DISCLAIMER:

Nico: There are lawyers outside.

Nyx: Pssh… No there's not…

Nico: No, seriously. They're out there.

Nyx: Well, we haven't made a claim to Riordan's work… Perhaps it's Alecto with some sort of task.

Nico: *disappears*

oOo

I was awoken to someone slamming me into the floor.

Hands hooked onto my shoulders, and suddenly I was airborne. My eyes flew open in a panic – the floor was too close, I'd misjudged the height of the couch –

I crashed onto the rough carpet and rolled to my feet, ignoring the way it wrenched my cuts open, and rounded on the offender with Mνήμη drawn and ready.

It was wrenched from my hands in a golden blur. Startled, I didn't move as it then grabbed me and shoved me into the wall.

"You trying to start something?" Hunter snickered into my ear.

Fury exploded in me faster than I could even think through the cruelty of it. She chuckled and let me go roughly.

For a moment, as she walked away, I considered going for her. She sauntered off to the curtains and yanked them back to reveal the setting sun, then knelt at our supplies bag to fish for something. On either side of her, Brook and Moon were sitting impatiently, and Sis was glancing at us nervously.

She caught my gaze and shook her head. "Not worth it."

"So next time," Hunter said loudly, "don't sleep in!"

Moon chuckled at us and rolled her eyes. "Tired, Dandelion?"

I scowled and sheathed my sword.

Bree sighed and sat beside me on the arm of the couch. Her hair brushed against my arm – it was cold and wet and smelled of mint. She'd taken advantage of the shower. Not a bad idea, actually, seeing as we'd all been sleeping on the streets for the past four days…

"Moon snagged a few things from the free breakfast right after we'd gone to bed," Bree offered, holding a bag to me. It was coated in dog slobber.

I took it in a dry space between my pointer finger and thumb. "…Great…"

She chuckled. "Chill. The cinnamon rolls are individually wrapped.

"Cinnamon rolls?" I gasped, unable to contain a glance at the wolf. Who was smirking triumphantly.

"Cinnamon rolls," Bree confirmed, licking something off her lips not-so-covertly.

I finished them quickly, savoring only the centers. Sweet things don't always seem so great to me, but cinnamon always did, and I was starting to see why these three had an unhealthy obsession with the rolls. Even the icing was great. Not home-made, not like Granny could make, but great.

The other reason for my rush was Hunter's burning golden gaze.

Bree caught it and fell silent, looking away as I ate.

Eventually Hunter snorted and shouldered her bag. "Well. We really are late. Moon, pick a wolf and stay here. Brook, take the others, and we'll do a sweep of the block while the bonehead finishes breakfast." And out the window she went.

Bree stiffened at that but relaxed when we heard her roll to her feet ten feet below.

Brook just sighed and climbed down quietly.

I looked at the last cinnamon roll. "They're not happy with me, are they?"

"No," she muttered, slumping against the wall.

I held up the roll. "You want any more?"

She shook her head and slowly fell backwards until she was sprawled across the couch.

A frown crossed my face. "You okay? You don't look like you slept."

"I did," she sighed heavily. "Not my best night, but I did. And you? Nightmares?"

I shook my head.

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not. I told you, they go away. I'm not sure if they cause the stress or result from it, but it fades, and I didn't dream a thing last night."

"Me, neither."

We were quiet for a moment, letting the city's empty noise and the panting of the wolves have their reign. My gaze wandered from the frayed plaid couch to the peeling walls to her black eyes, focused on something beyond the ceiling. Her raven hair was even darker when wet and somewhat curled and twisted, for she had neglected to brush it, and shone in odd places because of it. Her pale throat stood out in comparison. If I squinted and focused, I could still see the three faint scars running down the right side of her throat. Just little risen streaks from the jaw that swooped down more than halfway to her collar bone. You wouldn't find them unless you knew they were there in the first place, they were so faded. Yet they'd been there so long I could tell they weren't going to fade further.

I reached out and gently touched where they started on the bottom edge of the bone. She didn't seem to notice.

"You think that whoever's trapped us here blocks dreams?" she said so suddenly I jumped.

"Sleeps-visioning?" Moon barked.

"Demigod sleep-visions," Sis confirmed.

I considered that. "Um… I dreamt yesterday… It's hard to block dreams, but I guess it may be possible somehow. It must be a heavily guarded secret, else half-bloods would be using it like a drug, but if anyone's old enough to remember even the dawn of dreams, it's The Patron."

"I don't know; therefore aliens," Bree muttered.

"What?"

"Aliens," she beamed, smiling at the ceiling. Her eyes finally met mine. "Alien tractor beams blocking sleep-vision signals. Sound about right?"

"Aliens. That's your big idea? That's how the world's gonna end?"

"Oh, it was Hunter's idea. Her father never bought it."

Despite Hunter's current frosty attitude, I laughed. "That must make the theory pretty legit, then, huh?"

"Oh, if Hunter suggested it, it's legit," she barked. Then her face fell.

"…You sure you're okay?"

"Fine," she said, sitting up rather quickly. Her foot nearly caught my face as she spun her feet up and over the couch arm. "She's going to be mad at us. We better go."

oOo

'Mad' didn't quite capture it.

She couldn't very well yell at us, as she'd given us permission to stay, and they hadn't yet completed the block, but you could tell she wasn't happy. When we arrived she rolled her eyes and kept going, as if she couldn't believe we'd had the nerve to even show up.

"She does that one more time," I muttered, "and I'll-"

"Really, that's not a good idea," Bree rushed. This time, her voice was low, as if she didn't wish to be heard.

I turned to stare at her. She shied back like a scolded puppy and seemed to curl around her hands, which were pressed against her chest – the iPod, I recognized, clamped in her fingers. She was retreating into the iPod. The white cords spilled out and over like the messy lines elementary kids flee in during a fire drill.

Two blocks further under the city's lights – they flashed odd colors now, for someone had decided that the Space Needle needed some decorating – Bree held out a hand for us to halt.

My hand flew to my sword and I searched her gaze, but there was no fear there. Just confusion. Baffled, annoyed confusion. She hadn't sensed any monsters.

"…What?" Hunter asked, glancing around.

"Bree!"

We all heard the girl's cry that time. We whipped around and there she was, shoving through the crowd roughly and fighting tooth and nail with bulky handbags and bullish bodies. The poor little thing was being swept away like twigs in a flooded river. In fact, that's what I thought of when I saw her – a bunch of twigs. The kind you snap in half without meaning to.

Then, to my utter astonishment, Bree dove in after her. "Natalie! What…"

Seeing a clearer route, I ducked around a streetlight and grabbed the girl by the wrist before she could vanish beneath the writhing waves of flesh. She yelped and stared at me with large green eyes but didn't fight as I dragged her to Bree.

Hunter shot me a glare, which I ignored.

The girl, upon seeing Bree, shoved away from me and sniffed. "Way to handle a lady."

"My bad," I replied dryly. There were rougher ways to be dealt with.

She dusted off her clothes and turned to Bree, brown-and-too-yellow-blond hair swishing. "Really, and I thought you were bad. You ought to keep better company."

Bree sighed heavily. "Natalie, this is my brother, Nico. And you know my sisters. Hunter, Brook, Nico, this is Natalie. We go to school together. Speaking of that, why are you here?"

"Your brother? How come I never see him in school?"

"Natalie. Why are you here? This… This isn't a nice town," Bree whispered, removing an ear bud. Hunter and Brook were glancing around nervously.

We shouldn't be standing in one place…

Natalie pouted, sticking out a large lip. Her eyebrows scrunched in an odd way when she did. "I told you, remember? I have a cousin's funeral?"

Light flickered in Sis's eyes. "…Oh, right…"

Natalie's extreme expression changed once more to one of curiosity. Now, facial masks, I was familiar with – the dramatic tinge to it seemed to defeat the purpose, though, and it made me uncomfortable. Like ants crawling up my arms. "You didn't tell me you were coming here. When? School just let out, right? Christmas break? You didn't skip, did you?"

"I have family here, too," Bree lied smoothly with a gesture to me. "The flight we'd planned on over break was canceled, so we rescheduled for something sooner."

Something down the street drew my eye. I wasn't fast enough to what it had been, but I swear, something was there. Ice moved slowly up my spine.

Natalie glanced at me nervously. "Ah. So… how long will you be here?"

"Um…"

"Be careful," she winked. "I saw another big bat flying in the sky yesterday. See ya around!" And she dove into the crowd once more. Sticks committing suicide.

"We need to go. Now," Hunter said, turning and storming off. But her stride was no longer angry.

We followed without question.

"You sure you know her?" I whispered to Bree.

She had retreated to both ear buds again. "Well. No, but for some reason she thinks she knows me. She knows that I'm not normal."

"She saw the… the winged cat as a bat, right?"

Bree nodded.

Great. As if we needed more gryphons. My gaze landed on Hunter, but she was refusing to look at me. Brook I had learned to fear for her Artemis side. That left Moon.

I sighed and kicked her hind paw out from under her. She slid on the concrete – much to my satisfaction – before turning to glare at me.

"Have you scented anything nearby?" I hissed.

"Not," Moon barked with narrowed yellow eyes. "And the shadows?"

Bree shook her head. "Nope. I can't sense any monsters."

"Guys!" Hunter snapped. "Quit talking and-"

An arrow landed in her shoulder.

Before I could even blink, shadows shot back in the direction it'd come from. The snarl of wolves ignited the air.

The streets, still laden with too much snow for cars, were quite suddenly filled.

People screamed and scattered from the salted sidewalks as the Amazons swarmed. They melded from the crowd and streamed from all directions, crossbows raised, faces hidden in silver cowls. Three appeared on buildings across the street. Five more on the roof above us.

My hand tightened on my sword.

"Make one move," an anonymous Amazon called from their midst, "and we'll kill all of you!"

Hunter raised an eyebrow and held up her hands, all but oblivious to the arrow embedded in her flesh. Cold light glinted in her eyes as she smiled. "Oh, my gods! Look, guys! We're famous!"

The Amazons glanced at one another in confusion.

"Look at this welcoming committee!" Hunter gushed on. "Oooh, and the red lights on the Space Needle make a red carpet out of snow! Too bad I didn't wear my gown. You guys think that NOW!"

The shadows rushed by. The spaces ahead burned and vibrated as Bree and Hunter – towing Brook – carved a path along the building awnings. We dropped into reality two blocks away amid the swath of pedestrians and continued to sprint on foot.

Two seconds later, we heard them behind us. Hunting horns rang out.

"By gods!" Moon barked exasperatedly. She skidded to a halt and called something about stalling them. The pack went with her.

Brook shot forward, small enough to delve between the people that were gaping or snarling at us. Hunter followed her to create a wider opening. Bree and I would go last.

Despite the crowd, we went fast. My feet pounded on the concrete and crunched on the salt and sand. It felt good to stretch my legs, heck, merely to be on the run – it was real and it was fast and it was familiar. The way my legs moved and my balance would shift on turns and the simple knowledge that to slow down is to die. To have no reason, no excuse to stop. The high stakes that made your heart race faster than the movement did.

Running was something I was familiar with.

Bree glanced at me, as if I had done something odd – I might have, as I have a tendency to not realize when I do things – and waved for us to go faster. We were falling behind.

From somewhere too nearby, I heard Moon's warning howl.

Something whizzed by my ear and stopped in a street lamp. Then another between Bree and I. And then I lost count.

Hunter barked a wordless order and we dove into the nearest alley, pressed against the wall, not caring that we were trapped. Just to get out of the arrows.

I prepared to shadow travel again. Before the order was given, though, two girls in heavy silver cloaks were at the alley entrance. More emerged from the back end. I didn't even bother to count the ones on the roofs.

"Stop!" snapped one of the hooded girls on the sidewalk. "We intend no harm!"

"Riiiight," Hunter spat. Her hand was clamped over her wounded shoulder now.

"We'll fire again only if you resist," her partner said. This girl's voice shook slightly, but her bow wasn't just generally pointed. It was aimed. Straight at my chest. "If harm does happen, it shall be only justice."

"Justice?" Hunter snarled. "For what?"

The first swiveled her bow until it, too, was poised to kill. Hunter hissed at it. "You're under the arrest for the murder of Kambrya Flightgale and for the disappearances of several other Amazons. Deny and resist, and we will shoot you now. Admit and attend a formal trial, and you may be treated a little nicer."

"Admit and then go to trial? What kind of a game is this?" Brook protested.

"We've never even heard that name before," Bree added. "We're not-"

The second girl spat on the ground. "Hmph. Didn't expect you to. You disgust me."

Sis and I shared a glance. I got the feeling that our guilt had already been proved.

"Wait," Hunter sighed. "Look, there's a misunderstanding. Bree's right. We don't know who Kambrya is, nor why we'd have killed her. When did she die?"

"You know when!" the second roared furiously.

The first waved her down. "Last night. We found her with the teeth marks of a wolf everywhere. At first, obviously, we thought werewolf. But we'd seen you creeping around our city at night. We've seen your wolves. And we know that you were in the area when and where her watch ended rather abruptly."

"Yeah, we were," Hunter spat. "We have the scars to prove it. We got attacked, too."

The second girl took a daring step forward. "Spit one more lie, and the male dies."

"Shoot him now!" someone called from above. "Men don't deserve trials!"

"No one's getting shot until I give the okay," Hunter snarled, making the Amazon leaders scowl. "Now, listen here. Kambrya was beyond saving. She abandoned her watch, for the record. Didn't seem to like it that much. She was supposed to be over by the docks, wasn't she? But you found her a good ways south of that?"

The two glanced at one another, visible only by the turning of their hoods. Then the first shrugged. "Let her talk. Every word is evidence against them."

"Kambrya didn't want to go to the docks. Something's there that scares you, huh?" Hunter went on. "Whatever has you guys so scared, it's there. And Kambrya was terrified. She fled south. But by then we'd all been spotted. She was too far away and we had our own problems to deal with."

"That's right," Brook said smoothly. "We were there, watching her, because we wanted to know more about you guys. We were sent here with the warning that things were about to get really bad, and that we're the last hope to stop it. But you wouldn't let us help. So we decided to spy on her for a bit. Spy but not harm."

"Harm not!" Moon agreed almost happily.

"Your lies make no sense," said the first Amazon.

Annoyance began in my mind. I try not to judge people – I really do. They were merely dealing with people whom they truly believed were murderers.

But it was a lapse in reality. You can't afford those in times like this.

"They make perfect sense," I snarled. "Your problems started long before we got here, didn't they?"

"And they got worse the day you arrived," snapped the one aiming at me. "I suggest you shut your mouth, boy. Your word means nothing."

"And the Second Praetor's?" Bree challenged. "What does her word mean to you?"

There was silence.

"Prove Reyna sent you," the first decided. "Prove it and we'll take your words as truth. We'll believe you came here to help, and we'll accept it."

Bree reached into her pocket, fishing for something. "Okay. Hold on…." Then she paled. "Oh. Reyna…"

The girl aiming at me tightened her fingers on the crossbow.

"Reyna what?" Hunter hissed.

"Reyna sent us covertly," Bree whispered. "Papers would have meant protection for me, but she knows I'm banned and therefore an enemy of Camp Jupiter. She didn't want evidence of our quest."

"An enemy of Camp Jupiter?" snarled the furious Amazon leader. Her bow swung from me to Sis.

For the first time since we'd started to run, real worry leaked into my throat. Real panic edging on from who-knows-where.

"Officially, yes," Hunter sighed. "But not in reality. What else could they label a Daughter of Pluto?"

"I don't know, perhaps Third Cohort Centurion?" the first mused.

I nearly choked. "What?!"

"Sarcasm," the second snipped coldly. "She was being sarcastic."

There was a moment of tense silence.

"We're here," Bree said, "to look for Jason. Then we had a message from Apollo saying that we were needed here. We think it has something to do with him and two other friends of ours who are missing."

"Jason is another male. We don't care for him."

"You want to tell that to his dad?"

Another silence.

Hunter picked up on it. "Do you really want to wage a war on The Crooked One's daughter? When she's being friendly?" She spread her arms out helplessly, flinching when it hurt her shoulder.

The crossbows nearly dropped. "Saturn's daughter?"

"The Daughter of Time, the one and only," Hunter confirmed with an exaggerated curtsy. "As well as Diana's daughter. Known as Artemis in the Greek terms."

Brook waved. "Hi."

"Hello!" Moon joined in, thinking that the mood had changed.

"Diana has a daughter?" the first woman whispered. As if we were suddenly standing in a temple.

Brook held out her hand and smiled. "Apparently. Nice to meet you. You can call me Brook."

After glancing at her friend, the woman pushed back her cowl – her face was long and her hair a lovely blond – and lowered the bow. She shook Brook's hand firmly. "It's an honor."

Brook's smile lost some of its warmth. "So, are you willing to have an honest conversation now?"

The woman looked up at her friends above. "…I think so. Lower your weapons!"

Weapons were slowly lowered.

Brook beamed once more. "Great. Keep the weapons down, leave our male alone – think of him as a pet if it pleases you-"

"A what?" I muttered.

"-and I think we'll get along just fine."

oOo

Nyx: GUYZ! WHERE ARE YOU?! *looks around*… I'm alone…

Anyway. If you're still reading, you'll have to wait until Thursday to hear Bree's speculation on Hunter's suggestion. I'm going to have to skip Monday because I have another animating project that will dictate my weekend. Please do review! Tell me what you think!

Oh, and for anyone who likes art, I got an account on DA. (Deviant. Art). I go by NyxIntuneric on there. Not much up yet, but it's a neat site, and I'll be posting more stuff soon. Once this animation thing is done…