ALEX PARKER

IF THERE WAS ONE THING ALEX WAS GOOD AT, it was frightening people. Even better if she hated the person.

Good thing she fucking abhorred Alabaster Torrington.

It had felt so good to wipe the calm look off his face from her first strike, and she hadn't stopped coming at him since. She gave him no room to breathe in between the slashes and the parries and the swipes of her sword, constantly switching hands to keep him on his toes. His hair was frazzled from whipping his head around so much in trying to anticipate where her next attack would come from.

Alex had room for laughter. "Yield, Torrington?" she said, jabbing at his left armpit, where his armor was open. He barely managed to dodge it, only able to return with a half-hearted swipe meant to keep her away. Instead, she dared lunge closer, letting the blade glance off her chestplate, and ducked under his arm. She violently pried the sword from his grasp and pointed both her blades at his nape.

Slow clapping echoed from the side of the room. From her place, Alex could see Alabaster's ears color a wonderful shade of red.

"Not bad, Alex," Luke said. "You've gotten past your fear of not doing anything other than dodging and blocking."

She huffed. "There's nothing to fear if my opponent's like this." She gave Alabaster a nudge in the back, causing him to stumble forward. His head snapped around, his teeth bared in a snarl, and he looked ready to go for another losing round. "Ooh, little kitty's gonna bite me."

"Watch your mouth, Parker!" he spat. His eerie eyes seemed to glow.

"Both of you, please get along," Luke sighed. "And Alex, go easy on the insults. I taught him, too, you know."

"Obviously not well enough," she snarked. "Besides, he's literally a twig you could step on and snap in half."

"Oh, I'm so sorry I don't have your clearly natural athleticism."

She laughed at him. "Please. Luke told me you got to Camp when you were nine. I've only trained for a year."

"Alex!" Luke snapped. Oh boy, Alabaster really looked like a fire hydrant ready to explode. "We're all on the same team here, do you understand?!"

"Uh huh. Sure, Luke." She smiled and jogged over to the wall to take a swig of her water.

The room must have been a dancing or yoga studio of some sort, seeing as it had an entire wall as a mirror. Through the mirror, Alex watched as Luke whispered something into Alabaster's ear, somehow causing the humiliated flush to fade away. It was replaced with something like grim determination in the set of his mouth.

The initial unease of losing to Alabaster, a fucking stick of a boy, had been vanquished by his clear lack of natural ability in combat. But now it was returning. After all, they still had yet to do their dick-measuring contest in terms of power. From the taste Alex had gotten of his, she could meet her equal in Alabaster Torrington.

Which was a thought she refused to entertain.

Alabaster jogged over to her side to take a drink from his bottle as well. Alex sized him up. From what she'd seen, he didn't have any kind of muscular strength or endurance. But his brain was faster than his body; she'd seen it in his reactions, the smallest of his movements. His reaction time was terrifyingly instantaneous, and he was always thinking and watching his opponent move. What prevented him from winning was the fact that his body couldn't keep up with the actions his mind was formulating and dictating to his weary muscles.

Earlier, her first attack had been a full swipe at his chest. His eyes had widened the instant she raised her sword, and his body had moved—just not fast enough. Then he'd anticipated her next move: her sword jabbing at his midsection. He'd chosen to fall on his ass instead of running the risk of being impaled.

Now, if he thought as fast as Alex suspected, he and his magic could tip entire battles in their favor.

He needs concentration and energy to do magic, she thought, wiping her mouth. So my best bet is to startle him and then tire him out.

When break time was over, they got up and faced each other from the opposite ends of the room. "For our safety," Luke announced, "please, for the love of everything that is living, no harm to the property. Are we clear?"

"Luke, the room is wooden. I'm at a disadvantage here," she complained.

"If something catches on fire, we'll stop for a few seconds to put it out," he said tersely. "Got it?"

They both nodded.

"Good. First to yield loses. Go!"

Alex clapped, and balls of fire erupted in a ring around Alabaster's head, close enough for him to get slight burns. He ducked and threw a slim green card at her. Its sharp side glanced off her cheek, and upon contact, industrial-level chains spilled out of the card and wrapped themselves around.

She gasped and tried to squirm out, but the chains held. She almost didn't notice Alabaster flinging another card at her, and she jumped aside, sadly falling to the ground. The card hit the wall, and out came a huge lock. It leapt at the chains and locked itself.

At this point, Alex was panicking on the ground. She probably looked like a worm. Angrily, she slammed her shoulder against the ground, and columns of fire roared too close to Alabaster's hands. He gasped and pulled them back, dropping another card in the process. Alex slammed her shoulder against the ground once more, and a flaming tornado whirled around him with the speed of a race car, blowing smoke and ash into his face.

Alabaster collapsed in a fit of coughing and tried to fan the fire out. In the meantime, Alex breathed fire on her chains to get them to melt or even just to expand. But even her body starting to set itself aflame could not get it to budge.

"Come on, come on," she yelled in frustration. She bucked against the chains. "What kind of material is this bullshit?!"

"Flamina Venti!" Alabaster rasped. A strong gust swept up from the center of the room and rushed at the tornado of fire, crushing it entirely. He continued to cough for a few more seconds, and Alex screamed a curse.

She inhaled as deeply as she could, and when she exhaled, she released a torrent of blue flames at him. He barely managed to blurt out a spell she couldn't hear, and a neon green dome formed over his head. She snarled when she ran out of breath. She took a deep breath and continued her assault.

Alex could see him wincing inside the bubble, holding his hands against the light as if holding it up.

She stopped, glaring at him. Then she had an idea. Shifting so that her palms were on the floor, she willed it to heat it up.

In the corner of the room, she heard Luke yelp and scramble up a chair. Alabaster grit his teeth and mumbled another spell.

The temperature in the room suddenly dropped, and frost began to form on the floor and on her chains. Snow fell out of nowhere, and in a few second, everything was a foggy white.

Alex squinted against the harsh cold. Where the Hades was Alabaster...?

She began radiating pulses of rapid warmth, trying to get the snow to melt. It somewhat worked: the now wet and warped floorboards began to show underneath. She took a deep breath and pushed the heat faster and harder, and—

"Bellator Car—" It was just a whisper, but Alex heard enough.

"TO TARTARUS WITH THAT SPELL!" she roared, and a whip of fire lashed out in Alabaster's direction. To her satisfaction, there was a yelp of surprise and a crash somewhere opposite from where she lay. She smirked. He probably slipped and fell in his own ice, the dumbass.

The heat was pushing against the cold, slowly but surely. Puddles now covered about half of the room, and that was the best Alex could do without burning the room down.

She shuffled so that her back was against the wall, still trying to squirm out of her chains. As she tried to free herself, she burned a trail through the snow across the room where she thought Alabaster was. The smoke combined with the winter fog made seeing things harder, but Alex wasn't an archer without her sharp eyes. She spotted a vague silhouette of Alabaster raising his arms, and that was her only signal.

"Shit!" She sent a fireball hurtling at him just as she heard, "Ira Mare!"

All the water that had resulted from the snow melting rose up like a beautiful curtain. They stood there in the air for a few seconds, then they engulfed Alex's form in an imitation of the infinite oceans. The waves above her thrashed wildly as she tried to fight her way out, but Alabaster's spell had designed it to be a watery coffin: Wrath of the Seas. She understood that much Latin.

She tried gasping for her air. Big mistake. Water rushed into her nose and mouth and lungs, and she choked, vision blacking out as her airflow was clogged. Even her chains felt like they were tightening around her under the water pressure. She stupidly swallowed some water and gasped for some more, only to have it lodge in her throat again. If she could've screamed, she would have. All reason was gone, only the instinct to survive remaining.

But there was no surviving, not against this spell. She was going to die drowning on a ship. Oh, the irony.

Suddenly, the water paused. It was deathly still for a moment, and Alex struggled to stay conscious.

The water started pulling in the other direction, fleeing Alex's system. The coffin around her splashed onto the floor and became nothing more than a big, wet puddle. Her nose, throat, and mouth were full of air and not water once more, and she gasped in the oxygen, senses returning to her.

"I'd consider that my victory," Alabaster smugly said. He looked down at her. She was able to muster a glare for about a moment before her lungs demanded that she cough out some extra water.

Gods. She'd heard of demigods with powers that would trump hers in a snap of a finger—Percy Jackson, with his near-absolute command over any kind of water, Thalia, with her restored life, who she knew could summon lightning and thunder, and of course, Hecate's children. But her abilities showed up in demigods once in a few centuries, even more special and potent than others—or so she'd foolishly let herself believe.

She bowed her head, coughing out any remaining water in her system as fast as she could. Luke crouched down beside her, but she swatted his hand away.

"I don't want your help!" she panted. Luke silently backed away.

"Training's over," he said lowly.

Alex shakily stood up, extremely aware of the fact that she was dripping water all over the place like some dog. "I'm going to take a shower," she snapped. "I don't wanna get sick."

She stormed away, feeling her humiliation peel back her facade and leaving her so, so exposed.

If she could, she would just skip out on dinner. But her pride wouldn't allow it. Luke and Alabaster would know what it meant. She couldn't give them that satisfaction.

She walked out of her room to the elevator, silently telling it to not test her patience and arrive fast.

But it didn't arrive fast enough for her not to hear two monsters talking as they walked by in the corridor. She hid herself in front of the elevator doors, hoping that they wouldn't smell her, and strained her ears to listen.

"... the Dark Lady's son?"

She jolted. The Dark Lady was another name for Hecate. Which meant...

"He's a scrawny little thing, so I thought they'd be feeding him to us by the end of the week."

"You insult our Lady." So these are empousai. I heard they were really pretty— "Her offspring's powers are unmatched. The Big Three? Ha! They're children falling over themselves in the playground."

"But the Lady only has so much offspring."

"And imagine the destruction they will bring. He is only the beginning; his allegiance to our Lord is a beacon for all other Hecate offspring. They will follow him here, even if they die doing so."

There was confused silence and the stuttering disbelief in Alex's brain. "But how?" the other empousa asked.

The first one laughed. "I have been with the Lady long, and she has revealed her secrets to me. Listen, ever since the birth of Hecate's first children, they have always sought more knowledge and power and dominion over all the others; such is their nature. Bloodshed was only circumvented by Hecate's choosing of her champion, whose authority and power was undeniable. The other children would have no other choice but to kneel before him. So it has been for millennia now; when the champion dies, the next one is born.

"Alabaster Torrington was chosen by Hecate as her strongest a few years ago, a decision we all felt in the marrow of our bones as it happened. With Alabaster Torrington's allegiance, we have gained ourselves a bred army of magic-wielders. They will rally under him, and they will follow him to the ends of the earth without any question."

Alex's brain was short-circuiting. How was it that Alabaster, a sickly-looking boy her age, got to hold this much power? Did he even know?

What was her power in comparison to his? The empousa was right—even the Big Three's children would look like kindergarteners playing hopscotch put next to him.

So what did that make her?

Her head spun.

She refused to be second-best in any way. But the moment Alabaster had woken up under her nagging in Camp Half-Blood, she'd unknowingly brought in her replacement.

She stepped out of her hiding place in front of the elevator, forgetting that she meant to hide from the empousai. The moment she did, she met their gazes as they made their way to the elevator themselves.

"What's up," she greeted first. She hoped that they couldn't see her shaking hands or her wild heartbeat. "You can take the elevator. I forgot to get something from my room."

Confused, the empousai looked at each other. Then the younger-looking one said, "Maybe we can hold it for you?"

Alex shook her head. "Nah. I might take a while."

Before they could say anything else, she turned on her heel and hurried back to her room.

Even her footsteps sounded too loud in her ears. I won't be second best here. I can't. It's the reason why Luke got me—why I'm still alive until now. I won't— I will not—

She threw open the door and leapt for her bed, burying herself under the covers. She wished she could bury herself away from the rest of the world, too.

Think, Alex. Think. What do you have that he doesn't? Beat him there and show Luke... Show Luke that—

"Oh dear, you look stressed. That's really bad for your skin, you know, stress."

Alex yanked the dagger from underneath her pillow and hurled it at the voice.

But the man at the foot of her bed simply caught it out of the air like it was a rubber ball instead of a knife that would've struck between his eyes.

She stared at him. The white shock of a quiff and the thick aviator sunglasses looked familiar to her. "I know you."

A smile spread on the man's angular features, and a dimple appeared on his left cheek. "You should," he coolly said, handing the dagger hilt-first back to her. She took it, stunned.

He had dark skin like her, a shocking contrast to his hair. As if it was his personal mission to blind everyone around him, his three-piece suit was pure white, adorned by a gold chain that hung from his breast pocket and disappeared into the opposite side of his coat. Even his goddamn dress pants and dress shoes were sparkling white.

A lightbulb switched on in her brain. "Why the hell are you here?!" she hissed. "It's been seven fucking years!"

His aloof smile faded, and his expression settled into something much more serious. "Things are coming to head, Alex Parker. You will soon be plunged into a time of hardship upon hardship, and there will be no rest for you unless you win."

"The inevitable Titanomachy, you mean," she drily said. "Like I didn't already know that."

"The Titanomachy will be the least of your concerns. The war is only part of a much bigger scheme, one that I intend on playing in and winning." He peered at her. "So I must ask you: Do you regret accepting my offer?"

"I was a child," she venomously said. "What kind of question is that?"

"A question that stands," he replied. "Do you regret accepting my offer? It's a simple question."

"Why do you need to know?"

"Like I said, I intend on winning this giant chess game. I can't do it without you, but the reason I'm partaking in the first place is for everyone's good. So I won't force you if you refuse."

She snorted. "Maybe you should've thought about that when you forced a seven-year-old to make a decision on the spot."

He scowled at her. "I saw my opportunity and took it. It's your turn. It's an opportunity I'm giving you. Up to you if you want to take it or not."

"Opportunity to run away? Or to become your dog?" Alex gripped her dagger. "Stop speaking in riddles."

"It's up to your interpretation," he said flippantly. "Now, please answer my question. Do you regret accepting my offer to make you a fire user?"

She was nothing before she'd accepted that offer.

Alex had run with Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth, pretending as if she had been on the same footing. But when Grover came, she'd been forced to accept what she really was. She wasn't even a demigod—just a distant descendant of some god, tainted with the indelible red target that made monsters come after her, but gifted with none of the abilities and powers like the others. She was as good as an extremely unfortunate mortal.

Their pack, their family was supposed to be four of them. But Grover had so much responsibilty on his shoulders, and she was nothing but deadweight. Even Annabeth, with her fierce intelligence, held her own despite her age.

But then he had come, offering her a way to survive. She'd blazed her way out of the Cyclops' ice room full of rotting corpses, kept the flames alive until the slaughterhouse had been reduced to nothing but ash. She tried to catch up to them, but they'd been too far gone by then.

Now, where was she? Standing again at Luke's side, holding a leash on all the monsters that were part of this forsaken, ragtag army.

Or was she really?

She was nothing before she'd accepted that offer, but how much more than that was she now? Alabaster's arrival was like watching history repeat all over again in front of her eyes, and she was unable to do anything about it.

Was it more cruel to have let her taste and revel in power, only to tear it away a second time? Was she really always just meant to be a wallflower to everyone else, despite her best efforts?

Her mouth twisted into an ugly smirk.

"Maybe so," she scoffed. "Maybe I regret it. But maybe I don't, either."

The man hummed, returning her smirk with one of his own. "Fair enough. I like that answer, Alex Parker."

"Stop calling me by my full name, I don't even know yours," she sneered.

"Oh, honey, I'm disappointed you haven't figured it out yet."

His figure folded into half like he was nothing more than a lengthwise sheet of paper. Over and over, he folded in on himself until he was the thinnest line and then nothing more, leaving Alex alone in her big cruise suite.

author's note

when a writer is inspired, motivated and actually has time to write, the grind never stops :)

i love writing alex. she's so dramatic and bitter, and there's lots of places where it stems from.

also shame on luke! family, my ass. he keeps on breaking his promise, and it's making monsters out of all of them s m h

i'm so hyped for next chapter: we're going back to chb!