A/N: This chapter is PG-13 for references to the fate of the unlucky demigods from the previous chapter.

Chapter 10: Percy Goes Rogue

In my dream, I followed Luke through an unfamiliar part of Richmond. The layout of the neighbourhood and the design of the houses was similar to my old suburb, but I couldn't remember if I'd actually been in this area before.

Luke strode purposefully through the streets until he reached a statue of a Confederate army general standing in the middle of a traffic circle. Even though I wasn't close enough to read the plaque at its base, I was sure it was Robert E. Lee. I couldn't pinpoint a specific memory in which I'd seen it before, but maybe I had been here at some point during my runaway days.

Luke examined the statue for a long time. Then he looked across the traffic circle. There was an empty space between the buildings on that side of the street, but I had the strangest feeling that it was visible only to Luke and me. The cars and pedestrians seemed to speed up past it like they were hopping an invisible chasm in the ground.

Maybe it was Kronos, speeding up time for any mortals who got near.

Sure enough, Luke's eyes were a hard, piercing gold. It was a stabbing reminder that this wasn't him.

Kronos stepped up to the empty lot. Scorch marks ran over the earth as if the compound had been torched by an enormous dragon. Although the gardens around us grew rampant with weeds, this lot was completely barren. The air over it seemed to crackle with malevolent energy. Whatever had happened here, it had been so tragic, the earth still reverberated with power.

Kronos pulled Luke's sword from his scabbard. The blade took the form of Backbiter, Luke's double-edged sword of Celestial bronze and steel, but I knew it was really Krono's wicked symbol of power, the scythe that could sever a mortal's soul from his body with one cut. Kronos raised the blade and sent a shock wave into the ground.

The compound erupted, churning up rolling waves of dirt. Furrows appeared like an invisible rotavator was ploughing up the soil. Kronos stared intently at the roiling earth, as though waiting for it to spit up a jewel. When it yielded not even a single scrap, he cursed and sheathed Backbiter with so much force, I thought he'd crack the scabbard.

'Nothing,' he said angrily. He clenched his fist and glared at the upturned earth.

'Master!' Footsteps pounded down the pavement behind us. Ethan Nakamura ran up, dressed in the same black camouflage gear as Alabaster Torrington.

Kronos turned. 'I told you not to disturb me!'

Nakamura shrank back. 'I know, sir, but—Torrington—the prisoners—we're being attacked!'

Kronos's golden eyes flashed even more dangerously, but his wrath had shifted target. 'Percy Jackson,' he growled.

He followed Nakamura back down the street. I wanted to run after them, but the earth rippled under my feet, throwing me off balance. I fell onto my back and sank into the furrows. Walls of soil rose around me to form a solid dirt tunnel. It was like being in the Labyrinth again, before Daedalus had sacrificed himself to collapse it.

Grover was next to me, scuffing his hooves nervously against the dirt floor. 'Everything smells of monsters down here,' he said. 'I can't find my way out.'

'I'll help you,' I told him.

He turned to face me, and suddenly he was no longer Grover, but a much older satyr with horns so long, they almost stuck into the ceiling. His face was carved with lines of wisdom and age. 'You must dig deeper, daughter of Athena. You must be prepared when your time comes.'

The god Pan had warned me of this before he'd passed on. He repeated it now: 'You will play a great role, though it may not be the role you imagined.'

'I still don't know what you mean,' I said.

Pan pointed to the tunnel ahead. A fork had opened up, each path leading to an unknown destination. 'Which do you choose?'

No, I thought, this isn't happening. It was over. The Labyrinth was gone. I couldn't still be in its unrelenting tunnels, forced to make impossible choice after impossible choice.

But of course, in my nightmares, I could never be free of the Labyrinth. And my choices hadn't ended with my quest.

'A single choice shall end his days,' taunted a voice I knew well, if only because it had appeared so often in my nightmares. Janus, god of doorways, hovered in the divider between the tunnels. Both his faces were smirking as they eyed me sidewise. He took me down the tunnel on the right, towards a light that was hard gold, like Kronos's eyes. It shone from the walls of a glowing sarcophagus—the coffin that had housed the pieces of Kronos's essence before he had claimed Luke's body for his own.

I threw open the lid of the coffin, and there was Luke, lying with his arms clasped around a gaping hole in his chest. It looked like a bullet wound, but it was clean, just a cylindrical column burrowing into his heart. I cupped my hands over it. Luke's eyes flew open, blue like a river and soft as a promise.

'Th—' he started, and then his eyes locked on me. 'Annabeth,' he gasped. 'You came back.'

I was about to pull him out of the sarcophagus when the lid slammed down, nearly taking off my fingers. A padlock clamped over it. I yanked my mother's key off my necklace and shoved it into the lock, but it warped into a twisted lump of metal. I banged against the walls of the sarcophagus. They became the bars of a cage. I stared through them into the frightened eyes of the little girl clutching her teddy bear.

'The Fates demand a life,' she hissed in the voice of the Oracle. And then she became the Oracle, Cath, with spiky black hair and sorrowful green eyes. She screamed, a long, injurious wail that sent ice spreading through my veins.

Someone pulled Cath from the cage, dragging her away. I lunged for her, but my hands only closed around the teddy bear, ratty and missing an ear.

My knees shook. The ground buckled. I fell, still clutching the forgotten teddy.

'Annabeth.' The voices echoing in my head sounded like they were coming from five people at once. 'Annabeth.'

I opened my eyes. I was lying on a hard, metal floor that seemed to sway gently beneath me. The teddy bear stared at me with its button eyes. I blinked at it in confusion. Then someone said, 'She's awake, thank the gods!'

Percy's face swam into view. He knelt beside me, holding my hand. 'Annabeth,' he said in a shaky voice, 'do you know who I am?'

What a strange question. Was I still dreaming? 'Er, Percy, are you okay?'

He looked relieved. 'We were afraid you might be—' He shook his head. 'Thank the gods you're all right.'

Percy helped me sit up. We were on a metal river barge, which explained the swaying. Three more demigods and a satyr had joined our group. Our barge was harnessed to a pair of fish-tailed horses. They were like the hippocampi we'd once ridden in the Sea of Monsters, except these had dull, weed-coloured scales.

'River hippocampi,' Percy explained.

'What happened?' My head felt fuzzy. I held up the bear. 'Why—why do I have this?'

Percy frowned. 'You picked it up. I just ... brought it along with you.'

'Brought it along?' I tried to think. There'd been a fight, and an explosion, and ...

'We're still trying to piece everything together,' Percy said. 'I think we all got caught in a Lethe shower when Beckendorf exploded his last grenade.'

Beckendorf was toying with some nuts and bolts. He clicked them together with a grimace. 'Sorry,' he grunted. 'I didn't mean to. I was just trying to break open the cage.'

Percy patted him on the back. 'It was a good thought. You couldn't have known about the Lethe drip.'

The cage—of course. The younger demigods. 'Did it work?'

It was a stupid question. Even before my friends looked away, unable to meet my eyes, the answer was obvious. There were only four new faces on the barge. None of them were under the age of twelve.

My hands tightened around the teddy bear, as if it were an anchor against the wave of guilt rippling through me.

Percy cleared his throat. 'Anyway, the Lethe made this huge mist over the whole compound—we couldn't see a thing. We just had to run for it and ... hope the other kids made it out, too.'

'But how—' I didn't recall any of this. 'How did I—did you ... carry me?'

'Uh.' Percy's fingers darted through his hair. The tips of his ears were red. 'Everything's a bit fuzzy. Like, I can't remember who I was fighting, and Clarisse has a gold sword she doesn't know how she got.'

'Spoil of war,' Clarisse said with satisfaction. She had a garden trowel in her right hand, but when she flipped it upside down, it became a short sword with a golden blade. 'Who cares how I got it?'

'I could've sworn Annabeth had it first, though,' Percy said.

Clarisse glared at him.

'It's okay,' I said quickly. The sword gave me a bad feeling that I couldn't really explain. Whatever I'd known about it had been wiped cleanly from my memory. I found my dagger, fortunately back in its sheath, and held it up. 'I've got my knife.'

Percy looked like he wanted to ask why I'd pick my knife over a new sword—he'd asked me before, but I'd always sidestepped the question. It wasn't about the sword. I was a decent sword-fighter, but it just felt right to rely on my dagger. I could never replace it.

'So the Lethe mist took our memories—some of them, that is,' I said. 'Not everything. I mean, I still remember who I am, and you guys, and why we went to Richmond.'

'Just not the details,' Percy agreed.

I turned to the newcomers. One was the cow-faced boy, who even now was slumped against the side of the barge, his eyes drooping like he was about to pass out. The others were both girls, about thirteen or so. Both had slanted, elvish features like many of the Hermes kids, but their similarities ended there. One had a flat nose and short black hair that looked like it had been trimmed with a bowl over her head. The other had a messy braid the colour of dirty dishwater.

'Do you guys remember anything?' I asked.

'We were in the cage for days,' said the satyr. He pointed to the black-haired girl. 'I was trying to get Alice to camp, but she kept running off. By the time I tracked her down, she'd found this kid—er, Clovis, was it?'

The cow-faced boy's head rose at the sound of his name. His movements were slow and languid, like he was still in a Hypnos-induced trance. I was surprised he'd had the presence of mind to follow us out of the ironworks compound.

'Sam and I tried to release him,' Alice said. She rubbed her forehead. 'Usually I'd good at picking locks, but ... anyway, this pair of thugs attacked us, and next thing I knew, we were both locked up, too. And the other kids, I guess they got captured the same way. I don't know. I was asleep. But Julia said she dreamed she was coming to join an army.'

Julia plucked at the stray hairs of her braid. 'It made sense at the time.'

'A trap,' Percy said. 'Hypnos manipulated your dreams.'

'I'm sorry,' said Clovis. 'It's my fault.'

Alice frowned at him. 'No, of course not. You were just the first to get caught.'

'No.' Clovis covered his face with his hands. They were pale and spindly, a strange mismatch with his round, bovine features. 'I was the bait.'

'Bait?' Clarisse loomed over him with her new spoil of war pointed at his chest. 'What do you mean, bait?'

Clovis backed up against the side of the barge, his sleepy eyes growing wide and terrified. It made him look more like a cow than ever.

Beckendorf put down the metal pieces he'd been fiddling with and pulled Clovis away from Clarisse. 'Let the kid explain.'

'I called you there,' Clovis said. 'I—I can sort of find people's dreams and, uh, intercept them.'

'Hypnos said his sons were luring demigods to Kronos,' I recalled. 'That means—'

'Hypnos is my dad.' Clovis turned pleading eyes on me. 'He made me do it. My mom—she's been in a coma for ages. He said if I helped in the war, the Titans would have the power to wake her up.'

Clarisse let out a harsh laugh. 'And you believed it?'

Clovis hung his head. A moment later, he swayed on his feet. His eyes fluttered shut. Beckendorf caught him with a grunt as he toppled sideways.

'Is he okay?' Alice asked.

'Fainted, I think,' Julia said.

Clovis's mouth fell open and let out a snore. Clarisse snorted in disgust. 'No—I don't believe it. He's sleeping. We couldn't have left him in Richmond?'

'It's a good thing we did rescue him,' I said. 'Without him, Hypnos can't trick any more demigods.' But I couldn't look at Clovis. The thought of the half-bloods we hadn't managed to save nagged like an itch I couldn't scratch.

I guess it wasn't really his fault. Kronos had manipulated plenty of demigods with his false promises and subtle threats. How many kids of minor gods were out there, with powers we hadn't even imagined? If Kronos coerced them all into serving him, what would we be up against?

A low whinny from the river hippocampi got our attention. The barge was slowing. Up ahead, the river widened into a bay.

'They're saying we'll hit the ocean soon,' Percy translated. 'The barge isn't meant to go on open water.'

'We could call the pegasi,' Beckendorf suggested. 'The barge was great for getting us out all at once, but maybe if we split up now, two of us can fly these guys to Long Island, and the others can—'

Sam the satyr raised his hand. 'I'll stay. As long as the kids get there safe, my job's done.'

We docked the barge along Hampton Flats and Percy whistled for the pegasi. I watched the cars trundling across the I-64, disappearing into the tunnel bridge that led to Virginia Beach. It was a pretty impressive structure, but the architecture wasn't on my mind right now. Two years ago, Percy and I had escaped from Luke's cruise ship into this very river. The Princess Andromeda couldn't navigate the narrow river channels, but I wondered if it was waiting off the coast. It was strange that Kronos hadn't followed us away from Richmond Iron Works. Maybe the Lethe mist had helped us lose him. I'd heard stories like that before, fogs that descended and obscured whole armies, or spirited heroes away from otherwise-certain death.

But those were cases where the gods had intervened. Were they looking out for us now? Was the mist really Lethe-induced?

I wished I could remember.

Percy ran his hands back and forth through his hair, ruffling up his grey streak. 'Annabeth, did you bring your cell phone?'

'I don't exactly have pegasi on speed dial.'

'Ha ha, funny.' His foot tapped agitatedly along the dock. 'It's—I just remembered something else Hypnos said. About test strikes on Manhattan.'

'On mortals,' I recalled. No wonder Percy wanted to make a call. I dug around in my backpack. Ordinarily, it would be suicide for half-bloods to carry cell phones, thanks to the uncanny connection monsters had with mobile service networks. But my phone was special. My dad had gotten one with a privately encrypted signal, which offered me some protection from monster hackers. I found the phone and tossed it to Percy.

'Are you crazy?' Clarisse demanded. 'Like the eight of us here aren't already giving off a monster red alert?'

Sam looked aghast. 'Why do you even have a cell phone?'

I explained about my dad's army contacts and the phone's untraceable signal. Beckendorf's eyes lit up. His fingers twitched, like he couldn't wait to get back to camp and try copying my phone.

The winged silhouettes of our pegasi appeared in the distance while Percy made his call. Judging by his silent frown, no one was picking up. Finally, he said, 'Mom, when you get this, call me—er, call Annabeth back, okay? I need to know you guys are okay.'

'No answer?'

He shook his head and handed me back the phone.

'You hang on to it,' I told him. 'She's probably just out. I bet she'll call back in no time.'

'I called her cell,' he said. But he pocketed my phone.

Blackjack, Champ, and Pork Pie soared in from the north. To our surprise, the other three pegasi were with them, along with Silena and Michael. Beckendorf leapt to his feet immediately and waved his arms frantically until they touched down on the dock.

'I thought you guys were going straight to camp!' he said.

'That was the plan.' Silena dismounted from Cupcake. She was more dishevelled than she'd been when we'd parted ways in Philadelphia. Her shiny hair was matted and tangled. There was even a bruise blooming on her cheek.

'Until we ran into trouble coming out of the city,' Michael said. With a black eye and long scratches down his sleeves, he looked only marginally better than Silena.

'What sort of trouble?' Beckendorf reached out to touch Silena's cheek, pulling back only at the last second. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine,' Silena said, though she looked disappointed when he dropped his hand. 'This strange bird came after us and tried to steal the bag of stuff we got from Panacea.'

'We chased it south for hours,' Michael said. 'It nearly made off with the jar of gold flakes, but Silena got it back.'

'Good job, girlie.' Clarisse thumped her on the back.

'I just—that stuff saved Charlie.' Silena lifted her chin. 'I wasn't going to let some monster bird make off with it!'

Having our full complement of pegasi solved our transport problem. Percy, Silena, Michael, and I each took a passenger with us to fly home. It wasn't long before we touched down on the fireworks beach at the north shore of camp. Beckendorf, Silena, and Clarisse went to stable the pegasi, while Michael and Sam took the new kids up to the Big House. I shook my head as I watched them go. Alice had flown with me, and over the course of the journey, she'd filched a pen from my backpack and dyed Strawberry's auburn mane black with the ink. That girl would fit right in with cabin eleven. I'd bet our new stock of panacea that she was a daughter of Hermes.

Which made me think of the half-blood who had stolen my diary in Richmond. With pickpocketing skills like that, he was probably a Hermes kid, too.

Like Luke.

And like Luke, he'd chosen the other side. We'd been so convinced we were doing the right thing, freeing our fellow demigods from Kronos's clutches, but in actual fact, we'd already lost so many of them by the time we got there.

Maybe I should have chosen the little ones instead.

'Hey.' Percy touched my shoulder. 'You okay?'

'Yeah.' I undid my necklace and slipped my mother's key off the leather cord. The burnished silver had turned coal-black. The shaft was twisted from when I'd tried to shove it in the second padlock. 'It's just ... all those kids.'

'We rescued three of them.'

'Out of what, twenty?' I dropped the key into the surf. It was useless now, and it just reminded me of the awful choice I'd made.

'That wasn't your fault. And maybe some of the others did get away.'

'Some of them went back to Kronos,' I said bitterly. Like the diary thief. 'One of them stole my book.'

Percy's brow furrowed. He slipped his backpack off his shoulder and dug around inside it. A moment later, he held up the green leather diary. 'This book?'

My eyes widened. 'You got it!'

'Well, yeah. You were having a tug of war over it. I figured it was important. What is it?'

I took the diary and ran my fingers over its spine. 'I—I'm not sure. I'm still reading it.' Why had the kid gone for my book, of all things? It was probably the most useless of everything I carried. Why not Daedalus's laptop, or my invisibility hat, or—

You must dig deeper, daughter of Athena.

The pieces clicked. The theft, my dreams, Thalia ...

'Of course,' I whispered.

Percy scratched his head. 'Er, what?'

'Kronos was searching for Thalia because he thought she had the diary. Because he—I mean, Luke left it to her. In Charleston.' I was still fuzzy on the connection between the diary and Richmond, but I felt like the answer was only just beyond my grasp, like a logic puzzle I just hadn't found the missing piece to quite yet.

'Wait. That's Luke's diary?' Percy stared at the book like it might suddenly bite him. 'You went back for Luke's diary?'

Something in his tone made my hair stand on end. It was like he wished he'd left the book behind after all. I couldn't help feeling defensive. 'Yes.'

A storm cloud darkened on Percy's face. 'So what's in it? All his gloating about the kids he's killed?'

I hugged the book to my chest. 'It's not about—that's not—Luke wouldn't—'

'Oh yeah?' A large wave crashed violently against the shore. I wasn't sure if it was Percy's doing, or just a coincidence. He adopted a bad imitation of Luke's voice. 'Dear diary, lured a bunch of demigods into my trap today. Don't need them all, but I'll feed them to the monsters, so it's all good.'

It was as if we were stumbling through the Labyrinth again, arguing as we ran from Antaeus's arena. I'd tried to convince Percy that something was up with Luke, but he'd shut me down with the same sarcasm.

'You're impossible! Kronos laid the traps. Luke isn't—he'd never hurt a little kid. He was just like them—like me. When he found out he was a half-blood, he left home, too. He was only nine when he ran away!'

Percy's nostrils flared. 'News flash, Annabeth. Luke is Kronos. And he was always a jerk.'

'No he wasn't!'

We stood a foot apart, glaring at each other. My stomach was a churning mess of hurt and frustration. It struck me that just last summer, we'd stood in this exact position, having the same argument. I thought we'd moved past it, but ... evidently not.

Percy dug into his pocket for my cell phone. His mom still hadn't returned his call. I thought he was going to dial her again, but he just thrust the phone at me.

'I'm going to go check on her,' he said abruptly.

'But Percy, you can't—'

'Just tell Chiron I'm following up loose ends from the quest.'

When I didn't move, he pressed the phone into my hand and turned away. I watched him wade into the surf and give a loud whistle. A moment later, an ocean hippocampus with scales every colour of the rainbow swam up. Percy climbed onto its back. He disappeared into the waves without a backward glance.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

A/N: Long one, bear with me—lots of notes on this chapter!

The teddy bear doesn't really have any further significance, but I found it a nice piece of imagery, and also, it's a reference to the interview with Annabeth from The Demigod Files, in which she admits to have a teddy bear in her trunk (shh, don't tell anyone!)

The mist that enabled our heroes to escape has roots in Trojan War mythology. In one of the battles, Zeus is said to have created a fog that descended over the battlefield, allowing the Trojans to advanced against the Greeks.

A part of this chapter attempts to answer the question of how on earth did Percy know at the beginning of TLO how old Luke was when he ran away, when he sees Rachel's painting in his dream. As far as I can tell, it's only after in later visions that he learns more about Luke's history. Thus I chose to have Annabeth relate that tidbit of information here.

Alice and Julia are indeed Alice Miyazawa and Julia Feingold from ToA—as is Clovis from HoO. I've tried to include as many origin stories and minor character cameos where I can. Those of you who are more eagle-eyed may also recognise Sam the satyr from the interactive adventure novel, The Demigods of Olympus.

And as always, thank you to all of you who reviewed last week—samuraipanda85, Solangelo, Hello, ArtimuosJackson, JustADerangedFanGirl, and OverLordRevan!