a.n. So, I thought I would try someone different today. David! He hasn't gotten a very big part so far. No mysteries at all. I love secrets. In case you haven't noticed. ;)

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All that is left to pov is ALAN and AVALEE, I think. Do you want one of them? Which one? Or do you want someone I've already done? Tell me! :) Enjoy.

David Jane, Undetermined

This is so confusing. They monsters, the random (and probably half insane) additions of Lora and Cass, and the complete silence of Toby that is almost as scary as the monsters are all so bewildering. And even worse, Ella and Karson have been enlightening me in little chunks. ("We have to give it to you in little pieces, so you don't go crazy. We're doing you a favor.") So all of this had only been partially explain to me.

And now this!

"You suck."

"Yeah, I know."

We were in the clearing where Karson and Ella had first found Nico. It was us three, and Cass, all sitting on the ground. Cass was making water bubbles in the air from the glass of water by her hands like someone would blow bubbles from a wand. Karson was leaning against the tree beside us, and Ella was sitting Indian-style on the earth, surprisingly upright. Or maybe that was just the way I saw from where I was. I was lying on the ground, panting and sweaty, and, I'm pretty sure, dying.

"You're a wimp," said Karson, glaring at me.

"And you are a terrible teacher," Ella pointed out, patting my head like I was a puppy. "He's never been taught sword fighting. You can't seriously expect him to get a hit at you."

"I'm an archer. Not a swordsman."

"Well, you're more of a swordsman than he is. The most athletic he's done is track and field."

"Then he should have better stamina."

"You've been going at it for three hours, you idiot," Ella said absently, opening her mouth wide until Cass made a little bubble float in to her mouth. "I feel like an astronaut. Thank you for making my dreams come true."

"Just go to Disney World next time," Cass muttered to her.

"Space Mountain!"

"Oh, I love that ride!" Cass exclaimed.

"Who doesn't?"

"Guys!" I hissed. "Why am I even doing this?"

"Duh," Ella told me, putting her index finer in the middle of my forehead. Ella's hands are always freezing, but now I was glad. "So you don't die. We would all be sad. Monsters are cruel. They'd eat you even if you did know how to fight. Twice as much if you didn't."

"Believe me," Cass assured me. "I kill them for a living."

"I'm amazed you haven't been beheaded or eating or disemboweled or—"

"Something equally horrendous," Karson finished for her.

"Right," Ella said happily.

"When you say things like that with a happy voice, it makes my stomach churn," Karson informed her.

"Anyway, Cass, do you want to try?" Ella asked, standing. "Teaching him, I mean."

She yawned. I envied her. "Nope," she said. "I'm no good with a sword. At least, not good enough to teach someone. Once he masters that, I'll have a go."

Ella did some stretches.

"Can't we stop?" I asked.

She giggled. "Nope."

My leg fell asleep from laying on it the wrong way. I was jealous of my leg. I sighed audibly.

"Okay, okay," she said. "I'll give you a...condition." She got that look in her eye, and I was afraid for my life. "One hit," she told me.

"What?" I was so confused. Story of my new life. Confusion.

"You hit me one time, just one, and then we will stop," Ella told me, pointing to herself. "It's not a hard concept."

I wish I could have looked up triumphantly and exclaimed, "Easy enough!" like they do in all of the Disney movies. But Hercules had never seen Ella with a sword in her hand and that look in her eye. I was even more afraid for my life now that she had a weapon.

But...sleep. How could I refuse?

And so we continued.

Karson cheered me on, and the nasty look on her face made me wonder what she was imagining, and Cass just looked at me with a casual interested, like someone would look at a stranger on the street. She made no comment or sound, just looked at us.

Soon enough, night was falling. Ella had been getting stronger ever since it had begun getting dark. I wondered half-heartedly who her mom was. It should have been obvious. From the conversation I had overheard between Nathan and Cass the night before, she had already figured it out. And the twin's parents.

But I tried not to think about it. Because that got me started on my mom, and then I felt even worse.

I was right. No way I could ever get a hit at Ella. We went for another hour and a half, with short breaks here and there, but I couldn't get at her.

I lay on the ground with her sword at my throat.

"Sorry," I told her sheepishly when she held out her hand to help me up. I took it. I didn't think I could move any more.

"It's okay," Ella assured me, flapping her hand. "You had been going for a while before we even started, so that wasn't fair at al. and then...well, I've had a sword in my hand since I was little."

"You're amazing," I told her, blushing a bit. I hate it how I do that. Cass nodded in agreement, but it was slow and kind of lazy. She was reading a Harry Potter book, the first one, I think, so I was amazed she could think about two things at once.

"You should see Nathan."

"Is he good?"

"You know that huge gap between you and me?" she asked smiling, and I reddened, but nodded. No denying it, really. She knew. "Well, that's the gap between me and him. Only then, I'm on the bottom."

"That's..."

"Amazing," she finished for me. She stopped for a minute. "We'll start tomorrow fresh after lunch."

"Hey, girls?" Nico was standing behind the tree Karson had been leaning against, walking towards them from the house. Karson jumped a bit, and Ella and Cass shot her a knowing look. She ignored it.

He looked at me, all sweaty and panting. "How'd it go?" he asked, smiling. I hadn't talked to Nico that much. He scared me a bit, I won't lie. Children of Hades tend to do that. But he was nice enough. To people he liked, at least.

"Peachy," I told him dryly.

He laughed a little. "Um..." he started, suddenly solemn. "Cass?" She looked up at him from her stop on the floor. "You...have a letter."

She sighed. "Curly writing? Green ink? No return address?" He nodded to each one.

"Hand written on old yellowing paper," he added, handing it to her.

"Who told you?" she asked, stony faced.

"Lora," Nico admitted sheepishly. "She...likes to talk. She let it slip."

"A lot," Karson agreed under her breath.

Cass blew out her cheeks. "Yes, indeed. But she only tells you what she thinks you need to hear. She never slips. She says exactly what she means too." She sighed. "I'll kill her. Or cut off her braid in the middle of the night or something equally devious."

"Like the Sour Patch Kid from that commercial!" Ella said enthusiastically. I could tell she was just as lost as I was.

Cass held out her hand to take with another sigh, and Nico put it gingerly in her open palm like he was afraid it was going to explode. Or maybe he was afraid Cass would explode. All I knew, something was going to explode.

She opened it without a moment's hesitation. When she did, another whiter letter fell from the envelope. She ignored it, didn't even give it a glance. I picked it up.

While she read it, Cass took a series of deep breaths, like she was trying not to rip it to shreds. "Who is that from?" she asked quietly, meaning the letter I held in my hands.

"Oh!" I said with a jerk, because I was in my own little world for a moment their. "Um..." I reddened. "I can't read it."

"Oh, right," Cass said. "Dyslexia." She held out her hand again. I suddenly understood why Nico had been so careful. She felt like she was barely keeping herself in check. "Mine is pretty mild," she informed us. "I don't have much trouble."

"Guess that's a good thing for you," Nico muttered, eyeing the Harry Potter book with distaste.

Karson peeped over Cass's shoulder at the letter, squinting at the letters printed neatly in the signature at the bottom of the note, written in squiggly writing that made my head spin. She cupped one hand around her lips and mouthed Camp.

Heck. Like I understood.

Cass suddenly stood, right at that moment, and Karson squeaked in surprise, probably afraid that Cass had a problem with reading over her shoulder and was getting ready to pulverize her. Instead, she looked at Nico. "Nathan and Lora and Toby are all at the house right now, right?"

"I think Toby's is taking a nap..." he started. "But yes, they are all there."

Then she ran off in such a hurry that she forgot the yellowed, green-inked, hand written letter on the ground where she had discarded it. I was the only one who noticed. Karson and Ella both leaped up. "You know, you really are a terrible teacher," Ella said happily to Karson, her voice echoing back behind her. Karson said something I couldn't recognize, maybe Greek. From the way Ella laughed afterwards, I doubt they were compliments.

I leaned against a tree and slid down until my butt touched the ground. "My legs feel like jelly."

"It'll get easier," Nico assured me, taking Karson's spot and the foot of another tree. "After, you know, a long time."

"You use a sword too?"

"Yep," he nodded. "But it's not made of celestial bronze, like the others."

"Who taught you? Ella said you were good."

"I did. In the Underworld." He didn't elaborate. I didn't make him.

"What is it like there?" I asked. I had been curious for a while.

"Black. Gloomy. Full of despair." He laughed a little. "Great place for a honeymoon."

"And you lived there? Alone?"

"Well, I had a couple of ghosts to keep me company," he said. "I was in the presence of King Minos for a while. That didn't end too well."

I raised my eyebrows in a silent question.

"We were going to kill someone to get payment to bring my sister back to life. But he wanted to use it to give himself a body again. He had me totally twisted. Made me hate a good friend of mine even more than I already did. Of course, it wasn't too hard. I hated the world back then. Making me hate someone in particular was sickeningly easy." Then he told me the whole story, about him and the king and Percy. And the prophecy.

"Sister?" I asked after a brief hesitation. I wasn't sure if I had gone too far.

He nodded sadly. "Two years older than me. Soon as we found out about the gods, she joined the Hunters of Artemis and left me, so I thought. She was killed when she went on a quest to save her mistress."

"Do you...you know. See her? Being a son of Hades and all."

"Sometimes," Nico admitted. "I'm not stupid enough to try bringing her back to life anymore." He paused. "What about you? It's not fair if I'm the only one telling secrets. What about your dad?"

"Hmm?" I asked, not really paying attention. Then I realized what he had said. "Oh. He's dead."

Nico stared at me like I was losing my mind. "You said that awfully fast."

"Well, he is. What do you want me to say?"

"That's fine. But you seem a little...cold. You know?"

"Hah!" I exclaimed. "This from the King of Ghosts? Oh the irony." I tucked my knees up under my chin. He died a long time ago. I was eight or nine, maybe even ten. I honestly never cared."

"That's kind of sad."

I laughed a little. "I didn't. Dad was horrible. Adam said that he was great, one of the nicest people ever, around the time that I had been born. Then dad's girlfriend left him. Adam's mother, even though they hadn't been married. I always assumed she had been my mom too. Guess I was wrong."

I took a deep breath. "Dad got drunk one night, came home and was gone, just like that. Ever since then, he hated our guts, 'cause we were just terrible memories. Reminders of a life he would never have again. He just gave up on being a father. He'd hit us and get drunk and we'd end up taking care of him. He died of an overdose." I leaned back against the tree again. "I was amazed at his funeral. Hardly anyone was there, and not one person cried."

"That...that is terrible," Nico said sincerely. "Now you live with your brother?"

"We had an aunt. Aunt Erma. As soon as he got out of college, Adam came back to get me."

We both sat there for a minute. Suddenly I groaned. "This is killing me."

"What? My presence? I'm not that scary."

"No!" I shouted. Then I whispered, in case Lora or Toby or even Cass was lurking in the shadows, just watching us. "The letter. The one she left."

Nico put two and two together. "Ah!" he shouted. "I didn't even see that!" He reached over and grabbed it.

"You can't read it!" I said, trying to grab it. He was standing now, holding it out of my reach. I was too tired to stand.

"Like you don't want to."

"She'll eat you."

"Cass is a lot of thing. Cannibal isn't on of them." He unrolled the letter, cleared his voice dramatically, and started reading out loud.

"Don't you have dyslexia too?" I questioned before he got too far.

"Ancient Greek isn't too bad," he said, flipping over the paper, which was marked with all sorts of words I had never seen. For a language, it looked like a two-year-old had made it up.

He started reading again.

Dear Cassandra,

Long time, no see! Did you miss me? Did you miss Lee? Of course you did. You're a wonderful sister, after all. Mostly. You would have found her by now if you were trying hard enough though. Lee doesn't even remember you exist anymore. Isn't that sad? When I realized this, I practically cried. Or I would have, if I could anymore. I think I've forgotten how. That almost made me cry even more.

How are the Cleaners? Lora? Toby? I heard Sebastian fell in a ditch. How did that work out? I imagine your time with them is coming to a close. I hear you are still out there looking for us, little Lee and me. It hasn't been working. You'd been amazed if you saw her. She looks exactly like you, practically. Her coloring is a bit different though.

I guess you haven't been to camp in a while. After all, you don't exist. What a sad non-existence. It's like you are nothing. That's enough to make a person cry themselves to sleep. Or a normal person. But we've never been normal, have we Cass? Too much alike. We were such a good team. Feel free to join me at any time. We'd love to have you.

Oh! By the way, I "found" a very important letter for you. I put it in the envelope. I expect I'll see you soon. Take care. Don't get yourself first act has ended.

And so the second act begins.

Much love,

Thea

Did you love it? Did you hate it? Be sure to refer to the question poised at the top of this chapter. I happen to be in dire need of plot ideas and such. A girl can only have so many fillers. I have a basic idea for the next chapter.

Okay!

ALAN GRACE

AVALEE GRACE

ELLA GRACE

NATHAN GRACE

DAVID JANE

NICO DI ANGELO

CASS HART

KARSON MAVERICK

OR SOMEONE TOTALLY DIFFERENT???

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