Wpov

The next few weeks passed by in a happy blur and before I knew it, it was May and we were rapidly approaching the end of the school year. Being seniors, Chris and I were exempt from final exams, but Cali and Maddie were so busy with studying and rehearsals for the musical, the only time we ever got to see them at school was during lunch.

"What I still don't get." Madison said frowning as she saw all the posters that lined the cafeteria walls as the four of us walked to a table. "Is how Will can be so popular that he can have a campaign for prom king, when he didn't even want to run."

Some of my friends from the track team had nominated me for prom king without me knowing, and suddenly I was one of the last three left in the race without having made so much as a single flyer.

"He'll probably win it too." Chris said amused and giving me an annoying smile as he and I sat across from the girls. "Girls think he's pretty."

"Don't hate me cuz I'm beautiful." I said sarcastically while he and Madison snickered. Cali grinned.

"Boys are so sensitive." Madison said putting her arm around Cali and giving us a pitying expression. "You always have to joke about this stuff. Why can't you guys just admit you know when other guys are attractive? I call Cali hot all the time."

"I knew you had a thing for her." Chris said smirking at his girlfriend.

"Yet I get the strangest feeling you don't mind." She said with a raised eyebrow at him.

"Not as long as I get to watch." He said with a grin and Cali rolled her eyes.

"So are you guys even going to prom?" Madison asked looking between Cali and I as I took a bite of my hamburger.

"We are." I said between chews.

"Really?" Madison said looking at Cali in surprise who nodded in agreement. "Didn't see that one coming."

"Will needs to win his crown." Cali said blandly and again, Madison and Chris burst into laughter.

She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Madison and Chris thought Cali was extremely funny, but I often got the impression she wasn't trying to be.

"Well you can't say your girlfriend doesn't believe in you man." Chris said still chuckling and clapping a hand on my shoulder. "In her mind you've already won."

"Who do you think is going to be prom queen?" Madison asked popping a tater tot into her mouth and looking around at the posters with pictures of girls. Since they were both juniors, neither Cali or Madison was eligible for the position.

"Who cares?" Cali said shrugging. "The whole thing seems kind of stupid to me."

"I bet you win next year." Madison said and Cali gave her a strange look.

"Why?"

"Because you're hot." She and Chris said in unison.

"I swear it's like you have the same brain sometimes." I said looking at them and they gave me identical mischievous grins.

We continued to talk about prom for a while but the topic eventually the topic turned towards graduation.

"So are you guys rooming together when you get to Prestion?" Madison asked curiously while looking at Chris and I.

"Are you insane?" Chris raising an eyebrow. "Why would I want to room. He's a total neat freak."

"I like to be able to find things." I said scowling. "Which isn't possible in your room."

"I have a system." He said stubbornly.

"And besides." I continued. "Chris is pre med. He's going to be up until three in the morning every night studying."

"Yeah, which is when you're going to get up for training." Chris said amused.

"But you're best friends." Madison said frowning.

"Yeah, and we want to stay that way." I said. "And if I roomed with Chris I might kill him."

"We'll see each other at practice." He said with a chuckle.

"What do you think about this?" she asked turning to Cali who looked surprised to be addressed at all. "You live with Will."

"I plead the fifth." She said obviously unwilling to give an opinion that would disappoint either her boyfriend or her best friend.

The bell rang and we threw out are trash before we entered the hall. Chris and I were walking the girls to French when we hit what seemed like a road block in the physics section of the school.

"What's going on?" Chris asked curiously as we hit a backlog of whispering people, mostly boys, gawking at something in a way that somehow reminded me of Cali.

"I dunno." I said frowning. "What do you think?" I asked looking down at the girls but neither of them were paying attention to me.

"Cali?" Madison asked looking worried but she had frozen. "Cali, are you alright?"

She muttered something angrily in French that I couldn't quite make out.

"What?"

"I can't believe she'd come here."

"Who?" I asked.

"Who do you think?" Cali asked bitterly and for a wild moment, I thought I was about to be greeted by the goddess Aphrodite but as Cali continued, her words didn't quite fit that scenario. "I swear this time she's gone too far." She muttered and I followed her as she elbowed her way through people to get to the center of the crowd. "She's totally obsessed with you!"

She continued to mutter furiously in a mix of Greek and French and I recognized several swear words in both.

"What's happening?" Madison whispered to me as we followed Cali through the sea of people but she was answered when we saw at it's center, was an extremely beautiful girl.

"What the-?" Chris said but Cali's voice drowned his out, cold with fury.

"What are you doing here Amorette?"

"Hello Sissy dear." She said and several voices rang out in surprise.

"Sissy?"

"Cali has a sister?"

"Will." Madison asked her voice low and her eyes narrowed. "Is this true? Does she really Cali's sister?"

"Technically yes."

"Technically?" she asked but I ignored the implied question and called out to the Amorette.

"Why are you here?"

"You know her?" Chris asked in alarm.

"We met at camp."

"What is it with you guys and camp?" Madison asked but no one answered her.

"I just met your little brother not to long ago." Amorette said amused while Cali's eyes flashed dangerously. "Dreadful temper." She said clicking her tongue and shaking her head as if in a disapproving manner. "It must be a family trait. He told me I was a liar for saying I was your sister. He thinks you would have told him something as big as having other siblings."

I saw her go stiff as people continued to whisper, obviously wonder what this new girl was talking about and what was really going on.

"I'm guessing you didn't tell him about mother either, or about Will."

"Shut up." She said furiously. "And go back home. You don't belong here."

"Will, what is going on?" Chris asked looking worried but I refused to answer. Cali was shaking now, and I could see her fingers twitching for her daggers which she wore bracelets today.

"I also met a nice boy named Tyler." She said glancing at me with a wicked smile. "Boy Will," she said in mock concern. "He doesn't like you. He had some very interesting stories though. I wonder if any of them are true."

Cali spat something in French but Amorette continued speaking in English.

"Oh I'm not here for you dear sister." She said. "So you can get off your high horse and deflate that suffocating ego being mother's favorite seems to have given you over the passed coupled of months."

"Then why are you here Amorette?" I asked trying to control my temper.

"Isn't it obvious Will?" she asked with a sickly sweet smile. "I came here to talk to you."

"Why?" I asked suspiciously.

"Because I have some very specific questions," she said her eyes shining with malice. "That can only be answered by you."

"Why would you need me to answer questions?" I asked feeling my eyes narrow. This couldn't be good.

"Because I know where you got that ring on your finger." She said and I felt my entire body go cold. While the crowd had gone silent as Cali and Amorette had spoken, whispers broke out again, getting louder with each new piece of information. Everyone wanted to know who this new girl was, and about Cali's mother.

"So does everyone." Cali said glaring at her. "It's a gift from his father."

"You really believe that don't you?" she said her tone almost pitying as she turned towards her sister. "You know Cali, I used to be really jealous of you. So much that I used to hate you but now…" she grinned. "Well, I guess I feel sort of sorry for the girl whose whole life has been a lie."

"What are you-" Cali said her eyes narrowing in confusion, but fear gripped at my heart with claws that were growing tighter and tighter with each passing second.

"What do you want?" I asked angrily but even I heard the fear in my voice. Cali looked at me uncertainly.

"I told you." She said simply. "I just want to talk."

"Will-" Cali started but I didn't look at her as I responded to Amorette.

"Fine."

"Alone." She added.

"You're not going anywhere until you explain what's going on." Cali said looking furiously between Amorette and I.

"I'll handle this Cali." I said shaking my head.

"But Will-"

"You need to find Max anyways." I said cutting her off. "You need to explain to him about Amorette, before things get too out of hand."

She glanced anxiously between the both of us. People were still whispering and I caught snatches of rumors in their beginning stages.

"Does Will have another girlfriend?"

"Was he dating sisters?"

"Alright." She said eventually and I felt guilty for using Max against her, but I knew he was the one thing she couldn't ignore.

She gave me one last searching look before turning and starting to walk away towards Max's locker and Chris leaned closer to me.

"Will," he said quietly. "I don't know what's going on, but I don't like it. Who is this chick? She seems crazy."

"They all are." I said shaking my head thinking of Cali and her siblings.

"What?"

"Just, keep an eye on Cali alright?" I said looking at Madison as well. "She's going to need friends after she talks to Max. I'll sort this out alright?"

"Alright." They said in unison, both looking unsure. But, after a final glace at me, they followed after Cali and I looked at Amorette.

"Good boy Will." She said amused and I knew that she knew that she had me in the palm of her hand. "Let's go outside and talk."

The bell rang as we stepped outside behind the school between the parking lot and the tennis courts.

"You know." She said stopping eventually, far enough that no one would be able to hear us even if there was a window open. "I have to admit, I never thought it would be you."

"What would be me?" I asked tersely looking over my shoulder to see if we were truly alone.

"To get involved with my mother." She said giving me a curious look. "Usually it's love sick teenage girls who get mixed up with her, but then again, you never were very interested in girls, and you never had a girlfriend." She tilted her head to the side with a cruel, but amused smile. "Now I guess I know why."

I didn't answer, but I knew she took it as a sign she was right for her smile grew.

"It explains why you were able to resist our charm too." She let out a hollow laugh. "So many of our sisters tried to seduce you Will, more than your oblivious little mind would realize. But when I saw you resisting Cali's charmspeak, well, I knew something was up."

She glanced at the ring.

"It protects you, doesn't it?"

"No." I said stubbornly but her smile vanished and was replaced by an ugly glare.

"Don't lie Will." She said furiously. "You may do it to Cali but don't do it to me, not when I know the truth."

"My father gave it to me."

"No he didn't." she said annoyed.

"How would you know?"

"Because you wear it on your left ring finger." She said stiffly. "That's the only place it works, right?"

I stared at her, utterly stunned.

"How do you know that?"

"It's like people who are married to show other people that they're off limits. And you've always been sort of off limits haven't you, to everyone but Cali. You were always there for the magnificent Callista Parker." She said as if the name put a sour taste in her mouth. "But that's not a very Hermes thing. Is it? But a man being utterly devoted to one woman. That's definitely my mother's style."

"You think Aphrodite gave the son of Hermes something, a weapon of all things?" I asked hoping to put enough distain in my voice to cast doubt in whatever she was thinking, but it didn't work.

"If he was working for her she would." She said and I cold shock go through me. "You are, aren't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said stiffly.

"Yes you do." She said with a smirk. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're her protector."

I didn't answer, but I didn't have to, she knew she had me cornered.

"You see, I've been doing some reading."

"Not from a Vogue I take it?" I asked bitterly but she was still too smug to be affected by the insult.

"About Cali." She said. "Or I guess in this case, all our siblings that are like her. The Athena kids aren't the only ones with an interest in the past you know. But Cali's circumstance has always been a bit of a mystery for us because most of the information about her situation is either very vague or has been lost over time. But in our attic, I found a scroll that had fallen behind the shelf that looked as if no one had opened it for years."

"What did it say?" I asked my mouth going dry.

"Not much more than we had figured out by now." She said inspecting her nails coolly but then smiling up at me. It was an evil thing. "But, it did have a list of every child like Cali known to us, the years of their lives, and," her smile grew. "Their protector."

"What are you talking about?" I asked feeling cold.

"What? My mother didn't tell you?" she asked sarcastically. "I guess it makes sense, even we didn't know. But every one of her little favorites had a hero assigned to them, just like you, to protect them from the scary monsters and anything that might want to hurt them." Her tone was heavy with sarcasm as she plunged brutally forward. "I can only imagine what she had to promise to get someone like you under her thumb." She made a bitter noise. "The best hero in camp, of course she'd get you for Cali's personal body guard."

"You're insane," I said stiffly turning to walk away. "Leave me alone. Don't talk to me or Cali again."

"There's an easy way to prove me wrong you know." She said.

I stopped and looked over my shoulder at her. Her smile was innocent, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"How?" I asked turning back to face her, my heart rate increasing.

"Let me take a look at the ring."

"There's nothing on it." I said wondering how on earth she'd get any information out of it. It only worked for me, that was part of it's magic.

"If there's nothing to hide, then you'll let me see it." She said smirking.

"Fine." I said pulling it off and handing it over. I didn't know what information she could get out of it, it was just a ring, but I was surprised when she whispered something in French and the ring began to glow. A swan appeared, as if engraved in firey gold on the band and Amorette smirked.

"What the…?" I started, I'd never seen that before.

"I knew it." She said as my eyes went wide.

"How did you do that?"

"It's a spell that only responds to the ring. It was on the scroll. Every one of my mothers 'special' children is supposed to learn it to be able to identify their gaurd incase they're facing an enemy in disguise."

She laughed at my blank shock.

"What? You thought finding her was all it could do?" she asked in amused derision. "Will," she said in a voice that was almost pitying. "This is an artifact created by the goddess herself in her husband's forge. It's been passed down for generations. But I guess she never told you."

She tossed the ring back to me carelessly and I caught it as a reflex.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"I already have what I want." She said nodding towards something behind me and I turned to see Cali standing there, frozen, staring at me.

Horror filled rolled over me as I caught her expression. Her eyes were wide, and she was shaking but I couldn't tell if it was rage or shock.

"Cali-" I started desperately reaching out to her but she pushed me away, looking disgusted.

"You," she started her voice shaking even worse than her body and her eyes darting back and forth between Amorette's and mine, seeing the truth in them. "You were working, for her?"

"Cali, wait-" I began trying to reach her again but she threw me off, violently this time.

"Don't touch me!" she shouted her charmspeak shaking the school and I was cemented into place. "You used me."

"No." I said quietly.

"You lied to me." She said softly, her voice still shaking but growing louder with each word. "Everything you said was a lie. You didn't mean any of it! None of it was real!"

"It was."

"SHUT UP!" she said covering her hands over her ears and there was a sound like thunder as her voice cracked the ground, shattering the earth between us.

Screams erupted from the school as windows shattered and it shook as if it had been hit by an earthquake. Car alarms were going off in the parking lot.

Her eyes wide and filled with tears, she turned to look at the damage she'd caused and uttered a small scream.

"No." she whispered her voice shaking worse than ever her whole body trembling.

"You need to calm down." I said fear spiking through me as she started to glow that familiar rose gold color. Her power was building.

"Stop talking to me." She said shaking hear head.

"Cali listen to me." I said desperately. "I know you're upset, but if you expend too much power at once you could-"

"I SAID STOP!" she screamed, a fire hydrant near the curb burst into the sky and I was thrown off my feet. The ring grew hot and flashed, glowing as bright as the light around Cali and suddenly, something very strange happened.

Everything did stop.

I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet only to see that the world around me had halted. The spraying water from the hydrant froze, suspended in droplets in mid air, the birds above us paused, hanging immobile in the sky, and the general roar of panic and chaos that was coming from inside the school had gone silent.

I turned behind and saw Amorette, frozen, her eyes wide in fear, but her face not fully changed from her self satisfied smirk at the destruction she'd caused.

Then ring continued to glow brighter, matching Cali's power and I knew it was the only reason I wasn't frozen with the rest of the world. She swayed, tears still streaming down her face, but when I caught her she pushed me away.

"Don't touch me." She said her voice hard and cold.

"Cali-"

"Go away Will." She said walking away, not bothering to look back

"You're not ok to be alone right now."

"I never want to see you again!" she said bitterly turning to face me her eyes green and blazing.

I stopped, the glowing was brighter than ever now, almost blinding and I finally saw what they meant when Cali and her siblings said she was an instrument of her mother's wrath. There was no warmth in her expression, almost no humanity. I'd never seen her look so much like her mother.

"Cali please." I said softly. I hated seeing her like this. In so much rage and pain. This wasn't my girlfriend and I wanted her back. "I love-"

"Don't you dare say that word to me." She said stepping closer to me and I backed away, now genuinely afraid. With each step she took I could feel the mortal half of her body being burned away. At this moment, there was nothing left of Cali in this girl.

"You don't know a thing about love Will Silverman." The ring was burning now, nothing more than a band of pure gold light. "You're a liar! You used it to take advantage of me, to manipulate me! You don't deserve to have that word in you mouth!" She said furiously and the air between us started vibrating with heat and power. Her eyes met mine and suddenly her voice was too calm. "You don't deserve to feel it."

A fear, worse than I'd ever felt before in my life gripped me as Cali reached out mercilessly and placed her hand on my chest right over my heart. I couldn't move I was staring, paralyzed by horrifying fear as her eyes flashed and I felt something cold, cold and terrible enclose around my heart. I felt an agonizing pain as this feeling tore straight through my chest, ripped open my heart, and was replaced by a freezing terrorizing nothingness.

But suddenly, the power around Cali flickered and died, as well as the fury on her face and was replaced by an expression of terror.

Warmth enveloped me as she removed her hand and the wonderful emotion came crashing back into me.

I staggered, taking an unsteady step forward but she backed away in fear.

"Stay away from me Will." She said sound panicked. She slightly as she backed away and her eyes were wide.

"But-"

"For your own good, stay away." She said and she took off running, unsteady on her feet as she bolted back to the school.

The earth crashed back into reality as time was restored. The water started spraying again, the school continued its state of general disarray, and the birds above us squawked at the car alarms that continued in the lot.

I made to ran after her, but someone grabbed me.

"Let her go."

I turned to see Amorette had returned to the present just seconds before everyone else.

"She shouldn't be alone right now."

"She might actually do it if you follow her." She said quietly, her tone something like awe.

She was standing, looking a little dizzy rubbing her temples. I wondered if being a daughter of Aphrodite, she'd been affected more by Cali's power than anyone or anything else.

"Truly amazing isn't it? The power that she holds." She muttered. "I thought I understood it but…"

Her voice died off and she shook her head, all trace of her arrogant smile had vanished. She looked as if she regretted coming here.

"You know Will." She said softly. "I once told Cali that I would see your heart break." She closed her eyes. "Never once did I imagine Cali would try to do it herself."