Sometimes, when you wake up in a new place and have no idea what's going on, you do some dumb stuff. I sat bolt upright and almost screamed 'cause I forgot I got hurt and I hadn't sat up for literal days. If Rory hadn't been there to calm me down and explain things, I would've had a panic attack for sure.

"So… none of that was a dream?" I asked him when he'd finished. "Alec's really…"

"Gone."

Hearing him say it made it real. Rory would never lie about something like that. I slid back down under the sheets and tried not to start crying, but it didn't work. "H-how… how could he?"

"I wish I knew, Brenna, I really do."

"I trusted him! Gods, I know I'm book stupid, but I didn't think I was people stupid!"

"You're not stupid," he corrected automatically. "You just learn at a different pace."

"Yeah? Well you'd think I'd've learned my lesson about trusting people after Luke –"

Rory brushed back my bangs from where they'd fallen in front of my eyes. "That wasn't your fault."

"He was doing private meetings with everyone, right after Percy got claimed. Said he wanted to make sure all the unclaimed kids were doing okay. He did them with us regulars too, because he was gonna go to college and stuff and he was just, like… off and I thought… I dunno. Like, now I know he was probably like, trying to figure out who he could get on his side, but when I was talking to him he just sounded stressed. Maybe if I was smarter I could've done something! I should've at least said something!"

"Brenna, everyone trusted Luke. He blind-sided all of us."

"Even you?"

[I know how that sounds, I lived with him and you didn't, but you're better at reading people than I am and I wasn't really thinking at the time.]

"Even me."

"And Alec? Did you trust him?"

"I found him. Did he ever tell you the story?"

"Yeah, part of it… I wanna hear it from you, though."

Rory half-smiled. "At his school, I was an English teacher. I could tell that someone in his class was a demigod, but I couldn't figure out who for the longest time. Alec never came early to class or stayed late, so I never saw him alone. Until the first batch of spelling tests came back, I didn't even think he was a possibility. But then I saw that he'd written a rho in place of a lowercase 'r', and that's almost a sure sign."

…okay, that made sense, that one's literally a "P" and a little "r" and little "p" don't look like each other at all. "Wait, do we all really do that?"

"Your brains are hard-wired for Ancient Greek; almost everyone slips up once in a while. That specific error is just the most obvious, aside from replacing hard 'ch' sounds with a 'chi'. After that I noticed that Alec was almost always one of the first people to turn in quizzes or tests but he wasn't near the top of the class. I started offering everyone extra time and repetitions, but he never took me up on them. It wasn't until he was on the verge of failing out that he even agreed to meet with me after class."

"Sounds about right," I said. "So then you gave him the demigod spiel?"

"No. Remember, unless you've actually been seeing monsters, it sounds insane. He wouldn't have believed me. That meeting was mostly convincing him that tests weren't a race, and the reason I offered extra time to the whole class was so no one would be singled out."

Yeah, Alec always was really sensitive about being dyslexic. I never really got it, 'cause at least he learned how to read and write when he was supposed to. "And then what?"

"He gradually improved, and I figured if he could listen to me in school, he could listen to me in a life-or-death situation, so then he got the demigod spiel. And he took it… well, I'm sure you know."

Poorly. Very poorly. But at least he'd believed him. "Mhm. So like… you're saying you had to trust each other first. Like we did."

"More or less. Our situation was a bit different, though."

"Yeah, 'cause we didn't have time for the demigod spiel."

"Because you ran away four times before I could explain what happened."

"You talked to a giant bird and it stopped trying to kill me, how was I supposed to know it wasn't your bird?"

Rory looked fake-offended. "It was an eagle. Do I look like someone who has the patience to train an eagle?"

"It's gotta be easier than teaching me how to read."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you." His voice sounded kinda shaky.

I hate being asked if I'm okay when the answer's obviously no, but I'm a massive hypocrite so I asked, "Are you okay?"

"Not really," he admitted. "But we don't have to be, not after that. I thought… well, I thought we were too late."

"I was hoping it was all some kind of like, desperation, just trying not to die thing and he'd help us," I murmured. "Maybe he wanted to, maybe he just didn't like our odds, I dunno."

"I was hoping for that too, honestly, but I meant too late for you."

"Ah. Right. But, like, I'm alive. We're all alive."

We just kinda sat there for a few minutes. If I hadn't already almost ripped out my stitches, I would've gone for a hug. "I am kinda impressed you figured out how to load a gun," I said after a while.

"I didn't do that, it was Maya."

"Oh, you mean she like, told you how?"

"She did it all herself," Rory insisted. "She was doing it when I got here."

Now that couldn't be right. Since I have regular bullets for training, I can't just reuse those magazines for my bronze ones; Chiron doesn't want me mixing them up. We had to make special ones. "But mortals can't touch celestial bronze! Unless she had gloves?"

"She'll be coming in to check on you soon, why don't you ask her?"

"…yeah, I'll do that. You'll stay with me, right?"

"As long as you want me to. I do need to let everyone know you're awake, though. Are you ready?"

I nodded and he stepped out of the room. I knew he'd be back, and he did come back like thirty seconds later, but I was still, like… oh gods, I'm alone.

[No, that's never really been an issue before. I'm sure I'll get over it; I'm gonna have to, there's no other girls in my cabin year-round anymore.]

Maya was with Rory when he returned, and she'd brought water. "If you keep this down, you can try food later," she said. "How are you feeling?"

"Bad," I answered. "Real bad." The water was helping, though.

"Hm. Pain bad or brain bad?"

"I dunno. Both? I think both."

"Okay. The pain I can help with. Do you think you can swallow a pill?"

I wasn't sure, but I said yes anyways. "I'm sorry. It's – this –"

"Wasn't your fault. Diego told me what happened."

"How is he?" I asked. "Can I see him?"

Rory smiled. "I told you she'd want to."

"You did, yes. I'm not sure that's a good idea yet, you both need to rest…"

"I've been resting for two days," I pointed out.

"That's true… okay. But I'm checking your stitches first."

That took her like, no time; I finally got to see what they looked like, and it was better than I was expecting. Maya explained what all had happened but all I got was, my insides were mostly fine and I didn't have a concussion or whatever.

[So does ambrosia work, like, from the worst stuff to the least bad? Or is it like, getting everything at once? …oh, ok, see, I'd know this stuff if I was allowed to do first aid class. I guess route matters. Never thought about that, 'cause normally you just, like, eat or drink the stuff. But when it's not absorbed through… eating and drinking, it affects where it's closest to? Neat.]

As soon as Maya left the room I remembered that I was supposed to ask her something, of course, but it's not like it was urgent. Besides, I had other stuff to worry about, like how Diego was probably mad at me for the other day, actually, and even if he wasn't he'd definitely want some kind of explanation.

When he walked in, I was prepared for him to say pretty much anything except what he led with, which was, "I'm sorry."

What'd he have to apologize for? I was the one that almost got us killed. He continued, "I wasn't fast enough, I couldn't stop her, I was being careless –"

"No, it was my own fault, and anyways, dude, I'm the one who should be apologizing –"

"What? No, why would you have to –"

"I shouldn't have dragged you into –"

"I wanted to go!"

We were getting nowhere, and my head was starting to hurt again. "Okay, let's try this again: I absolutely should've mentioned like, literally anything about Kronos."

"How could that have possibly come up? 'Oh, by the way, the whole world might be in danger because my brother has daddy issues?' Rory explained more while you were… uh…"

"Sleeping," I finished. "Yeah, okay, I guess it's not exactly Demigod 101."

"Right. And it's not like you were expecting that to be important. But from the sound of all this, I don't think I'd have been able to avoid getting involved – if you all hadn't come, that recruiting party or whatever would've found me."

Gods, that was not something I'd thought – or wanted to think – about. "You have a point."

"Darn right, I do. And hey, you got hurt getting a monster off my back. I panicked and almost… you know…"

"Killed me? Please, you're not getting rid of me that easily," I interrupted.

"How can you joke about –"

"If I don't, I'll cry. Actually, who am I kidding, that might happen anyways."

Diego opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a box of tissues. "There, now we're ready. I'll probably need these too, like I didn't cry enough the last few days…"

"Ah. Uh, I'm sorry I made you worry?"

"Did you really just apologize for getting stabbed?" His voice got a lot higher by the end of that question and I realized how dumb I'd just sounded. "There's no way that was your fault; if anything, it's –"

"The dracaena's fault, for stabbing her," Rory said bluntly. [Which, like, you're not wrong, but – okay, okay, I get it, gods!] "Also, do you two want me to leave?"

I shook my head. "Nah, man, you're good," Diego replied. "You're the only reason we can have this conversation. Sorry again that I didn't explain my idea, that could've gone so bad –"

"Did you really just apologize for saving my life?" I asked, matching his tone from before.

"I should've communicated. If I knew it was gonna work…"

"I didn't know if it'd work either and I definitely wouldn't have tried using ambrosia like that," Rory confessed. "I remembered what the song did, but that's the only time anyone's tried that, I think."

"Y'know, I'm not sure anyone else could," I said. "With how nature magic works and all."

He thought about that for a second. "Maybe not with the same song, but I'm sure I'm not the only satyr who's found a song for absorption."

"So different songs do different things for different people?" Diego guessed. "It's all trial and error?"

"Pretty much," Rory confirmed. "I keep track with a notepad."

"Cool. Is there like, a limit on what kind of music you can use?"

I was really glad we'd gone off on that tangent, 'cause like, satyr magic is really cool, but I didn't have a lot to add so I was kinda just looking around and I noticed that I wasn't the only one who'd gotten hurt; Diego had bandages poking out from his left sleeve and shirt collar. "When did you get those?" I blurted.

"What are you talking about?" Diego asked in a way that it made it sound like he already knew the answer.

"Those bandages. Did something else happen? I don't remember you getting hurt."

"Oh. I think you were in the room when they made me get checked out, but you were on a lot of drugs at the time. It's nothing serious."

That first part of what he said was true, but the second part definitely wasn't. "What happened?"

"Just a cut. I wasn't really worrying about where the spearhead would go when I broke the shaft… I honestly thought it'd stop bleeding on its own, but it didn't. I got asked about the blood going down my arm and I said it wasn't mine so no one would worry."

"Okay, there's worse lies you could've used…"

"The doctor asked where it came from and I said I stole it."

Never mind. "Rory, you're no longer the worst liar I know."

"I'm not sure how to take that," Diego responded. "Mamá said I was in shock, which would explain a lot, now that I know what that is. Which reminds me, you never showed me how to check for a pulse."

"Ah, that's right! So if you're doing it on someone who's conscious, you wanna try their wrist. Like, use your index and middle fingers on one hand, and it should be right behind the thumb on your other hand," I explained.

"Found it! What if they're not conscious?"

I half-expected Rory to jump in, but he seemed willing to let me try to teach. "So you take those same two fingers, and put them on the side of the person's neck. If you don't find anything after ten seconds, you probably aren't gonna."

"Got it. This way is… harder."

"Give me your hand," I told Diego. He did, and I moved his fingers over where I knew my pulse was. "Do you feel it now?"

"Yeah. I must've been checking in the wrong spot on myself." He tried again with a different spot and nodded. "There it is. Thanks!"

"No prob. Hopefully you won't need to do that anytime soon."

He frowned. "I'd better not, yeah. Hey, while you're both here, I've been thinking… will my family really be safer if I go with you guys?"

That would be a super easy question to answer if Alicia was a mortal, but she wasn't, so I deflected. "Well, when was your first monster attack?"

"Kindergarten. Someone brought a snake to show-and-tell, and it was not a normal snake, unless normal snakes can spit fire."

"They can't," Rory confirmed. "It sounds like you saw a basilisk."

"That's what Mamá said. She was really freaked out, which makes sense, I could've died; I thought basilisks petrified people, though?"

"Not Greek ones," Rory answered. "Not all of them, anyways. Their touch is poison. How did you get out of that if you didn't know?"

Diego thought for a second. "When it got out of its cage and came after me, I hit it with my chair until it stopped moving. The weird part was, no one else seemed to notice? I thought I was gonna get in trouble."

"There's a lot of stuff mortals don't notice," I mused. "I almost got mauled by a werewolf when I was nine, but my mom said it was just a big dog. Which, like, I thought, too, until I got close."

"Wow. Did you have silver on you?"

"No way. I out-ran it. Most of us don't get weapons until we get to Camp, dude. Speaking of, you said you found your sword at a garage sale? When?"

"The same day I… killed the basilisk… oh man, that is one hell of a coincidence."

No shit. "Whoever your dad is, he's been watching," I said.

[Okay, no way is his dad not Ares, but I couldn't just say that! As far as I know, he hasn't been claimed yet, and if there's one god I really don't wanna piss off, it's Ares.] "I guess… oh, that reminds me, I still have this." He pulled my knife out of his pocket. "Figured I should get it back to you before I forget again."

I remembered his original question and got an idea. "Thanks, but what if I just leave it here? I can leave a couple magazines, too… y'know, for home defense."

"Really? You'd do that?"

"Why not? Forgetting my spare ammo literally just saved my life. And knives aren't exactly hard to find. Maybe when Alicia's older…"

He looked like I'd just taken the weight of the sky off his shoulders. "She'll love it. Seriously, thank you so much! I don't think she has my problem, so it should be fine."

"Which one?" I asked, because that was vague as all get-out.

"Ha, ha. Did you know the last person who had this?"

"No?"

"Great, so I couldn't have possibly heard that from anywhere. Please tell me this is some weird demigod thing…"

Rory nodded. "It has to be. Do you often know things about knives?"

"Yeah; it's not just knives, really, it's any weapon. This is gonna sound crazy, but I'm pretty sure Achilles had my sword at one point. Not for long, and there's been a lot of people since then, but he's the only one whose name I recognized."

"Considering how you got it, that actually makes sense," I told him. "There was this myth… Odysseus was recruiting for the Greek army before the Trojan War, and Achilles's mom didn't want him to go to Troy 'cause she was a goddess and knew he'd die there, so she disguised him as a girl and hid him with this king's daughters, right?"

"Okay…"

"And Odysseus somehow knew about Achilles and wanted to get him out of hiding, so he disguised himself as a peddler..."

Diego stopped me there. "If you're gonna say he hid a sword with the stuff the princesses would want…"

I smirked. "Got it in one. I dunno what he would've done if one of them picked it up instead, but Achilles went for it."

He said something that I'm gonna guess was a swear word. "That sounds familiar. The sword was definitely sized for a child. So, what, was my dad testing me? And why does this… whatever it is I do… happen?"

"I dunno. But you recognized my gun when you'd only seen the hilt in bad lighting in an alley, does that kind of thing happen a lot?"

"Oh my God, all the time. How'd you end up with a law enforcement model?"

"My mom collected guns. This is the one I knew how to use, so I yoinked it when I left."

"Huh. Well, it's in pretty good shape… this is so weird, I never mess with guns, I shouldn't know that."

No kidding. "You saw it for longer yesterday," I reminded him. "Maybe that had something to do with it?"

"Yeah, but… hm, actually, that would explain why I always know things about the swords and stuff at museums. I thought I was just reading off the cards or something. Should've known there was no way I could read that fast."

"You're probably faster at reading Ancient Greek," Rory said. "Demigods usually are."

"I've never tried, but I did read the Aeneid for Latin class and that was a lot easier than I thought it'd be. I thought maybe because Spanish comes from Latin, but I'm slow at reading in Spanish, too."

"Interesting. I have an Ancient Greek copy of the Iliad with me. Do you mind if I go get it?" [Okay, why did – you bring one everywhere?]

Neither of us had a problem with that; I was too curious to get scared. "Has your mom fought monsters before?" I asked while Rory was out of the room.

"A few times," Diego replied. "That's actually how she met my dad. And she's bailed me out before, too – I'm sure you noticed the scars by now."

"Mhm." I wasn't gonna ask about them – doing stuff like that'd got me sent to the infirmary so many times – but that didn't mean I wasn't curious.

"The ones on my face are from standardized test day, in second grade. I forgot my backpack, so Mamá brought it to me, which I wasn't expecting but man was it a good thing she did because the proctor turned into this ram-lion thing and she came in when it was trying to claw my eyes out."

"Oh gods," I said, because I had no idea what else to say.

He gestured to his neck. "And the bandages are kinda hiding this one, but it's from a battleaxe. I never saw what was holding the axe, but I guess it was some kind of spirit. It predates the ghost teacher by like, three years, though, so I'm really not sure what I did to piss it off."

"You wouldn't have had to do anything, really. Sometimes the dead just hate us for being alive."

"That's oddly reassuring."

"How so?"

"Fighting monsters is one thing, but fighting ghosts is like… that was a person, you know? And what happens to them after?"

Hell if I knew. "It's weird, yeah. Personally, I don't really wanna fight anything."

"Sometimes I don't think I wanna stop," he admitted. "I try not to get into fights with people; it's too easy to get carried away, and I don't think I could live with myself if I end up hurting someone who doesn't deserve it. Or God forbid, killing someone."

"But monsters are different?" I prompted.

"They re-form with all their memories and stuff, so yeah. Very different."

"Fair enough."

Rory came back and saved us from staying on that topic longer. "All right, here you go. There is an English translation alongside the Greek, but you shouldn't need it."

"…you're right, this is way easier to read. All demigods can just do this?"

"Most of us can," I corrected. "I dunno if it's 'cause I learned how to read late or what, but the letters still move around on me a bit."

"Because dyslexia doesn't care what language you're reading in," Rory explained for probably the millionth time.

"Right. But even with that, Ancient Greek is easier. It's, like, I actually know how the letters should sound."

Diego handed the book back to Rory. "That's a good description. I'm not sure if I've seen it before today, but it looks right somehow. Do people still speak this?"

"Ne," I replied. "You'll learn more at Camp – we have classes and stuff. For Latin, too, but that's on Sundays and it's not required and Chiron teaches so you'd just be getting more homework."

"You know, I might be okay with that. It's never been all that hard for me and languages are kinda 'use it or lose it' so it'd be worth it."

"You say that now. Just wait."

"I mean, I'll have to, there's no way you're ready to go back yet."

I tried to sit up higher and winced. "Ugh, don't remind me."

"Sorry. I guess there's a lot of stuff we'd rather not think about right now, huh?"

"You can say that again," I muttered. "Honestly, I kinda thought you'd be… more upset?"

"Oh, I am, but not with you. Wanna watch something?"

I looked over to Rory. "Up to you," he said.

"Ok, then sure," I answered. "What was that movie you mentioned last night?"

"A lot of nights ago now, but Mulan. Maybe we should save that one for later, it gets… heavy. Uh… have you seen The Princess Bride?"

"Have you found the six-fingered man yet?"

He grinned. "I haven't even found my father yet,I can worry about avenging him later. Also, for the record, I am left-handed."

"I noticed. Man, you've probably heard every Inigo joke in the book, huh?"

"I asked Mamá if I could change my last name at one point. Not that it would've helped, more people were calling me Fezzik than anything, but it might've stopped kids from trying to swordfight me."

"When you had an actual sword."

"Yeah. I didn't use it, but it was tempting sometimes. I'll be right back, just gotta go grab the DVD."

[…okay, I was kinda scared he wouldn't come back. Dumb, right? We were literally in his house. But… oh c'mon, Rory, do I really gotta say it on tape?]

[All right, all right, here goes: Rory thinks I have abandonment issues, and he's totally right. I dunno what I'm supposed to do about that, though. Once the summer kids leave, it's just gonna be me, Jared, and our HCs. …I really don't think Diego's still gonna be in my cabin, he might've already been claimed for all I know. Hey wait, does he know why I'm down here? …okay, good, didn't want him to think… you know.]

[I guess it could be okay, if Jared doesn't get pissed at me for Alec – like I ever would've wanted stuff to go the way it did. If he does, every activity ever's gonna suck 'cause Travis and Connor pair up no matter what.]

[…yeah, I guess there's no point in worrying about that now. And if it's anything like last year, we'll just have like, three groups of cabins doing stuff anyways. Might be hard when most of the other cabins hate us right now, but that's never stopped Chiron before.]

Author's Note: One more chapter! Thanks for sticking with me, y'all, it's been... oh gosh, quite a few months. I swear I'm still working on my other fic too, it's just a lot has happened. Until next time!