"Jason, get through the doorway!" Luke shouted.

"Too late!" I shot back. I noticed a flower of blood blossoming from his stomach. I raised my dagger as Nyx noticed me. She paid me little mind and went back to Luke, who was in no condition to fight.

"Yo, you've got a Jackson over here!" I taunted. I wasn't usually one to brag but my last name seemed to gain the attention of every monster I've met. Thanks, Dad. Nyx whipped back around, no longer interested in Luke. Bad news: she was now interested in me.

You're going to die.

I side stepped her razor sharp claws, which were weapons enough to replace the sword she lacked. The good news about being one limb short: there was less skin for Nyx to hit. Luke stood warily, holding his stomach with one hand and his sword in the other. He tried to get Nyx's attention but she was focused on me.

Luke would be nothing but a distraction to Nyx in the condition he was in. Unfortunately, I wasn't much better.

"Jase, aim for the back!" Luke advised.

It made sense. Nyx had long legs, but she couldn't bend them to protect her back side, and she was hunched over enough to make it an easier target. She was less likely to be able to kill me if I was behind her.

Nyx swung towards me and I ducked out of the way, landing a sharp talon on my cheek. Nyx was slow in the small tunnel; it took her longer to maneuver in the tight space. I ended up next to Luke.

"You ok?" I asked.

"Fine. Why didn't you go through the tunnel? Now we're both stuck here!" Luke huffed, out of breath.

"Can we talk about this later?"

Nyx had turned to face us, screeching in anger at the large slash I'd left in her back.

"No, we can't talk about this later! Do you know how stupid that was?"

"I'm a little busy! Seriously, can't we talk about this in five minutes or something?"

"Fine!"

How were we, an almost dead idiot and a wounded demigod (I'll let you decide which is which) supposed to defeat such a powerful goddess? I barely got through one of her kids. My parents didn't even try to fight her, how could I?

"Can, not will," I muttered, earning a strange look from Luke.

"Whatever floats your boat. I will beat this night woman's ass," Luke grunted and ran forward, meeting Nyx head on. I felt a tugging at my heartstrings as I was reminded once again of Casey. As I fought alongside him, I noted that he didn't back up against me like Casey did, but he still watched over me like my father.

Luke had a dark look on his face as he fought, much like my dad while fighting the cyclops that tried to kill Casey and I.

"I will kill you!" Nyx hissed. As she tried to slash my head off, I couldn't help but wonder if she'd succeeded in her plan to kill my family. I heard a few familiar voices when I'd killed that Empousa trying to get out of the Labyrinth, but who knows how long it's been since then in the real world. Who knows what Nyx could have done. But if she killed my family, she'd probably be bragging. If she'd succeeded, she probably wouldn't be here. She'd been trying to open the entrance when we found her, we must have just stopped her from following through with her plan.

Realizing this, I smiled as I neared my potential death. I can do this. I can fight Nyx. And I can win.

Luke was growing more and more pale by the second but we were winning. The light in the room began to return as Nyx focused her strength on fending off Luke and I.

"Go left!" Luke yelled.

I complied, raising my dagger just in time to lop off a giant black leathery hand. I yelped as it landed next to me, still twitching and extending its fingers. Same. I felt a weird urge to give Nyx a fistbump with our singluar hands.

"Creepy hand! Really creepy hand!" I shouted, prompting Luke to roll his eyes.

"You are just like Percy," he said.

"I was about to say the same to you!"

I saw a proud smile streak across Luke's face. Nyx swept him to the side with her remaining arm, allowing me to stab her unprotected side. I ducked, twisting my ankle as I rolled out of the way of her clawed feet. I stared at her claws; the same claws that ruptured the ground above us, creating the crack that Charlie fell through. I felt my side growing wet as blood seeped from the stump of my right arm. All the movement was reopening the wound.

I could hear my mom's voice in my head. Remember to keep your dominant hand on top, and keep your feet shoulder length apart at all times. I heeded her warnings. There wasn't much choice to which hand I put on top, but it was helpful to picture her giving me advice nonetheless.

Luke was once again cornered by Nyx. In a panic, I abandoned my dagger. It wouldn't do me any good in this situation anyway. I needed to find something else. The only other thing I had was the leather straps from Charlie's shoe. I tore them off my arm with my teeth and quickly tied them together to make one long rope. This was taking too long.

"Jase!" Luke yelled, hinting for me to do something. I sighed at my own idiocy and jumped onto Nyx's back. My last resort for dealing with an enemy more powerful than me was to jump on it. I am an idiot just like my dad, but it always seemed to work for him.

I threw the rope around her neck and hung on like it was reins for a horse. It was very difficult, seeing as I only had one hand, but I managed. Nyx, of course, did not like this.

"Giddy-up!" I shouted, pulled back on the rope. Nyx reared, nearly sending me through the ceiling.

"Luke, now!"

Luke stabbed her through the jaw. The tip of his sword protruded through the top of her head, releasing a thick black goo.

Nyx screeched so loudly that I felt my eardrums pop. This wasn't working; she wasn't dead.

I remembered what Charlie had told me. Kill the bitch before you let her kill you. If we needed to kill a goddess, we needed to use something she hadn't seen before. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the Arai. I pressed my hand to the top of Nyx's head.

I felt the ancient power of Poseidon seeping through me, and the power of the Arai pushing at my mind. I didn't want to do to Nyx what I did to Medusa. It was just too wrong.

Everybody deserves a somewhat humane death. So instead of concentrating on the goddess's blood flowing, I concentrated on it freezing. I closed my eyes and let my senses guide my power to her heart. And I stopped it. I forced the blood to stop moving, and her heart simply gave out. I felt her die. After her spirit gave in, the pressure of her frozen blood vessels finally popped.

"Ewww," I heard Luke groan as the goddesses tar-like blood rained down upon him.

I laughed, mostly in relief. He didn't ask what I had done to kill her.

The body disintegrated, but not into the familiar gold dust. It was black, and stung when it touched my skin. I hopped down and shook it off my arm. The hand that I had chopped off was still inching its way towards the wall. I picked it up, cringing at the slimy feeling.

"What do I do with this?" I asked.

Luke grinned and offered a shrug. "You can use it to replace your own," he joked.

I rolled my eyes. "Too soon."

"Wrap it up and put it in your bag. You never know when a goddess's hand may come in handy," he suggested.

I groaned but put the hand in his backpack anyway. Charlie had our pack still, so all our supplies were stuffed into Luke's backpack with a bloody, gross, still-moving hand.

In all honesty, her secret stealing daughter was harder to deal with than Nyx. Maybe that was because when I had dealt with the goddess of betrayal I didn't have anybody to back me up. And this time, I knew Charlie wasn't being held by bloodthirsty monsters.

One of them will die.

"Come on, we've got to get back to the others," I said, knocking on the wall where they had disappeared.

Luke sighed and shook his head. "That's not how it works. Once that doorway closed, it closed for good. They're probably on the other side of the Labyrinth by now," Luke explained.

They're gone

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we can't reach them. I don't know how."

"We can't get to Charlie," I paraphrased, my heart sinking into my stomach. Why had I been such an idiot? Of course the Labyrinth would change! I cursed and slammed my palm against my forehead.

You've lost him.

You've lost them all.

We told you that you'd lose him.

"Then what do we do? We have to find them somehow?" I asked after Luke shook his head.

"I don't know. We have to escape, and hope that they've done the same. Daedalus will do anything to get out; they'll find an exit," Luke said.

"Yeah, but what if doing anything to get out means getting rid of Charlie, Bob, and Damasen?"

Luke didn't answer this time but the look on his face told me exactly what I didn't want to know.

"I'm not leaving until we find them," I swore. I made a promise, and I had every intent to keep it. I didn't tell Luke about my oath.

Luke sighed and cursed under his breath. "You got the same fatal flaw as your father, I see."

I grunted in response and trudged down the dimly lit hallway. "Why do you think I didn't follow the others through the doorway?"

Neither of us knew where we were going. We weren't trying to get out anymore, we were just trying to find the others, not that there was a particular way for us to do that.

I felt so empowered and yet so useless at the same time. We'd just killed Nyx, but we'd also lost Charlie, not to mention Bob and Damasen. I didn't really care for Daedalus though, and I didn't trust him alone with my friends.

"Jase, we should get some rest," Luke said.

Dread filled my stomach as I thought of spending the night without Charlie. "No!" I protested weakly. "We should keep going! We have to—"
"Jase," Luke said softly, grabbing my arm and turning me to face him. "We should really get some rest." He let go of my arm and sat down, pulling a blanket out of his bag and tossing it at me. I didn't like him grabbing my arm. It made me feel powerless because we both knew I couldn't use my other hand to fight back.

I hadn't slept without Charlie in over eight months and I didn't want to start now.

"Please tell me this isn't the blanket we wrapped the hand in," I cringed at the fabric in my hand.

"Fine, I won't tell you."

I put my hand under my head and looked up at the dark ceiling above me and tried not to imagine how many spiders hid in the shadows where I couldn't see.

They're everywhere

I closed my eyes.

Charlie was running, his hands tight around the hilt of his sword. He still didn't have any shoes, and a small stream of blood seeped from an unseen cut on his hairline.

"Charlie, leave him! There's nothing we can do now!" Damasen urged. Bob tugged at the strap of Charlie's bag, pulling him away. Once Charlie moved out of the way, I could see the body of Daedalus.

He was still alive, judging by the ragged groans that echoed through the concave, but he wouldn't be for long. A large spear, the type that a cyclops would usually carry, protruded from his stomach. He looked older than ever, but his eyes were kinder than before.

"Go," he said. "The Labyrinth, it will close once I've passed. But please, promise me you will talk to the Ghost King, or Hades himself, I can't go back to Tartarus," he begged. He gripped Charlie's hand and shook it urgently.

"I promise!" Charlie shouted. He looked like he might have been crying, but I couldn't tell with all the blood and dirt that caked his face.

Daedalus smiled and his head tilted back. You could practically see his soul leave the body with the relief that caused his limp corpse to sag contently to the ground. His hand slipped from Charlie's.

"Charlie, we must leave!" Damasen insisted.

"No, we can't! Jase and Luke, we have to find them first! I can't leave without him! Daedalus, he's the only one that can—"

Damasen ignored him and pressed his hand to the wall. Charlie was hysterical, but Damasen had a cold, determined look on his face. He pulled Charlie through the opening and they stumbled back into Daedalus's workshop.

I woke with a start, finding that I had flung the blanket off of me in my sleep.

"Luke!" I jumped up, ignoring the pain that action enticed. "Wake up!" I yelled. Luke drowsily groaned and rubbed his eyes. It was difficult to stand up without the support of my right arm.

"What? We just laid down a few hours ago, give it a rest."

"No, come on! Daedalus is dead."

This got him up. "What?!"

"I had a demigod dream. Daedalus was killed and now the others are in the workshop. We have to get there!"

"How do you expect us to get—"

"Daedalus is dead, nobody is in control of the Labyrinth now; it's dying!"

"So?"

He was standing now. We were facing each other, screaming much louder than necessary and looking in dire need of caffeine and medical attention. Luke was still wrapping his head around what had happened. It looked as if he were trying to figure out if he believed me or not.

I slammed my hand against the wall and watched Luke's face contort in shock when a blue triangle appeared. The wall began to dissolve.

"What are you waiting for? Let's go!"