Piper stilled completely when she heard her name, the breath knocked straight out of her.

All eyes were on her, pity for her and relief that they weren't called themselves on their faces. Piper's heart thundered and she found it hard to breathe, heaving deep breaths and trying to calm herself as much as possible.

Piper Mclean.

It was the first time she ever wished that wasn't her name. She wished it wasn't tethered to her, that she didn't recognise it. Wished that it didn't spill out of the promise-maker's mouth.

It was over. Her luck had run out. Time had run out for her.

She faintly registered Will's hands on her shoulders, barely heard his voice but felt all eyes burning into her. She saw some of her friends from Sector 10 watching her, their eyes glimmering with tears and other people she'd become friends with bowing their heads, their faces tensed.

She couldn't hide it. She was afraid.

Terrified.

She didn't know what would happen, didn't know how she'd be taken, how she'd be treated, how she'd be broken and it was the blindness of it that terrified her. There was nothing to come to terms with because there was nothing she knew that would happen. She shut her eyes and counted to one hundred, counted backwards and counted again until she was calm enough to form coherent answers to all the questions Will was throwing at her.

"Piper, talk to me, are you okay?"

She heaved a deep breath, before meeting his eyes. "I'm—" not "—okay"

"Come, s-sit down," he offered her a chair and eased her down. "You don't want to move around too much. Your…your hands—you…"

And he trailed off stammering. He was nervous, she could read that as easily as she could hear the four syllables repeating in her head. Piper Mclean. Piper Mclean. Piper Mclean.

She shut her eyes. No. She wasn't going to cower, waiting for him to get her. She was going to use this to her advantage.

Her heart hammered in her chest and she inhaled a deep, shaky breath, shutting her eyes and damming the tears.

Somehow.

Jason slammed open the door, ready to sprint despite his injured leg, when X's voice interrupted.

"How long have these…The promises been happening?" Her voice sounded shaky, though he didn't know why. He turned back to see X wearing Piper's face and it took all his control not to shout. Was X taunting him with Piper's face now?

He grit his teeth. "A year now."

"Ever since I was taken." Her voice was hushed. She looked back up at him desperately. "Was there any pattern in the people he took?"

Jason paused, his anger still simmering beneath the surface. "Stop it." He said.

X frowned. "Sorry?"

"Turn into yourself or something!" He glared at her. "Stop taunting me!"

X stopped and glanced down at her form. "Jason," she said, her voice soft. "This is me."

"Shut up!" He clenched his fists. "Turn into something else."

"Answer my question first." She said.

He turned around so he wouldn't have to look at her. "We haven't found any pattern but he seems to love taking people I care about."

X paused. "People…Piper might've known too?"

Jason scowled. "I mean, of course. He wants to make our lives hell."

"Oh gosh." She whispered, her voice trembling.

"What?" Jason swivelled around. "What do you know?"

Piper's face looked up at him. "She'll be the last to be taken."

"What? How do you know?"

"Because he's been looking for her for a year." She said. "And now he's found her."

Jason walked towards her. "What are you talking about?"

She buried her head in her arms. "I didn't think he'd go that far." She breathed. "He's out of control."

Jason dropped to his knees and grabbed her shoulders. "What are you talking about?"

"No one knows I'm here, right?" X asked.

Jason paused, clenching his fists in order to keep calm. "Yes."

She sighed. "I'm telling you this only because I care about my idiotic—"

The ship shook and faltered and Jason shot to his feet as the lights flickered. What was he doing here? He needed to get to Piper. The enemy was in the ship and her name was promised and he stayed here with X too long. He needed to get to her.

Jason barely heard X's calls as he shot out the already opened door, limping down the hallway.

Piper Mclean.

He'd already lost Thalia. Already lost Nico. Already lost Dakota.

He wasn't going to lose Piper.

He punched the button for the door to open and ran down the piped hallways, narrowly escaping tripping over loose wires and pipes. Doors flew past him as he limped down the corridor, his heart ringing in his ears.

His hand was snatched back with such force that he swivelled around and met kaleidoscopic eyes.

He was riveted to the spot at the sight of Piper and relieved that she was all right and his arms began to curve forward to crush her against him when the details of her clothes tore his eyes away.

It was the same battered old grey jumpsuit he and Chiron had chucked into the cell for her to wear.

X.

He stepped back and the large rectangle of light illuminating the dark hallway had him curse himself. He left the door open.

"Jason," X drew out slowly, as if she was trying to tame him.

But he wasn't offended by that. He knew he was unstable. His mind was a muddled mess of thoughts, Piper's face the only clear and recurring image imprinted.

X, with Piper's calm and kind eyes, reached for his forearm, her thumb finding the skin on the inside, just below the crevice of the arm, stroking slowly in single circles.

It calmed him too. A recurring motion to focus on in his maelstrom of thoughts.

He peered at her. Was it because she had taken Piper's form was she able to do that? Able to calm him and know how to? Able to know he wasn't calm in the first place?

Either way, she wasn't Piper.

And he only felt a little regret when he saw the hurt in her eyes, the eyes that he wanted to get to, as he pulled roughly away.

"Turn back." He ordered.

She glanced behind her at the spill of light from her cell room. "Literally?"

He cursed himself for chuckling, caught the bubble of laughter in his throat. But her eyes brightened and she offered him a small grin, to which he, on instinct, had the impulse to grin back to.

What was he doing?

An image of Piper—his Piper—frightened and in pain with her mutilated hands seared through his brain and he grit his teeth.

He looked up at X, at her features so similar to Piper's, and clenched his fists. "Stop…wearing her face." His voice was hoarse.

Her lips trembled and she gulped, turning away, though Jason caught the glimmer of tears in her eyes. His heart trembled but he tensed himself. She was manipulating him. She was using Piper to manipulate him.

He wouldn't allow her.

Though his heart was set with panic and his legs shook with the need to run, he grabbed X by the shoulders and walked her back down the piped hallway, his self-control wavering with each step back. He pushed her through Door 010—EX and closed it behind him, continuing down the old hallways towards her cell.

X said nothing, though knowing Piper and her firm set of the shoulders, Jason knew she was in deep thought. That she was contemplating something, considering something. Jason thought back to her words before—she'll be the last to be taken—and stopped.

She said the promises began when she was taken. That it was people he and Piper knew that he took. That he was looking for her and she would be the last. He thought back to what she said—this is me.

Breathing became difficult.

At his halt, X turned around, albeit slowly. Her eyes held a conclusion. She'd made a decision.

"Jason," she said slowly, "I have to tell you something."

Piper had gathered quite a tail.

She sneaked a glance behind her at the determined faces, the pursed lips, the solemn eyes. They just began following her silently as she wordlessly made her way to the Command Room through the piped hallways, people upon people piling up, not a word uttered.

Perhaps they were following her to see her next move? Maybe sticking to her because all the promised's were taken when alone? Either way, though she was flattered, the attention behind her was making her back tingle. And making her doubt what she was about to do.

A little.

She sighed. She wanted Jason by her side now. She wanted his warmth, his easy smile, his care and just someone to kiss away her fears. But more for comfort she wanted him for courage, for advice on how to deal with this, for support on doing it, for opinion on whether she should do it at all. Because as partners in crime, as an unbeatable duo, a team, they were stronger together.

And she was in dire need of strength right now.

The same strength she lacked when Lacy from her sector broke the silent barrier and spoke to her, asking where she was going.

She'd struggled to reply then because she wasn't even sure about what she was going to do. The self-doubt had clouded her and stolen her voice.

After that, no one said anything, them probably thinking she was too afraid and emotional to speak.

And in a way, she was. She was terrified. The fear had a vice-like grip on her heart, the terror shaking her limbs. It took all her strength to put one foot in front of the other and even then her mind plagued her. Plagued her with the memory of Jason's warmth, of her father's understanding, of Leo's grin, of Annabeth's support, of Percy's mirth, of Hazel's comfort, of Frank's compassion and the list went on and on until it threatened her dam of tears to break.

No.

She couldn't allow herself to think of them. Not when the thoughts were packaged as if she were to never see them again. She would take strength from the memories of her loved ones, not weakness. She numbly moved her bandaged hand to her left ring finger only to freeze when it brushed not a smooth band of metal but the roughness of the dressing. Jason had her ring. She felt a sort of hollowness inside her without it. She shut her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line. Strength not weakness.

A deep breath filled her up and straightened her spine, lifted her chin and pushed her forward.

Until a figure speeding from her right knocked her down.

She groaned, blowing the stray curl that fell onto her face away, smacking the head that came from it with her forearm.

The form didn't budge, its arms tight around her neck, its head buried into her shoulder.

"Leo," Piper croaked. "Don't kill me just yet."

How he found her after more than an hour since they saw one another by the East exit was beyond her. Perhaps Nyssa from the tail behind her contacted him. It didn't matter how, though. She was glad for his presence.

Leo pulled back and Piper blinked when she felt something cold drop on her cheeks. She looked into his teary eyes and huffed. "Stop," she said, "You're going to make me cry."

"Stupid," He flicked her forehead, his lips trembling. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

She choked a laugh and crushed him in a hug, patting his head.

Leo never cried. At least, never in public and rarely about anything other than his mother. Seeing him cry made it hard for Piper to keep control. It wavered the grip she had on her self-control and threatened to break the dam of her tears.

No.

She had to gather strength from her loved ones, not weakness. His tears should push her to continue her stride to the Command Room.

And so she got up and they both stumbled to a stand together, their feet catching on loose wires.

She paused, wiggling.

He'd latched onto her arm and wouldn't let go. Another shake managed to move his hand down to her wrist and he clutched it tight, his fingers almost touching the casts and bandages on her hands. Well, at least it was more comfortable.

She shook her head and continued down, the trail of people silently following them.

So much silence. Leo didn't comment on her hands or the people behind her as he usually would. The people behind her didn't comment on Leo as one would naturally do. No, no one spoke, nor gasped, nor even breathed too loud.

Perhaps they felt the tension too. Like a delicate wire that anything could break. As if, once broken, panic would ensue.

Reyna shot up from her seat as soon as the door slid open, her gun out.

The startle was justified since Piper slipped in through an inconspicuous door from the piped and wired passage.

And that a herd of footsteps came in behind her.

With wisps of hair in her, dirty, sweaty face, her braid almost undone and the blood on her suit, it was safe to say that Reyna looked haggard. Her eyes, though, struck through the unconvincing appearance. They were like the dark side of the moon, haunted and vengeful, and yet glinted with the light of the stars, the hope that, she, a leader, brought, gleaming through.

"Piper," she started forward, resting a hand on her shoulder, her eyes solemn and expressing more words than their language's vocabulary could offer.

Piper rested her hand atop Reyna's on her shoulder briefly, nodding once, hoping she could express the better part of her tumultuous mind to the Captain with it.

"What do you need?" Reyna asked, getting straight to the point.

Piper inhaled deeply, gathering as much courage from the air as she could. This would be the difficult part, explaining and somehow justifying her mission enough that Reyna would agree and provide her with the necessary supplies. She shut her eyes briefly, thinking of all the people who'd disappeared the way she would soon. Thalia, Bianca, Silena, Charles, Katie, Pollux. She owed them all this when she was unable to do anything before. Because she didn't know if what she was about to do would do anything. She just knew she had to do something.

"I want to proceed in retaliation with an individual attack." Piper finally said, her tone strong and even when her heartbeat wasn't.

She heard gasps erupt behind her and saw Leo whirl towards her in her peripheral vision, his eyes wide.

Reyna didn't even blink. "No."

She huffed. "Captain, I—"

"We talked about this, Mclean," Reyna snarled. "We aren't wasting the lives of our crew with this useless form of offense."

"It'll only be me." Me, whose life isn't valuable enough to waste anymore.

Reyna approached her menacingly. "What is this?" She hissed. "A spiteful suicide mission?"

"Reyna, I know what I'm doing."

"The empty vacuum of space is different from our training grounds. Going out there is foolish."

"Hear me out." She had little to no time and it was time to act. "If he's going to get me then what better way to draw him out than out on unfamiliar terrain? Terrain that I know and am comfortable with."

It was a valid point and Piper knew Reyna knew it with the way she paused, her eyes straying to the ground in thought. She was weighing the odds, albeit begrudgingly with her pursed lips.

Piper felt hope flutter in her chest when Reyna's fists suddenly clenched.

She crossed her arms, her mouth firm, eyes stubborn. "No matter how comfortable you are, your hands are in no shape for this."

Piper toed the floor. She wasn't sure if it would work. But time was meagre and there was no other option. "Ambrosia."

Cue the gasps.

It was a wave of sharp inhales behind her and an "Are you insane?" expressed loudly by Leo in words and Reyna in her eyes.

"We haven't tested Project Ambrosia on any human yet," Kayla from behind her shouted. "Lieutenant Mclean, there are high chances of you burning from the inside out if you take too much. We don't even know how much too much is."

"It's worth a shot," Piper replied. "We've tested it on enough subjects to know."

"Subjects being a dog, a bird, a hamster, a fish, a snake and an ape." Leo said from beside her. "I know I've been calling you names lately, but you do know I was joking right?"

"Either way, everything you've suggested to me now is foolish and suicidal and I will not allow this." Reyna gritted out snuffing Piper's flicker of hope.

Piper's impatience morphed into thrashing flames of anger. They were treating her as if she were a mere cadet. As if she hadn't led her Sector from the lowest ranks to one of the highest. As if the bronze cuff links signifying her ten-year service in Half-Blood Forces meant nothing.

And time wasn't on her side.

She whirled around and ignored the discreet steps taken back away from her. Leo's hand had snapped back from her wrist at her sharp turn and he followed, hot on her heels. Shouldering through the crowd, careful not to move her hands too much, she met incredulous eyes with a steady, stubborn gaze.

Though Reyna called out after her, she didn't falter her steps as she made her way back to the piped hallways. For a second it was only two pairs of footsteps echoed in the large, dark hallways and then suddenly dozens of others followed, their footsteps like the raucous beats of a number of unsynchronised drums. Kayla had jogged up and caught Piper by the shoulder, yammering on about the dangers of Ambrosia and how the serum wasn't ready and using big words that Piper didn't care to infer the meaning of. She merely ignored the worried bio-chemist, stomping her way forward, dodging the occasional loose wire or protruding pipe.

It only occurred to Piper when Leo's hand rested on the doorknob that the soldiers from Atlas were still hiding inside the ship.

And she was going to barge in as if it was her father's house.

She nudged Leo before he could open the door and gave him a warning look when he turned to her in question. She knelt and rested her ear against the door, listening carefully.

But Leo shook his head and pulled her back. "Don't worry." He said. "I know these maintenance hallways like the back of my hand. The laboratory doors are always, always locked and can only be opened with a code that only the white coats and—" He shot her a mischievous grin. "—I know."

Her head shook, her lips quirked. Well, of course Leo would be a step ahead of her.

With a snap of his hand and the sharp, spiderlike movement of his fingers on the keypad, the door slid open with a grunt.

She slipped in after him and took in the polished sterile white (dulled to a marble grey due to the lack of light) tables and walls. The laboratory looked like a white canvas, where the walls and tables and chairs were white and the chemicals, serums and formulas were bursting with colour. Neons, charcoals, pastels, any and every hue painting the white canvas with ideas.

Piper scanned the room and took a double-take when a wall covered in papers snuck into her vision. Weaving through the maze-like countertops, she neared the wall, her eyes roaming the entirety of it. As if a murder happened and the detectives would paste together an archive of newspaper clippings and statistics, letters and flyers, the wall was covered in lab test results and magnified pictures of specimen, maths formulae and lists of ingredients.

But that wasn't what caused the entire room to gasp.

Piper always wondered why, unlike other forces, Half-Blood Forces urged their men and women to smile in their profile tag pictures. Perhaps it was because once they were lost, their easily accessible pictures could be used in such a way. Because twelve faces smiled down at her, each causing her to clench her fist further.

"They're all of the promised's." A cadet behind her breathed.

A lump formed in Piper's throat at the sight of them. The promised's. Promised to be taken away by Atlas's second-in-command. Promised no one would touch them by their fellow soldiers. Her face would join theirs if she didn't move quickly.

A shoulder brushed against hers and she turned to see Kayla gazing up at the wall. "Ambrosia was an ancient project that we found on paper in some old files." She said quietly. "The formula was too complex for us to begin working on it so it was left somewhere on a shelf. Then the disappearances began and the death toll kept increasing. It was because of the amount of injuries and deaths that we couldn't fight full force and because we couldn't fight full force that these disappearances regularly happened. These people," Her fist clenched. "They didn't deserve this. They weren't taken through a battle in the way they always thought they would, on their feet. They were caught unawares and taken away needlessly. So we thought…if we could somehow keep our forces solid and strong against Atlas then they wouldn't be at ease enough to take our people through means other than a battle. Through means such as…a promise." Kayla faced Piper and her eyes were weary. "Tweaking ambrosia to its full potential was done with the promised's on our minds. We vowed to create a serum so strong that we would never lose numbers in our forces. That we would never…lose. And never lose more like them."

Kayla's hand reached forward, paused in hesitation, and then moved forward again to peel back the fifth picture. A button hid behind it, small and purple. Her fingers shook as she pressed it and a whoosh followed. Thalia Grace's smirking picture slid with the ones after her to the right until a large rectangular gap was formed, lights flickering on inside. Almost like products in a shop, dozens of syringes were lined up, organised by the colour of the stickers on them. Kayla reached inside and pulled out the one with the orange sticker, swivelling around back to Piper.

She patted Piper's upper arm and Piper nodded, beckoning Kayla to unzip her jumpsuit to her navel. The sleeveless tank top she wore beneath allowed access. Tension swam in the air, created by the held breaths of the entire room. I could die from this, Piper thought. She frowned then, realising she could die either way. She shook her head, gulping as Kayla's shaky hands brought the needle closer and closer until Piper felt a small pinch…

…followed by pulses of agony.

She screamed, backing away from Kayla into the wall behind her, sliding to the floor. Her fingers seemed to break over and over again, the searing pain crackling in her knuckles, her hand, her wrist, her whole arm. All the bones in her hand felt as if they were rearranging, each move of the bone evoking another shriek.

She barely saw the wide, horrified eyes through her tears of pain, barely heard Leo's worried calls through the agony.

"U-undo…the bandages." She whimpered and Leo shot up, removing the bandages from her hands in lightning speed.

A sickening crackling sounded from her hands and her two missing fingers began to grow, erecting horrifyingly from her knuckles.

"Holy shit!" Leo sprang away and similar shouts grew from the crowd.

Piper cried out again and again until the fingers stopped and altogether the pain flashed out.

She slumped against the wall, her head hanging between her shoulders.

Leo and Kayla shot forward, Kayla examining her hands, Leo holding her by the shoulders, repeatedly asking if she was okay. Piper weakly nodded, lifting her hands from Kayla's grasp to her face. She blinked through the tears at the two fingers and unwounded hands. She wiggled the two fingers, gasping.

"It worked."