Saph pov

Vanessa and I stood a couple feet in front of Mary and the girl she had Iris messaged us about.

I think she's special, like you two. Monsters have been crawling around the school. Don't worry, they're hardly a challenge but I don't want to take any chances. V and I got the next grey hound to Buffalo right after we got the message. Now, two buses and 8 hours later, we were standing in front of a scared 15 year old kid with the most tangled hair I'd ever seen.

"Who are you?" Her voice was shaky. Poor girl, I remember the first day a monster came after me. I was lucky I was with a satyr. We barely made it to the hill, I just turned 13. V appeared in camp the next summer, already claimed and miraculously alive. It was crazy, neither of us were supposed to exist. We've been like sisters since we'd met.

"Calm down sister, I'm Sapphira and this is Vanessa. We're friends." Judging from her stiff body language, she wasn't completely convinced. I looked at Mary and raised my eyebrows,

You give me this to work with? She gave me a look that told me to be patient. Mary looked at the girl with the distractingly wild hair and said,

"I called them. They're like me, like you." The girl turned her head and scoffed

"What am I? A demi-god? Sorry for not being totally accepting of it!" Oh gods, I get it! She wants proof. I gave a sideways glance at V's obsidian eyes and she nodded. I walked over to the water fountain and put my hand on it. The girl looked at me, she had stormy blue eyes and her cheeks and nose were covered in freckles. I looked at the fountain and willed the water to come up. It rose to eye level and formed a ball of water. She gasped, I then willed it to form a horse and it pranced around her head. I let the water drop to the floor, leaving a puddle. I looked at her.

"Believe us now? I'm the daughter of Poseidon, V over there," I said gesturing to her," is Hades' kid." She bit her lip and twisted her tank top. It's a lot to take in in one day, and we still have an 8 hour trip back home that would surely be filled with questions. V was thinking the same exact thing,

"Hey, we need to get going. It's bad enough there's 4 demigods in one place but 2, possibly 3 being kids of the big 3 so we got to leave. Now." She grabbed the girl's wrist, who looked back at Mary. She nodded, and gestured her forward.

"Wait. I need my sketchbook," She said trying to head for a nearby hall, but V held on.

"It's just a sketchbook, you can get another one or have it sent." V dragged her to the front door, anxious to leave and get back to our safe haven. I wanted to get out too, the sulfur smell monsters leave behind gives me a headache. But this girl just wouldn't have it.

"NO! I need my sketchbook!" The air crackled and a sudden gale shoved us into the door. V let go of the kid, rubbing her nose which had hit the metal door.

"What the hell?!" V turned around, looking at a now very pissed off demigod. "Look kid! I don't care about your sketchbook. We are in danger out in the open! Gods! I hate kids!" Probably not the best thing to say to a girl who makes tornados when she's mad, which means she can't control it.

"My name is Kori, not kid! I don't care what you say, I am going to get my sketchbook and you can't stop me!" She stormed down the hall, taking a static-y atmosphere with her. V looked at me,

"We came all the way to Buffalo, for her? She's a brat!" I had to admit I was taken back at Kori's outburst. No one ever talked to V that way, everyone was usually too scared of pissing her off to speak up. But yeah, I had to agree, that girl needed to calm WAY down.

A few minutes later, Kori walked back brandishing a shoulder bag, holding her chin up high. She must be trying to act like she wasn't fazed at all, which she wasn't doing a good job at. V rolled her eyes and huffed out the door. Mary wasn't in the hall anymore, she'd gone to help with the student's evacuation from a "freak tornado". We walked to the bus stop and had to wait a while. V got up from the bench and mumbled that she was going to the vending machine. So Kori and I just sat there. She glared at her feet and didn't say anything. She was seriously getting on my nerves with her angry atmosphere. It was hard to keep in mind what she was feeling. I needed a gesture of goodwill. I dug into my backpack and pulled out a hair brush. I was about to offer it to her when she finally said something.

"What did she mean?" she said still glaring at her sneakers.

"You mean V?" I looked over at her. She looked up, meeting her blue eyes with my green.

"Your parents, or at least one of them, are a god? Like from Hercules or whatever?" I couldn't help it, I laughed my butt off and almost fell off the bench.

"What?" Her face looked like a tomato someone put a sharpie to.

"Nothing, it's just when I found that out who she was, I thought the same exact thing." I reigned my laughter. She gave an awkward smile and looked back at her shoes. The air felt less stressed. I put my hairbrush in her lap.

"Looks like you need this." She picked it up and said a quiet thank you and started to tame her hair. Vanessa walked back with a can of Fanta and a bag of Doritos and gave me a look. We have this sort of secret language communicated through eyebrows. Her look said She ok now? Mine responded Yeah, she's fine.

About an hour later, Kori had a nice, detangled dark waves hanging over her shoulder. She cradled her bag in her like it was the most precious thing on earth, she had her head against the window and I was pretty sure she had passed out 20 minutes ago.

"I wish it wasn't so easy to feel sorry for that brat." V sighed, looking up. Her thick, corkscrew curls fell from the hood of her jacket. I laughed, she never got worked up this much about anyone.

"On the bright side," I said, "We don't have to go through the 'So, you're a demigod' talk for like the 80th time." V put her hands together and mouthed thank you to the floor. I would say sky but, yeah her dad isn't up there. We were quiet for a while. It'd been a long day, and we still had hours to go.

"Why do you think she hasn't been claimed?" I said, the sun setting, making the forest look like it was on fire. V looked at me and shrugged.

"She's 15, almost 16, it's usually 11 or 12."

"Maybe she was forgotten." she said it really quiet, even though Kori was sleeping soundly against the window. Sadly, it was a real possibility. The guys upstairs (or downstairs) could be really forgetful, which sucks. They were supposed to be claiming more of their kids. Granted a lot more kids had begun to flood the camp over the past couple years, but a lot were still forgotten. I was lucky, on my own with a normal family. Usually demigods don't live past 12, especially when their parents are one of the Olympians; we're like a giant signal flare to monsters. Now, V and I were going into our senior years of high school. I can tell you now, my graduation party will have a banner that says "I made it to 18 without being maimed!"

"Yeah, I guess." I didn't feel like talking anymore, I was exhausted. V and I were both college-bound. We'd decided we should go to the same school because I would seriously get lonely without her. Luckily a couple of deans in Manhattan were demigods or legacies so we'd have a good chance of getting in. About 4 hours later we had to switch buses. Kori was hard to get up, jeez, she's like a log! She was back asleep as soon as she sat down in the next bus. It was about 8:30 and I was about to fall over.

"I'll keep an eye out, you go and hit the sack." V knew sleep didn't come easy to me and when it came I had to stop whatever I was doing and just rest. I nodded at her and closed my eyes.

The sky was green and grey, like a hurricane was about to hit the shore. I walked down what only seemed to be a few feet to me but the trees zoomed passed me like I was on a highway. When I stopped I looked around and found I was in a cove, the waves lapped violently on the shore. I turned and saw a group of 9 people. I walked closer and saw they were all women, and they were all beautiful. But they were all frowning, their eyes were empty. An earsplitting crack of thunder shook the ground and lightning flashed. Suddenly, there were only three women, they held each other's hands. One of them turned to me, her eyes were ethereal. They looked like the pictures of space I'd seen in text books, swirling purples, blues and greens. She grabbed my wrist with her thin, white hand. She seemed to age with every second that passed.

"Remember us child. You are all we've got left." Her voice was horse and sounded like an echo. Her grip loosened and suddenly she and the other two women faded. Just poof! The waves suddenly got more violent, the sky threatened to attack. A loud crash of thunder made me wince and I heard someone yell for me. They got closer and closer until they screamed in my ear.

I woke up with start. I turned to V who was no longer in her seat but in the isle, gripping Kori's arm.

"Saph! We gotta scram, now!" People were yelling, getting there baggage from the upper racks. I was about to ask why when suddenly the bus was hit from the right side, making V and Kori fall over. The screaming got louder as people ran, and that's when the bus caught on fire.