If Arianna had learned one thing in Ms. Greene's biology class, it was that her teacher was a big fat liar (especially about quizzes). The snake thing had absolutely no intentions of killing her quickly, class or no class.

Without the use of her limbs, she had one last line of defense: her big mouth. "So… why are you… doing this?" she gasped as the knife cut into her left leg. Good to know that it could still feel pain, at least.

"No more dissstractionsss," Ms. Greene hissed, setting the knife down. Arianna heard the familiar sound of duct tape ripping and felt the adhesive being pressed roughly against her lips. There went that plan. She let out a muffled scream when she took another cut across her far less protected stomach. After receiving several more (hopefully) superficial cuts on her face and arms, she realized to her horror that she could smell her own blood. Wasn't that supposed to be impossible or something?

"Stop it!" Skye cried. She may have moved closer, but it was hard for Arianna to tell. All she really had to go off of was sound, and the pain was making it hard for her to concentrate. She silently prayed for it to end soon. Hopefully Skye had some kind of plan.

She felt a new, dull, pain in her chest and it took a few seconds for her to register that there was a knife sticking out of it. "Any clossser, Misss Fairweather, and next time I ssstab her in the heart," Ms. Greene warned.

That was it. She was gonna die at fourteen. How would her dad take the news? Would he even find out? Unless Skye somehow made it out, he probably wouldn't. Arianna imagined him coming in from the fields or the barn to watch for the bus, only to see it drive past. Her dad would call the school, then the police. The thought of him waiting for her to come home, slowly losing hope, hurt more than the knife.

Great; now she was in physical and emotional pain.

It was becoming harder and harder for Arianna to breathe, and she realized that she'd been crying. She managed to get it under control, and felt a wave of nausea overtake her. If she hadn't been able to stop, she could've killed herself.

The sole thing stopping her from throwing up was the fear that she would choke on her own vomit… though she wondered if that would be less painful than whatever else Ms. Greene was planning to do to her. It would certainly be faster, and considering that she was going to die anyways…

As she continued to weigh the pros and cons of dying stupidly versus dying painfully, the classroom door swung open. "So, I've got last month's lab report – what the actual fuck!" a male voice that she recognized all too well yelped. She'd never been so happy to hear it. "Is that a freshman? Wait… Parker? Oh my God, that's Parker. You killed her."

Arianna wanted to protest that she wasn't quite dead yet, and to tell him to get out of there while there was still time, but the duct tape was still doing its job. She moved her head a bit, about all the range of motion she had left, but there was no way he'd be able to see that or figure out what it meant.

"Missster Nelssson, thisss isss sssimply a private lessson. You will leave at onccce."

"This," Elijah yelled, gesturing wildly with his arms, "is not a lesson! You just straight-up murdered someone! What the hell?! What'd she ever do to you? You know what? Screw the lab report, I'm calling 911!" He ran out into the hallway screaming, "HELP! Ms. Greene finally snapped!"

Well, he'd managed to distract Ms. Greene, anyways. Arianna wasn't sure what, if anything, the town's police force could do, even if they did believe him. The effort was appreciated, but it would take a miracle for her to make it out of that room alive.

"Ssstupid mortalsss. I sssuppossse…" Ms. Greene's sentence trailed off into a pained hiss as she exploded into dust. Skye stood where the teacher had been just moments before.

"Oh, thank the gods you're still alive!" she exclaimed, throwing her knife aside and rummaging in her book bag. "I thought… well, you stopped reacting, and then Elijah said… oh, here it is!" Skye held up a canteen. She deftly yanked off the duct tape from Arianna's lips.

Air had never felt so good. "Thank you," Arianna rasped, a little surprised she could still speak. Even if she could have moved from the table, she wouldn't have wanted to. Everything hurt. Skye propped her head up with a couple of textbooks (because she really needed a better view of the damage) and poured liquid from the canteen into her mouth. It was difficult to swallow, partly because the flavor was so unexpected. The drink was warm, and tasted like her dad's brownies. More bizarrely, it seemed to be healing some of her injuries.

"Okay, I think that's enough," Skye said, capping the canteen. "I don't want to give you too much, it'd be dangerous."

"Dangerous? How?" Arianna asked. Whatever that stuff was worked fast. Most of her wounds had stopped bleeding; some of the smaller cuts had disappeared entirely. She felt a lot better too. If she could've moved, that two-mile run would've been no problem.

"Like, you'd spontaneously combust or something. Nectar, and ambrosia for that matter, is really only meant for the gods. Demigods can tolerate it in small amounts, but it's not something you want to mess around with," Skye explained. "Anyways, we've got bigger problems."

There was that word again. Arianna knew some of the basics of Greek mythology; she'd had to read part of the Iliad back in September. There was a whole unit on it. Her memory wasn't the best, but she was pretty sure a demigod was half god, half mortal, like Hercules or Aeneas. Surely Skye didn't mean… of course not. It was called "mythology" for a reason. Then again, that morning she would've said that monsters weren't real either… "Are you even paying attention?" she heard Skye say.

"Um…" Arianna began, quickly trailing off. "No," she admitted.

"I guess I can't really blame you for that. A lot of stuff just happened." Well, that was one way of putting it. "We need to get you out of here, before something worse shows up. But Elijah was going to call 911, so…"

"We don't want him to get in trouble?"

Skye sighed. "Yeah, there's that. He did kinda save our lives. If he hadn't distracted the dracaena, it would've taken me way longer to retrieve my knife and… well, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

He'd also made Arianna late for class in the first place, but it wasn't like he knew Ms. Greene would literally murder her for that. She sure wasn't expecting to be proven right. "Either way though… I mean, if we leave before the cops get here or not, he's still in trouble. Heck, so are we."

"I see what you mean. I just killed a teacher, you're not actually dead, and we're not at lunch right now."

"One of those things was not like the others," Arianna commented. She didn't know why; it definitely wasn't the time to make jokes.

"I'll see if I can tell if he's called yet. Maybe I can stop him," Skye continued, stepping out of Arianna's line of sight.

Elijah had like three… no, seven minutes? Two? Well, a head start anyways. She wanted to yell after Skye not to try, especially not with her injured leg, but she was already gone.

"Okay, we're good, he didn't have a cell phone. But eventually, someone from the office is going to come up here and check out his story. We've gotta be out of here by then," Skye said. How had she made it back that quickly? It seemed like she'd only been gone for a few seconds.

"Wait, what? That stuff did something, but wouldn't," Arianna paused as she tried to figure out where she was going with that sentence, "an ambulance be good?" she finished.

"This town doesn't even have a real hospital, unless you count the nursing home. The police would get here first, and I really don't want to deal with them," Skye pointed out. "I IM'd Will, he's waiting out by the side door with the van. We're lucky we're so close to the Cities."

That last part didn't really make sense, but Arianna realized that she was right. At least, about the hospital thing. The closest one was like… half an hour away? Probably further. "Are we going to Minnesota?"

"I'll explain when we get outside. Can you walk?"

"What do you think?" Arianna answered crossly. The rush of energy from the drink was wearing off. It may have healed some of her wounds, but it wasn't much of a long-term painkiller. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend that the whole day had been a terrible dream, but she still had about a million questions.

"This is going to be a long car ride," Skye muttered, then continued in a normal tone, "I don't know if I can carry you all the way out. Or at all."

Arianna would've been a lot more offended if she hadn't seen Skye try and fail to lift a 45-pound bar in the weight room. "So we're stuck here?"

"No, there's got to be a way out. If only I could push – that's it! There's a wheelchair by the back entrance. We can use that!" Skye exclaimed.

"We can't just take the school wheelchair, what if someone needs it?" Arianna protested, only vaguely realizing how stupid that sounded, to an empty room. Skye had left again. How was she even walking with that leg?

Maybe she wasn't. She phased through a freaking spear earlier, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch if she could fly or something. Arianna realized that she didn't know that much about her best friend. That hadn't been an issue before; Skye just didn't talk a lot about herself. Heck, they'd been friends for like three months and Arianna still had no idea where she lived. It wasn't either of the towns that combined to form the high school, or they would've been in elementary and middle school together… although she could've just been new to the area.

More questions she'd have to ask Skye later, she guessed. Like that list wasn't long enough already. Arianna was used to not knowing what was going on at any given time; she tended to space out when people talked for too long. Well, it was more like retreating into her thoughts. Probably why she had trouble keeping her grades up sometimes.

This time, it felt like she was purposely being kept out of the loop, by her dad and her best friend. There was probably a reason for that, but she didn't have to like it. It really would've been good to know that Ms. Greene was a snake monster beforehand. Even if it still sounded bizarre.

Arianna didn't notice that Skye had returned until she was being dragged off of the lab table. It was a weird sensation, knowing she was moving but feeling nothing. "Sorry!" she heard Skye exclaim.

"What for?"

Skye, who was attempting to get her into an upright position, gave her a concerned look. "I just lost my grip and you fell. You didn't feel anything?"

"Nope." Though she felt like that statement really should've bothered her more – she basically couldn't feel anything from the neck down – Arianna smiled. All the pain was gone. Some nagging part of her brain reminded her that this could be permanent. It probably would be. At the moment, all that mattered was that her heart was still beating and her lungs were still working.

"That's not good," Skye said, sounding a little panicked. "Hang on, we'll be out of here soon! I'm just going to have to tie you to the backrest, that's all."

"Whatever works, right?" Arianna said brightly. She was in a better mood than she had been all day. Which wasn't really saying much, but there was definitely something wrong with that picture. A few minutes ago, she'd been in excruciating pain, after all. But it had stopped. Could that be a bad thing?

That thought was quickly pushed aside. There was no way. Everything was fine. Sure, her vision was pretty much shot, but who needed to see, anyways?

Skye replied, "I guess…" and the wheelchair started moving. Slowly. Eh, she was trying her best. "So far so good… I really wish I'd told the others to meet us in here, but… they'd attract too much attention."

"Where are we going?" Arianna asked, changing the subject. Had Skye mentioned that already? She had no idea. But hey, it wasn't school, and she trusted Skye not to be, like, kidnapping her or something. The hallways passed by in a blur, so she couldn't even tell what part of the building they were in, but she didn't care anyways so it was okay.

"Keep it down, please?" Skye whispered. Oh, right, they were sneaking out for some reason. She'd forgotten. "We're going to a camp for… well, people like you."

"Like me?"

"Demigods," Skye explained, still whispering. "Hang on just a little bit longer…"

Oh, okay. Man, did Skye seem worried. It wasn't like they were gonna die or something. "Does Dad know? Who's gonna help 'im with the farm? Is there basketball at camp?" That was a camp thing, right? She'd never been to a camp before. But she had played basketball in gym class. That'd been fun, even though she was the shortest player.

"Yes, no idea, and I really wish there wasn't," Skye replied, sounding exasperated for some reason, as she stopped in front of the door. "C'mon, please be wide enough… yes! We're through!" So they were. It smelled like outside, so they'd probably made it to the parking lot.

"Oh my gods! Will! Get off your ass and help me!" a female voice yelled. A blur was rushing up to them, presumably whoever had spoken. "What the hell happened in there?"

"I'll explain once we get moving," Skye said through clenched teeth. "Arianna, Jess is going to help Will get you into the back seat, okay?"

Another person joined them, probably Will. "I'm coming, I'm… whoa. This is a lot worse than it sounded in the message. I sure hope Dad's in a good mood today…"

"Yeah," Jess agreed. "You've got your work cut out for you, all right. Guess I'm driving… again…" The cars in the parking lot were moving… no, wait, Arianna was moving. Maybe she should close her eyes. That seemed like a good idea.

"Oh, crap, we're losing her!" Skye exclaimed.

Losing her? Man, she was overreacting. "I'm okay! Maybe. I think." Arianna responded, opening her eyes. She noticed that there was now a ceiling above her and stared at it for several seconds. They were inside something. A car? Yeah, that seemed right. Some small part of her mind was bothered by how long it took her to figure that out, but she pushed it aside.

"Great, now we can get going," Jess huffed.

"Don't mind her, she just wants to see her boyfriend back at camp. She's only been complaining about it the whole way here," Will commented.

"At least I have a boyfriend, Solace," Jess shot back.

"Touché," he muttered. "We'll finish this later. So, uh, Arianna, how are you feeling?"

Arianna wondered if he meant mood-wise or body-wise, but decided to just answer both ways. "Great! Except… I can't feel anything. Like, at all... But tha's good, right? 'Cause it hurt a whole lot before..."

"You can't feel anything?" Will repeated, sounding alarmed. "Which hand am I touching right now?"

It should've been an easy question, but everything was dark and her mouth didn't wanna move anymore even though she was trying so hard and really she just wanted to sleep but she couldn't just let Skye think she was dead again, could she?

"Arianna? Can you hear me?" Of course, she could hear him, he was right next to her… probably, she didn't really know where she was just that Skye was there and these two strangers but they weren't really in the same place, no, because they were seeing things she couldn't make sense of what was going on? "Oh crap, she's unresponsive!"

They said more words then and there was beeping and it was really annoying but she was getting air that she didn't know she needed and then the words kinda started making sense again… or they would've if she'd known what was going on at all.

"Still breathing… c'mon Jess we're not even on I-94 yet? My grandma drives faster than this!"

Shouting. Lots of shouting. "You want fast? YOU WANT FAST, SOLACE? I'll drive so fast your grandma –"

"Okay, we get it, you win! Just don't hit any more bumps like that, gods! Skye, you said there was poison involved, right? Do you know where it came from?"

"That's right. It had to have been on the needles we used for the blood typing lab. I wiped mine off, but it looked like there was water on them. I thought she'd rinse hers off, she's usually pretty anal about lab stuff. I guess she didn't look at it."

"So it couldn't have been more than a drop or two… man, are you lucky that you aren't in med school. Imagine putting in an IV with that stuff. That would've been lethal for sure. Uh, not that this dose is, or we would not be getting a pulse right now."

She couldn't tell who was speaking anymore but really she didn't care; she just needed to hold onto the words so she'd stay where she was, wherever she was. She didn't know why she was holding on anymore she just needed to so she would.

"Comforting. Can you do anything about it?"

"If it's poison, Chiron will have to take a look at it. For now, I'm more worried about these cuts. The bleeding's stopped but I'll need to suture them when we stop for gas. And that sucking chest wound might've healed over, but I still don't trust it not to reopen. A dracaena did all this?"

None of those words made sense, nothing did except the darkness and the voice that whispered to give in already she wanted to so bad why couldn't she let go?

"I wasn't… but he couldn't drive… she should never… must be a fake…"

"Mom had… nothing better to do… said yes… guess it worked out."

Silence. The tether holding her to the world died with the conversation.

Author's Note: ...so I know I have a general disclaimer for this kind of content, but if y'all think I should add any additional content warnings I will. Near-death experiences really are a demigod rite of passage, huh. Next time, we meet more people, and I abuse the fact that this rating allows me to type "fuck." Unrelated, if anyone wants an in-depth breakdown of how I'm interpreting Camp Half-Blood's medical services, I actually did write that and I will gladly share it with you.