A/N: Hey, everyone! This is the second to last chapter. I am so nervous and excited; how about you? Thank you to all of my reviewers and readers. I really appreciate you guys. Please read, review, and enjoy.

Percy POV

Thalia explained everything to us. Well, maybe not everything. There was a glint in her eyes that told me that she was holding something back. I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was this nagging feeling in my head that maybe she and Amy talked about more than just this hostage situation that Amy was in the middle of.

"We'll help right?" Thalia asked. Both children of Zeus looked to me.

"Of course," I agreed. "But how? Where do we start?"

"The gods," Jason responded immediately. I blinked. That was both really fast and unusual. "They know the Cahills, right?" Jason explained. "They bothered to give the family clear sight, and, if the Cahills and Vespers have had this feud since the beginning, the gods would probably know about them."

"That," I said slowly, "actually makes sense."

"Then it must be true," Thalia quipped, "if Percy understands it."

I ignored her. "It can't hurt to try. First we need to convince Amy we are demigods and to come with us to visit the gods on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building."

I turned to survey the girl on the bench. Amy looked a lot like Annabeth at the moment; her hair was blonde, her skin tan, and her eyes were a stormy mixture of decision and pain. My heart surged with a sudden protective instinct. Amy was probably her little brother's Annabeth, and now neither of them had each other. No Seaweed Brain and Wise Girl. Just Wise Girl. I was reminded of when Hera kidnapped me. This was how Annabeth must have looked. Crushed. Driven. Pained.

"So…" Thalia drawled. "Who wants to tell her?"

Jason and I shared a look, nodding to each other before turning to her. "You."

"Me?" She asked incredulously. "Why?"

"You're the oldest." I informed her.

"You're my big sister and you love me," Jason said. Oh, that's a good excuse. We should've started with that one.

"Or," I cut off what looked to be the beginning of a sibling joust. Although, if I had let it escalate, my money would be on Thalia's spear. "We could just convince her to go to New York with us and tell her the demigod thing on the plane where she can't run away."

Thalia opened and closed her mouth. "That's actually a good idea." She turned to her brother. "Go convince Amy to come with us."

Jason opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "No, you are going to do it." She smiled mockingly sweet. "Because you're my baby brother and you love me."

Jason sighed and made his way over to Amy. He knelt in front of her. I would have thought that it was a really sweet moment if I knew we weren't trying to basically kidnap her.

Thalia looked at me. I took a manly step back. "Don't think you're getting out of this," Thalia warned me. "You get to explain it to her."

Jason ended up explaining the whole demigod thing to her on the plane. For one, they were sitting next to each other. Secondly, Thalia and I were too busy not dying by aviation catastrophe.

It's funny how after you've explained the whole Greek and Roman mythology isn't actually mythology but real thing how you can tell just by facial expressions what the poor person has been told. Example:

"Demigods and the gods are real and I'm a demigod." Face: disbelief.

"No really; it's true." Face: hurt and angry.

"Please believe me. Let me tell you my life story." Face: unreadable and slightly intimidating.

"Do you understand? Do you believe me?" Face: what does this have to do with anything?

And finally: the explanation of our plan. Amy's face: determined. She nodded to whatever Jason said, pulling out her laptop and typing rapidly.

I made eye contact with Jason.

How did it go? I mouthed. Though based on my facial expression knowledge, it seemed that Amy believed us.

He shrugged. She's organizing a family meeting at the Empire State Building. He glanced at the girl beside him before flicking his gaze back to me. They may possibly be worse than the gods in one room together.

I honestly doubted that, but I also doubted Amy was a thief and yet she got the "Medusa" from my bag without me or anyone else noticing, so maybe my doubts weren't that reliable.

In the airport, we split off. Thalia went to IM the gods of the fact we were bringing a bunch of mortals to Olympus along with the situation behind it. Jason was taking our luggage to Argus who'd be waiting in one of the camp vans. Amy and I were getting food for the group. Airplane food just didn't fill a growing boy's stomach. Well, that and I may not have eaten in the midst of my praying to live on that death trap I've been forced to take twice on this quest. Twice. Two times. I do not want to try for a third, no matter how charming it's supposed to be.

Amy and I were sitting at one of the tables by an outlet in the small restaurant. Amy was looking back to normal now and charging her phone. She stared at the screen like it had all the answers of what was happening.

Its bing! was so loud that if my head wasn't filled with seaweed then it probably would have echoed in the emptiness. Amy gripped the phone in her hand even tighter.

As I was about to lean over her shoulder to see what had grabbed her attention, Amy shoved the phone at me. "Tell me you see Phoenix!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Phoenix!" A flood of tears were pouring from her eyes. "He's not in the photo!"

I grabbed the phone from her so I could see what was displayed on the screen. There was a photo of a group of people. They looked terrible. Everyone was wearing prison-like jumpsuits that were tattered and torn and had some type of injury—bruises, cuts, possibly even broken bones.

Six. It suddenly hit me. There are only six hostages. Thalia said there were seven.

Jason and Thalia were at the table now. I hadn't noticed their arrival. Jason had an arm around Amy, and Thalia stood on her opposite side. I matched their worried features with a grim look of my own. I moved so we could all look at the phone.

I scrolled past the picture to the message below.

Phoenix Wizard sat on a wall. Phoenix Wizard had a great fall. All the Vespers' horses and all the Vespers' men couldn't put Phoenix together again. You didn't really think I wouldn't know you aren't heading to where I sent you. This is your second tried deception. It failed and as you can see, the others paid a price too.

The three of us looked at each other. We were going to help Amy whether the gods helped or not, whether she believed us or not.

This Vesper One? Yeah, he was going down.