[Y'know, Rory, this is still a bad idea. Why couldn't I just… wait, no, I'd still have to talk about all this shit. I guess there's worse ways this could've gone… I could've had to do this with Chiron or Travis or someone.

So I guess, uh, I'm glad it's you here, is what I'm saying.

Anyways, I stopped on Ladygonian, right? Okay. Yeah, I'm good now.]

"Hm. Well, I guess I might know something, when you put it that way," Alec responded. See, I'd just reached for my gun when she'd said that. "What's your name?"

"Darlene… but my Joe Bob always called me Babycakes."

Oh my gods, I actually knew who killed that guy. It was Percy and, uh… the cyclops… Tyson!

I wasn't sure if Alec had made the connection, or if he even knew about that in the first place. I only knew 'cause I'd overheard Percy telling Travis and Connor about this giant with a Babycakes tattoo that'd tried to kill people with flaming bronze dodgeballs. I dunno if that's common knowledge or whatever.

Either way, Alec was sure stalling for time. "I see. And when was the last time you saw Joe Bob?"

He kept asking her questions like that, and the longer they went the more nervous I got. There was no way he could keep this up forever. She had to be getting impatient. And then what?

…I found out "then what" a couple minutes later. We'd almost made it to our stop and he just had to go and say, "Okay, Brenna, tell her."

I think he just thought I'd have a better lie than he would, and Darlene was really ready to get some answers, crack some skulls, or both. It was kinda hard to tell with monsters. "Sure. Problem is, the people you're looking for aren't at Camp right now. I don't even know if they're still alive."

That was the wrong thing to say. Darlene let out a shriek that got even the mortals' attention. I pulled out my gun but of course the mortals saw that and everyone started screaming. "Wait, Brenna, was that true?" Alec asked. I barely heard him over the mortals – as it turned out, Darlene also had a gun.

I really need to learn to shoot first and ask questions later. "WHERE ARE THEY?" Darlene yelled, shoving the barrel of her shotgun into my chest. I couldn't move. I heard my gun fall to the floor (it didn't go off, thank the gods).

I wanted to answer her, I really did, was that bad? But I couldn't. Alec couldn't do squat either; Darlene had him pinned against the bus seat. "Well? C'mon, spit it out! Ya got ten seconds!"

"No, you've got ten seconds to put that thing away and step away from her." Rory had picked up my gun and was holding it against Darlene's head. I hadn't taken the safety off, and I know he didn't know how to. He'd never even fired a gun. But she didn't know that. "Ten… nine… eight…"

I could breathe again. Sort of. I was lucky she didn't break my […uh, what bone's right here?] sternum [Thanks!].

"Here's what's going to happen now," Rory continued. "We're all getting off at the next stop. We will talk out our differences. And hopefully, no one gets shot. Sound good?"

He handed my gun back to me and I immediately pointed it at the monster. "Both of you are gonna holster those on my count," he ordered. "One…"

FOOMP!

In the confusion, I'd totally forgotten that Alec's crossbow was strung. He must've loaded it earlier while he'd been talking.

Darlene dissolved into dust; the crossbow bolt hit her right between the eyes. "Don't say I never do anything for you," Alec said. "And here I was hoping you'd shoot her while I kept her occupied…"

"Yeah, well, the Mist doesn't hide my gun and if the first shot didn't work we'd be fucked."

"Fair enough. Rory, you were awesome!"

Before he could argue [because admit it, you totally would've], I chimed in, "Yeah you were! I dunno what would've happened without you. But, uh, the bus just stopped so let's get off before someone calls the cops."

Either the mortals had somehow forgotten what happened or decided they didn't wanna get involved, 'cause we got off the bus with no issues. The driver gave us a look but he didn't say anything.

We wandered around a bit so we could find somewhere for Rory to play the tracking song again. Apparently, a random alley between some restaurant and a souvenir shop was a good spot. It was like afternoon-ish so there weren't a lot of mortals around anyways, but we wanted to keep a low profile.

"After this we should grab some food. I'm starving," Alec said.

"Oh yeah," I agreed. "I dunno what they're cooking in that place but I want it."

So, uh, we didn't go eat there. Rory finished playing the song a lot quicker than last time, which didn't bode well. "It's heading this way. I did the math and if it continues at its current speed, we have eighteen hours; unless it stops to sleep. That'd buy us some time. But we need a plan and we need it soon," he told us.

"I guess we keep heading South. Maybe stop it from trampling any major cities."

"I think he meant a plan for stopping it," Alec pointed out. "I doubt Mr. D.'s just gonna zap it when we IM him."

I thought about that for a second. "Okay, so we find a carwash or something, like one of those rainbow-making glass things then 'cause right now we don't have a way to send an IM."

"A prism? That could work," Rory responded. "It doesn't solve the whole problem, but it's a good next step."

"If we can figure out where to get one," Alec said. "But that shouldn't be too… Mom?"

"Wha –" Alec shushed me, and I could kinda hear a woman's voice.

I didn't know what Eos sounded like, and apparently neither did Rory; he looked just as confused as I was. But I'd never seen Alec look so excited about… well, anything before. "I need to find her!" he exclaimed. "She'll help us!"

"Wait, Alec!" Rory called, but he'd already started running.

We tried to follow him, but we must've made a wrong turn off the back street the alley led to. We thought we saw him run behind a jewelry store, but, uh…

Look, in my defense, I saw him from behind, it wasn't a well-lit area, and the whole situation was screaming "cyclops" to me, so I put a hand on my gun and said, "Don't move."

Naturally, the first thing the guy did was turn around to look at me, and I'm so glad I didn't actually get it all the way out 'cause he'd looked about eight feet tall, but that's 'cause he was carrying a little girl on his shoulders.

I immediately shoved my gun the rest of the way back in its holster, but he'd seen it. "Are you serious right now? Were you seriously gonna try mugging me? I do not need this…"

No, I was not gonna try that, he had at least a foot and a hundred pounds on me, and even though it seemed like he'd been running for a while, I was pretty sure he could've taken me down without even trying. But like… the girl was holding a stuffed animal against his head, so I didn't think that was gonna happen.

"Oh my gods, I'm so sorry, I thought you were the cyclops, please don't hate me?" I blurted.

"Uh… what?"

Rory wasn't quite fast enough to stop me from being an idiot, but he tried to explain. "I am so sorry, sir, she's not thinking straight, her friend just went chasing after a voice he heard and we think he might be in danger. Have you seen a boy with red hair and glasses?"

"No, but, uh… we just got away from a one-eyed man. After we heard our mom… Where was his eye, Alicita?"

The little girl pointed to the middle of her forehead and said something in probably-Spanish. Because I don't think toddlers speak Latin, but I don't know either of those languages so I couldn't be sure.

"Okay, he was a cyclops. I wasn't sure at first."

"Wait, so this doesn't sound insane to you and you were just chased by a monster? Are you a demigod?" I asked. I'd never seen him at Camp before, but maybe he'd retired? I'd only been around for a few years.

Rory sighed. "Yes, he's a demigod, I thought that was pretty obvious by now."

"I mean, you're right, but how did you know? Are you guys demigods, too?"

"I am," I replied. "Gotta say, I've never heard of anyone like us with a kid before, but –"

"Oh, Alicia's not my kid, she's my little sister. Easy mistake. Our mom told me to get milk today and Tía Carmen was busy so I couldn't just leave her alone. I definitely should've brought my sword with, though, I guess I got cocky since it's been a whole week with no attacks."

"You have a sword, and you haven't been to Camp?" Rory cut in.

"Yeah, I found it with the toys at a garage sale. It's a little small, but it kills monsters so that's good enough for me. We should probably go find your friend though, yeah?"

We? "If Alec just went after a cyclops alone? Yeah," I said.

"Since we're already stopped, I'll see where he is," Rory stated, pulling out an acorn from his pocket. He started playing a different song on his lyre, which he'd never put away [One Way or Another? Okay, I've heard of that one].

"Alec… is that your friend's name? Wait, what are your names? Mine's Diego."

"Oh yeah, right, introductions. I'm Brenna, and this is Rory."

[Yeah, I figured you'd just get after me if I called him by name right away, so I didn't, but it was so hard not to.]

I remember deciding not to get into all the demigod stuff right away, 'cause it seemed like he probably knew something and we had bigger problems. That might've been a mistake. "Nice to meet you. So, if you're going after the cyclops, can I come with?"

I still don't really understand why he wanted to, since he'd just run away from it and he had no weapons, but I guess that's just the kind of person Diego is. He volunteers first and worries about important stuff like consequences later. By later, I mean never.

"I guess, but what about –" I gestured to Alicia, who'd started bouncing her plushie (I think it was a cat) on top of his head. Kids are a lot smarter than people give them credit for, and I didn't want her to suddenly care about the conversation.

"Right… I can't leave her alone, Mamá would kill me, but this monster already found us once and I don't wanna give it a chance to do that again."

"It can't if we beat it," I countered.

"You don't like your odds, huh," he said. He was right, and I kinda hated how easy it was for him to tell that.

See, fighting a cyclops has never been something I've wanted to do. Like, yeah, I can just stand back and shoot, but if a monster's skin is tougher than a car door it takes a lot more than one bullet to do the job and that's plenty of time for them to get up close. I carry a knife, too, but I'm not great with it.

As for the guys… Alec just had his crossbow, and if he didn't have it out, strung, and loaded he was kinda screwed. Rory knew zero songs that'd help in a fight and as far as I knew, didn't have any weapons. [Did you have any? …a javelin? Okay, that's something.] My point is, if I hadn't been pretty sure Alec was gonna die on his own, I never would've said what I said next.

"Okay, fine, you can come. I've got a spare knife you can borrow. Hey, Rory, are you done?"

"Almost. Give me ten seconds… there! Southwest, and he's close. Anything in that direction that looks like it could be a monster hideout?"

Diego immediately replied, "There's an appliance repair shop that no one goes to – half the letters on the sign are gone and I've only ever seen one truck there."

[Rory would like me to add that he didn't say anything against them coming with us because he didn't wanna have to find them again later. But like, finding people is literally his thing, so I think it was 'cause I won't swear in front of little kids… okay, yeah, and we couldn't've stopped them.]

"Can you take us there?" I asked. It'd be easier than stopping every couple minutes to make sure we went the right way.

"Yeah, sure, follow me." Once we got into actual light it was pretty obvious that he'd been fighting monsters (or at least, surviving them) for a while; there were faded claw marks across the right side of his forehead and cheek that probably hadn't come from a cat, he'd broken his nose at least once, his arms had a lot of scars that didn't look like he'd gotten them at the same time, and he had a line around the left side of his neck like something tried to fucking cut his head off. And that's just what I could see. So I felt a little better about letting him come with us but not much.

On the way over we decided that Diego and I would actually go into the building, while Rory would hang back and watch Alicia. It was the best we could come up with and in hindsight, absolutely the right call. [Yeah, I'm sure; you're gonna learn about some stuff real soon.]

I remembered to actually give Diego my knife before we got there. He was… less than impressed. "You can actually kill monsters with this? It's still gonna be smaller than my hand when I unfold it."

"My hands are a lot smaller than yours," I pointed out. "And yeah, it'll kill monsters, it's made of –"

"Celestial bronze," he finished. "So it won't hurt… mortals…" and then he said something I had to ask him to translate that might've actually been Latin but I never asked. "Huh? Oh, sorry, just… how did I know that? Is that why my sword kills monsters?"

"Yes," Rory answered. "And I promise we'll explain more later, after we get Alec back. I'd like to talk to your mother, too, if that's all right."

Diego shrugged. "Fine by me. Hey, see that strip mall over there? The repair shop's across the lot from it. We'll meet you back at… this park by the Dairy Queen. Alicita, I'm gonna have to put you down, now."

"I can't come?" she asked. "But I wanna help too!"

"Hey, someone needs to protect me," Rory joked. [You were joking, right? Okay, sorry, sometimes it's hard to tell with you.]

Alicia didn't start crying or anything though, probably because Rory bribed her with ice cream [Yeah, I noticed]. "We'll see you guys later," I said way too cheerfully.

"So, do we have a game plan?" Diego asked me on our way over, which was all of a block and a half. Not a lot of time to figure something out so I went with my usual job that Lu – Travis and Connor – gave me for Capture the Flag. Except this time I'd have my gun, which was great 'cause it didn't look like there'd be much room to run away like I usually would.

"I'll be the distraction. When I shoot, that's your signal to come in. Hopefully I'll be able to do some damage before that."

"Okay, I'll definitely hear that. And I'm pretty sure .40 calibers will work just fine. I might not have to do too much."

I deadass stopped in my tracks. "How do you know what kind of bullets I use?"

"You've got a Glock 23. Are you an undercover cop or something? I don't think that's a civilian model."

"No… but how the fuck did you know that?"

"Uh, I kinda saw it earlier, when you were gonna pull it on me? Anyways, we need to keep moving."

"I guess… we shouldn't talk from here on out, there's just the parking lot to cross now."

He nodded and we kept going. I was more than a bit suspicious 'cause he literally only saw the holster in bad lighting in an alley for a few seconds, but maybe he was a gun nerd or something. Like, Annabeth knew things about my gun that I didn't, it wasn't that weird. It wasn't really important at the time anyways, I needed to focus on saving Alec.

As I got my first real look at the repair shop… there was no way this wasn't the place, it was super sketchy. I had no clue what the sign said, not that I would've if all the letters were there, the lone truck wasn't even in a real parking spot, and the windows were covered even though the sign said "OPEN". At least, I think that's what it said, 'cause I saw "PEON" and that's not a real word. [Wait, it is a word? Why? That's just confusing.]

I could definitely hear voices from inside as we got up next to the building. Well, one voice, anyways. "You're sure they'll come for you, boy?"

"I'd swear it on the River Styx! And you need me if you want to trap them, they won't go anywhere near that door without proof!"

It sounded like Alec was pleading with himself. Aside from the fact that I was literally standing in front of the door, he wasn't really wrong. I had a better idea of what to do, then; I just had to hope that Diego would pick up on it.

"Sounds like we found him, Rory. Guess all we've gotta do now is knock on the door."

Diego raised an eyebrow at me but thankfully he didn't actually say anything. I mouthed look for another way in and that was a great time to find out that he couldn't read lips. I pointed to the left wall and he seemed to get the idea… whether or not there was a second entrance was a crapshoot, but I really, really hoped there was.

"Brenna? Gods, it's about time. What took you so long?"

Either the cyclops was a good actor, or Alec had actually heard me. I banged on the door as hard as I could without hurting my hand. "We'd like our friend back… if you really have him."

"Do you seriously not recognize my voice by now? Gods, it's been two years."

"You could've just been talking to yourself earlier, to trick me into thinking Alec's still alive. He'd better still be alive, cyclops; we'll leave right the fuck now if he isn't. And then what'll you eat when you run out of meat on his scrawny ass?"

"Told you she's paranoid."

"What the fuck, Brenna? Is this what you think a plan is?"

Alec had to be giving this cyclops tips. I wasn't surprised – it'd definitely've bought him time. "I'm actually kinda surprised she's still here, not gonna lie. Rory must've learned a new song or something."

"I'm pulling the blinds up. He's… he's having me do it so you'll see me."

Sure enough, the blinds started moving, and I could see Alec. And the cyclops holding a bloody hacksaw to his neck. I immediately drew my gun and aimed it at the monster. "Okay. Let me in," I said, trying to fake confidence. The cyclops was at least twice my size and I thought we could win with a pistol and a butterfly knife? It wasn't too late for us to just leave Alec for dead…

But no, the cyclops made Alec open the door, and he looked like he was, uh, maybe not just interested in food. I got the sense that I'd really fucked up.

"You're not alone," the cyclops rasped in probably his own voice. Gods, I hoped he just couldn't believe I'd be that dumb. "And I don't smell satyr. If you try to shoot me, I've got plenty of time to saw this kid's head off, so where is he?"

"You'll just kill us anyways, so why should I tell you?"

Okay, so the inside of the store was packed with kitchen appliances. Fridges, dishwashers, stoves, and other stuff that mostly looked broken. There were some bones on the floor, which made me kinda nauseous but I'd honestly been expecting something like that so not that bad.

But after I said that, I noticed the very large, definitely not broken oven in the far right corner with a counter next to it. Know what was on that counter? A huge knife block and a fucking roasting pan that no joke, I probably would've fit in. And that scared the shit out of me, 'cause if I was right about why we weren't dead yet? I couldn't figure out if that'd be worse than maybe getting fucking cooked alive.

Why the fuck did I wanna save Alec?

[Yeah… yeah, okay, I need a break.]

Author's Note: ...okay, maybe this chapter should've gotten its own disclaimer; if you're reading this far, sorry, y'all. I still wasn't sure how to categorize one so I just didn't, but I guess I covered that back in the beginning of this fic. Anyways, we've now introduced almost all the characters, and we're about... a third of the way through, I think. I promise not every chapter ends with possible mortal danger... the first one didn't so I'm right about that no matter what :)