Hey guys! I know its literally been like a month since I last updated this story and believe me when I say I'm super sorry about that. The end of the semester literally buried me and these first few weeks of summer were busier than I expected. But I am free now and expect to have a lot more time to write. I plan to once again update regularly. :)

This chapter is a bit on the shorter side, which bugs me especially since the wait was so long, but I like where it's going and I wanted it to end where it did. I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to review and let me know your thoughts!


"So you're telling me you don't know what happened out there today?" Craig, my boss, concluded, speaking of the group of sturgeons my team had been assigned to rescue from a debris patch in the Hudson earlier in the afternoon. Little did he know the sturgeons had actually been a family of small sea monsters who'd been out for blood the second I'd set foot in the water. Taking them out had been difficult with the three guys I had with me, who did not know about said monsters or of the danger they'd been in.

It had been a small mercy from some god, somewhere, that the bodies had, for whatever reason, stayed behind as proof that they'd existed at all. Even more so that the monstrous parts had dissolved like normal. The remaining carcasses almost resembled large sturgeons and I guess the Mist took care of the rest.

"No, sir," I lied. Technically we were all in trouble, as, because we worked for an animal rescue and preservation program, winding up with four dead sea animals, which also happened to be endangered, as opposed to rescuing them was a rather serious blunder. But because I was field ops manager as well as team leader for this particular assignment, I was taking most of the heat. As was only fair.

Normally in situations like this, I was able to manipulate the Mist enough to get by, but in this case, there had just been too many witnesses and too much going on for that to be a feasible option. Which left me with Plan B: wing it.

"You have no idea why all four sturgeons, fish which don't generally bother anybody, suddenly and violently attacked you and no one else?"

"I don't," I answered, "The working theory is that they were poisoned somehow by the debris, maybe from leftover runoff from that old wallpaper plant nearby, and something about me set them off." That last part, at least, was true. "But I couldn't tell you for sure."

"Well, are you doing anything to get sure?" he demanded.

"Eli and Marsha took water and blood samples. We're waiting for tests still but I'm pretty sure it's a contained issue, whatever it is. There haven't been signs of abnormal behavior in any other schools in the area." Mostly because the other sturgeons in the area were, in fact, sturgeons and not Ancient Greek monsters.

Craig sighed, leaning back in his chair and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Alright," he said, "All I know is this looks bad for us. I don't understand how this happened."

"I don't either, sir."

He leveled his eyes at me. "I believe you only because you've been here so long and have an almost spotless record otherwise." After a brief pause, he added, "And because you're a good guy."

"Thank you," I said, "I appreciate it."

"Uh huh," Craig replied, unimpressed, and sighed again, sitting up. "Alright, go home to your family, Percy. We'll figure the rest of this out once those test results come in. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay," I said, standing up, "Have a good night."

"You too."

Once safely back in the confines of my own office, I shut the door firmly and leaned against it for a second, feeling relief at the fact that my secret was still, in fact, a secret, and also annoyance at the unnecessary waste of time and resources, running expensive tests for contaminants that didn't exist.


"Hey," I said, leaning in the doorway of the home office, where Annabeth sat, a handful of contracts and blueprints scattered on the desktop before her.

"Hi," she said, looking up with a small smile, "How was work?"

I groaned. "Spectacular. Where are the kids?"

"Last time I checked, Logan was upstairs packing for tomorrow," she made a face at the fact that he'd waited until the day before the summer session at camp to do so, "And Carly was playing in the basement. Nicky's outside somewhere with Hannah."

I raised my eyebrows. "Again?"

Hannah lived next door, having moved in the week prior. Nicholas had met her a few days earlier while taking out the trash and the two became fast friends. Personally, I was glad. He'd always been somewhat lacking in the friends department and Hannah was very nice. Her parents too.

Ironically just a day younger than Nicky, Hannah was on the smaller side for her age, with light brown hair and bright hazel eyes. What she lacked in stature, she more than made up for in personality, outgoing and opinionated as she was. In many ways, she reminded me of Thalia, though she seemed more levelheaded and respectful, even at eleven. I liked her.

"Yeah," Annabeth said with a shrug, "They've been pretty inseparable. He's worried she'll meet other kids in the neighborhood while he's at camp this summer and forget about him."

I made a face at her comment. "Yeah," she replied, seeing it, and added, "He had a bit of a rough morning."

"What happened?" I asked, sitting down across from her.

She sighed and shook her head. "He's still put out about his report card. He was really hoping for better."

I copied her sigh. "He's so hard on himself."

"He deserves A's."

"He'll get there," I said, "I did."

She smirked. "You didn't manage close to A's until your last few years of high school." Her smile widened, "And only because I… tutored you."

I smiled now, remembering seventeen-year-old Annabeth's reward of one kiss per every ten completed math problems. "Yeah, well, he's more motivated than I was up until that point."

She smiled again and then sobered. "There were tears. He said he doesn't want to be a half-blood."

"I know how he feels," I said, sighing, thoughts of the afternoon's fiasco coming to mind, "He'll learn to manage it. We all do."

She sighed again, " I know." She met my eyes and changed the subject. "Everything okay with the work incident earlier?" I'd called her on the way back to the aquarium and explained, in mortal terms due to the companions with me in the company truck, what had happened with the monsters. She'd, of course, figured out all she needed to.

"For now," I answered, "It's still a work in progress."

"How's it look?"

I shrugged. "It'll be fine, I think. It's just one of those things."

She stood and crossed to my side of the desk, sitting uninvited on my lap and wrapping her arms around my neck. "Sounds like Nicky's not the only one wishing he wasn't what he is," she murmured.

"Depends on the day," I conceded, wrapping my arms around her waist, "But if I wasn't what I am, I never would have met you and the world probably wouldn't exist right now, so I guess I shouldn't complain."

"You're a little bit important." I laughed.

We sat there for a minute and when she sat up, I was in a far better mood. She walked back around the desk and started gathering up the paperwork there. "Do you have a lot of work to do tonight?" I asked.

"Nothing that can't wait," she said, piling it up neatly for the night, "I ordered pizza for dinner, by the way. It should be here soon. I didn't feel like cooking."

"Fine by me."

No sooner had the words left my mouth than the doorbell sounded. "Speaking of which," Annabeth said, straightening up, "Do you have cash for the tip?"

"Oh, I see how this works," I said, reaching for my wallet in my pocket.

"What's yours is mine," she replied, smirking as she headed for the door. I counted an adequate tip for the delivery person and followed after her.

I carried dinner to the table a minute later while she called for Logan and Carly. "Should I go track down our other son?" I asked.

She sighed lightly in exasperation as the other two entered the kitchen. "Yeah. I told him to be back ten minutes ago but that obviously went in one ear and out the other." The slight upturning of her lips at the end of this sentence told me she wasn't really that upset about it.

I slipped a pair of shoes on and stepped out the front door, surveying the immediate area for any sign of the eleven-year olds. I didn't see anything and, shaking my head, began closing the door behind me when a fairly nearby cry sent ice shooting instantly through my veins.

"Dad!"

Nicky's voice. He sounded scared and I knew, if from nothing other than simple parental instinct, that he was in trouble. I was already running.

"Nicholas!" I yelled, crossing the yard in seconds and turning the corner one house down, following the sound of his reply. It didn't take me long to find him and Hannah. They were both in the street I'd just turned onto, maybe two hundred feet down. And they weren't alone.

A huge grey wolf stood growling at Nicky, who stood between it and a terrified Hannah, his sword drawn. I could see him shaking even from afar, but his sword arm was steady.

Even in a dead sprint, the sight almost made me falter. Wolves weren't unheard of in New York, but we were fairly close to the city and we still had several hours left of daylight. I'd been expecting something bad, but not this.

"Stay back!" Nicholas shouted at the snarling animal, moving with it as it began circling them, "I don't know if this sword will even hurt you, but I'll do it anyway!" Neither he nor the wolf had spotted me yet. Behind him, Hannah was looking between the wolf and Nick's sword like she didn't know which thing to be more scared of.

It had been maybe a second. I was still sprinting toward them. I had no idea what I would do to protect the kids from a wild animal, but I was determined to figure something out.

That is until the trio shifted again as Nicky, with Hannah, circled with the thing again and I got a better look at the wolf. And this time I did momentarily falter, more confused now than worried about their safety.

Because the kids didn't know it but they weren't in any real danger. I recognized that wolf. I'd seen it years ago, at the Wolf House in California.

It was one of Lupa's.


Thank you for reading!

Reviews are always appreciated. :)