I hate school. I hate teachers. I hate trigonometry. I hate cheerful people. I hate yellow. I hate cheeseburgers. I hate swimming. I hate pop music. I hate modern technology. I hate modern terminology. I hate dancing. I hate singing. I hate flip flops. I hate rap. I hate the smell of dog crap. I hate the smell of swiss cheese. I hate people who wear sunglasses inside.

But I hate, hate, hate morning announcements.

"Good morning, fellow students!" the perky student-council president chirped from the overheard TV. "I hope you're all having a lovely day!"

You're hopes are in vain, sista.

"As I'm sure you've all heard by now, prom is coming up very soon! And you're probably wondering, 'where must I go to rent a tuxedo?"

More like, "what must I do to save myself from this asinine chatter?"

"Well, lucky for you, our school has raised enough funds this year to provide rental tuxes to all of the male student body! Just drop by in two weeks, and there will be racks set up in the music room . . ."

Ah yes, the music room. Also known as, "The Room in Which a Goth Chick With Anger Management Issues Robbed Me of My Hopes and Dreams, as Well as Whatever Small Amount of Optimism I Used to Have." Yeah, it didn't exactly hold the greatest memories.

Up on the screen, someone whispered something into Happy-Go-Lucky's ear. Her eyes widened to the size of slightly-larger-than-average grapefruits as she feigned a look of shock and horror. Maybe she'd been notified that her dress had a small wrinkle? Or that Tinkerbell didn't actually exist? I didn't have to wait long to find out.

"Well," she sang in a voice so filled with fake worry that it burned my ears a little bit, "I've been told to inform everyone that all students are to remain inside the building until further notice. I'm not sure why . . ." Her concerned demeanor faltered, and she glared at someone standing out of range of the camera. No doubt the one who had spoken into her ear in the first place. A few words were exchanged, and when she smiled again, I had to remind myself that giving someone the finger was not a particularly flattering gesture, nor could she actually see me through the television.

"But apparently we're about to flip to channel five to find out!" She winked. I gagged. "Stay tuned!"

The screen went blank momentarily, and the other students in the hallway pondered with eachother what could possibly be so bad that it would force us to stay indoors. I waited patiently until a reporter appeared from up in a helicopter, gripping a microphone in her hand and talking professionally into it.

"We're live here at Birchville, Vermont," she announced. "And in a hellicopter—because it's too dangerous to be at the scene right now."

The scene? What scene?

"A vicious rhinoceros has been rampaging through the miniscule town since around 7:45 this morning. We don't yet know the full extent of the damage, but local authorities have informed us that not only has the wild beast been smashing through trees and houses, it's been setting them on fire, too. Police are still speculating about where the animal could have come from, the most likely answer being a local zoo. Citizens are being advised to stay indoors, and—if possible—in a basement or cellar until this rogue beast has been dealt with."

I gaped. A rampaging rhinoceros? Smashing houses? Setting things on fire? Okay, the first two I could kind of believe. But as far as I knew, rhinos didn't have any sort of fire power, or weld flame-throwers. Plus, Birchville didn't even have any local zoos. And it's not like the thing swam all the way from Africa just to cause a commotion.

I pivoted and began pushing my way through the crowded hallway to first period English, then thought better of it. I mean, what's a crappy newscast in comparison to being early to a daily torture session? I doubled back, fixing my gaze once again on the overhead TV. They had finally gotten a shot of the rhino—well, tried to, anyways. There was so much smoke and debri that it wasn't even visible.

Shaking my head disbelievingly, I let out a long sigh. As far as cons went, this one wasn't all that convincing. And apparently I wasn't the only one who thought so.

"How freaking batshit crazy are these people?"

It took me a moment to pinpoint the source. But oh, when I did, something inside me died a little. She was dressed in all black. With one long braid. And a notebook in her hand.

And thus, my morning began spiraling downwards.

Nia was facing away from me, thank gods, and I wondered what my chances were of sneaking past her unnoticed. Most likely very small; she was, after all, "more observant than most people gave her credit for". Still . . . it was worth a try, right?

"I can believe it," said the girl she was talking to—Ginnie? Jennie? Jelly? I started to slip through the crowd.

"You'll believe anything, Jo," she laughed, and as I neared her location, I got the feeling that she didn't do so that often. "Remember when Chesley told you he could—"

"That," Jo (which I remembered was short for Jolie) interrupted, "Was a completely believable story."

"Right. Because god knows an eleven-year-old is capable of—Nico?"

That moment right there was the textbook definition of a "shit-uation".

"Nia," I choked out, internally cursing myself for not being smoother. Whatever happened to manly pride? And why the hell didn't I have any? So she thought I was schizophrenic. No problem. I was sure that people had thought much worse things about me in the past. No, I knew. So this shouldn't have mattered. At all. The least bit.

"Nico," she replied steadily, face devoid of all expression.

"This is Nico?" Jolie asked with obvious interest, scrutinizing me with wide brown eyes which, despite their dark color, seemed to glow. Hell, now that I noticed it, all of her seemed to glow. She practically radiated perky. I was honestly surprised that I hadn't noticed it when I'd first seen her in the cafeteria with Dylan. Then again, she had been on the verge of tears. And, of course, I'd been a wee bit distracted.

"Wow," she exclaimed, "you are so much better looking than Nia said you were!" She then realized what she'd just said, and I'm not sure which of the three of us were more horrified at that moment. Though Nia was doing a pretty good job of maintaining her poker face.

The goth in question cleared her throat. "Nico, this is Jolie. She lives with her foot in her mouth, so you'll have to forgive her if everything comes out a little muffled."

Jolie didn't so much as glare at her, just gave her a lighthearted punch in the arm and resumed her babbling. "Well, Nico, Nia's told me so much about you!"

I arched an eyebrow. "Have you, now?" I asked her, but Jolie started talking again before she could answer.

"Actually, I shouldn't say that. There's not much about you that she could tell me, considering that you've only had, what, three total conversations? And even then I had to grill for details." She said this as though my brief, strange meetings with Nia were completely normal, everyday situations. "So your last name's di Angelo? That's Italian, right? Does your mom make gnocci? Are you gonna grow a mustache when you're older? Do you drive a Ferrari? Or a—"

"Okay," I interrupted, "That's just plain offensive—"

"—lamborghini?" She plowed right on as if I hadn't spoken, and I could tell Nia was biting back a grin. "I've always wanted a Lamborghini. Custom-made, azure base with an intricate pink-and-green design painted onto it, and leather seats. Cream-colored leather seats . . ."

Dear gods, she was ruining a perfectly good car without even touching it.

But just as I was beginning to wonder if she ever needed to stop for oxygen, she said something that abruptly jolted me out of my reverie.

"So you see monsters, right?"

I stood frozen for a second, unsure of what to do. Then I spun on Nia.

"You told her?" Sure, I hadn't exactly informed her that she was in possession of one of my biggest secrets, but still, you'd think she'd have the decency not to go and tell everyone about it. Apparently not.

"Relax," she assured me, "Jolie's the only one I told. You're secret's safe with us."

"Good." Though I couldn't say I was all that relieved. Jolie babbled so much; who knew when it could slip out?

"Yeah," the shorter one agreed, "and we don't lie about that stuff. None of us."

"None of you?" I echoed in confusion. "But you just said you didn't tell anyone else."

Jolie's eyes widened and a look of sheer panic flitted across her face. The girl was as easy to read as a picture a book, almost the polar opposite of her friend. She was probably no good at lying, something I really didn't envy her for, because gods know how many times I had to lie myself out of some bad situations. Chances are that the very nice cash register lady at Groceries N' Things wouldn't have believed me if I'd told her how the pile of yellow dust really appeared in the canned soup isle.

"She was referring to my cat," Nia explained, and I couldn't tell if she was serious or not. "She can't go two minutes without talking, and when there's no new victim around, she rants to him." Apparently she was.

"Hey!" Jolie defended herself. "Fayiz is a fantastic listener!"

"Fayiz?" I smirked. "Whatever happened to names like Socks and Fluffy?"

"It's all about the names, Nico. And cats with those names die really, really young."

"So wait . . ." I paused briefly. "If you know that I'm . . . crazy, why do you still talk to me? I can guarantee that if the rest of the school knew, ninety-nine percent of the students wouldn't come within five feet of me."

Nia smiled wryly. "I'm goth. Jolie talks to cats. We're not exactly the most popular people, either."

But, I decided, they definitely could've been. They were pretty enough to be student council members—no, one rank higher. They were pretty enough to be cheerleaders. If Nia just lost the black clothes and heavy makeup, and Jolie had the decency to shut up sometimes . . .

"Plus, Nia's the rebellious type!" she chimed in. "Not that I mind. Sometimes it's fun to-"

"Wait, what?" I cut her off. "What do you mean 'rebellious'? What are you even rebelling against by talking to me?"

Nia ignored my question, instead choosing to grab Jolie by the elbow and begin to tow her away. "God, look at the time! Sorry, Nico, but we really need to leave now. We have history next, and you know how Ms. Perkins is if you're late! See you around!" And on that note, she promptly spun and (very quickly) walked away. But not before I heard her whisper to Jolie, "I swear, you're going to be the death of me."

Odd? Yeah, just a bit. She certainly had a thing for eccentric farewells.

It was only after fifteen minutes of English class that I realized that, in all of my conversations with Nia, I had never specifically mentioned monsters.

Go figure.

The "rhino" attacked our school at 11:30 sharp.

Be thankful for your mortal heritage, dearest readers, for life as a half-immortal 't isn't all that leisurely. Because, when it all comes down to it (no matter how vaguely fun it sounds) battling a "rhino" is kind of scary. Terrifying, actually.

But I'll get to that in a minute.

I was sitting in study hall, doodling on my Spanish homework (this is why you don't give an ADHD kid pencils and free time) when the announcement came over the loudspeaker.

"All students report to the auditorium immediately," said the tinny voice. "Repeat, all students report to the auditorium immediately. The school is now in lockdown. Teachers, please accompany the students and see to it that they get there safely. Thank you."

Thank you? Seriously? It's like, "Hey, there's a slight possibility that you life's in grave danger. Have a nice day."

Well, my life is pretty much always in grave danger anyways . . .

I blinked. Now that I thought about it, this really wasn't anything new. My heart sank, and I was suddenly hit by a new realization. Okay, I'd realized it before, but this time I was able to put the pieces together:

Rhinos aren't in any way associated with fire.

Fifty percent (more or less) of mythological creatures? Hell yes.

Trying not to groan, because epic monster-slaying heroes don't do that, I began weaving my way through the tumult of teens, moving in the opposite direction. The auditorium was at the far north side of the school, so my logic told me that the beast was probably on the south side. That is, assuming the faculty was smart enough to put us as far away from the danger as possible, not just pick a room big enough to fit the whole student body. I seriously hoped it was the former.

Nevertheless, I continued to navigate through the crowd until the student-to-hallway ratio began to lessen, and eventually I was alone. Apparently the teachers trusted us enough to leave the hallways at this end of the school unguarded. Or maybe they thought that none of us would be stupid enough to leave the building and march out to meet our own deaths.

Wrong once again.

Before I exited the school, I had to stop by my locker to retrieve my "wallet". You know, the one that conveniently doubled as a Stygian iron sword when you opened it. And luckily for me, my locker was also on the south side of the building. Fate? Maybe. But if Fate placed my locker there just because they wanted me to battle a "rhino", it seemed more like a joke than a gesture of helpfulness.

And as I began to embark on what I was eighty percent sure would be a fruitless endeavor, I was suddenly struck by the oddity of the situation. A "rhino" was supposedly attacking the school, most likely the side I was on. Yet there was no loud noise, no smoke, no debris. It seemed a little strange to me that such a large and extremely pissed off creature would be this stealthy when going about its destructive activities.

I was beginning to wonder how the school had come to the conclusion that we were being attacked. There was no evidence of any sort, or anything that even vaguely suggested that—

I turned the corner and froze.

Oh, that's how.

The huge, gaping, smoldering hole in the half-collapsed wall was probably what tipped them off.

"Holy shit," I cursed, wondering if it was too late to turn back. If this creature could do that much damage to a sturdy brick wall, gods only knew what it could do to me. Speaking of which, I had no idea where the hell the creature in question even was. How was I supposed to fight it if I didn't—

My thought got cut off when roughly half of the hallway was blasted into pieces and the "rhino" stepped through.

"How many times," I hissed under my breath, "is this thing going to interrupt my think—"

And suddenly I was flung back against the lockers with suck force that all of the breath got knocked out of me and I could've sworn I felt one of my ribs crack. It took me a few seconds after that to come back to my senses, but when I did, I realized that all of them were screaming at me to run. Why, you might ask? Because the thing that had whacked me hard enough to make me lose my memory, it was a tail.

A really big tail. A really big, really scaley, really green tail. And a tail with such characteristics could only belong to . . .

I swallowed in dread as I sized up my opponent.

A dragon.

And a very hungry-looking one, at that.

This had been a bad idea. An exceedingly, excessively, extraordinarily, extremely, and all the other adverbs you can think of that start with e, bad idea. Seriously, who rushes out to a hopeless battle with no back-up and no plan? Percy, naturally. But he was invincible. The only thing I was was in some incredibly deep shit. So I decided to go over my options.

My first option was to try to summon up some of my skeleton warriors. But chances were that if I did, the dragon would set them all on fire. Coincidentally, the only thing that could kill them was... fire. So that plan pretty much got tossed just as quickly as I'd thought of it.

My second option was to stay and fight. But the flaw in that tactic was obvious the moment I thought of it.

Which left me with my third option . . . listen to my senses, and run'1

And that I did. I doubled back the way I had come, sprinting as fast as I could, then veering off to a hallway on my right to lead the thing away from the auditorium. I could hear it behind me, giant clawed feet clacking loudly against the floor as it pounded after me in hot pursuit.

I dared to glance back at it just before I took another turn to to my left. The huge creature was hunched over with its spiny back brushing the ceiling, cracking the fluorescent lights as it moved (I seriously hoped they weren't toxic). Smoke billowed from its nostrils in thick gray clouds, ones that I was sure would set off the fire alarms at any minute.

Speak of the devil.

Alarms started blaring, bright white lights flashing somewhere in my peripheral vision. Then the sprinkler system turned on, and before I knew what had happened, I had slipped and crashed onto the floor, the breath knocked out of me for the second time in a five-minute period.

I tried to stand up, but the dragon swiped me to the side with its claw and I hit my head—hard—against the opposite wall. I groaned in pain, vaguely aware of a warm, wet substance on the back of my skull. I reached up shakily to touch it, then brought my hand in front of my face.

Blood.

I was bleeding, a lot. The water around me was tinged with red. My mind screamed at me to stand up and keep running, but my limbs wouldn't respond. I felt dizzy. Black spots clouded my vision. I shook my head to rid myself of them, but that just made the horrible throbbing worsen.

All the while, the dragon was slowly advancing, taking its own sweet time to deliver the blow that would end my life.

So many things seemed cruel about my impending death. Like the fact that I hadn't even gotten the chance to fight, or been able to save all of the innocent students who were currently packed together in the auditorium. But the thing that seemed the cruelest?

Of all the places I could possibly die, I was going to die in school.

Lucky me.

Thank you to my amazing beta, Riptide Anaklusmos, who helped me edit this chapter, and to everyone who reviewed. Also, special thinks to Musafreen—your constructive criticism has really been a huge help for me! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.