I was late getting back to Washington State. Percy was nowhere to be found. Nico said that he hadn't died, which was something, and I knew that Percy was fine; I didn't know exactly where he was, but I knew he wasn't dead. That, at least, gave me hope. But I did have to break the news to Sally and Paul, who didn't take it too well. There were iris messages made all over the country to anyone that could help, but Percy was nowhere to be found.

I wasn't taking it too well either, and neither was Annabeth. She was going partially insane with worry, and I just felt sick most of the time. Before I met Percy, I remember feeling like there was something missing, and after I met Percy, I felt whole. Now, having Percy taken from me, I felt like only half a person. I would have nightmares where I saw Percy die, and I woke up screaming. I was so tired all of the time, but I never could sleep because of the dreams. We had to report his disappearance to the police, which was fun to explain, but still necessary. What if he turned up somewhere?

I went from depression to anger frequently. During the anger, I would decapitate dummies faster, shoot a bow with more accuracy, and throw knives harder, trying to let out some of my rage. During the depression, I was exhausted from the minute I woke up in the morning. I always felt like there was cement on my hands and feet, and it was an effort to get anything done.

I missed the first week of school, and when I pulled into the parking lot of the high school at six in the morning, waiting for the school to open, I just wanted to cry. I remember my first day here with Percy, how nervous we both were, but how we got through it. But this was worse, because I didn't have any friends to talk to. Some friends they were, I supposed, because they had left me. When I needed them most, they left me. I tried to sleep in the truck, but I woke up about half an hour later, frozen with terror.

The dream was something I was slowly becoming used to. I was all alone, and I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I'd always be alone. There was a woman's voice, too, always saying "wait, wait, he's sleeping," but wait for what? Wait for whom? Who was sleeping? The other dream was one where Percy was dying, but that usually made me wake up screaming. I was sure that everybody had heard the news about Percy, and the thought of being bombarded with his name made me sick.

As the flow of traffic into the school increased, I reluctantly got out of the car and went to the front office. I could feel the stares of others, or maybe I was just imagining it.

The woman at the front office asked where my brother was.

I told her the truth.

"I have no idea."

I couldn't eat much, because if I did, I'd throw up. It felt like there was a gaping hole in my soul, and nothing would make it better.

Once I was washing the dishes and dropped a glass. For some reason, I started crying, really crying for the first time in years. That's how Charlie found me when he came home; I was sobbing and holding the broken glass.

"Come on, Meds, lets clean it up," he said in a soft voice. "I miss him too, you know, but he's strong, I know he is, and he loves you, and I know he's trying to come back."

"How can you love him?" I asked my voice raspy. "You've never met him before he came here."

"I love you, and you love him. Therefore, I love him," Charlie said. "And because I love you, you need to be strong, okay?" he asked.

I wiped my face, smearing a shard of broken glass across my cheek. Charlie looked alarmed at first before he remembered it couldn't hurt me. That look on his face made me smile for the first time in a month.

"Now you have to be strong, alright?" he asked me.

"Alright," I said. And I picked myself up.

October

November

For some reason, when Sally picked me up from the train station, it made me smile. I'd been talking to her more since Percy had gone, and she really wasn't as terrible as I thought. I'd built up a Sally in my head that was probably more exaggerated than reality. I'd painted her to be some monster for giving me up, but she hadn't given me up, I'd just disappeared. Like Percy, in a way. The more I thought of it, it seemed like godly interference. And that made me feel better, because if a god had done this, Percy was safe, for the time being. The woman in my dreams kept telling me that he was sleeping, and after some time, I thought that maybe she meant Percy was sleeping. That was good; if he was sleeping that meant he couldn't be running around the country and screwing stuff up like normal.

But when I got to camp, there were more problems. Drew, the head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin, was turning out to be really terrible. She was also a charm speaker, so I always blasted my iPod whenever I was within shouting distance of the cabin. All of the campers in her cabin were terrified of her, probably because she could switch out their mascara or something, I didn't know. And the Hephaestus cabin was having problems too. Inventions were going haywire, and the dragon Beckendorf had tamed was nowhere to be found. The cabin had been setting traps, but the head of the cabin was badly injured in a confrontation with the dragon.

Things were a bit crazy for the first week, and then things got insane.

I was trying to balance camp with work at a ballet studio, when one day at five in the morning, I was woken up by pounding on my door.

"Meda, I think I know where Percy is," a wild eyed Annabeth said as I sleepily opened the door.

I'd never woken up faster in my life. As we suited up with Butch, a son of Iris, we were briefed by Peter, Annabeth's half-brother. He said that Gleeson Hedge, a satyr stationed in Colorado, had sent out a message for help. He was being attacked by storm spirits who wouldn't die, and had two half-bloods under his care.

"I was told in a dream that the hero with a purple shirt and one shoe had the answer," Annabeth said.

"You mean he'd know where Percy is?" I asked. It had been months, but I hadn't lost hope at all.

"What other answer could we be looking for?" she asked.

We sped off to Colorado, the Pegasus bending the distance easily. When we arrived, it looked like all hell had broken loose. There were screaming mortals, and three teens who were looking absolutely terrified. Those were the half-bloods more likely. Then Annabeth locked eyes on the hero with one shoe.

"where is he?" she screamed as she ran up to him.

The poor kid looked terrified.

"who?" he asked.

"where is he?" Annabeth asked again, more calmly.

"we don't know who you're talking about," a girl with unevenly cut brown hair said.

"he said we were demigods," a Hispanic boy said, looking like he was going to be sick.

"what are you talking about? Where is he?" Annabeth screamed to the sky. There was only the boom of thunder to answer her.

"where's who?" the girl asked.

"my brother, Percy Jackson. Do you know him?" I asked.

"never heard of him," the girl said. The other two shook their heads.

"where is your protector, Gleeson Hedge?" I asked calmly. I didn't want to scare them. I don't remember having the introduction to demigods talk with anybody, probably because I started attending camp as a four year old. This was a way of life for me; my childhood had been filled with weapons and secrets, not parents and normal friends.

"he was fighting a storm spirit thing and he…"the Hispanic boy trailed off.

There was another boom, and I saw the clouds coming closer.

"In the chariot, now!" I said and pushed the kids to the chariot, and Butch helped them in. Annabeth hurried over.

"they're going to attack soon, hurry!" she said.

The Pegasus took off, and everything was fine. But then,

"fire!" the Hispanic boy yelled.

I doused the wheel in water from the nearby cloud and had to protect the boy from getting a knife from a spirit. For some reason, I was stabbing and stabbing, but they came right back. I saw that we had entered the camp boundaries, but the chariot was swerving and bouncing around.

"aim for the lake!" I yelled, and focused my power on the lake. I imagined it turning soft as a mattress or trampoline, allowing us to float and bounce peacefully.

We did, and the Pegasus scampered back to the stables. I pushed everyone to shore and dried them off. The nymphs pulled the now ruined chariot to shore, then went back to the water.

We did the crash course introduction for them, but my mind was elsewhere. I was focused on the boy with the purple shirt. He said that he had no memories, so Butch took him to Chiron. Because Chiron could take care of it, I showed the new kid around. The girl wasn't claimed yet, so that was something to look forward to.

The Hispanic boy, Leo, turned out to be a son of Hephaestus. Oh goody, I thought to myself as I introduced him to his cabin. He was funny, and carried himself like a lot of the other kids I'd met in foster care.

"Everyone is at the forge," Will, the head of cabin said after Leo was welcomed to the cabin.

"Maybe Nyssa's finished with my knife," I said hopefully. To make her feel better, I'd asked for a mid-length knife, but she'd been 'working on it' for the past two weeks, more than twice the normal time.

"Maybe," Will echoed me sadly. He was really taking the curse, as the camp had started to call it, seriously. He blamed himself for it.

"what's this I hear about a curse?" Leo asked as I showed him to the forge.

I had to explain about Beckendorf's death, something I still felt guilt over, and how the inventions were going haywire, especially the dragon. He seemed sad about the fact that we were planning on killing the dragon, but what else could we do? It was a danger, and needed to be stopped.

"how many?" I asked after a brief pause in the conversation.

"how many what?" he asked, looking a bit panicked.

"how many homes did you run away from?" I asked. "I ran away from ten before I was adopted. I was also discharged from five for fighting, which was totally unfair."

"uh, six," he said, looking guilty.

"relax, we're all the same here, pretty much," I said. I had to tell him about the ADHD and dyslexia, which made him look more hopeful.

"Fresh meat?" Nyssa asked as I entered the forge.

"new brother," I said, half sternly. Cabin nine acted tough, but they were a good bunch. In the eight years before I was claimed, I'd hung around a lot, and everybody joked I should be an honorary member.

"Meda, look!" Chris, a nine year old said. It was a small helicopter made out of rubber bands. But as soon as he launched it, rubber bands flew everywhere, smacking everyone in the face or back of the head. He looked crestfallen.

"hey, don't give up," I said. "Better luck next time, okay?"

He nodded, tears in his eyes, and he hugged me tightly. "Hey bud, watch the ribs, okay?" I asked.

"Hey Meda, try this out, please?" Harley asked. It was a battle ax, sharpened to perfection. It was nice, but…

"Dude, totally not my style," I said, twirling my pencils between my fingers.

"please, help me out?" he asked. He looked desperate, and who was I to judge? I couldn't get hurt by anything here anyway.

"alright," I said. "I'm the next Johanna Mason," I joked before facing the plastic dummy. I swung and cut the dummy's head off, and when I went for a swing for the chest, the plastic cut, but so did the axe. It split right down the blade.

"oh shit, sorry!" I said, picking up the pieces of the blade.

"Figures," he said darkly. "It's not your fault."

"Hey everyone, dinner's ready!" a new kid from the Apollo cabin announced to the forge. He turned right around and put as much distance between the forge and himself as possible.

Everyone dropped what they were doing, almost happily, and went to go get dinner.

"Come on," I said to Leo.

"Can I have a minute?" he asked.

"Sure," I said. I was positive that it was a lot to take in for an older person. I followed everyone to the pavilion, giving Chris a piggyback ride. Then I remembered. "Hey I forgot my pencil," I said.

"Be careful, Medy," Chris said. When I first introduced myself to him, he thought I said my name was Medy, and he called me that every now and then.

"No promises!" I said with a grin as I jogged back to the forge. I saw Leo hunched over a worktable, and there was a light coming from his hand. I moved silently around him, and saw that his hand was on fire. Fire users were rare, extremely rare, but I felt sorry for him. He'd gone through the foster system, and here he was, not able to tell anyone what he could do. I had to keep my water use a secret for years before I was claimed.

I tugged at the water in the barrels that was used to cool down hot steel, and wrapped water around his hand without warning. He jumped, and looked like a deer in the headlights.

"I won't say anything," I said as I picked up my pencil and put the water back in the barrel. "But let me tell you, fire users are rare, really rare, and I'd be careful if I were you. You're powerful, but dangerous." I warned. He looked terrified. "But you seem like a good person. I'm sure you'll be fine," I said. I grabbed his shoulders and marched him to the door. 'Now come on, time for dinner, and you won't believe how cool it is."