2 more chapters to go! Now, the secret is finally revealed: did Kyle steal the nachos? :D Nah, no, of course not. Who is Eve's dad?

Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, you get it. I own nothing.

Chapter 21

I Am Claimed—Correctly

I forced him on. "Tell me. Tell me who you are."

"Ya don't recognize me, kiddo? Heh."

"Just TELL me. I will not wait forever."

I stood my ground and breathed heavily, both my body and voice shaking. A burning feeling decided it wanted to live in a pit of my stomach. I was scared stiff.

"Guess who I am first," he said. I was still concerned about what was behind those sunglasses, but it looked like fire to me. Fire…biker guy…rough…the way he spoke…I knew who this was. His Roman name was Mars. It was…

"Ares. The god of war."

He nodded at me, and a wave of shock lurched through my stomach in pain. Ares. My father was Ares. Ares. God of war and bloodlust. And violence. Don't get me started on all the other terrible things he was the god of. It isn't worth it.

I wanted an answer, despite my anger about "daddy dearest". An answer to this nonsense. "Apollo. Tell me why you claimed me and didn't allow Lord Ares to."

Apollo faltered.

"Come on. Don't tell me you're scared," Lola chided.

Making many motions with his hands as if that would help to explain, he said, "I needed it."

I knit my eyebrows. "Needed what?"

"For you to believe I was your father. I thought it would make you feel more like you were doing this quest for daddy and you'd be encouraged to do it. You'd want to. And you would. Would have if it wasn't for you being smart."

"Don't forget the many mentions of 'Oh, Apollo ain't your daddy and you don't get to know your real one!'"

"Uh, right."

"You have a stupid reason for claiming me, Lord Apollo."

"I needed you to get my lyre and feel obliged to do it."

"Well I needed to know who I was, Apollo."

That made the mood of the room even worse, which was scary considering Dionysus was there, Zeus was glaring, and Hephaestus' misshapen body and face looked kind of melted and waxy and it looked like he was glaring through a wax figure.

Ares turned on me and focused. "Hey, girl, don't think I didn't wanna claim my own kid. Blame self-titled 'Lord' Apollo here."

"I am not self-titled!"

"Eh, whatever ya say, punk."

"Punk? I am a god."

"Fine, whatever you say, Apollo."

The sun god smiled as if pleased with himself.

Something hit me. Now that it was in my head, I had to ask. I'd never go on without knowing. I just couldn't, I really wouldn't be able to. Not with such a mystery like that.

"Dad?"

He looked at me again. "What ya want, sweetheart?" It wasn't lovey-dovey sweetheart. It was a mock sweetheart. Sarcasm. I recognized it all too well.

"What happened to Mom? You know, after you left and she followed? I need to know. I need to know if I can find her."

Ares sighed. "Well, hate to break it to ya, but she's gone."

"Like, she moved?"

"No, not like that. Gone as in actually gone. In the Fields of Asphodel, no doubt."

My heart sunk and my eyes widened. A single tear slipped down my face. My mother was gone. And this wasn't the kind of situation where you could try and re-create the story of Orpheus and try to bring her back. She wasn't trapped with Hades. She was trapped amongst many souls in a place where all the normal spirits went—not to the Fields of Punishment, not to Elysium. To the Fields of Asphodel. The crowded Fields of Asphodel. It made me wonder, for a second, where Simon went. But that didn't matter to me as much right now. My mother was dead.

"I…how?"

I didn't want to pain my dad so much as to relive it, but I had to know.

He sighed again and closed his eyes behind those dark glasses. "We left you in your crib in the condo. I begged Lily to go, but she refused to listen to me. After a while, I just gave up. Let her follow. We weren't even thinkin' about you. Just travellin' along. Then these monsters came, see. Tried to kill all of 'em, ya know, but they kept coming back in larger numbers every time. It was an army of hellhounds and empousai, the damn creatures. They took Lily. I tried to stop 'em, but they killed her in front of me. Right in front of me. And that was almost fourteen years ago. You were only eight months old and us gods are oh-so-mercilessly forbidden by Zeus to have direct contact with their children and or visit them. We can't stay with the people we have the demigod with, either. Don't really get it, to be honest…"

That right about killed me. My mom had suffered that and I wasn't old enough or powerful enough or even there to help my dad prevent it. I could've had a normal life at a normal school with Mom helping me and loving me. Or maybe I'd be home-schooled. Maybe I would have gone to Camp Half-Blood sooner. But then again, I would have never known Lola. I might have, seeing as she would've been attacked by Mr. Cyclops sometime or another either way, but we might not have been friends at Camp. Daughter of Ares, daughter of Hades. That didn't sound too good on first meeting.

And I never would've been wondering how Lola had mysteriously come to Symphony like a madman back in the second grade. She had said something about something chasing her. I'd always wondered about it and what it really meant, and now I really had to worry, knowing we were demigods. Now knowing this, it had to have been a monster. And if she'd been attacked by a monster when she was only seven, that had to be tough.

And I never would have been bothered by Mrs. Dailey or Mr. Blake. I would've been without them.

I would have been without this stupid quest.

But then again, I would have been without friends like these and this little chat with my dad. I would've been claimed already and I would never know about my mom.

Which brought me back to reality. I'd been silent for a few minutes and now Athena and Demeter were whispering something about, "Maybe we should do something?" I didn't think I wanted them to do anything.

Ares grunted. "Eve?"

"What?"

"I would have claimed ya, honest. But Apollo forbade it. He even cursed me just to intimidate me. He cursed me to rhyme all the time…GAH! It's BACK! Uh, maybe you should go. Ya never know, maybe ya'll see snow. OH, TITANS! Apollo, cut that out. It's making me a grouch."

Apollo sighed, snapped his fingers, and Ares seemed normal.

"Ugh, 'thank-you', Apollo. Whatever."

Aphrodite smiled. "You're sounding like me! But, I mean, whatever, right?"

Ares frowned and sulked back into his chair.

There was an awkward silence after that. I wasn't sure what we were supposed to do now. Go home? Stay here for a while? Listen to Apollo play music?

I voted "go home".

So did Lola and Greg. Kyle, still that idiot, wanted to listen to his dad play. I didn't want to listen to his dad play.

"Well done, heroes."

I winced at Zeus speaking to us. I knew "heroes" meant demigods in general. Most were really big heroes and that was another name for us. But it made me feel kind of good.

"Um, thank you, sir," Lola stuttered.

We said our last good-byes—Kyle and Apollo were practically sobbing while they air-hugged. Greg said a quick "See you some time" to his dad. I looked at my dad one last time, smiled, and waved. When it struck me that Lola had no one here to say goodbye to. That must have been harsh, being the black sheep in a group of white sheep. Child of the Big Three, mysterious unknown history, no father to say hello or goodbye to. She was as white as a sheet as it was. Lola didn't need anything else. Lola Ruman needed nothing more. She had enough pain.

I offered her to say goodbye to my dad, but she declined.

It was time to go. Some of the Hunters waved, and we left it like that. No more Olympus throne room. Our quest group was now exiting the building. When we completely abandoned it, we walked through the winding streets of Mount Olympus in silence, watching nymphs and dryads and minor godlings and listened to music and the birds singing. It was almost bittersweet.

I'd just figured out who my dad was and now I had to leave him. Leave the moments of mourning for Mom, leaving everything.

I was thinking about so many things at once, I couldn't even tell you. But I was certainly thinking over the prophecy.

Demigods to find the stolen.

As if that wasn't obvious already. But it was wrong—the lyre was missing. Not stolen.

Be saved by an immortal, a heart will be swollen.

I hadn't thought of it before, but now it made sense. Back at the Burger King when my old teacher attacked us. Thalia, who, by joining the Hunters, was immortal, had saved our butts. And Lola had gotten mad at her and said something like, "We didn't need your help." That line finally made sense.

Travel to a land to mortals unknown.

It wasn't Olympus like I'd thought. Sure, it was unknown. But we didn't travel there. We'd unintentionally travelled to Circe's island. And it sure was unknown to mortals how dangerous it was. That was the perfume on the map. And the swords had been the cave of monsters.

As all wraps up, a truth be bestown.

I finally got to know. I knew what the truth would be about all along, but I hadn't expected that particular god to be my dad. Ares. Mars. War god.

I found myself thinking of many other things at that time, but the most important was my mom. She'd died just by following dad. No wonder he'd tried to stop her. He knew it would be too dangerous for a mortal. Plus, ordinary people couldn't find or get to Olympus. There were certain boundaries that they couldn't enter. There was a veil of Mist, too, of course. She'd never would have made it anyway. It was pointless, completely pointless.

Lily Benson had perished for nothing.

We stepped into the elevator once more, and we went down in silence still. As much as I was against "Silence is Golden", it was kind of nice right now. The only thing that wasn't silent was the squeaking of Kyle's sneakers and the horrendous elevator music. Could they possible learn a different tune? This was old people music that no one cared about in the twenty-first century. Maybe not as old as I just made it sound, probably the 1950's or 40's.

Finally the silence was murdered by Greg when he said, "Well that was interesting."

"Yes, yes it was."

"Kyle, stop quoting things! I do not want to hear Phineas or Ferb again. Or Sonny, or Raven, or Oliver, or anyone. Got it?"

"You threatening me?"

"Yes."

"Ok then. I'll stop…"

"Good."

"G. O. Double-D. Good?"

"You spelled "godd", you know," Lola pointed out.

"Fine! G. Double-O. D. Good."

"That's another quote," I said.

"You said 'Or anyone'. That wasn't anyone. That was a commercial."

"But still."

"Fine, I'll stop."

"Thank you."

Soon enough, the elevator went DING! and we exited. I walked up to front desk and handed the guy the key to six hundredth floor, then we left the Empire State Building completely.

The four of us walked down the streets past beggars and such, then through an alley. At this rate, I wished Notus were here to toss us back to Camp. But he wasn't.

Instead, we ran into a Hunter. One specific Hunter, really.

"Ares, huh?" Thalia asked.

"Yep."

She moved her hand across her bow. "I'm no fan of the war god…"

I had something to say about that.

"Hey, your dad had his problems, too. There was Io, Semele, those many times he cheated on Hera. Don't get me started on what he did to Metis. I wouldn't talk if I were you, Thalia."

Thalia sneered. "At least my dad's not the war god, Eve."

"It's not his fault or my fault what he's the god of."

"So? He helps out in wars for the fun of it. He's killed for the fun of it. Remember the stories? He did something terrible to Adonis. And there were so many things he did wrong."

"My father tried to help my mom."

"Isn't she dead?"

"Yes. And unfortunately, you'll never be dead."

I had crossed the line with that. Thalia got an angry expression on her face. "Bring it on, Benson."

I held my hands up in surrender. "I'm not going to fight you, Thalia."

"Prove your lineage."

"What if I don't like war? What if I'm the one Ares kid who doesn't want to fight?"

That settled Thalia down and now she looked ashamed of herself. She probably wished she hadn't said something so cruel.

"I…I guess I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

"You guess?"

"I am. It's just that…you're a different Ares child. You're not like the other bloodthirsty killers."

Greg stood there helplessly. He didn't want to watch this.

Kyle was eating little bits of leftover Ritz crackers from a few days ago when Hermes had dropped in. He had eaten those then, he was finishing off the crumbs now. But instead, he was eating it like an overly excited kid at a theatre eating popcorn.

Lola was looking very aggressive, like she could kill someone at any moment. And I knew she wouldn't really like doing that.

"Meaning Clarisse."

Clarisse had been my friend since the campfire what seemed like forever ago. Then, I'd wondered why I felt a connection with her. Now I knew. We had the same dad.

"Yes, meaning her. Along with Sherman, Mark…I could go on."

"Don't. You'll be wasting your breath. We're going back to Camp."

"…Go."

Thalia ran off into the woods to find the rest of the Hunters, who I had to guess had left the Olympus throne room. They'd been up there last I saw.

We could finally go home in peace. Yes.

Next things we did:

1) We walked in silence for a long time, bored as heck.

2) We found a misty creek and sent an Iris Message to Katie Gardner.

3) Let's just say that waiting for fifty minutes for Argus to arrive and pick us up could be a lousy waste of time.

When we Iris Messaged Katie, she showed up looking as worried as a barn owl who's barn was being demolished.

"EVE! LOLA! KYLE, GREG! YOU'RE SAFE! What happened?"

We all looked at each other in an understanding. None of us could possibly tell anyone in perfect detail how hard our lives got during the quest. Katie would never know.

"Sorry, Katie, but it's hard to explain."

"…Ok then. I'll make sure Argus is on his way."

Kyle smiled. "Thanks."

"Not a problem." Then she dissolved the message.

Remember those fifty minutes I mentioned? Yes, we had to wait that long for Argus to even find us. We certainly weren't like bright white glow-in-the-dark sheep in the middle of a dark night.

As we rode home, I reflected on everything that had happened to me since September 5th. From the chase of the Cyclops to the food fight to the dreams of Simon to realizations to the quest beginning to the whole trapped-in-a-cave-with-no-way-out scenario to Olympus to now. It was scary that it had now been ten days since and everything was over. Including the summer. I'd have to go back to Symphony now. Not that the thought of that disturbed me at all, but it was sad that I was still stuck there.

After another fifty minutes, we drove back to Half-Blood Hill and all of us were embraced by our friends who hadn't been with us during the adventure. Isabelle, Katie, Clarisse, Will Solace, plenty of others. Even Kristen felt obliged to hug us…to pick our pockets, of course. Why was I not surprised?

Then there was one more thing to do, and I was almost scared to do it. It was a big task.

Talk to Rosa van Cleaven.

Surprised by her dad at all? Probably not considering how I described him. It was so out there and obvious.

The next chapter is very short, then we have our epligoue. I'll get to the next story very quickly, though.