[Okay. It's… it's almost over. Just gotta power through this and I can go back to normal Camp stuff, right?]

Like idiots, we followed him.

Right the fuck into an ambush.

There was, at least, an actual payphone. But between it and us were three dracaenae and another gods-damned cyclops, all four armed with spears.

They quickly surrounded us. Diego already had his sword drawn by the time one of the dracaenae asked, "New recruitsss for the Titan Lord'sss army?"

No. Oh, gods, no.

And like, at first, I thought, okay, maybe the monsters just got there 'cause we used the internet on purpose. Sure, Alec can be kind of a dick, but he wouldn't join up with Luke, would he?

Calliope left with Luke.

Rachel died in October, when she went back to normal school for the first time in years because she couldn't take all the bullshit that was going on.

Chris left around New Year's, "visiting his mom." Mary went missing a few days later, and her sister Sophia never came to Camp this summer.

Every time another one of our friends or my half-siblings left Camp, Alec said he wasn't going anywhere. That Luke's plan would never work, and there were better ways to get revenge on the gods, and I believed him.

Was he just lying the whole time? Were we ever really friends?

WHY DOES EVERYONE ALWAYS LEAVE?

[…]

[Uh… good thing it was almost time to change the tape, 'cause I forgot to stop recording and, uh… yeah.]

So Alec didn't even try to lie his way out of it, and I don't know if that makes it better or worse. "I'm sorry, guys. They found me last night, and I was just gonna leave then, but –"

"But what?" Rory demanded. "You thought you'd just go ahead and get the rest of us involved? If you'd told us when you got back, we could've planned for this!"

Alec flinched. "They were… persuasive."

The cyclops grunted. "Yeah. 'Join or die' usually is."

"Kronosss only needsss demigodsss…" one of the dracaenae hissed.

And that's what finally snapped me out of my shock. "Don't you fucking dare," I growled, drawing my gun like I should've done way earlier. "Alec, you fucking –"

"Like I had a choice?!"

"You did," Diego pointed out. "You do."

"So do you," said the cyclops. "And it looks like you're making the wrong one."

"No, the smart one," I corrected. "Why shouldn't we have our weapons out? You do."

The cyclops smirked. "Fair enough. Well?"

"It'd help if I knew who Kronos was," Diego responded. "And what he wants us to do."

"You know damn well who he is," the cyclops replied. "As for what he wants, well, why not let your friend explain."

I couldn't tell if he was talking about me or Alec but Alec took the cue. "He's gonna help us get revenge – on the Olympians. They're horrible. You saw Mr. D. earlier, when we did the IM? How he was? He's not even close to the worst."

"Well who is, then?" I asked, because the longer we kept him talking the longer we had to figure something out. "Zeus?"

"Aphrodite," he spat. "Do you know what she did to my mom?"

"Something worse than –"

"Killing her siblings? Yes. At least she doesn't have to lose them over and over again."

"That's not exactly –"

That time Diego interrupted me. "What happened?"

Then it dawned on me that he had literally no reason to care about the Olympians. We hadn't gotten around to explaining that the world kinda needed them and Kronos would destroy everything because when was that supposed to come up?

"Aphrodite cursed my mom to only love mortals," Alec said bitterly. Which… yeah, that was pretty bad. "The one time she got the gods to make her husband immortal? Aphrodite convinced Zeus to not give him eternal youth so he just got older, and older…"

"And he couldn't die," I finished for him. "So what'd she do?"

"He couldn't take it anymore so she turned him into a cricket."

"Okay, sure, that's a solution," Diego said. "Sounds like you've got a good reason to be mad." I couldn't tell if he was stalling, like I was, or if he was actually interested in joining up.

Alec smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "So do you. If your dad's one of them, it sure doesn't seem like he's helped you much."

"Yeah, I know, I've looked in a mirror today," Diego snapped. "Can Kronos keep my family safe? And what do we need to do?"

"Of courssse," hissed one of the dracaenae. Damn it. There was no way he'd turn that down. "All you need to do isss pledge your loyalty to him."

I really wanted to say something, like, we can't trust anything these guys are saying and we really can't trust Kronos, but that would've probably counted as choosing death and I couldn't do that without a plan.

"What if they say no?" Rory asked. "You're going to kill us and track down their families?"

"That would be pointlessss," another dracaena answered. "They will perisssh with the ressst of the world in time."

I let out a breath that I didn't know I'd been holding. I don't like my mom. I haven't seen her in years, and I hope I never have to see her again, but, uh, that dracaena kinda just drove home that everyone would die if Kronos took over, whether they knew about him or not. It's not just Camp that's in danger.

But she'd also let the whole "world destroying" thing slip, and I figured, okay, Diego would never let that happen, so we were probably on the same side. "Well, it looks like you've made your choice," I muttered, making eye contact with Alec. "Way to betray your only friends, jackass."

"Is that a yes or a no?" the cyclops asked. I think he was getting impatient.

"Neither. I've got some questions, too. Why now? What if we don't all have the same answer? And how do I know you won't just kill us all after we give you what you want?"

"'Why now?' What do you mean by that?" Alec shot back.

"Suddenly you wanna join Luke?"

He sighed. "Now that I know his side's stronger? Yeah, I do. I thought you guys would be more on board with this."

"Oh, is that why they knew you weren't alone here? Even though –"

"…I told them about you guys by accident. You try facing four-on-one odds without fucking up. But it's okay, 'cause we can all join together, right? They won't hurt Rory if we join them."

"Can we have a few minutes to talk this over?" Diego asked. "I know we kinda already have, but…"

"He means somewhere we won't have to worry about getting stabbed for saying the wrong thing," I added.

Alec shrugged. "Yeah, fair, maybe I should've told you guys last night… this would've gone a lot smoother."

"The two of you can," the cyclops said, "but the satyr stays with us until we know you're coming back."

Well, I'd thought about running, but that was off the table. "What if I swear on the River Styx?" I suggested. "That we'll be back. There's no reason to keep him here, and someone's gotta make sure we don't get reported missing."

[Yeah, I was fucking terrified, you know I don't mess around with Styx oaths! I just… Rory, if something'd happened… I don't know what I'd do without you. I really don't, and I don't wanna have to find out so you'd better not die, okay?]

[…yeah, I know, I'm trying my best too. …Huh? Yeah, it is a good thing we made this blanket cave big enough for both of us, I don't wanna let you outta my sight either. Also – that's more proof, I'm a hundred percent getting you like, "World's Best Dad" stuff every holiday now.]

[Pfft, you make yourself sound old, I'm just calling it like I see it.]

Anyways, Rory surprisingly didn't argue with me on the whole "letting him leave" thing. [Hey, it was surprising at the time, normally you would've been like "No I'll be fine, I'm not leaving you guys" or something.] And neither did the monsters, because having us be even more outnumbered could only help. "Do it," ordered the cyclops.

"I, Brenna Stevenson, swear on the River Styx that we'll come back." Thunder boomed in the distance, and that was enough for the monsters to let us pass. "And Alec? Unless you wanna watch me die, swear you'll never hurt Rory."

[Yeah, I would've just refused right there, and… it would've gone really, really bad for us, I think.] I could've worded it better, but Alec agreed anyways. "I swear it on the Styx. Go on, you don't wanna run out of time. Thanks for everything."

"Be safe," Rory told him before we walked out of earshot. After we were out of view, and earshot, he told us, "That goes for you, too. Please don't do anything stupid."

"Who, us? Never," Diego responded.

"…you're already thinking of something, aren't you."

"I hope so," I said. "He'll be expecting something from me. This way we can throw them off."

Diego nodded. "Let's go with that, yeah. I guess we'll see you back at the house then, Rory?"

I was more realistic than that. "If you don't hear from us in the next couple hours… I'm glad you're the one who found me, I'm sorry for all the shit I've put you through, and… thanks for not giving up on me," I whispered, hugging Rory as hard as I could.

"I'll see you guys soon," Rory promised. As soon as we let go, he kicked off his fake feet, picked them up in one arm, and took off running. I always forget that he's actually a ton faster than me, or like, anyone else.

Once he was gone, Diego said, "Okay, listen up – I don't plan on dying today and I don't plan on you dying today, but what the hell do we do about Alec?"

Gods, did I not have an answer ready for that. I came up with one pretty fast, though. "He won't fight us. We won't have to worry about him."

"Are you sure?"

No, I wasn't, but I nodded anyways. "He thinks we're gonna say yes, for one, but we're armed and he's not."

"Right. Well, would he help us if we fight?"

I really, really wanted to be able to say yes, but I just shrugged. "Maybe if it looks like we'll win."

"Ah. About that – if Kronos does get raised or whatever, do you think he'll win? Against the gods?"

"Honestly? He might. And if that makes you wanna join his side… well, I can't blame you too much, you shouldn't've got dragged into this so soon, but you can't trust anything he says."

"Well, since you've known about this stuff for more than ten minutes, why are you so set on not joining them?"

"The short version is, they're not just trying to take down Olympus. They wanna get rid of Camp, too, and I'm not gonna betray the only real home I've ever had. Like, I know Luke's right about a lot of things – minor god kids have a raw deal and most of the Olympians are shitty parents – but I feel like maybe there's a better way to fix that."

Diego thought that over. "Yeah, like… literally anything else. That doesn't involve the world dying. You've got a full clip, right? That's thirteen shots… y'know what, I think we can take them. Maybe."

"Okay, I do, but how can you tell?"

"We can figure that out if we live. I think our play here is, get them to let me use the phone. Stall. Mamá can see monsters, a lot better than I can, and you left your spare ammo…"

"…in the safe!" I finished. I forgot about that. We literally had just brought our weapons and the net with us. Not the rest of our ambrosia, which was a problem, but that'd only help us if we lived anyways. "So if Rory's there already, and she's got a gun that can use it… okay. But problem: you have a sword, they have spears, and we don't have a lot of time."

"Those spears have wooden shafts, and they're not the best quality. I can break one if you can cover me."

I nodded. "Go for the cyclops, dracaenae are a lot less bulletproof."

"Got it. Let's go."

We walked back to where Alec and the monsters were waiting. "Well?" the cyclops prompted.

"Let me call my mom to say good-bye. Then we can go."

"There, see? I knew you guys would come around," Alec said. He had the balls to sound happy, like he wasn't the reason we were in that mess in the first place.

"'Join or die' is persuasive," I replied. "I still don't trust these guys, so don't expect me to put my gun away anytime soon."

The cyclops grunted. "Phone's open, be quick. And I'll be listening."

"Oh, no problem," Diego responded, doing a really bad job of sounding like he wasn't up to something. "Hope you speak Spanish."

"Your mom speaks English," Alec pointed out.

"Says the guy who speaks Ancient Greek when he doesn't want mortals to know he's talking about them," I responded. "Also, she's a mortal, so what was eavesdropping gonna do anyways?"

"…right. Sorry."

Diego didn't seem to've noticed that – he was already dialing the number. Of course, we'd never talked about a signal or anything, when we needed to do stuff at the same time for our plan to work out, and I was just hoping that no one could tell how nervous I was – or if they could, that they'd blame it on being around monsters in general.

Like, everything could go so wrong in so many ways, and I still didn't know what I'd do if Alec tried to fight us. I didn't – don't – want him dead, but… I dunno. I still wasn't convinced he didn't just join them to save his own life, and if that was all, well, maybe we could get him on our side.

"Okay, done, let's get moving," Diego said way too quickly, walking over to the cyclops. There was a dracaena by his right side – the other two were standing on either side of me. Clearly they'd decided that Alec wouldn't be a flight risk or whatever.

So, we went like, three steps, and then Diego lopped the head off the cyclops's spear and I put a bullet through one of the dracaena's snake tails. Which did nothing about the two that were next to me, but I stopped walking before I took the shot so they were a little ahead of me. That gave me enough time to dodge the two spears that were coming at me, but I knew if I stopped moving again I'd be dead.

The cyclops ordered, "Sira, get the boy out of here! We'll bring you leftovers."

Apparently, that was the dracaena that I'd already injured. She grabbed Alec and he looked at me like I betrayed him. But like, he went with her. He could've run. Why didn't he run? She wasn't moving fast… he could've…

Uh… so, that's when I kinda… lost it. I wasted, like, five bullets trying to hit Sira and Diego yelled, "Just let them go!"

I really didn't wanna, but I could barely see them anymore at that point so I turned around and noticed one of the other dracaenae was trying to sneak up on him. He was doing a lot better against this cyclops than the last one we fought, but he couldn't deal with another monster on top of that so I took aim and got the dracaena in the stomach area before she could reach him.

…which, of course, meant that I completely forgot about the other one that was still trying to kill me. Diego shouted a warning to me and instead of jumping or dropping or doing anything else I'd been trained to do in that kind of situation, I turned around.

And caught the spear in my side instead of my back.

I collapsed, of course, because have you been stabbed before? It fucking hurts. My finger was still on the trigger, and I have no idea where that shot went. There weren't a lot of mortals around, but someone had to've heard the gunshots. I remember wondering if anyone called the cops, 'cause I think even I would've after hearing that.

[How the hell is this easier to talk about than the stuff with Alec?]

But anyways, I thought I was dying. Pretty sure everyone else did, too, 'cause the dracaena pulled her spear out and it hurt more and I was willing myself not to scream. I thought, and this is gonna sound stupid but I didn't want Diego to hear me and get distracted, and maybe I could still get the dracaena if she thought I was dead.

I mean, I'd dropped my gun at that point and I was lying on my right side – the one without a stab wound – but still. It hurt so much I couldn't move anymore. There was so much blood. I didn't know people had that much blood.

So, uh… yeah, I absolutely would've died if Rory wasn't the most awesome satyr ever. [Shut up, you are!]

The next thing I remember is hearing "Three Little Birds" at like four times the normal speed while someone said, "I still think we should call an ambulance."

"Why?" I asked, and stuff got a lot more hectic. Everyone was talking at once so I got like, none of it, and the pain had most of my attention. Well, the pain and something else 'cause we were still out of nectar and I wasn't really conscious, so of course the only thing that made sense was shoving ambrosia in my stab wound.

I mean, it worked, which, like, how? […okay, "Let the Sunshine In" makes stuff absorb other stuff? How'd you figure that out?]

I definitely remember how that felt – like, that feeling you get when you're really close to a fire but it's like, inside your body and tying you together. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you guys did it, but I don't really wanna go through that again.

Anyways, what I missed: Maya drove her van up onto the sidewalk not long after I went down and the last two monsters died fast. Diego got one of them, and according to him he didn't check to see if he'd succeeded or not before he ran over to me. No one could get him to put his sword down, so he was still holding that while he tried to stop the bleeding, and I guess he wasn't in great shape either 'cause when he asked Rory for ambrosia Rory thought he was asking for himself.

I honestly don't know what I would've done in his shoes, except get us both killed 'cause I'm way worse at not dying, clearly. I was zero for two at "days without a near-death experience". So it's a really good thing the roles weren't reversed there.

But yeah, once I said something Rory and Maya helped me sit up so I could actually eat some ambrosia. Maya was holding onto my head 'cause I guess that's a thing you're supposed to do when someone's hurt. I dunno, they banned me from first aid class after the Tourniquet Incident so I never got to that part.

"Oh, thank the gods – don't scare me like that, di immortales," Rory said. He'd managed to get me sitting up without stopping playing his lyre, which was great 'cause the music was probably the only reason I wasn't panicking. […oh, duh, I get why you switched to Marley now. Well played.]

"What happened?" I asked. Talking was hard, but I didn't let that stop me. "Where's Diego?"

"Right here," he answered from somewhere to my left. I could kinda see him out of the corner of my eye and I tried to turn but Maya wouldn't let me. "Whoa, take it easy, you lost a lot of blood."

"You found it," I noted, 'cause as far as I could tell his hands were covered in it. "Give it back."

"God, I wish it worked that way. Before you ask, I'm fine; this is, uh… mostly… mostly yours."

I wasn't sure if I believed him, but I let it drop. "What happened?" I repeated.

And that's when they filled me in, while I ate the rest of our ambrosia. My clothes were smoking when I finished, and I started noticing more stuff, like there was a lot of pressure on my side and I didn't have my holster on anymore. "Where are we going now, Camp?"

"Nuh-uh, not today," Maya said. "We're going to the hospital."

"Huh?"

"You heard me. You need stitches, proper bandages, rest –"

"Okay, fine, I'll hospital."

I could tell the adults were thinking something along the lines of, You don't have a choice, but okay. "All right, now we just have to figure out how to get you in the van," Maya muttered.

"I can probably get up," I replied. [Yeah, no, I couldn't, but ambrosia makes you feel like you can do a lot of things that are bad ideas.] "So let's try –"

"No."

Damn, all three of them shot me down. But I didn't give up. "C'mon, I'm fine… probably… hey, someone who's allowed to look at things, do I still have a stab hole?"

I probably should've been able to figure that one out from Diego putting all his weight on it to stop me from bleeding out, but in my defense, I'm dumb. "Brenna, that spearhead was barbed – you're lucky you have organs," Diego pointed out. Then he paused for a moment. "Wait. Do those bleed?"

"Yes, they do, so we need to get moving!" Rory exclaimed.

And pretty much as soon as he said that, Diego picked me up with one arm. I'm actually surprised he didn't end up stabbing me, 'cause he still had his sword out. "There's towels in the back, right? Great. Vamos."

"Hey, I could've walked!" I protested. Blatant lies. Maya was still holding onto my head and I could feel how upset she was.

"That's one way to move her, I guess. We'll be having words later, mijo," she said. "Rory, I'll need you to switch with me so I can drive."

So they did that, and then Diego noticed he was still holding a sword and maybe that'd be a problem when the car started moving. "Why didn't anyone tell me?" he asked as he finally sheathed it.

"We tried, several times," Rory sighed. "And in several languages. Your mother tried to pry your hand off of it. Are you sure you –"

"I'm fine," he interrupted. "How long 'til we get there?"

Short answer: too long. It couldn't've been more than five minutes, probably, we went really fast, but it felt like forever. And I wanted to tell Maya to turn back 'cause we were missing someone, 'cause we were, but I knew Alec hadn't turned back and he never would.

I wanted to cry, but I didn't. [Oh. Uh, I guess I did… well, then he'd better be fucking happy about it or he made the wrong fucking choice.]

[I bet he thinks we're dead, huh? No, not you, but you know what I mean. I wonder if he cried. Knowing him, probably not, but I hope he did. I hope he can't sleep at night either, and that he's at least got some regrets.]

['Cause, okay, I can at least talk about this. Yeah, I'm kinda pissed that this whole "therapy" thing's actually sorta working, but if gods forbid I ever need to bring any of this up again, I know I can. To you, at least. But like, if Alec tells our friends what he did, that's gonna go over real well with Chris, or Mary, or Calliope, or anyone else. Or maybe…]

[…I was talking about literally anything else, right? Worst pain of my life so far? Let's go back to that.]

So y'know how ambrosia usually just fixes everything and makes you feel good, and maybe you've gotta take it easy for a bit but you're probably just gonna have a limp or a tiny scar or something? When it doesn't fix everything, the part that lets you pretend you're not in pain wears off fast.

I cussed every time we hit a bump and everyone kept telling me it was gonna be okay and we were almost there, but that didn't help. Y'know what did help? The painkillers they gave me at the hospital.

Dad's other gift came in handy there. Since we needed proof that Rory was totally my legal guardian so he could sign stuff for me. Our cover story was I mouthed off to the wrong people and they attacked us, which is kinda true I guess. A lot of stuff happened, and I really don't remember much of it but I ended up with some stitches and I have staples in my head now.

Eventually, they let us go back to the Montoyas' and I slept through… two days, I guess. Rory was there when I woke up, and we got to have a Super Fun Conversation that I'm getting tired just thinking about.

[Or because it's literally nighttime now. How? Ugh, I'm so close, but okay Dad, I'll break for sleep.]

Author's Note: ...so yeah, not quite on time, but I made one of the October updates at least! We're *really* nearing the end now, y'all, only 1-2 more chapter(s) left! Thanks to everyone who's read and/or reviewed so far!