Hi guys. Excited? I am. Longest chapter ever...again. 9,021 words long and 21 pages. WOO!

I actually don't have much to say this time except for that everyone here needs to check out Liken the Scriptures. Go to for information. (If that doesn't show up, because I know this place hates links, just send me a PM and I'll see if it'll work there.

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO.

Claimer: I own everything else but Kristen, who owns her crazy little self and if I denied it I'd be turned into a daisy for two years.

Chapter 10

Gods and Meliads and Iris Messages, Oh My

As soon as we hit the shore, I fell to the ground and went to sleep.

And you know what?

You guessed it. More dumb, stupid, evil demigod dreams. Sometimes I really hate the demigod life.

This time, I could actually see McKenna, rather than see everything from her eyes, in her point of view. She was beaten up, bruised, slashed, cut. And she was in some sort of a demigod jail cell. Bars for windows, a door that didn't look it had been opened or even unlocked for about fifty years, chains in the corner as though they were ready to be used against McKenna, and a chain closed around her leg that was stuck to the wall. She didn't look like she'd eaten anything for days. I didn't see any food in the cell, either. I concluded that this was her punishment for almost escaping their clutches—probable death. Greg would be creeped out considering that that just happened to be his nickname for Lola: Probable Death.

McKenna's eyes were bloodshot, like she was slowly losing her mind and having sleep deprivation problems. Her hair was a mess. She had dirt all over her. I really hoped Zachary wasn't seeing this, too. I wasn't sure what he'd prefer: seeing McKenna locked up like this, or seeing whatever he had already been seeing once again. He'd probably prefer this.

"Forget it, McKenna…they're not coming. Whatever they told you, they were lying. They always do, you know that, don't you, McKenna?" she was saying to herself. At first I thought she was going crazy. But then I realized what she was really doing. She was giving up hope of us coming altogether. She wasn't just having doubts anymore. McKenna was seriously trying to give up. I knew that Leslie and Drake had said that we were coming, but did she really want to defy them so bad that she was acting like she'd never see us again? That's what I call desperate.

"McKenna…" she pleaded with herself, like she was fighting herself on the inside. "The first group went missing. Remember? Percy and Annabeth…and Nico, and Katie…they're all missing. You overheard that Iris Message that Field sent to Drake a long time ago…No, I really don't care that you didn't know that is was Field then…Oh, go away, ADHD…Just…just… look, okay? No one's coming. You're a goner. Kiss Corry and Zachary and your life goodbye. Even if they do come, they'll be killed."

Something in there got my attention in particular, though. McKenna had said that Katie was missing. I also remembered when I got to camp that Isabelle was listing who was lost. Katie was one of them. But she was at camp, wasn't she? I'd seen her, and I'd even talked to her. She'd sent me an Iris Message. I wasn't going to forget our argument for a long time to come.

I wanted to wake up, I wanted to stop seeing poor McKenna like this. I wanted to send an Iris Message to Katie and ask her what was going on. She was beginning to confuse me. She didn't like Greg. In fact, she seemed to really hate him. And she had definitely been part of the group that had left to find McKenna the first time. I'd gotten enough evidence of that. Either she had an identical twin that no one knew about or she'd made it out alive. I was leaning on the second option.

But the dream just continued.

Drake and Leslie never came. But the monsters sure did. There was one of almost everything. One hellhound, one dracaena, one empousa, one telkhine—there were a lot of other monsters there, too, but I don't feel like mentioning every single one of them. Luckily, by the way, the room was tall, so that the Laistrygonian could fit.

"Look what we've got here," cooed the empousa. "A demigod with no hope of escaping. How cute."

McKenna rolled her eyes. "You say that every time you guys come in here, Eliza. Just go away."

Eliza the empousa grinned. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm afraid that's not possible."

"Darn," McKenna said under her breath. Then, in a louder voice, she said, "I've been stuck in here with no food since I tried to leave, almost two whole days ago. I just want some privacy, alright?"

The hellhound barked loudly, as if to say, "I don't think so, chew-toy."

The snake woman hissed. "I don't ssssee why we should leave you alone, my ssssweet. That issssn't the nature of the ssssnake."

McKenna groaned. "I'd really appreciate it if you left."

The dracaena hissed again. "Ssssilence, hero."

"There you go again. You called me a hero yesterday, too. I remember. Why?"

The dracaena raised her weapon. "All demigodssss are called heroessss, hero." But she looked a bit uneasy, like she was lying. Normally, monsters didn't get like that. I wondered what her problem was.

McKenna wasn't fooled, either. But she let it slide anyway.

She let out a sigh. "In the name of everything that is good and holy, just leave me alone, okay? Please?"

The monsters rolled their eyes (eye, in the case of a Cyclops) and left the room.

As soon as she knew they were gone, McKenna sobbed. I probably sat there watching her sob for a half hour before the dream shifted.

There was a small little boy with brown hair, the same shade as mine, and strange eyes: one was purplish-bluish, sort of like indigo, and the other was plain brown. He was sitting against an old, chipped brick wall in an alley way, across from a dumpster that smelled so bad even when it wasn't open that I didn't want to know how it smelled when it was open. He looked like he had braces. He wasn't very old, about nine at the most. The boy looked very sad, like he'd just lost someone he loved. He was holding a wooden stake, probably part of an old broken fence, as though he was going to use it to kill a vampire or something. He pulled a small photo out of his pocket, and it was a picture of him as a younger boy about five years old and someone who had to be his mother. In fact, she looked a lot like my mother, Lily. That was kind of creepy. But I brushed it off and paid attention to the dream instead.

There was a large noise from the dumpster, and a few bangs on the sides of it like there was someone locked inside. It caught the boy by surprise, and he yelped and hid behind a trash can not far down the alley. But he came out quickly when he heard, "Get me out of here! Help!"

"H-hello?" he asked.

"Yeah, hi, we can talk later, just get me out of here, genius!" the person commanded. It was definitely a girl's voice, and it sounded oddly familiar. Hesitantly, the boy fished a pick out of his pocket and unlocked the dumpster. He opened it, and a horrid smell like no other exploded out of it like a volcano. A young girl about twelve years old crawled out and flopped onto the ground, gasping for fresh air (or, air as fresh as it could get now the stink had been unleashed). She had long, dark brown hair that was almost black, bright blue eyes that were filled with terror, a tattered pink shirt and jeans that were so ripped up that she was hardly wearing pants at all because of how much leg I could see. Thank goodness, her underwear was hidden. There was a rose in her hair that was wilting, probably because of that awful smell. She wasn't holding a spear, but I didn't need to see it to know who she was. I'd already figured it out by how she looked. It didn't matter that her eyes weren't the same color as her hair, like they normally were. I had learned just a while ago that her eyes could change because of her mother.

"Who are you?" the boy demanded, inching towards the trash can again.

"Rosa," the girl breathed. "Have you seen my friend Simon anywhere around, by any chance?"

"What does he look like?"

"Red hair, freckles, silver glasses. He was wearing a red shirt last I saw him."

The boy nodded. "I think I saw him earlier. He said he was looking for you, I think."

"Think? Great," she grumbled. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Timmothy," he whispered quietly. "Timmothy Dowell."

Rosa smiled. "Well, thanks for everything, Tim…later." Then she ran off to find Simon.

Timmothy was left looking uncomfortable and sad, yet at the same time a bit mystified, probably that a pretty girl had called him Tim. Then the dream shifted again.

It was dark, damp, and dank. I could hardly see a thing. It was just complete darkness. I thought I saw maybe the outline of a chasm or something, and that was it. But wait…a chasm? Last time I'd seen a chasm…oh, gee.

Sure enough, just to prove that my mind was heading in the right direction, I heard that voice.

Hello again, little twit, he said, his voice scratchy like iron against a rock.

I groaned. "Look, Kronos, I'm not interested. Go bug Field or something."

Oh, but why would I do that, godling, when I am having so much fun torturing you?

"Maybe because I'm asking politely? I'm trying to be nice about this, man. Okay?" I warned him. Rule #1 For Demigods: Never insult a child of Ares unless you are attempting to commit potential suicide. That rule may not have applied too much to gods and Titans, but it was still a pretty fair warning.

Hm, he pondered. A child of Ares saying 'please'. How—

"Weird? Yeah, I know, okay? I've been told. Believe me, I have been told."

Told by whom, dim-witted one?

"Just about everybody I know. I didn't really want to add a Titan to the list, but clearly, you don't care," I spat.

You would not be treated as so, should you join our army, demigod. Yield, he commanded.

"Oh, don't even go there, bud. Those Greeks were right in naming you the Crooked One. You're darn crooked," I expounded. It was probably the most stupid thing I'd ever done, practically challenging a Titan. No, scratch the 'probably'. It was the most pathetic and life-threatening choice I'd ever made.

You dare—

"Of course I dare, dunderhead. Child of Ares, remember? Yeah, that hasn't changed in the last three minutes, believe it or not. Sorry to disappoint you."

Your sarcasm and rudeness does not please me, daughter of the war god. It will serve you ill-will one day, mark my words. If you do not learn your lesson soon, it will lead to the biggest downfall in your entire life.

Kronos' warning scared me. Kronos in general always scared me, whenever he appeared in my dreams, but this was much more serious.

"Kronos," I said tersely. "I don't care about you, or your cause, or the people in your cause, or your stupid warning. Lay off."

Kronos' gravelly voice snarled. Then you have just set in stone the death of your petty little friend, Benson. Then he stopped talking to me. Instead, he seemed to be talking to someone who wasn't there. Beware the knife, he said to no one. Beware the knife that ends your life.

"STOP!" shouted a strangely familiar voice.

The dream shattered like someone had hit it with a baseball or something. In its place was a forest area, and in it was Isabelle Slate.

I sighed with relief. "Thank goodness, Isabelle. Kronos was torturing me."

She had a grim expression on her face. "I know. He does that often," she said. Then she knit her eyebrows. "Eve?"

I hesitated. "Yes?"

"I didn't mean for you to see any of that, I swear. I let you see McKenna, because I thought that might be useful when you get there. She's no longer chained to her post. They've stuck her in some sort of dungeon cell. But then when it changed to Kronos…I knew I had to stop it, but I couldn't. Something…something wasn't letting me. I was trying with all my might, honest. But…I think my dad was stopping me from changing your dream," she said in a frustrated and sorrowful voice.

"Your dad? But why would he do that?"

"My dad is Morpheus, Eve. Do you know what Morpheus did in the last Titan war?"

I thought about that. I didn't know too much about the last Titan war, because nobody would tell me. I just knew that lots of people died on both sides of the battle, Percy, Annabeth, their satyr friend Grover, and a couple of random dudes named Luke Castellan and Ethan Nakamura saved the day, and then Percy and Annabeth started dating. I came to Camp the year after, and not many people liked to talk about it, especially the deaths. I'm still surprised that, when I met Katie, she had even told me that the former pegasus teacher had died in battle the year before. That was why the Aphrodite cabin had a new leader: some snotrag named Drew (I know that's a boy's name, but Drew is a girl, no joke.) Katie hadn't told me this, but I had learned elsewhere that the former pegasus instructor, Silena Beauregard, had only died because she was trying to redeem herself for being the secret spy for Kronos. She'd only become his spy, of course, to save her boyfriend's life, but when he was killed anyway, she had looked for a way to be with him again and all the meanwhile save the camp, and she did that by impersonating Clarisse and attacking a drakon (not an Aetheopian one, by the way, it was a different kind), but it had unfortunately led to her end.

I shook my head. "No, I don't know."

Isabelle sighed. "He sided with Kronos. He sided with Kronos and helped to almost destroy New York and the whole world."

I made a confused face. "But he's a god! The gods hate the Titans!"

"Yes, but the minor gods tend to feel forgotten and hated, so they side with whoever will give them more power. Morpheus and Hecate and a few others decided to join Kronos instead."

I almost gasped. "Your dad…?"

She nodded gravely. "Yeah, my dad…bad. And he's the god of dreams, of course, so it could easily have been him helping Kronos to stop his own daughter. You'd think gods would listen to their kids. But some of them just don't care."

I could relate. I hadn't thought my dad cared enough about me to claim me, so I'd pretty much hated him for a while. At that point, though, I didn't know who my dad actually was, so it was kind of hard to complain to no god in particular.

"Isabelle? You said it switched right to Kronos after the McKenna dream."

"It did, Eve. I was watching your dreams."

"Not closely enough, then. I've found another demigod, and he's not at Camp, I just…know. I can feel it, like there's some connection between us that lets me know where he is and how he's doing," I explained.

"Eve, that's kind of unusual…" she whispered nervously.

"Should I be concerned?"

"No, it can happen. For example, Nico knows whenever someone is dead or whenever someone is still alive, because he's a son of Hades. Maybe this kid is your sibling or something. Sometimes that happens to demigods."

"Ok, that makes me feel better. But still…now we have another demigod to search for."

Isabelle bit her lip. "You're not exactly the only one who's found a new demigod, Eve…"

She pulled a young girl into view. Her short blonde hair was wavy, and her eyes were black. Her eyes had a sheer look of annoyance in them, no matter how much she looked like she was trying to force a smile so as to not look rude. Her shirt was as blue as the ocean, yet it was a lot dirtier than the ocean looked like it was. It had clearly once been as blue as sea, but she must've been one of those demigods that was on the run, because it was so dirty it almost looked like the color of barf rather than blue. She had her arms folded in annoyance. The girl was probably about twelve or thirteen, maybe even eleven. I couldn't tell.

"She won't talk to me much, but she did tell me her name," Isabelle told me. "She says her name is Sacramento. Sacramento Zeez."

"By the way, whoever you are, I have no idea where the 'Zeez' thing came from, all I know is my dad must've had a pretty rough time at school with that name," Sacramento commented.

Isabelle groaned. "We've been over this. Your dad is a god. So is mine. So is Eve's. We're all demigods. You'll meet a lot of them when we get back to Camp Half-Blood."

"What was he, the god of sleep or something? The 'Zeez' thing makes it sound like that," Sacramento said irritably.

"Actually, the god of dreams. Your dad is Morpheus. We're half-sisters, Sacramento."

"WHAT?" Sacramento demanded.

"I'm with her!" I said. "WHAT?"

"About that…when I found her, there was a glowing sign over her head. It was the symbol of Morpheus. I witnessed her being claimed."

"Claimed?" Sacramento questioned. "You make it sound like we're toys, Isabelle."

I couldn't help but think of Rosa when she said that, because I remembered in a dream once she'd said almost exactly that to her dad before he was snatched.

"More or less," Isabelle murmured to herself.

"WHAT?" Sacramento exclaimed again.

Isabelle ignored her. "Anyways, Eve, in a while I'm taking her back to the camp. Can you stay safe for me while I do that? I'll be too busy to protect you from any bad dreams."

I rolled my eyes. "I'll be fine, Isabelle. You can count on me. But why are you gonna wait to take her back? Take her back to Half-Blood Hill now. There's no need to wait a while."

"Because I plan on doing something that could potentially save the camp, okay? I've got this. And Sacramento, you promised you wouldn't tell anyone of the plan if I won a game of Rock Paper Scissors," Isabelle explained. There was an edge to her voice, like she really couldn't have anyone knowing about what she had to do. Then she put out her fist.

"Oh, you're on," Sacramento said happily. I watched Sacramento win the game, much to Isabelle's dismay and the young demigod's pleasure, and the dream ended.

I didn't wake up.

I was used to waking up after one of my creepy demigod dreams came to a close, but this time I just stayed asleep. Everything was black.

Now, most people are probably used to that. A dreamless sleep. Yeah, a dreamless sleep is what every demigod wishes for but never gets. I was completely surprised to be free of a dream, even just for a little while.

So, with what consciousness I could muster while I was asleep, I sat there and thought about nothing and everything.

Kronos had called me Benson, just like Rosa did. Couldn't somebody call me Eve? I'd even be happy with being called Ella or Ava or Eva, all of which had been some of the things Rosa used to call me. I might even prefer…nah, never mind. I would never prefer my middle name. Forget it.

He'd also said, Beware the knife. Beware the knife that ends your life. He hadn't been talking to me, I knew that much. So who was he talking to? If he was talking about Lola, or Greg, or Kyle, I was going to kill him for killing one of my friends.

What had Isabelle said about the boy? Oh, right. She thought maybe he was my sibling. Well, I darn hoped so. He didn't seem like one of the normal Ares kids. And if I was right, I wouldn't be alone anymore.

I was starting to think about McKenna when I woke up to Lola shouting in my ear, "HEY, EVE!"

"What?" I mumbled groggily.

"Dude, I've shouted at you five times! We're about to leave, Eve. I've already re-packed your things. Let's go," she commanded, like she was the one in charge of the quest and not Zachary.

"Can I be given a minute? I just woke up, man."

Lola looked like she was considering. "Oh, fine. We'll be up by that huge tree, okay? We'll wait for you there." Then she left to join the rest of the group. Zachary asked why they were leaving me behind, and then when she explained, he nodded his head and they went forward.

Then, when I knew they were too far away to see me, I pulled out a drachma and tossed it into some mist from the sea (apparently we'd camped out there at the shore. I had fallen asleep as soon as I touched ground.)

"O Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, accept my offering," I said, because I think that was what you were supposed to say when starting up an Iris Message. Then, when I figured it had worked, I said, "Katie Gardner, Camp Half-Blood."

Katie appeared in the shimmering sea mist, practicing archery with someone who was clearly one of her siblings, because his entire right arm was wrapped in some vine thing and the wristband of his watch was woven completely out of grass. It must've been some pretty strong grass. He was wearing a brown sweatband thingy and clothes that you might find if you went back in time to Bible times.

When Katie saw me, she lowered her bow. "Eve?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," I clarified. "And I have a question."

"Eve, if it's about Greg—"

"No," I said quickly. I wasn't going to get into that again. "It's about something else."

She sighed. "Yes, Eve?"

"Promise me you'll be an open book about this."

Katie made a small sound, probably a groan that she hadn't meant to have come out, and replied softly, "It depends on what it is. But fine, if it's something I'm fine with talking about, I'll answer you honestly."

"When I first got to Camp Half-Blood this summer, Isabelle said you were missing. Then, in the next couple of days, you appeared there to say good-bye to me. And tonight, I had a dream about McKenna Smith being cooped up at the Titan Army campsite. She was saying how hopeless it was, and she listed some people who were lost, like Percy and Annabeth. You were one of them. And yet, you've been at the camp the whole time. It's impossible for someone to be in two places at once, Katie. What's going on here? How'd you get from being lost to being at Camp?"

She shuffled her feet and looked around. "Eve…I escaped. The others didn't."

"You mean they…?"

"No," she clarified. "They're alive, last I checked. But not in very good condition, and they're at who-knows-where."

"How'd you get out?" I questioned.

She sighed again. This clearly wasn't a topic she wanted to speak about, but I guess she wanted to keep her word.

"You see, we fell into a trap. A Titan trap. We were almost killed. And then when we got out, there were two pathways. We all heard the god Janus talk in our minds. 'Choose a path, demigods. It will lead to doom, or it will lead to safety. You could go right, and you might be safe, or you might find that you could perish. You could go left, and the same could happen. Decide.' The others all voted to go right, and I don't know what happened to them. But I didn't think they were right, so when they weren't looking, I went left, and I appeared in the Camp Half-Blood woods. I ran to the Big House to tell Chiron what happened. And that's it. I got lucky, and I got unlucky."

I nearly gasped. I had heard that Janus wasn't exactly a fun guy to be around, but to choose between safety and doom without knowing what's what? He led my friends to their probable death (there's that nickname again.) I now had a prejudice against a certain minor god.

"Why didn't you tell the others to follow you before they went their way?" I asked her.

"Eve, you don't think I tried? They disagreed with me. They probably regret it now. But I think I'd rather be there with them…" She sighed again and turned to the boy next to her. "David, would you mind doing me a favor?"

The boy called David nodded. "Sure," he said.

"Tell Chiron that I want to go after my old group. I think I can find my way back."

"Katie!" he said in horror. "You can't go back! You'll end up like the others!"

"The smaller the group, the less chance of getting killed," Katie argued. "That's what they say about the Labyrinth, David."

"LABYRINTH?" I exclaimed. "Please don't tell me you're talking about the Labyrinth."

"I am," Katie told me boldly. "And I want to go back."

"If you do that," I warned. "I'll have Clarisse murder you."

She wavered. "Eve—"

"She has a point, you know," David offered happily.

"This isn't about you, David! Tell Chiron I'm leaving now."

"You know what?" I said angrily. "I'll have Kristen send you an Iris Message and turn you into a wombat for a week. Maybe even a pink-furred wombat with glowing chartreuse eyes and a nose that's too big for its body. Do you want that, Katie?"

"Eve, you're only making this harder!" Katie complained.

"David will keep an eye on you, and he'll send me an Iris Message if you even try to leave once. Right, David?"

David stood taller. "Yeah!" he replied. "Katie, you won't get away easy. And if you sneak away during the night, I'll have Nyssa from the Hephaestus cabin help me set up a bunch of booby traps to stop you."

"That's right!" I cheered. "Good thinking."

David smiled a crooked smile.

Katie looked at the both of us. "You're tag-teaming against me? Feeling the love here, people."

"And that concludes today's session of Contact Katie! See you tomorrow, kids," I said in a falsely happy tone of voice and disconnected the Iris Message.

I could almost hear Katie's voice in my head, groaning.

"Eve? Come on!" Lola shouted.

I picked up my things and ran towards the huge tree they had met up at.

"Eve, what have you been doing?" Zachary demanded. "You've kept us waiting too long. Do you realize how much farther we could have gotten by now? How much closer to my sister we could've gotten? Do you, Eve? DO YOU?"

I knew he wasn't being serious, but it kind of surprised me.

"Sorry," I muttered. "Geez."

Zachary said something under his breath that probably wasn't very complimentary towards children of Ares. Probably something about being as thick as a warthog's backside (yes, I'm channeling The Lion King. I have no idea why.)

"Anyways," Zachary said tersely. "We need to move out. Now." He looked at me, eyes narrowed. Touchy was the right word for this guy. But then again, I didn't know what he'd dreamt of last night. I didn't know what he'd seen happen to McKenna this time.

We all moved forward, but we were stopped quite quickly, and not to mention, very abruptly.

There was an aura. Then it turned into a glow. Then we shielded our eyes, because we knew what was coming.

The glowing died out.

Then a man's tired voice came: "Well…what was I doing here, again? Hm…maybe I came to take a nap…oh, hello…"

We uncovered our faces. "Um, hello?" said Tyler Heck.

"Yes, hello," the man said drowsily. "I think I came to…oh, right. I was gonna help you…for whatever reason. I can't remember."

The man looked so familiar, I almost screamed. He looked too much like Notus, the god that we had met last year when we needed to get to Manhattan, but then flung us fifty feet through the air across a few cities and kept calling me Ms. Eve that I almost cringed. But it wasn't Notus, thank goodness. Notus hadn't been nearly as sleepy, and this guy was a lot skinnier, maybe because he slept so much that he skipped meals most of his time.

"You don't remember?" Tyler asked.

"Eh…ye—no," he muttered. He held out the 'ye'. "Can't remember. Is it naptime?" He began to sit down and snore.

"Oh, good grief," Lola whispered. She pushed her way through our group and nudged the guy in the side. When that didn't work, she shouted in his ear, "HEY, WAKE UP!"

"EH!" the man exclaimed. "W-what? Where am…I…" He began to fall asleep again, and Lola, losing her patience, kicked him in the side.

"Yow!" he hollered. Lola practically grabbed him and pulled him to his feet.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"Hyp…hyp…ehnumagah…" He collapsed to the ground and fell asleep again.

"Hypnos," Greg confirmed. I heard an edge to his voice, sort of a 'no-wonder' kind of edge. If this makes any sense, I heard an eye-roll in his voice, too.

"Ok, Hypnos," Lola growled. "What did you want to tell us?"

"Be…beware th-the knife that ends…y-y-your liiiiife….enumgumaduh…"

After a short pause, somebody said, "Huh?"

"Beware the knife," I repeated. "Beware the knife that ends your life."

Greg looked at me with a puzzled expression, like, "What are you talking about?"

Zachary stared at me. "And suffer terrible strife as the knife ends your life," he said, as though he were in a trance.

"Zachary…where did you hear that?" I asked tentatively.

"A dream," he told me uncomfortably. "There was more, but I don't want to talk about it. And since we're conversing, where did you hear that?"

"A dream," I told him uncomfortably. "But there wasn't more after that. Isabelle—"

I stopped, but I didn't need to continue for everyone to get the main idea. Plainly, Isabelle tampered with dreams a whole lot.

Zachary looked like he was thinking hard. Then he looked down at the snoring figure of Hypnos. He sighed. "He won't wake up any time soon, guys. We should just leave."

"Okay," I muttered. Everyone else said pretty much the same thing.

We walked forward, wary of any other gods that might come our way. But luckily for us, not one came.

But the Meliads came.

Our group (and I'm tired of saying 'our group' or 'the group', so I'm going to start calling us the Musketeers, okay?) had gotten very far, until we hit an orchard. The orchard was pretty endless, so we had no idea which way to go.

I looked around. The trees were covered in apples and oranges and many other fruits. Despite the beauty and plenty of it all, there was ash on the ground. Maybe that's what happened to the apples when there was too much sun. I didn't know, and I wasn't curious enough to figure it out.

"Great," Zachary moaned. "Where are we supposed to go?"

"You could go past my tree and through the meadow," said a voice. It sounded like it came from the tree itself.

"Or you could go past my tree and through the gate, and be led directly to your destination," said another voice.

"Or you could climb the limbs of my tree, and I will carry you to safety," another tree said.

"Who are you?" Zachary demanded. He pulled out his sword. The rest of us did the same.

"I am Manzana-Verdad," said one apple tree.

"And I am Naranja-Futuro," said an orange tree.

"And I am Ceniza-Deseo," said an ash tree.

"Spanish," Carlos murmured. "Okay then."

Zachary looked suspicious. "Okay, where are you? I don't see anyone."

Just then, three girls practically melted out of three different trees. The first one was the oldest, and she came out of the apple tree. The second one was the next oldest, and she melted out of the orange tree. The last one was the youngest, and she came from the ash tree.

"Now you see us," said the orange tree girl, Naranja-Futuro.

"Yeah I do," Zachary said, his eyes bulging out of his head, which was hard to do when he had glasses that prevented them from going too far out of his skull. We'd all seen nymphs come out of trees before at Camp Half-Blood, and we'd all seen them turn into trees, but this wasn't at Camp. I guess we all assumed they lived at the camp, not other places in the world. If any of the satyrs were here, they'd have known they could live elsewhere. Now would be a good time to have a satyr around, too. They had mad tracking skills. They would have been able to get us to McKenna in no time.

"And anyways, we still need you to decide," said the apple tree girl, Manzana-Verdad.

"Who can I trust?" Zachary said suspiciously.

All three of them raised their hands.

"Okay, not helpful," Louis said crankily. "Which way do we go?"

They all pointed to where they'd told us to go.

"Okay, really not helpful," argued Gordon. "Nymphs, you tell us which one of you is right this instant or I will pummel you all into a pulp!" He glared at the orange tree girl. "Literally, punk."

"NYMPH?" Manzana-Verdad screamed. "NYMPH? We are MELIADS, you insolent fool!"

Kyle perked up. "You wouldn't happen to know Tierra-Tìmido, would you?"

"Tierra-Tìmido?" said Ceniza-Deseo.

Kyle nodded.

Manzana-Verdad scoffed. "Yeah, we know her. Pathetic Meliad, that one is. Did you know she goes from tree to tree? Ugh, so un-loyal to her trunk."

Kyle bared his teeth. "Shut up!" he said angrily.

We all gasped. We even had to hold him back so he wouldn't punch the Meliad in the face.

"Oh, but it's true, boy," Manzana said simply, waving the heat off with a fan made completely of leaves except for the frame, which was clearly made of carved wood.

"Shut up!" he repeated. He looked madder than an old cat that had been splashed with a bucket of ice cold water. There had only been one time when I had ever seen Kyle as angry as this, and that was when the lyre had fallen down the elevator shaft, even though he had been the one to drop it.

"Kyle, calm down," Zachary chided. "Please."

Kyle seemed to get control of himself for the most part, but he was still glaring at the Meliad for insulting his girlfriend.

Zachary looked at the Meliads. "Do you mind if we huddle up for a moment?" he asked.

They nodded in respect and melted into their trees again.

Zachary turned to us, and we huddled in a big circle. "Does anyone here know Spanish?" he asked.

"I do," said Carlos.

"What does Manzana mean?" he asked.

"It means 'apple'."

"And Verdad?"

Carlos considered. "I think it means 'truth'."

"And what about Naranja?"

"Orange," he said.

"Okay, and I know Futuro means future," Zachary said. "So what does Ceniza mean, Carlos?"

"It means 'ash', Zack."

"And Deseo?"

"Deseo…um…I think it means…desire. Deseo means desire."

"Okay, so the first part of each of their names is the Spanish word for what kind of tree they live in. Does anyone have a guess as to what the second parts mean?"

"Truth," I said. "I guess that means she's the truthful one of the three, and she'll take us where we need to go. She'll tell the truth about what we need to do. Future…I think that probably means Naranja will take us where we need to go later on, not where we need to be right now. And desire…she said she'd take us to safety if we climbed her branches. That must mean that she'll take us back to Camp Half-Blood where it's safe, and that's where we all really desire to be right now, whether or not we'll admit it. So Manzana will take us where we need to go to find McKenna, Naranja will take us to some random place we'll need to be eventually, and Ceniza will take us back to Camp Half-Blood. So we have to trust Manzana."

"Nice job," Zachary complimented. "Are you sure you're not a daughter of Athena?"

I let out a small laugh. "I think I'd know if I were a child of Athena, Zachary. But anyways, does everyone agree we have to go with Manzana?"

Everyone raised their hands except for Kyle, who said, "You expect me to trust that…thing?"

"Kyle," I said softly. "Please. It's the only way to find McKenna."

Kyle groaned. "Fine, but as long as we can go with Ceniza."

I raised an eyebrow. "Kyle, you do realize that by 'trust Manzana', I mean 'go with Manzana', right?"

"Oh… ugh, fine," he said finally, after he took a long time trying to figure out what I'd said.

We un-huddled and called Manzana to come out of her tree. She came out, smiling friendly-like, and I could almost hear Naranja and Ceniza groaning.

"We trust you, Manzana," Zachary said. "But if you turn out to be a liar, we'll come back to haunt you when we die."

Manzana shook her head. "I am no liar," she said. Then she pointed her hand towards the meadow she'd mentioned before. "Go through that meadow, into the forest, past the river, and you will find a redwood log that separates into two separate ways. Go left, and when you get to the clearing, camp there for the night, because it will take you a very long time to get there and it will be night by the time you are there. Then, if you go through the small assortment of trees that is on one side of the clearing, you will find an Iris Message fountain. It will not disconnect if you go through it. But it will not take you to McKenna, I caution you. It will take you somewhat close, but not there at all. Probably about a few states away from her location at Mount Othrys in San Francisco. If that is the case, you will most likely be in Wyoming or Colorado. Good luck."

On that happy and confusing note, we marched to the meadow.

"Eve?" Rosa asked me when we were almost out of the meadow.

"Hm?" I said absentmindedly.

"This whole 'beware the knife' thing…what do you know about it?"

"I just know the saying. 'Beware the knife. Beware the knife that ends your life.' And apparently Zachary knows the next lines. 'And suffer terrible strife as the knife ends your life.' Where he got that, I don't know. I only heard the first line."

"You know more," Rosa urged. "What did Kronos say?"

"Kro—wait, how did you know that Kronos said that?"

"I had a feeling. Anyway, what did he say, Benson?"

"Rosa, I'm not really sure—"

"Benson," she said harshly. "Tell me."

I sighed. I really hated it when people called me by my last name. "Rosa, I was being rude and sarcastic to him. Then when he told me to stop and I didn't, he said…he said, 'Then you have just set in stone the death of your petty little friend, Benson.' Then he repeated the line about the knife."

"This knife thing scares me," she said. "I don't get it. Who's knife? Who dies? Why? It just doesn't add up, Benson." She was using my last name casually, as if it was my first name.

"I don't get it or like it either," I told her. "But while we're talking, do you remember a kid named Timmothy Dowell?"

Rosa thought hard. "Yes. I met him when… Simon was still alive." I noticed that she acknowledged Simon's existence for once. "We got split up by some monster. I got locked up in a dumpster, and Simon was looking for me, but he didn't find me. Timmothy picked the lock of the dumpster, and I scrambled out. We had a very brief chat and I ran off to find Simon." Then she laughed. "I found him in a candy store trying to rob licorice, so we could celebrate when he found me."

I let out a half-hearted laugh. Then I eyed Rosa's spear. "You know, I don't think you've tried to kill me in a long time," I said in a small voice.

"No, I haven't," she replied. "The last time had to be…right after Lola was claimed by Hades. Wow, it has been a while! I need to get back on track."

"No, no," I assured. "Veering off the train track is exactly what I want from you."

"Aww, but what's the fun in that?" she said jokingly. She scowled and glared directly at me, just to prove that she could easily get back in character. Rosa picked up her spear and pretended to stab me with it. It was all in good fun, but it creeped me out a little, because if I said the wrong thing, she could kill me easily.

I looked around. Everything was so beautiful in the meadow, which made it completely out-of-place in the life of a demigod. It was too perfect for us. We were the ruthless, ragged band of doomed Musketeers. We hardly deserved to be in such a pretty place. We ruined the glory of the meadow.

We entered the forest and walked past the river. There were raspberry vines all around.

We came to the redwood log. Even this thing looked too cool for us.

"Which way did she say to go?" Penelope asked.

"Right!" Kristen cheered.

"In that case," Zachary snapped, "we're going left."

So we went left, and after a long time of walking through a dark tunnel of redwood bark, we reached the clearing.

Manzana hadn't been wrong. It was late at night and very dark out by the time we got there and set up camp.

There were caves and large rocks around some parts of the clearing, so I half-expected lions to come popping out, growling.

"So," Carlos managed after a long silence. "What are we doing tomorrow for entertainment, guys? Maybe head through lion-infested savannahs and walk over a fallen log in mid-air that has risk of falling into a crocodile pit? Or maybe telling Ares to shut his huge mouth and telling Hera that she stinks, ironically, like cow manure? Or perhaps we should contact the camp and tell them we're one step away from death? Whatever we choose to do, I will NOT willingly do any of that."

There were a few snickers and scoffs. I just rolled my eyes. "Carlos, you do know that none of that is going to happen, except maybe that last one, right?"

Carlos grinned. "Pfft. I can totally see Annabeth telling Hera she stinks like cows."

He got a few laughs out of that, but not much more. Everyone was just too tired to think much of it.

I sighed and set down my things next to the smaller of the two large caves surrounding the clearing, next to the belongings of my siblings. But I didn't plan on sleeping with them this time. I was gonna go into that cave in the night, no matter who woke up to stop me. I wanted to get away from these people just for one moment, especially those Ares kids. I couldn't tolerate them.

I pretended to fall asleep, and after about an hour of sitting there and thinking about how gods-awful this situation was, I decided that I had to be the only one still awake. There was no noise, and when I looked, no one was moving or blinking, only breathing. I grinned to myself and crept quietly into the cave.

Just as I was about to lie down to sleep on the hard dirt floor, I noticed a small door with a rusted knob. It appeared to be long since locked, so I really doubted anyone had been in there for ages.

I crawled over to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough, it was sealed shut. I wondered what could possibly be in there.

Then I got a completely and utterly Kristen-like thought: Pick the lock, dunderhead. Use your brain.

I walked silently over to the Aphrodite section. I knew at least one of them had to keep a toothpick somewhere. After all, they were set on looking beautiful. They probably cleaned their teeth, too. So I unzipped Giselle's backpack as quietly as I could, but unfortunately, no toothpick. I checked Annika next. Thankfully, her backpack was already open, so I didn't have to take on the task of opening it without someone waking up.

And, to my happiness, she had a whole box of toothpicks. I "borrowed" one and crept back into the cave as quietly as I possibly could.

I picked the lock of the door, and with a little push and some loud scraping against rock that made me cringe and should have woken at least one person up, it opened. I crawled through the space, and after turning on a light (for some odd reason there was a light switch in this place), I closed the door and stood in amazement.

It was all made of rock, which I still don't get, and it was strangely beautiful. There were books everywhere, which boggled my dyslexic mind because I would never be able to read one bit of it, and there was an upstairs and a downstairs.

I went downstairs first. There was a kitchen that had probably never been used in a hundred years, and that was all there was down here, so I went upstairs instead.

There were books everywhere up here, too, but there were more rooms up here.

I went into the first room, and it had a bunch of pictures of someone I couldn't see because all of the pictures were completely scratched up. Some pieces were completely torn off and littered the ground. I figured that whoever had last lived here held a serious grudge against somebody, but I wasn't going to worry about it now.

I went into the second room, but it was just a bathroom (though there was no toilet, only a potted tree and a roll of stiff toilet-paper. I was beginning to question who had last owned this place), so I left.

I went into the third room. It was clearly a guest room, because all it had was a neatly-made bed (though it was very dusty by now), and it was filled with more books. Who lived here, a hobo child of Athena? There weren't even any stuffed animals or anything in here, just books and the bed. No TV. Not a single thing that caught my interest.

I went into the fourth room. This place was slightly more interesting. An untidy bed, only a couple of books, quite a few stuffed animals, so on. The only thing that confused me was the scratching post in the corner. Maybe this weirdo had a cat.

I went into the fifth and final room, and I wish I hadn't. It had torn stuffed animals (which creeped me out in the first place), but there was more than that. Skulls and bones. They definitely weren't human bones, and I could tell from the skulls. They just weren't human-like. They looked more like they belonged to tigers or lions. Maybe it wasn't just a hobo Athena kid who used to live here. Maybe there was a hobo killer-Ares kid here, too. I didn't care, but I knew two things: I was going to get out of here right now, and I was never going to be an Ares kid like that. It didn't matter that my siblings were like that, and my father, but killing animals and keeping their skulls? Eurgh. No, thanks. I'd rather not. That was more the Hades thing to do.

I left that place as fast as I could. I threw down the toothpick inside of the murder-house, closed the door and made sure it was locked.

I panted heavily and caught my breath. Something was seriously wrong with my life.

But then I got an idea that might take the weight off of my shoulders. I looked for a nearby spring and happened to come across the same Iris Message fountain Manzana had told us about. I threw in a drachma (by this point I knew I'd be broke by the end of the quest, so I figured, why not?)

"O Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, accept my offering," I said. Since it worked the last time, I was still fairly certain that that was what you had to say to get Iris' attention.

After a few moments, I told it, "David, son of Demeter, Camp Half-Blood, New York." I hoped there was only one son of Demeter named David. Also, it would have been really useful to know his last name for this thing. That's what makes it a little more official, like, "THIS is who I want."

The mist shimmered, and David appeared, holding Katie's arm, carrying her away from the woods of Camp Half-Blood. David looked triumphant, and Katie looked so annoyed, I was very surprised she wasn't saying anything.

"David? What are you doing?" I questioned slowly.

"Following your orders," he replied happily. "I just stopped Katie from going back into the Labyrinth. She was trying to escape for the third time this morning. The guards wouldn't have let her in anyway, but I thought it would make me look more responsible if I got her myself, so…"

"Please don't tell me there's a third boy trying to impress me," I muttered.

David tried to mask a look of nervousness. "What? Me? No! I assure you, I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm just doing my duty to the Camp. But anyways, shouldn't you be asleep by now? It's probably midnight by now."

I sighed. "Should be. Would be. I'll fill you in later on why I'm not asleep. But anyways, why are you two awake? The camp has curfew, what would happen if the harpies caught you breaking it? You know how hungry they get, and they are allowed to eat us if we break curfew. No idea why Chiron allows this, but…anyways, answer me."

"I was trying to get into the Labyrinth," Katie explained.

"Yeah, I got that," I mumbled. "David, explain yourself."

"I couldn't sleep, but I saw Katie leaving, so I followed her. I wasn't going to let her get away when I got an order from an Ares kid, so I had to," David said sincerely.

"Okay then. David, I want you to watch her. If you have to stay up all night, I want you to do it." He nodded fervently. I turned to Katie. "I'm sorry, Katie, but I don't trust you enough."

Katie muttered something about trust issues, but I knew better than to trust her right now. She would never listen to me if I told her not to. It would be completely futile. So, I was going to sic a completely harmless son of the goddess of agriculture on her to keep her in line. Yeah, that made sense. But I had nothing else to do to stop her. I'd threatened Clarisse and Kristen on her, but she didn't seem to care either way. Now, she deserved a babysitter.

I nodded to David, and he nodded back. He left, Katie still being dragged. I sliced my hand through the mist to disconnect it, but it stayed.

"Um…" I said.

"You have to do something else to disconnect it," said a voice behind me. "Touching it with your body won't do anything to this. Remember what I told you? It will take you to somewhere near McKenna if you go through it, it won't disconnect."

I turned to see Manzana.

"I thought you didn't want to leave your tree?" I asked.

"I'll go back," she assured me. "But this is close enough to my tree that I can get back very fast. Dryads have speed. We go from tree to tree, and we get back pretty quick. Anyways, you need to know how to disconnect that, right?"

I nodded.

Manzana picked up a pointy stick, touched it to see how sharp it was, and threw it like a harpoon at the Iris Message, and it disconnected.

"You have to hit it with a part of a tree?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow.

Manzana scoffed. "No," she chided. "You have to throw something sharp at it. Your fingers aren't exactly sharp, are they?" She gave me a scolding look, like, Are you a demigod or are you stupid?

"No," I admitted quietly.

"Exactly my point," Manzana said firmly. "Anyways, I must be off. Goodbye."

With that, she disappeared.

I sighed and went back to the campsite.

I lay down on my sleeping bag tentatively and glanced at the sleeping Penelope next to me. I hoped she'd learn one day that we as Ares children didn't have to be killers, bullies. I thought of how the one room had held slaughtered stuffed animals and old skeleton bones. I didn't want to be like that, which was definitely not like Ares at all, but then again, did my siblings really want that kind of life for themselves, either? Did they want destruction everywhere they went? Probably not.

I sighed.

Maybe one day I could tell them how wrong it all was.

One day.

Like Manzana? Hate Manzana? Me too.

Like the creepy place? Hate the creepy place? Me too.

Like where this is going so far? Me too. Hate where this is going so far? You're a lunatic.

By the way, I talked to the thief at school today. He told me how Lola would be killed xD She would be squashed by a Hyperborean giant and die a long, painful death. Ain't that happy? I called him a thief and walked home, satisfied :)

CHECK OUT LIKEN. I COMMAND YOU.

As always,

your SoT.

Wait, am I calling myself a sot? Hm...