Author's Note: As always, a million thanks to everyone who reviewed. You continue to blow me away. It really does make my day and keep me inspired to write.

I apologize for the delay on this chapter and the next one. My Mom's birthday is today, and I fell behind on this story because I was writing a story for her as a present. I like to have each chapter for a couple days before I post it, so that I can reread, edit, and make sure it flows well with the next chapters.

As always, Rick Riordan owns his characters. I am not Rick Riordan. Therefore, I do not own his characters.

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Chapter 4: No Turning Back

Sammy didn't open his eyes even after the bay finally stopped, which was a big mistake. The horse seemed to remember how much fun it was to make life difficult for poor innocent grooms and promptly bucked Sammy and the grey-eyed boy off his back.

Sammy hit the ground with the thump and his eyes flew open.

They were lying in a grassy field that was definitely not in New Orleans. The sky had gone from sunny to cloudy, and the temperature had dropped about ten degrees.

"Ow," Crazy Kid groaned, hauling himself up.

Sammy closed his eyes. He didn't want to see that kid, or the wild bay, or this strange field. If they were real, then that meant everything that had just happened was real. And not just the part about the Greek gods and monsters, which was a huge shock, even though he'd had some suspicions about Hazel's father.

According to what everyone else believed, Sammy had burned the whites-only stable he had worked at, loosed all the horses, stolen one, stolen a good sized fish, and caused chaos at a factory that might well have been building tanks for the war effort.

If Sammy went back, he would be lynched the second he set foot in New Orleans.

He could never go home.

He hadn't even gotten to say goodbye to his family. He hadn't been able to grab any supplies. All he had were the clothes on his back, six cursed gemstones, one cursed gold nugget, a dollar and fifty cents, a gum wrapper, a pencil, a kid with questionable sanity, a really strange knife, and a stolen horse.

"Hey! Get back here! Stop!"

Sammy sat up in time to see the bay disappear into the horizon.

And there goes the horse.

Sammy really wanted to just sleep and wake up to find this all was nothing more than a strange dream.

"The horse ran away," Crazy Kid informed him.

"So I noticed," Sammy grumbled numbly. "He has a habit of doing that. You'd think he doesn't like me or something."

The grey eyed kid knelt down next to Sammy.

"Thanks for helping me. You probably saved my life."

"Just call me Hercules," Sammy quipped, flicking his hair out of his eyes, trying to push away the sadness welling inside him.

"Is that really your name?"

Sammy was very, very tempted to say 'yes,' but then he figured it would draw unwanted attention if this kid started calling for 'Hercules' in the middle of a busy sidewalk.

"I'm afraid not, my dad wasn't that creative. I'm Samuel Leonardo Valdez, but everyone just calls me Sammy."

Sammy extended his hand, and the Crazy Kid shook it.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Albert Quincy Grant. My Dad calls me Albert Quincy."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Al. For the most part."

"Yeah, sorry about the near-death experiences and monster and pointing a sword at your nose."

Sammy shrugged. "It's no problem. I'm best friends with Death's daughter. I eat near-death experiences for breakfast."

Albert Crazy Kid laughed, but Sammy felt his gut wrench.

Hazel, Hazel, Hazel, Hazel, Hazel.

Even if Queen Marie turned around and came back to New Orleans, Sammy would never see Hazel again. He still held out a little hope that she would turn back. He'd learned that Alaska wasn't actually part of Russia anymore, but it still wasn't even a proper American state. It was just a territory. It was the closest you could get to Japan on American soil other than Hawaii. The Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor less than a month ago. West was the last direction Hazel and her mother should be traveling. Surely Queen Marie would see sense and turn back, for her own safety even if she was beyond caring about Hazel's.

But in his gut, he doubted that they were coming back. Two weeks without a word or a sign. They were gone. And now Sammy was stranded too. He didn't know how he was going to help himself, much less Hazel...

Sammy stared at Albert.

"What exactly is Camp Half-Blood?" he demanded.

"My father says it's the only safe place for demigods. Once we reach a certain age, monsters start to find us, and we all have to go up there to train."

"What kind of training? How many are there?"

"Training to fight monsters!" The Crazy Kid's eyes lit up. "To be heroes! I don't know how many there are, but my father says there are lots of us."

Sammy's face split into a wide grin.

A camp full of trained, half-god heroes. If they were heroes like in the old myths, he was certain he could convince them to rescue Hazel. She was a demigod, one of their own, they would be sure to help.

An army of demigods.

They could find Hazel, and maybe they would let Sammy stay and train with them until he was old enough to join the Air Corps! If he could reach Camp Half-Blood, he might be able to put his future back together again.

"I'm going there with you!" Sammy declared, leaping to his feet. His fingers were twitching again; he was ready to get started.

"Are you sure?"

"I can't go home after that fiasco, and I wasn't joking about being best friends with Death's daughter. More than best friends actually; with luck, I'm going to marry her someday. But I need to track her down first."

Crazy Kid snorted. "She ran away from you? You might want to rethink the engagement."

Sammy gave him a light cuff on the ear.

"She didn't run away from me. Her mom lost her mind and moved to Alaska. Honestly, I think her mother has gone insane, and she's turned against Hazel. The girl I love is in danger, and she's a daughter of Pluto, so your demigod buddies are going to help me rescue her once we get to this Camp Half-Blood place, understood?"

"Well, alright, that's fine with me. But... how are we going to get there?"

Sammy put his hands on his hips and glanced around the field. There was nothing manmade visible as far as the eye could see.

"I have no clue, but I'd say we better figure out where 'here' is first." Sammy checked for the bright patch in the clouds that hinted at the location of the sun. He turned them toward the north-east. "Let's go this way!"

"Why? Do you see something?"

"Nope. But unless you want to turn into a frozen statue in this stupid field, we have to go some way or another. We'll run across a town eventually, and we can ask for directions. Do you have any green? I'm near broke." Not counting the cursed gems. Between learning about Pluto and trapping the chimera, Sammy was now convinced that the jewels really were cursed, and he really didn't want to have to sell them to some innocent, unsuspecting stranger.

"Yeah. My father gave me money."

"Perfect!" Sammy exclaimed, throwing an arm around Albert's shoulders. "Then let's get started!"

"Get what started?"

"Our grand adventure, icicle brain!" Sammy teased, pulling Albert into a jog beside him as the snow began to fall.

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As always, reviews are greatly appreciated and keep me motivated to write faster.

PS: Time2Wake, this is an update, so am I your BIF now? :P