"What warning?" Octavian snapped. "Who warned you?"
Casey didn't bother to explain. "When did it happen?" she asked. "When did he die?" Hope was evident in her voice, despite the lack of it from her parents. Even Nate doubted there was a chance Jase was alive. But if Casey was willing to believe it, then so was he.
At the sound a horn outside, Octavian smiled. Casey cursed loudly. She should have known. This whole thing, the promise of truth from Octavian, it had all been a lure to keep them inside. Octavian's fighters hadn't run off; they'd waited.
"You tricked me, again," she snarled.
"It wasn't quite a trick," Octavian admitted. "Every word I said was the truth."
Nate pulled her out the door before she could smite him. "He's probably lying, Casey; it's what he does," he said. Casey huffed in disagreement as they ran to the top of Half-Blood Hill. Nico and Will were already there fighting. Nico has an angry expression seemingly tattooed onto his face but managed a warm smile as Casey approached. His stygian iron sword swung mercilessly through any monster that threatened him or his husband.
"It was a setup!" Will insisted.
"No shit!" Casey returned. She got out her weapon and began to hack away. Nate stayed in the background and raised his arms. Vines grew from the ground and wrapped around the monster's feet, making them easy to be killed. Nate had done enough hand to hand combat fo the day. Casey on the others hand couldn't wait to get started. More and more monsters appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
Casey didn't know why, but she happened to glance up just in time to see a monster appear behind Will with its claws raised. She faintly saw a blue triangle on the rock wall behind him but didn't think much of it.
"Look out!" she yelled. Will stopped to look at her. He didn't even see it coming. "Will!" she screamed his name as if that would make him understand what was about to happen. She was running towards Will so quickly that she barely noticed when two arms stuck out of the rock wall, which she now recognized as a doorway. One hand grabbed the Empousa and yanked it through the doorway, and the other hand pushed Will to safety.
Will landed on the ground a few feet away, miffed but unhurt. He jumped up to see what had pushed him but only saw what he thought was a janitorial uniform before the rock wall slammed shut. Casey arrived just in time for a blood-curdling scream to erupt from behind the wall as it shut. One of Will's savior's arms was still outside the doorway when it had shut. The scream was suddenly cut off completely as the doorway disappeared completely and the arm, now completely detached, dropped to the ground in front of the rock.
"What the fu-"
"What happened?" Will cut off his husband and stood up. The phenomenon was so strange that they may not have believed it had happened if it weren't for the still-warm arm in front of them and blood seeping from the rock wall. The blue triangle faded to nothing a moment later.
Nico ran to Will and eagerly checked him for injuries. "Did you hear that?" Will said, in a daze.
"The scream? Yeah, we all heard that," Nate said.
Will bent and picked up the arm. Nico and the others cringed away from the flesh as it made a strange squishing sound. "Whose arm is that?"
Will shrugged. "I don't know, there's no roman tattoo and too many scars to find any identifying marks. More importantly-'
"What's more important than the arm that just fell out of a freaking rock?" Casey asked.
"The fact that it came out of the rock," Will responded. "That triangle, I've seen it before. Somehow, the Labyrinth has been opened. And I saw somebody inside of it."
