a little tavern with a couple of booths and a cozy feel. Our waitress was a woman with eyes the color of milk chocolate and long brown hair. She looked like an older version of Aiko.

"A little far from home, aren't you, Anthony?" she asked, laughing. "And who's this? Your girlfriend?"

He blushed, and I felt my own face heating up too. "No, Aunt Shelley, just a friend."

She smiled at me. "Hi, honey. I'm Shelley Luck, but you can call me Shelley. How did you and Anthony"-she eyed me carefully–"meet?"

Clearly not buying "just a friend."

"Where's your sister?" Shelley asked. "She's… okay, right?"

Anthony glanced at me, and I remembered Aiko's recent outbursts. "She's fine," he lied.

Shelley smiled. "Tell her I said hi. Can I get drinks for you kids?"

"Yeah," Anthony said eagerly. "Can I have coffee?"

Shelley glared at him. "I'll get you a Mountain Dew, but only because you look like you haven't slept well for days." She turned to me. "Anything for you, sweetheart?"

I smiled. "Just Coke, thanks."

She looked at her nephew, seeming concerned. "I'm sorry about what happened to your father."

Anthony's face fell and he sighed. "It was a long time ago, I guess."

Shelley scribbled our drink orders onto her little pad of paper and strutted off.

"What's worse is that she's right," Anthony muttered. "I haven't slept well for a week."

I bit my lip. I knew he was stressed about Aiko and Nina. It seemed like he and Aiko had drifted apart quickly, and Aiko was desperately trying to keep the little strings keeping them together intact before they broke, too.

I wasn't sure what had happened to his dad, but about half the kids at Camp Half-Blood I had known since I was little, because so many of us had parents that had died, like Nick's mom – and Nina's, now that I thought of it, or left us, like Katy's dad. Or some of us ran away. Like me.

Shelley arrived with the drinks, and we thanked her. Anthony looked awkward, and there was a long silence before he said, "Um, it wasn't very… public… what happened with my dad, was it?"

I blushed and nodded.

"My dad was a fan of alcohol for my entire life, but when I was nine or ten he really got into it, and…." He shrugged. "I dunno, it just seemed like suddenly a bottle of beer became more important than Aiko or I, so… I dunno. We just kind of ended up at camp somehow."

I was quiet, a little surprised, but Anthony was determined to change the subject.

"So," he said, glaring at me with his chocolate-brown eyes hard and steely for once. "We decided who the seven were in the prophecy today."

I looked at him, a silent, pleading question in my eyes.

"Yeah, he's going. You knew that already, though."

I nodded and sipped my Coke. If Jack had backed down from a fight, everyone would always see him as the non-Percy, or at least more so than they already did. That was his worst nightmare – not living up to his dad's legacy. Of course, I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was already living that nightmare. He didn't notice what other people thought of him, a quality that I envied whenever I noticed Rose glaring at me.

Speaking of prettier-than-me girls glaring at me. Anthony and I stared out the window, watching popular-type girls stroll by with their friends (or rather, their disciples, groupies, sycophants, minions, followers, fanatics, clones, and worshippers.) They kept their eyes on Anthony, except for the occasional dirty look shot at me.

I glanced at Anthony, amused. He was looking at me with a smirk on his face and a glow in his eyes. A particularly cheerleader-y girl looked me over dismissively, and we cracked up.

"Thanks, Anthony," I said sincerely.

"What for?"

"For driving me this far. Just… thanks."

"Anytime, Gina. And trust me, I'm not about to go running to Jack telling him about all this."

I grinned. "If he wants to know where I am, make him drag it out of you."

He grinned back. "With pleasure."

A/N: Alright, yeah. You may have noticed that Gina's first part of the story occurs while the demigods are still in Montana. This chapter probably occurs after the scene in HTTRI in the tent with Bunny fixing her hair and Bellatrix throwing the w-word around, and before, obviously, the scene where Anthony returns the keys to Bunny. The rest of Gina's POV will occur at present time, or just about.

Okay, the next couple chapters might be delayed, since I'm playing around with the ordering of the next few POV-changes. Plus, I don't like the next chapter.