Hello everyone! How are you? I'm doin' just dandy, thanks for asking. Special shout-outs this chapter go to MagicWriterKfor being such an incredible reviewer (seriously, you went through all 10 chapters in a couple of hours, and left really nice, detailed reviews too!) and drakonhuntasfor being such an [insert Apollo's favorite word: Awesome] friend! Haha inside jokes rock. Thank you to all reviewers, favoriters, followers, and voters, last chapter; please enjoy Chapter 11 of "The Death Of Me"!

Cat was a demigod.

A flippin' demigod.

It didn't seem possible. I mean, this was Cat we're talking about. The same girl who ran around, scantily clad in a catsuit. We demigods usually wore something more practical, like a simple T-shirt and pants. Whereas she acted like everything was some sort of joke or pun, demigods wouldn't have that kind of mindset: they'd be scared out of their mind 100% of the time. And first of all, Cat didn't seem to be familiar with the Olympian world, since she didn't seem to understand that when I stabbed Alicia, I didn't murder her. A demigod would have taken one look at the flurry of gold dust and known that Alicia was some sort of monster. Also, Cat traveled with a group, who I took one look at and knew that they couldn't possibly be anything other than human. Demigods tended to be more of the lone-type, especially since we were frequently on the run from someone or something. Lastly, one of Cat's weapons was a cheese grater. And, well, last I checked, we demigods tended to use weapons that aired less on the cheese grater side and more on the sword/bow/knife side. (I mean, c'mon, a cheese grater? Really?) No, the mere thought of Cat being a demigod was unbelievable.

But, at the same time, the thought was totally believable. First of all, she was able to successfully use a freakin' cheese grater as a dangerous weapon, and as far as I was concerned, that took some serious skill. Plus, she had the fit shape and battle tactic know-how that many demigods came pre-packaged with. Not to mention the fact that she could see through the Mist. If anything, that sealed the deal.

Even now, as I spied her curved form rounding the corner of the hallway and coming to a halt in the shadows, hidden from view of all but me, I could practically imagine her trading her threads by switching out of her jet black catsuit and opting for an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Somehow, I knew she truly was a demigod.

But that didn't explain how she got here. What all had happened to this 17-year-old demigod so that she would end up in this situation? What was she left with now? A gang of burglars. Exotic and outlandish weapons. A friend who was a monster. No family. And unfathomable powers that I bet she had never imagined herself possessing.

"Hey lady..."

The same voice that had been rolling for the past few minutes suddenly caught my attention, for now apparent reason other than my train of thought had decided to pause and take a pit stop here. The speaker, who was the scary man with the spider tattooed across his face, wheezed out another command.

"Look, we've been standing here for the past few minutes, and you still haven't dropped the gun. If you don't drop the gun in the next five seconds..." He paused his sentence long enough to crack his knuckles menacingly, taking a threatening step forward, and my mother stiffened behind me, where she had moved to stand, although clearly no one but my mother and Cat would know that. "Well then, you're gonna wish that you had died along with your son."

If I thought it was possible to reach the limit of how stiff your body can physically become, well then my mom exceeded that stature about 15 stiffnesses ago. (Whatever that means.)

As if he sensed that this was too far, even for their group of thugs, Retlaw stepped forward and placed a hand on Spider Man's chest to block him. "Lay off a little, will you, Ant?"

Ah...so that's his name, I thought as "Ant" took a reluctant step backwards under Retlaw's intense, no-nonsense gaze. I guess I had underestimated the stupidity of certain individuals in this group of thugs. I mean, for a guy with a name like "Ant", which is already bad enough by itself, wouldn't it be better to get an ant tattoo, instead of a spider? Or, assuming Ant is just the guy's nickname, wouldn't it just be easier to go by "Spider" instead? It might not even sound as ridiculous (nah, it'd probably be just as bad). Still, a small glimmer of hope that maybe- just maybe- since these guys weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, they would let us both off a little easy. Or, technically, I guess just my mom, since they couldn't exactly see me.

Stepping forward suddenly, a girl with a bob haircut- Forrest, her name was- clicked her tongue in a neurotic tic, and said, "Sorry. Usually he's not like that." Why did I get the feeling that she was lying through her teeth?

"Where's that girl?" My mom interrupted suddenly, cutting everyone in the room, I think, by obvious surprise. "That girl that was here earlier. She had red hair. Where is she?"

Retlaw practically leaped forward, he looked so eager. "What? You've seen her? When was the last time you saw her? Where was she? Was she here?"

Again, everyone was taken aback at this outburst, especially Cat. I snuck a peek at her, standing incognito over in the corner. Her blue eyes were wide with shock, her mouth open in an "O" shape.

I looked at my mom, and saw her sporting a similar expression. Clearly she had not expected a reaction like that. And clearly she was putting two and two together (I could practically see the gears turning in her head) that these people had come into the apartment to look for Cat, not for her. Well, that was the original purpose.

Now they were here for my mom.

"Okay, look, I've got a proposition for you," Forrest said, ignoring my mom and Retlaw completely. She placed her hands behind her back, as if trying to seem relaxed, but her green eyes were on hyperdrive. "You can either call the police now and tell them that everything was just a big mistake, and then get the hell out of here." She paused unexpectedly, as if drawing out the tension as long as possible.

I sense an "or" somewhere in there, I thought to myself.

"Or...?" My mom prompted without looking at me. Hey, what can I say? Great minds think alike, right?

"Or," said Forrest, shifting her weight to one side and crossing her arms. "We can tie you to a chair we a bomb underneath it after we're done looting this place." Then she repeated the phrase that I'd heard Ant using earlier, like the gang's motto or something: "What's it gonna be? We're going to rob your building, either way. Are you gonna leave, owning slightly less than you did before, but get off scot-free? Or are you seriously stupid enough to let your own stubbornness kill you and everyone else in this building?"

Having come to the end of her little tirade, her attitude seemed to deflate, and she spread her hands diplomatically, almost apologetically, as if that was the best she could do. "It's your choice."

My mom seemed too stunned for words, which, I'll admit, came as a bit of a shock to me. I mean, this is my mom, the Sally Jackson, who was always prepared for anything. But I'd always felt that a little bit of that invincible, can-do attitude came from the simple fact that she was a mom, a mom with a job, and that job happened to be protecting me, her kid, at all costs. So I think that once I was killed, all the fight went out of her, like this entire time she'd been operating on this helium strength that came from a balloon, and over time, that balloon had swelled up more and more, getting more powerful. But, as powerful as it was, it didn't take much to pop it, and when it did pop, it deflated beyond repair. An identical wilted, defeated look sat on my mom's face, and it worried me.

Yet, this was still Sally Jackson. That fact hadn't changed. And behind that hopeless expression on my mom's face, I could see a glimmer of light, a spark of fire in those pale blue eyes. My mom hadn't given up hope yet, so that meant that I shouldn't either.

"Well, woman, come on! What's it gonna be?" Ant roared, his face wrinkled in what was obviously an insane rage.

Fortunately, or, unfortunately, depending on how you see it, my mom wasn't forced to answer the question, since something else distracted the attention of Crazy Ant. A shiny gold object, glinting sharply in the dim lighted setting of the living room. Whether it was because of my new, weird ghosty powers, I traced the image with startling speed. It was a trophy, the same one that I had spotted clutched in a gang member's hand as they first entered the building.

I watched as it hurtled towards my mom with a frightening accuracy. I watched, and I knew as I watched it that it would hit her squarely in the chest, and that it would hurt horribly. I watched as the trophy found its home in my chest instead of my mom's.

A gasp fell from my mom's pink lips as a sturdy thud resonated around the room, a sound that, presumably, was only heard by the ears of my mother, Cat, and myself. I looked at it incredulously. Yep, it was definitely deeply embedded in my chest. Yet it didn't hurt one bit.

Huh.

With a slight wonder, I pulled the trophy slowly from my chest, and examined it. It appeared to be a gymnastics trophy, the engraved label reading "Regional Championships: 2005". There was no name included, no telling where it came from. A bronze statue of a girl- a gymnast- was balanced upside-down on the trophy, as if the female figure was poised in a permanent handstand. I found that the pointed portion that had found home in my chest was the gymnast's foot sticking into the air.

Man, I thought to myself. I've certainly got one serious case of athlete's foot.

Oddly enough, although the foot had impaled me squarely in the chest and had gone pretty deep, there was no blood on the trophy. Not one drop. So I just dropped it and let it fall to the floor with a loud clatter.

Looking around, I noticed that the herd of burglars by the kitchen were staring at the trophy with the starkest astonishment I've ever seen. Really, it was quite spectacular. But, I'm not exactly one who likes to wait idly by, so, grabbing my mother's hand next to mine, I clutched it tightly with my right hand as I surged forward, tugging her with me. We ran past the burglars, who were transfixed by whatever it is they'd just seen- or thought they'd seen, at least. I had no idea what the Mist showed them, but I certainly didn't have time to sit around and find out over tea. With my mother's hand in my right one, I raced past Cat, and, on an impulse that I find myself regretting quite a bit, I clasped her hand in my left hand and brought her with us. Then we did something that I frequently find myself being quite adept at:

We ran.

Whoop whoop! Another chapter completed. Yay! Thank you to everyone for reading this far. Pretty please review, favorite, follow, and vote (poll is on my profile)! But most importantly, please enjoy the rest of your day, and the rest of your week.

Love,

~Princess Andromeda II