Chapter 1

Gabby POV

For the record, a camp for kids of Greek gods and goddesses is a whole lot less fancy than it's cracked up to be.

Those are words I never thought I would say.

"It won't be that bad, Gabby," Serafina said. I had thought she was my friend, but she'd turned out to be a satyr. Not that I really cared. Friends did not come easily to me.

I grinned evilly (I hope) and replied, "I'm not scared."

She nodded doubtfully. "New camper alert!" she yelled. We had gotten past fields of strawberries easily, but I suppose getting in couldn't be that simple.

A small group of people my age gathered around us.

"She's a little old, Sera," one of the boys muttered.

"Gabriella's a little hard to keep track of," Serafina said.

The boy nodded. "I'm Jason." He was handsome, with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.

"I'm Piper." Piper was pretty. Her caramel hair glimmered, and she had warm brown eyes. She was standing closer than was necessary to Jason, so I guess she's his girlfriend.

A guy with shaggy black hair and blue-green eyes extended his hand to me. There was a gorgeous girl with her arm looped through his. "I'm Percy, and this is Annabeth."

"I'm Leo." Leo was all alone, no girlfriend to keep him company. He was Hispanic like me, with a mischievous face. I liked him.

"Gabriella Montoya." I nodded in greeting.

"Hmph." Piper looked me up and down, not like a snobby cheerleader, but like someone who wanted to help me. "You kind of need new clothes. And a good hairbrushing. You won't mind, would you?"

Ah, a daughter of Aphrodite. That would explain why she was so pretty. I nodded.

She snapped her fingers, and with a faint tickling, I changed. I had on a pair of jeans and an orange t-shirt and grey converse sneakers. My unruly curls were still messy, but they weren't as wild. I suppose I didn't look that bad.

"Leo, Chiron and Mr. D are out. You want to show her around?" Annabeth asked. Oh, subtle. More boyfriend time for her and Piper. Not that I was complaining. Percy and Jason were lookers. And they looked absolutely smitten. And Leo was...

Pull yourself together, Gabriella. I thought to myself. You might still have to run.

But I didn't want to. I wanted to stay with these people and have a life that was more than getting enough food to survive.

"Gabriella?"

I snapped out of my reverie in time to see Leo looking at me.

"I'm fine. Just... pulling myself together, you know? Let's go."

Everyone else was gone, leaving me and Leo to walk by ourselves.

"So, Gabriella-"

"Gabby," I interrupted. "Call me Gabby."

He grinned. "Okay, Gabby, welcome to Camp Halfblood."

"Wait, so everyone here has half their blood? Isn't that gross?"

He snorted. "Corny. It's fine, though. Not everyone can be as funny as the Great Leo Valdez."

"You wish."

The light banter was easy to keep up. For all he knew, I was just another girl. If only.

"We're here."

I looked up, expecting to see, I don't know, big pearly gates or something.

I was disappointed.

"You're kidding," I muttered. It looked like, well, a camp. There was a cluster of cabins and buildings surrounded by forest. Nothing special.

He glowered at me. "Hey, I've been here for longer than you've been on the streets. It's my home."

"Dude, this is where the keep the kids of the people who control the world?"

"Well, we have pegasi"

I could feel my face light up. "You have magic flying ponies?"

He punched the air. "Yes! A sense of humor."

"You wish you had one like this."

"That's almost as crazy as the time I saw a face in potty sludge."

I choked on my spit. "Are you schizo? I don't think that's healthy."

"Don't worry, it was just Gaia."

"Mother Earth? That's supposed to assure me you're not crazy?"

"She was kind of a psycho who wanted to enslave everyone. We made her go back to sleep, though."

"Wait, so the Earth is evil? That's not really helping my anxiety issues."

He groaned. "Lame."

"I'd like to see you do better, Potty Boy."

He winced. "Potty Boy?"

I shrugged. "Nicknames don't get much better than potty humor."

He snorted. "Let's go, Joker Girl."

I snickered. "You suck at nicknames." But I left the topic alone.

"That's the Big House." He pointed to a White House with a wraparound porch, a big rocking chair in the corner. "The Oracle of Delphi used to live their, but then she went into Rachel, who mostly sleeps in a cabin for herself."

He then pointed to a small, green painted cabin that was meant for the Oracle. Serafina had filled me in about he major figures in camp while we had come.

"The cabins are for the campers, one for each god. Most are filled. You'll find out what cabin you're in tonight, I guess."

He walked to the center of the the cluster of cabins. "There's the stables-"

"So when do I see the magic rainbow ponies?" I interrupted.

"Percy's going to kill you for that."

"I still want to see the ponies."

He snorted and continued. "There's the mess hall, where we eat, and my favorite, the forges."

My mouth dropped open. "You guys have a forge?"

"Technically, it's a workshop, but there's a forge in the basement. There were too many Hephaestus kids and-"

I grabbed his arm and pulled him toward there. "I am so there."

He raised an eyebrow. "You're a mechanic? You don't look like one."

I crossed my arms. "Sexism doesn't befit you. Now come on, I want to see this place!"

He relented. "I'm a Hephaestus kid. Be nice to my toys."

I gawked. It was a mechanic's heaven, with tools lining the walls and iron and steel tables. There was random gears and oil in boxes in a corner. The floor was warm, most likely from the forges in the basement. There wasn't anyone in here but us.

"It's amazing."

Leo bounced on his feet. All of us half-bloods had ADHD, but Leo seemed to have more of it than most. He couldn't stop moving. "I think so, too. You like this stuff?"

"Yeah. I could find some pretty need building things where I come from, but this is... Wow."

He snorted. "And you haven't even seen Bunker 9 yet."

"What's Bunker 9?"

"It's where I keep my mechanical dragon."

"I think I just died and went to heaven. Did you just say mechanical dragon?"

He smiled crookedly. It seemed he could never smile straight. It fit him, though. "Finally, someone who appreciated my true genius. Even my half brothers and sisters don't care much for Festus. Technically, he's a ship, though."

"I. Don't. Fucking. Care. Take me to this dragon of yours."

"I'm actually not allowed to that right now. I'll show you later."

I pouted. "Please, Leo? I'll love you forever and ever." I proceeded to turn red as what I had said dawned on me. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant... You know... I just..."

He laughed and fiddled with a scrap of metal. "I'm used to all the ladies saying that."

"Sure, if you say so. Now let's go look at the rest of the camp, yes? I need to see everything."

He nodded. "Let's go. Sera says you have a weapon?"

I nodded and pulled out my knife. He frowned. "Knives aren't the best weapons. Swords are better. We have a bunch of metamorphosis swords. You want to go see?"

"Actually, I'm-"

It was too late. He was already walking toward the weaponry.

"Try this." He tossed me a blue hair clip. I wrinkled my nose.

"A hair clip? Not happening."

He tossed me a simple necklace, a chain with a sword charm. It was better, and I fastened it around my neck.

"Press the sword hilt up."

I complied, and the whole thing vanished from my neck and a sword appeared a second later in my palm. He nodded and started unscrewing a little metal helicopter. "Perfect. It'll always come back to you, no matter what you do with it."

I nodded . "Thank you." Then, on an impulse, I leaned up and kissed his cheek.

Dammit, hormones, why must you be so difficult? My face turned a beautiful cherry color, and he smiled lopsidedly. God, he was handsome...

Pull yourself together, Gab!

He cleared his throat. "It's, uh, time for campfire."

I nodded mutely. What the hell had just happened? Why had my stupid brain done that? We'd had a thing going and now...

"Gabriella, are you okay?"

"Gabby," I corrected automatically. "And I'm fine. Let's go."

The campfire turned out to be just that- a campfire, and the whole camp gathered around it. Chiron was here now, but not Dionysius.

"We have a new camper here tonight," Chiron called. "Gabriella Montoya, though older than usual, has yet to be claimed."

Leo nudged me. "Stand up."

I stood.

It started slow, a warmth on my scalp, and it grew, spreading to every part of my body. A twelve year old girl screamed, and I looked up.

A flame. It balanced precariously above my head, flickering nervously.

"Gabriella Montoya..." Chiron trailed off suspensefully. My heart thudded. The whole camp seemed to hold their breath. "You are a child of Apollo!"

All of the kids who I presume were in the Apollo cabin cheered. One girl my age with golden hair waved me over.

"I'm Narcilla." She made a face. "My mom was so addicted to the story of Narcissus. It's not fun to have a name like mine."

"My name's Gabriella, which I don't really think about too much."

"Well, that's a pretty name. So you've seen Leo."

I nodded and eyed the group of fourteen year olds giggling and staring pointedly at him. "Yeah. I've also seen his fan club."

She laughed. "They're not so bad. They just want to go after an older guy, and he's one of the oldest ones, and he's the only single seventeen year old."

"Really?"

"Yeah. My boyfriend Derrin's over there. Leo's fan club isn't really helping his ego. He always used to say that he was a ladies man, and now those girls are proving it." She waggled her eyebrows. "What do you think?"

I turned pink. "Think of what?"

"Of Leo. Come on, just because you're new doesn't mean you haven't noticed. Leo is hot. So are all his friends, but they're like, totally in love."

"You better not be talking about any other guy," a voice interrupted. It was Derrin, Narcilla's boyfriend, who had suddenly sat down beside her. She pouted and I smiled sweetly.

"She was saying how unbelievably gorgeous you are." I assured. It wasn't even a lie. Derrin was handsome.

Narcilla mock glared. "You better not be making a move at my boyfriend, Montoya."

Derrin's eyes softened and he wrapped an arm around her waist. "You know my heart only belongs to you."

She looked up at him with her eyes full of love and my heart ached. I wanted someone to love me like that, but that just wouldn't happen. I stood up to leave them alone and wandered to the edge of the circle.

"Need company?"

I jumped. It was Leo, his hands screwing and unscrewing a metal thing that I couldn't quite identify.

"Narcilla and Derrin were having some PDA. You know, you should sell shirts with your face on it to those girls. You could get some serious cash." I flopped onto the ground and he followed suit.

"I've thought about it," he agreed. "But my awesomeness just cannot be captured on a piece of cloth."

I snorted. "The amount of awesomeness you have could be captured on a used tissue."

He winced and pouted. "Why are you so mean to me?" It was an innocent question meant to be funny, but every one of my walls went up.

"It's who I am," I replied stiffly. Then I stood up and went to get dinner.