Disclaimer: I don't own PJO/HOO/TOA. Sorry this new chapter took so long, I spent like three weeks trying to get my laptop fixed, only to end up having to buy a newone anyway. Sucks. Anyways, hope you enjoy, R&R!

Chapter Thirteen

I Become I A Wanted Fugitive. Good Times Huh?

If this were a novel, I'd've come to terms with my impending death as I fell. Accepted it you know? As it was, I was too busy shrieking to have any meaningful revelations about life and the universe. The river raced toward me at the speed of a truck. Wind ripped the breath from my lungs. Steeples and skyscrapers and bridges tumbled in and out of my vision.

And then: Boooom! There was a whiteout of bubbles. I sank through the murk, sure that I was about to end up embedded in a hundred feet of mud and lost forever.

But my impact with the water hadn't hurt. I was falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through my fingers. I settled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of my former stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage—beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags—swirled up all around me.

Then it hit me. I was at the bottom of a river, and I was breathing. Weird, but I was alive, so it was a good weird. Alive is always good. Usually anyway.

On impulse I grabbed an abandoned lighter floating nearby and flicked it on. When I held the spark to a soggy paper bag, it lit up. Right there at the bottom of the Mississippi. I pulled the lighter back, stowing it in my pocket, and the fire went out as soon my skin was away from it.

So, that was a 'yes' in regards to the question of whether or not I'd received any powers from my father or not. At least I wasn't causing earthquakes when I was pissed off. That was something anyway.

I stood shakily, thigh deep in mud. I could hear a voice, similar to my mother's, prodding me. 'Ana, what do you say?'

"Uhm, thanks Father," I mumbled uncomfortably. "I appreciate it." Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid.

I bit my lip as I thought about the poor people up in the Arch. What had happened to them? Katie had said once that monsters didn't really bother with regular mortals, but even if Echidna and her psychotic son/pet had left them alone, the Arch had still exploded. They could be seriously hurt, or dead. They were definitely traumatized for life if they had survived.

I almost wanted to stay down here for the rest of my life. Away from prophecies, and genetics demanding I be a hero, and holding the fate of the world in my hands.

I'd always thought that those stories with teenagers as the protagonists were crap. No teen, heck no adult, could handle the pressure of being responsible for the fate of the world in their hands without going insane.

Fump-fump-fump. A riverboat's paddlewheel churned above me, swirling the silt around.

There, not five feet in front of me, was my sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.

I heard that woman's voice again: 'Ana, take the sword. Your father believes in you.' This time, I knew the voice wasn't in my head. I wasn't imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar.

"Where are you?" I called aloud. Then, through the gloom, I saw her—a woman the colour of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just above the sword. She had long billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like mine.

A lump formed in my throat. I said, "Mom?" I shook my head before I even finished speaking. "No, you can't be. You just look like her. Who are you?"

"Only a messenger," she told me. "You must go to the beach at Santa Monica."

"Why?"

"It is your father's will. Please Ana, I cannot stay long, this river is too foul for me. Go to Santa Monica." She reached out, and I felt the current brush my face like a caress.

"I cannot stay, brave one," the woman said. "You must go to Santa Monica! And, Ana, do not trust the gifts..." Her voice faded.

"Gifts?" I asked. "What gifts? Wait!" She made one more attempt to speak, but the sound was gone. Her image melted away. I felt like drowning myself. The only problem: I was immune to drowning.

She had called me brave. And she had said that my father believed in me. I didn't know what to think about that part, so I pushed the thought away.

I waded over to my sword and pulled it out. The Chimera might still be up there with its snaky, fat mother, waiting to finish me off. At the very least, the mortal police would be arriving, trying to figure out who had blown a hole in the Arch. If they found me, they'd have some questions.

I returned my sword to its' hairpin state and pinned back a loose lock of hair with it. "Thank you, Father," I said again to the dark water. Then I kicked up through the muck and swam for the surface.

I came ashore next to a floating McDonald's.

A block away, every emergency vehicle in St. Louis was surrounding the Arch. Police helicopters circled overhead. The crowd of onlookers reminded me of Times Square on New Year's Eve.

A little girl said, "Mama! That girl walked out of the river."

"That's nice, dear," her mother said, craning her neck to watch the ambulances.

"But she's dry!"

"That's nice, dear." So much for mortals not seeing through the Mist. At least the mother was too distracted to pay attention to a dry teenage girl walking out of the river.

A news lady was talking for the camera: "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."

Survivors. I nearly cried in relief. Maybe the park ranger and that family made it out safely. I hoped Luke and Grover were okay.

I began to try and push through the crowd to see what was going on inside the police line. I stiffened as I heard the news report being broadcasted.

"... an adolescent girl," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescent girl going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities ..."

I backed away, trying to keep my head down. I had to go a long way around the police perimeter. Uniformed officers and news reporters were everywhere. And even worse, they were looking for me. The Fates had it out for me, I just knew it.

I'd almost lost hope of ever finding Luke and Grover when a familiar voice bleated, "Aaanaa!"

I turned and got tackled by Grover's bear hug—or goat hug. He said, "We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!"

"I'm fairly sure that'd be the easy way actually," I corrected him cynically as Luke yanked me into his own arms and started to check me over worriedly.

"Are you okay? What the fuck happened up there Ariel? If you hate sightseeing that much, all you had to do was say so! There was no need to try and kill yourself!"

"Wasn't trying to kill myself," I snorted. "I was tryin' to kill the psycho anteater and her fire-breathing chihuahua-son thing."

"What?" They exclaimed in unison, drawing a few looks. Thankfully, most people were more interested in the remains of the Arch than in a group of stressed-out teens.

I made a face at him and gestured away from the crowd with my chin. "Let's move. I'll tell you on the way to the station."

I explained what happened as we walked, keeping my head down and trying to seem inconspicuous. No doubt I looked exactly the opposite.

"Well we have to get you to Santa Monica," Grover declared worriedly, in between chewing on a handkerchief. "You can't ignore a summons from your dad, demigods have been killed for less!"

I huffed in frustration. "I seriously hate deadlines now. What I would give for a Spanish exam right now."

Luke chuckled but I could see the anxiety on his face.

Before he could respond, we passed another reporter doing a news break, and I almost froze in my tracks when he said, "Ana Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the girl who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young foster child who went missing from a school trip with her boarding school in New York last May. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Ana Jackson."

We ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley.

"First things first," I told the boys. "We've got to get out of town!"

Somehow, we made it back to the Amtrak station without getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.