Hey, guys! It's the next update of the Swift Storm! Yay?

Dakota: Of course it's yay! Oh wait . . . Alyssa's gone . . . =sulks=

Annette: It's OK, Dakota! You have me!

Caleb: .......

Me: Oh, gods.

Disclaimer: I'm a girl. That automatically means I'm not Rick Riordan. Unless . . . oh, no, I'm just kidding. :P

Chapter Fourteen: Annette Tells Me a Secret

That night, after checking into a hotel with the golden Hermes credit card, Caleb and I, plus a crazy daughter of Demeter, sulked around the expensive room. Well, I sulked. Caleb was trying to act all Athena and devise a plan to get Alyssa back, and Annette was babbling on and on about something I didn't care about. I wasn't listening.

This was all my fault. I should've been able to do better than that, even in my first real battle. Even if it was a Fury . . . According to Chiron, Percy Jackson, from the first great Prophecy and one of Poseidon's kids, had defeated a Fury with one slash at my age.

Not only had I not been able to that, but the Fury had also snatched one of my friends away and taken her to the Underworld.

Which brought me to the grand question: Why did the Fury want me to come to the Underworld?

She'd said, "He wishes to speak with you."

That had to mean Hades, right? But what did he want with me? I was his nephew .. . maybe some important godly thing?

Doubt it.

I sighed and traced my index finger over the carpet. Alyssa's terrified scream as the Fury spiraled into the sky kept replaying in my head. It was exactly like my dream. Was it some sort of omen?

The thought struck me like a shock, no pun intended. I looked up, mind whirring, then stood up and paced over to the mini-fridge. Annette and Caleb watched as I dug out another Cherry Coke, popped it open, and took a long chug.

"What?" I asked crossly, surveying them over the top of the can.

"You've had, like, five of those," Annette chirped, flinging herself off the couch to stand about a foot away from me.

"That's gonna cost a lot," Caleb put in from where he was sitting seriously at the desk with the silver lamp angled on a blank piece of paper.

"So what?" I mumbled. "We have this." I picked up Hermes's card and waved it at them, before slumping back down in the corner to think.

"Sulking over there's not gonna do anything, Dakota." Caleb turned the lamp off so he could turn and look at me.

"I'm not sulking," I said lightly. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, you're obsessively drinking Cherry Cokes and you won't talk to any of us, so . . ." Annette trailed off when she saw my face. "Oh, rhetorical question. Got it."

"Dakota, let's try and put this whole thing together," Caleb suggested, coming over to sit on the bed beside my dark corner.

"That's what I'm doing," I muttered, taking another long sip of Cherry Coke before shooting him a glare.

Ignoring me, Caleb said, "Well, the Fury said she could hold grudges. That means she's Megaera, the one that's envious."

"Woohoo," I grumbled.

"And she said her lord warned her about you. And that he wished to speak with you."

"Yes, we know that," I said impatiently.

"That means Hades sent her out to look for you, right?" Caleb concluded.

"That doesn't make any sense," I said, looking up. "Apollo said I would save someone who was in trouble. I didn't save Alyssa. How can the god of prophecies be wrong?"

"He wasn't. The Fury screwed up."

Caleb and I looked at Annette, who had began to blush as she slid down against the wall opposite me. "Chiron told me I'd encounter something dangerous in Chicago when he sent me after you guys . . . he told me I was supposed to replace one of you, and that I needed to be careful." Then she stared at me. "He said you'd save me from a monster."

"The Fury didn't know who to look for," Caleb said thoughtfully. "She couldn't sniff out Annette."

"Well, we got that part lined up," I said. "Yay. That means the Fury was supposed to find Annette, and we were supposed to save her, but Megura or whatever-"

"Megaera," Caleb interrupted.

"Yeah, her-" I continued. "Couldn't find her so she just went and looked for me."

"Precisely." Annette nodded, that same goofy grin spreading across her face as she looked at me.

Ignoring her, I slid down lower to the floor. "Then . . . why'd the Fury want me to come to the Underworld so badly?"

"She said her lord wants to speak with you," Caleb said.

"Yeah, but what would Hades want to talk to me about?" I asked to no one in particular. "That makes no sense."

"Something's not right here," Caleb thought aloud, leaning back into the bed's many pillows. He cast a questioning glance at me. "Maybe Hades wants to warn you of something?"

"Then why would the Fury take Alyssa?"

"To lure you there." Caleb and I turned to Annette again. Her face had become slightly disgusted at the mention of Alyssa. "He knows you're . . . friends with her." The detestful expression faded. "He wants you to go to the Underworld, and since he knew you wouldn't, he decided he had to get something to bribe you with."

Wow. For a complete idiot, she was approaching this pretty logically.

"Whatever he wants to see me about must be pretty important," I said. "Important enough for one of his minions to snatch a half-blood away from the land of the living."

I stood up, crumpling the soda can. Caleb and Annette looked up at me. "Let's go save Alyssa," I stated, firing at the trash can. Swish.

"Dakota, are you forgetting about the quest? The prophecy? Eris's frickin Apple of Discord?" Caleb stood up beside me, waving his hand in my face as if reminding me.

"No, but we need to save Alyssa," I said stubbornly, crossing my arms. "We can't just leave her in the Underworld!"

Annette muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Yes, we could." I glared at her.

"Dakota, we need to focus on the biggest thing right now, and that's stopping a repeated Trojan War," Caleb said slowly, as if talking to a toddler.

"I'm not stupid," I snapped. "I know what's at stake. But Alyssa's my friend, and she's yours too. We have to save her."

Caleb's shoulders sagged and he gave me a doubtful look. "OK, give me a reason why we should go to the Underworld. Other than saving Alyssa," he added when I opened my mouth.

After thinking for a second, I realized it. The perfect reason.

"Persephone's garden."

"Huh?"

"Persephone's garden!" A grin broke out on my face. "That's the PERFECT place to hide Eris's apple! Right there, where no one would look!"

Caleb crossed his arms. "I dunno," he said cynically. "That's a perfect excuse to go save Alyssa."

Anger flickered in my chest. "Do you just want to leave her there to die?"

Caleb had nothing to say to that. I stormed outside towards the balcony and slammed the door behind me.

Once alone, I leaned against the balcony railing and stared over at the city of Chicago, fuming.

I'd known Alyssa longer than anyone else at camp. No one else knew as much about her as I did, right? I couldn't leave her in the Underworld. I just couldn't.

And Persephone's garden was the perfect place to look for the apple. It had to be there.

In an attempt to take my mind off things, I looked up at the darkening sky and glared at it. Had Zeus not heard my request? Is that why he hadn't let me save Alyssa? Or maybe this was all just some stupid test. Always a test.

"You seem upset."

"Huh-" I jolted and jumped away from the railing.

Some random teenage dude was standing on the hotel balcony beside me. He was wearing black ripped jeans, a black skull t-shirt under a (guess what?) black hoodie. There was a skull ring on his left hand. He had unruly dark hair and dark eyes to match.

"Who are you?" I demanded, my hand creeping towards the pocket where I was now keeping Ventus.

In response, without looking at me, he said, "I know you want to go to the Underworld." He then stared at me, expression unreadable. "If you really want to save your friend, meet me in that alleyway where you fought, tomorrow around dusk. I can help you out."

"What?" OK, now I was suspicious. Some random person appears on the balcony and tells me to meet him in the alley? Not someone I could trust.

"You can trust me," he said, as if reading my mind. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Cousin," he added. Then, he turned towards me and lunged at me.

Or at least I thought he was lunging at me. I raised my hands in front of my body as a shield, but he just vanished- like a ghost. He'd, like, run into the wall. Literally, into it.

I gaped at the space he'd just been standing in. Where had he gone? How had he gotten here in the first place?

Weird. Just . . . weird. I was dumbfounded.

"Dakota?"

Annette was staring at me from the sliding door, one hand unconsciously on the side. She was looking sort of nervous, instead of her usual crazy grin.

"Yeah." Attempting to look casual, I unfroze myself from the balcony railing and went back to leaning over it, watching the city lights blinking.

"Can I talk to you? In private?"

"Sure, whatever."

I heard the sliding door close and Annette walked over and joined me in looking out over the city. "Are . . . you OK?" she said, sounding a bit awkward.

"I'm fine," I mumbled. I didn't look at her. My heart was still pounding after the odd run-in with that guy, and now I wasn't sure what to think. My ADHD was acting up. I began drumming my fingers on the railing.

"Uh . . .all right."

What was up with Annette? She never usually acted like this . . .

Silence rested between us. I had nothing to say, and she seemed to be trying to figure out how she should put something.

Then she said something that truthfully kind of freaked me out.

"Dakota, I . . . I like you."

I jolted, shooting her a questioning glance. Her face was sort of pink-ish, and she was trembling.

I felt a shiver run down my spine.

Uh, wow. What was I supposed to say? Usually, I could tell when girls liked me- they would ask me to dance at school dances, sit with me and some of the other guys at lunch . . . occasionally they would even invite me over. But none of them . . . none of them came right out and said, "I like you."

Unless she didn't mean it that way. I had to make sure.

"Uh, I like you, too. You're a good friend." I tried to appear oblivious, shooting her a grin.

"No, I mean I liiiiiike you."

Oh, gods.

"OK . . ." I really was practically speechless. I mean, I could have an empousa interrogating me at the brink of death and have some witty comeback, but a girl says she likes me . . . blank-out.

"So, uh . . . do you want to go out with me?"

Now this? Whoa!

"Well, um . . . Annette, see . . ." I dared to look up. Her eyes were big and wide and scared, like a frightened deer. "You're a good friend, but I'd appreciate it if we weren't . . . a couple."

"Oh. OK." For a moment she looked a bit downcast, then she brightened. "That's fine. I'm ready when you are." She flashed me the weird smile again and flounced off the balcony.

I watched until she slid the door shut again and waved, then sighed and ran my hands through my hair.

Maybe I hadn't been ready for this quest.

Alyssa was gone, now Annette had a crush on me, and some random shady-looking guy appeared on the balcony.

This day sucked.

Haha, soooo? Who do you think the random guy was? (Pretty obvious . . .) Should Dakota take him up on his offer? :P Leave a review, I'd appreciate it! :D

Dakota: REVIEW!

Annette: =sighs dramatically and stares at Dakota=

Caleb: What's going on with Annette?

Me: You don't want to know . . .