Tarah's POV
"So where are we going?" I whispered as Sam led me to the north woods, just on the edge of the beach. He didn't reply, he just flashed me a mischievous grin and continued to pull me by my hand.

We followed the forest line about a quarter of a mile along the beach until he finally stopped in front of a tree. It didn't look any different from the other trees, yet Sam seemed intent on staring at it like it was some alien from outer space or something. Suddenly, just as I was thinking that he was teasing me, he chuckled and pushed on a small knot just above eye-level.

I heard some rustling, then a small ladder fell from the lowest branch of the tree. Sam did a little half-bow as I clapped, then he helped me climb onto the bottom rung.

I reached the top and stopped dead. What I expected to be a ramshackle tree-house of sorts was actually a lounge with a stereo system, a plush couch, a mini-fridge, and a flatscreen tv. There were no walls, just open sky for miles around. Despite this, the air was warm and comfortable.

"Like it? I did a favor for some tree-nymphs a while back, stopped some Ares kids from burning up half their forest, so they surprised me with this. No one can see it from the outside, and you don't have to worry about falling off because there is an invisible barrier all the way around." Sam demonstrate by leaning against thin air, scaring the crap out of me.

I didn't respond, I was still in shock. Finally I managed to choke out, "Trying to show off?"

He just laughed and walked over to the stereo. He pressed play, and I heard a woman's voice say, "Chapter Seven: The Will of Albus Dumbledore. He was walking along a mountain road in the cool blue light of dawn..."

I grinned as I realized what he was listening to. "Harry Potter?" I asked as I sat on the couch.

He walked over to the mini-fridge and pulled out two Cokes. "Heck yeah. I can't read them myself because of my dyslexia, and getting the Ancient Greek translation costs an arm and a leg, so this seemed like the best solution." He sat down next to me and handed over one of the sodas, taking a swig of his own.

I blushed and opened my drink. "So you like Harry Potter. How'd that happen?"

"A friend of mine used to read them to me, a long time ago." He replied quietly, staring at something on the horizon.

"Really? Are they a half-blood?" I asked, curious to know more.

"Yes, she was." He was facing away from me now.

"Was?"

Sam sighed and turned toward me and I was startled to see tears running down his face. Not knowing what else to do, I moved closer and gave him a hug. After a moment, he hugged back. There was no sound except for the audiobook. She held the book in her lap and gazed at it. Harry saw that the title was in runes; he had never learned to read them. As he looked, a tear splashed onto the embossed symbols.

After a while, Sam pulled away to wipe his eyes. "Sorry, I normally don't let my emotions get the better of me, especially around people I've just met," he choked as he tried to clean himself up.

"Don't be sorry, I don't mind," I reassured him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Ha, you wouldn't want to hear it." He bit his lower lip and glanced at me. I had my arms crossed and both eyebrows raised. He must have recognized my stubborn stature, because after a small chuckle, he took a deep breath and started talking. "When I was a little kid, before I knew I was a demigod, I lived with my mother. She had a career singing in Texas, and we were happy for a while. But she had to have surgery on her vocal chords, and after that she couldn't sing anymore. As her career went down in flames, she found comfort at the bottom of a whiskey glass, and nothing I did could make her stop. I ran away when she started getting violent. That's when I learned about my dad. He visited me one day when I was begging in a farmer's market, and he led me to a traveling circus. He told me about camp, and that the circus was headed in that general direction. He also said he was sorry he couldn't do more, but he loved me, etc. Anyway, that's where I met her. Her name was Mia Mason, although everyone called her Mia the Medium. She had an act where she talked to the spirits of the dead, and she really did, because she was a daughter of Hades."

"What did she look like?" I asked, imagining a girl with short dark hair and pale skin, wearing black eyeliner and skull jewelry.

"She had long raven hair which she always wore in a braid. She had vibrant brown eyes and tan skin. For her act, she wore a lace veil and a long purple gown, but off-duty she loved sleeveless summer dresses." He smiled, and I edged away a little, feeling foolish. Was I jealous? No, no. I just met the kid, there was no reason for me to be envious. Nevertheless he noticed my movement, but he must have thought I was just re positioning, because he did nothing other than settle next to me again.

"How did she read you the books?" I was trying to ignore the butterflies in my stomach.

"Honestly, I don't know. She was dyslexic like me, so she couldn't have read straight from the book. I asked her once, and she simply said that she had help. I assume that meant there was a ghost helping her, but then again, she always seemed to know everything. Which is also why it's so hard to believe that she could have been taken so easily."

"What happened?" I don't know how, but I suddenly realized I had my head resting on his shoulder.

"We were only an hour away from New York when the bus broke down on the highway. We were in the middle of nowhere, but we could see a farm about a mile away through some corn fields. We sent three men to find some help or a telephone. After two hours, they still hadn't come back, so the rest of us trudged through the field toward the farmhouse. When we entered the fields, there were about fourteen of us. When we came out the other side, there were only five of us left. Mia and I immediately pulled out our weapons. She had given me a celestial bronze dagger when we realized we were both half-bloods. Anyway, no sooner had we armed ourselves than four laistrygonian giants attacked us from all sides. Our companions didn't even realize what was happening before they were knocked out and shoved into a bag. Mia let out a yell, and the ground split open beneath two of the giants, sucking them in before closing just as quickly as it had opened. The effort it took knocked Mia out, so it was just me against two eight-foot cannibals. I got lucky with the first one, he slipped and I managed to stab him in the stomach, but while I was fighting him, the other had picked Mia up by her feet and was getting ready to shove her in a bag. I ran at him, and he dropped her to grab his club. He gave me a nasty gash on my left arm before I managed to stab him, and after that he crumbled to dust. I ran over to Mia and discovered she had been dropped on a low rock wall. There wasn't much bleeding on the outside, but she was coughing up a lot of blood. I wouldn't have moved her, but I could hear more monsters coming out of the house, so I picked her up and ran into the fields. When I got to the road, our bus was nowhere to be seen, same with the rest of our group. Lucky for us, a van came along within five minutes, and the people inside picked us up and drove to the nearest hospital."

"Mia was taken into surgery immediately, but the doctor said her ribs were broken, and they had punctured her lungs. She said they would do the best they could, but just as the sun came up, she came out to tell me Mia was gone. The doctor took pity on me and she made the police wait to question me, which was good because it gave me time to sneak out the back. From there, I made my way to camp. When I got here, Chiron took me in. He made sure I ate and slept, even though I didn't feel hungry or tired. After a while I started talking again, and the rest is history." Sam had started crying again, and I felt my heart melt in a puddle. I hugged him again, and after a while he stopped crying. I expected that to be the end of it, but to my surprise, the hug lasted another five minutes, the narrator talking about Ginny and Harry the whole time. Finally, he pulled back slightly, but he kept staring at me. He started leaning closer...closer...

Our faces were about an inch apart when suddenly he gasped and sat straight up. I glanced at his face and sprang to my feet when I saw his eyes. They were glowing bright blue, and he was shaking like crazy. After about ten seconds, his eyelids slammed shut, and he grew still again. I hurriedly checked his pulse and was relieved to find a steady beat pumping through him. Good, he wasn't dead. Now what?

I had just decided that I should run for help when suddenly his eyes snapped open, They were back to their normal gold-streaked blue, thank goodness.

"What happened, are you all right?" I asked, grateful I didn't have to try to explain to Chiron what we were doing up here.

Sam drank a sip of Coke before answering, "I'm fine, I'm fine, but we need to get to Chiron immediately."

"Why? Do you need to go to the hospital?" I didn't like how pale he had turned.

"No, but I need to talk to him. It's about Natasha. I know where she is!"