You know, it was kind of funny. There had been plenty of times throughout my childhood that I wanted to tear off my stepfather's head, but now that I was walking towards my old apartment with the express intent of doing just that, I felt sick to my stomach.

Smelly Gabe was the worst human being I knew, and I use the term 'human being' loosely here. He never cared about me or my mom. I don't think he ever cared about anybody but himself. To him, people were just servants. 'Make me some more bean dip, Sally,' or 'Cough it up, kid. I know you've got some cash on you.' That was the usual interaction with him. Despite never working a day in his life, he still somehow held down a job as a manager of some electronics store, and he used his paychecks to fuel his alcohol and gambling addictions. I wouldn't have been surprised if his ass was permanently glued to his poker chair by this point.

I doubt he shed a single tear when the search for my mom finally ended and she was declared dead. And I knew with certainty that he was perfectly happy never having to deal with her brat ever again. I'd met monsters with more common decency than Gabe Ugliano.

Yet, despite how sickening he was, did he really deserve to die? Part of me wanted to say yes, but technically the man never did anything illegal. It wasn't against the law to be an asshole. It just didn't win you many friends.

My doubts festered within my mind as we navigated the city, and the questions Tyson asked me didn't exactly improve my mood either.

"Where are we going?"

"My old apartment."

"We will sleep there?"

"...No. I just need to get something."

"I meet your family?"

"Um, no. You'll wait outside. My stepdad doesn't like strangers. Or anyone for that matter."

"Oh." He went silent for a little, and just when I thought he'd run out of questions, he asked the worst one yet. "What is daddy like?"

I took a deep breath, resisting the urge to tell him off. I had to remind myself that he was just a toddler by Cyclops standards. "He's…" I began, but I didn't know how to finish that sentence. Selfish? Neglectful? A coward? "... not very nice," I settled on.

Tyson frowned, obviously not satisfied with that answer. "But he sent you to me."

I shook my head. "Nobody sent me, big guy. It was just a coincidence that I ran into you. Poseidon doesn't care about us."

I hated to burst his bubble, but Tyson deserved the truth. For a long time, I had been just like him, believing that there was a good reason that my dad couldn't visit and that he still cared about me. It would have saved me a lot of heartache if someone had come along and told me not to get my hopes up a long time ago, rather than letting me find out the hard way. I wanted to say more, like how good parents didn't let their kids live in cardboard boxes or call them mistakes, but Tyson already looked like he was about to cry, so I shut my mouth.

Thankfully, he dropped the subject, but I felt really bad for him. The guy looked like Christmas had been cancelled. He gazed down at the ground, squeezing his meaty hands together and twiddling his thumbs.

"Sorry I did not help back there," he said, shooting me a guilty look. I realized he was talking about the bullies. "I am a coward."

"Oh, nah, it's alright, man. Those guys were scary." To be honest, I was kind of glad Tyson didn't get involved. Even though he was young, he still had the strength of a silverback gorilla. He might have punched a hole straight through those kids, and then I'd have even bigger problems.

"Hurt you," he said, pointing at my face. I brought a hand up to my mouth involuntarily, feeling my cracked lip. I guessed my injuries hadn't completely healed like I thought.

"Oh, this? It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

Tyson sniffled. "You are a good person."

Those words only made my uncertainty deepen as my apartment came into view. I didn't think he'd be saying that if he knew what I was about to do. I forced myself to keep moving forward, because I knew that if I hesitated even a little, there was no way I'd be able to go through with it.

Gabe had gotten himself another shiny red Camaro. It was parked on the side of the street, the rain giving it a nice wash. The last one had been exploded by Zeus, and then tossed half a mile through the air by a massive bullman. "Not a scratch," Gabe had told my mom and I as he handed us the keys. Whoops.

I told Tyson to wait by the car. I felt bad making him stand out in the rain, but it was infinitely better than standing next to Smelly Gabe. Trying to fight down the nausea in my stomach, I approached the door, thinking of all the ways this could go wrong.

Lord Kronos said I had twenty-four hours, and I'd already spent most of the day doing practically nothing. What if he wasn't home? It wasn't like he had my mom to take care of him, so he'd have to leave the house to get groceries and stuff, right? Or what if he'd moved entirely? Maybe my stunt in Los Angeles made him realize what a lucrative market for electronics he'd have there.

I sucked in a breath and knocked on the door, allowing the rain to soak me. It would have been kinda hard to explain how I was completely dry after walking through a downpour like this. The apartment was silent for a moment. All I could hear was the rain and the sound of my own beating heart. Then I heard voices arguing. I muttered a curse under my breath. Great. He has company.

After a few seconds, the door cracked open, and my eyes widened. I hadn't been expecting a woman to answer the door. He moves on fast, I thought wryly.

She looked to be in her late thirties, with shoulder length black hair and stress lines on her face. She wore a black, leather jacket and a white baseball cap that had the word SIEMENS on the front, which I was somehow able to make out even through my dyslexia. She seemed a little timid, but when she saw me, her eyes widened in recognition, which was strange because I'd never seen her before in my life. She opened the door the rest of the way, and I saw the reason she was trying to hide herself. She would've been really pretty, if not for the nasty bruise that covered her left eye.

"Gabe, honey?" she called into the house.

"Yeah? Who is it?" came my stepfather's gruff voice.

"It's—it's—Oh, you poor child. Come in, come in." She placed a hand on my shoulder and steered me into the hallway.

"Who?" Gabe asked again, but the woman was too busy brushing the drenched hair out of my face and fussing over my injuries (seriously, were they that bad?) to answer him. I heard a lot of grumbling and shuffling as Gabe attempted to extract himself from wherever his ass was currently planted.

"We thought you were dead," the woman explained. "I saw what happened to you on the news. How you were kidnapped, and dragged all the way to Los Angeles. It was a big story here. I thought you'd been rescued by the police, but then Gabe told me you never made it back home! Oh, thank the heavens you made it out. I can't imagine what you've been through. I'm…" Her face fell, and she looked at me with such pity in her eyes. "I'm so sorry about your mother. She was never found, was she?"

My mouth hung open. I didn't know what to say. I had no idea who this lady was, but as I listened to her worrying over me, I was reminded so much of my mom it hurt.

When she saw my expression, her face hardened. "What awful people to do something like that to you. I hope they get what's coming to them."

I stared at her. "Um," I began hesitantly. "Who—"

She straightened, realizing she'd forgotten something. "Oh, silly me. I'm Irene, Gabe's girlfriend. A pleasure to meet you."

She held out her hand, and I shook it tentatively. At that moment, Gabe came around the corner. He froze, the cigar he'd been smoking falling straight out of his mouth and onto the hardwood floor. I watched his face turn red as a tomato.

"You—"

"Your stepson is alive, Gabe!" Irene said. "Isn't that wonderful?"

I got the sense that Gabe didn't think my return was so wonderful. His eyes were narrowed at me. He'd put on weight since I'd last seen him. Too much bean dip, by the looks of it.

"You got some nerve coming back here after what you did to my Camaro, punk," he said, poking a dorito-dusted finger into my chest like it was my fault.

"I'm sure it was an accident, honey," Irene said, inching her way between me and Gabe. There was an edge to her voice that I couldn't quite place. "They were attacked, remember?"

Gabe rolled his eyes. "I don't buy that story for one measly second. This kid is a good-for-nothing delinquent flunky and he's got ten seconds to get out of my house before I call the cops."

"But Gabe, look at him! He's drenched, and injured, and he came to us for help! Can't he stay, at least for a little while?"

I stared at the back of Irene's head in awe at how generous she was being towards a total stranger. How did Gabe manage to ensnare such nice people? In some ways, my stepfather was a lot like the apartment and car he owned. On the outside, it was clean, well-kept, and even indicated a bit of wealth. But then you got a look on the inside, and you realized it was just a junkyard reeking of cigars and stale beer.

I cleared my throat. "Um, actually, I already have a place to stay. I just came here to get some of my things."

Irene turned to me, her eyebrows raised in surprise. "What? Are you sure? I don't think it would be a problem to clear out the guest room and—"

"Dammit, I said 'no', Irene!" Gabe yelled. The woman seemed to shrink in on herself. "He ain't staying here. And you," he said, directing his glare at me. He was so mad that spittle was flying from his lips as he shouted. "You ain't touching anything up there. If you wanted your junk so badly, you should've come and cleared it out months ago. Everything up in that room is mine now. Now. Get. Out. Or I will get the police involved. Oh, and if your delinquent friend out there even touches that paint job, you're dead."

I fingered the pen in my pocket, trying to swallow down my rage. I couldn't kill him now, not with Irene standing right there. Besides, Riptide didn't work on humans, and Gabe was by the loosest definition human. It was times like this when I wished I had a weapon like Backbiter, able to work on mortals and immortals both. Deciding to ignore him for the time being, I headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Gabe growled. "That's it!" he shouted, taking his cell phone out of his pocket and angrily dialing 9-1-1.

Irene tried to intervene, but Gabe raised a hand, and she flinched away. I froze, my hand gripping the bannister so hard I could hear the wood starting to crack. I'd had my suspicions, but this confirmed it. Gabe was the one that gave her the black eye. And Irene's reaction made me realize something. I'd seen my mom flinch the same way before when Gabe got angry. I didn't know when, and I didn't know how often, but Gabe had hit my mother. Irene glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, as if expecting something from me. I hesitated, then angrily shoved off the banister and marched the rest of the way up the stairs.

As I opened the door to my old room, I started looking for a suitable murder weapon. I heard Gabe get on the line with the cops downstairs, and he told Irene to wait for them outside. I realized Tyson was still out there, and he'd probably cry if he had to talk to any police officers, so I knew I had to be quick.

While I was gone, the room had been turned into Gabeland. Junk littered the floor ankle deep, dirty underwear and socks hung off of the lampshade, and the blinds over the window were bent and broken, as if someone had drunkenly stumbled into them a few too many times.

I hadn't been lying about coming here to collect my belongings. I found my old backpack, still filled with notebooks, folders, and other school supplies from Yancy Academy. I promptly flipped the bag upside down and emptied its contents on the floor where they fit in with the rest of the junk. Leaning against the wall was my skateboard, but I tossed it aside since it wouldn't really fit in my bag. From on top of the dresser I grabbed my favorite movie The Truman Show, my iPod that had been collecting dust for the past few months, and a few CDs that I used to play when Gabe wasn't around to complain about the noise (which was rare).

As I scanned the room, I came across a screwdriver, a hammer, a tire iron, and a bunch of other common tools that could've been featured in any slasher film, but as I pictured myself using them on Gabe, my stomach became queasy. I'd sliced up quite a few monsters over the summer, but killing a human was different. Humans didn't exactly just disappear in a cloud of golden dust and reform when they die, and Gabe was already ugly enough on the outside. I didn't want to know what the inside looked like.

My eyes landed on a cardboard box sitting on my bed that I was fairly certain hadn't been there when I entered the room.

Warily, I got up and approached it. It looked like it was just about the right size to fit a basketball. On the address label was some messy handwriting that I recognized instantly. My own.

This was the package I'd sent to the gods during a rather sudden stroke of impertinence on my part at the beginning of my quest. Medusa's head. On the top of the package was a white sticker where a man's clear, bold handwriting had penned, "RETURN TO SENDER."

I tried to swallow the bile rising in my throat. Someone on Olympus was watching me.

Sirens blared in the distance, and I knew I was running out of time. Gabe was coming up the stairs, cursing and muttering. I thought about Tyson, standing out there in the rain, and how I promised he wouldn't have to sleep in a cardboard box anymore. I thought about Luke, who I'd left behind only a day after I joined him, and how he'd probably be forced to kill me if I didn't go through with this. And I thought about my mom, who'd put up with the awful man outside my door for 12 years just to protect me.

I made my decision.

I uncapped Riptide and sliced open the box. Making sure to avert my gaze, I reached my hand into it and took out the head, still double wrapped in her Middle Eastern burqa. I unravelled it, wincing as my fingers came across the slimy snakes that made up her hair-do. I picked it up, plopped it down on the bed facing the doorway, and waited.

"Cops are on their way, brain boy! If even one thing is out of place in there, you're dea—"

He never got to finish his sentence. As soon as he stepped through the doorway, I removed the sunglasses from Medusa's head, and he froze. With how repugnant Gabe liked to keep his surroundings, I didn't think anything could faze him at this point, but as he rapidly solidified into stone, I could see his expression morph into terror. Not a great poker face.

Standing before me was a perfect 5'6" stone replica of my stepfather. I let go of the breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. The man who'd abused my mother and I for years was dead. It had been so easy.

Half in a state of shock, I rewrapped Medusa's head in the burqa and shoved it in the box, reapplying the tape to make sure it wouldn't spill out. When my bag was zipped up and the head all squared away, I realized I had another problem.

I hardly would've been able to lift Gabe even if he were still human. Now, I'd gone and made him multiple times heavier. I only needed the head, but after another quick search through the junkyard that used to be my room, I found nothing capable of cutting through stone. My heart racing, I ran to the window, cursing as the blinds got stuck on themselves when I tried to raise them. I tore them right out of the frame and pulled the window open.

Tyson was still standing down by the Camaro, Irene trying to make awkward small talk with him. The sirens were getting closer now, maybe just a few streets down.

"Tyson!" I called. The Cyclops looked up at me, his big eye blinking away raindrops. "I need you to help me carry some things."

He nodded his head enthusiastically and ran for the door, shouting, "Yes, I will help!"

I was about to duck my head back into the room when Irene called my name. I peered down at her. "I'm sorry about how Gabe is handling this," she called up to me. "Don't you worry about the police, I'll sort this out with them."

"I appreciate it," I said, trying my best to give her a reassuring smile, but it was kind of hard with her petrified boyfriend gazing into my back.

I pulled my head back in and shut the window, frowning. I had only known Irene for less than fifteen minutes, but already I could tell she was one of the kindest people I'd ever met. And here I just killed her boyfriend. I didn't know what she saw in Gabe, but I hoped she wouldn't be too broken up over his death. I couldn't see how anyone could be.

Tyson thundered up the stairs and emerged in the doorway, staring at me over the newest decoration in the room.

He looked pretty confused when I told him I needed him to carry the statue, but he must have realized how much of a rush I was in, because he nodded, no questions asked. He picked up the sculpture like it was made of paper mache and hefted it onto his shoulders. I grabbed the box from my bed and readjusted the bag on my shoulders, and then together we bolted back out of the house.

From the sound of it, the cops were just around the corner. Irene looked completely bewildered when we rushed past her.

"You're leaving already?" she asked. "Maybe you should wait until I talk to the..."

She must have noticed what Tyson was carrying at that moment, because she trailed off, a look of utter perplexity on her face.

"That… But I don't remember seeing that… Where did you—"

"Irene," I said, and her attention snapped to me. I couldn't tell if she had figured out what happened yet, but it was clear she knew something was up. "I think you should try and forget about Gabe," I said softly. "He... hurts people. He hurt my mom and I, and by the looks of it, he hurt you too."

Slowly, she brought a hand up and touched the purplish skin under her eye. Her gaze turned back to the statue Tyson was holding.

"But now he won't hurt anyone ever again," I told her. "I'm sorry. I wish I could explain more right now, but…"

My gaze turned down the street. Three police cruisers were now visible at the end of it, their lights flashing off the windows of the adjacent buildings.

Irene took a step forward, and something in her changed. She stood a little taller. The puzzlement disappeared from her face, replaced by a smile. Her eyes beamed at me with pride, and as I met her gaze, the discolored skin below her eye slowly faded back to a normal, pale color. Now, it was my turn to be completely lost.

"You've done well, Perseus," she said. The kind, motherly lilt in her voice was gone, replaced by a cold casualness. "I tried to give your stepfather another chance to redeem himself, to make up for his past crimes, but alas, you can't draw blood from stone."

The police were pulling up on the street behind her now. Even over the deafening wail of the sirens, I could hear her perfectly. "All men must get their due," she said, taking a few steps backward. "Why shouldn't the same apply to gods as well?"

The letters on her hat seemed to float right off of the fabric. At first, I thought my dyslexia was acting up, but then they began to rearrange themselves. My eyes widened when the last letter fell into place. The hat had a completely different word on it now. NEMESIS. I was speaking with the goddess of revenge.

She turned to the police. Several of them had gotten out of their cruisers, one of whom was currently checking out the Camaro. She waved her arm at them. "It's okay, gentlemen. Justice has been served."

At once, the officers' eyes turned foggy. They shared looks with each other, nodded, and got back into their vehicles. Nemesis produced a set of keys from her pocket and winked at us. Pressing the button on one of them, the Camaro chirped and then unlocked. She got in and closed the door behind her as the police drove off. The engine roared to life.

Rolling down the window, she leaned out and called to me. "Go now," she said. "Return to the Princess Andromeda with your spoils. I'll be watching you, Percy Jackson."

The tires squealed as she tore onto the road and sped off.

Speechless, all I could do was meet Tyson's eye and nod to him. We made a break for it, ducking into a nearby alleyway, looking like we'd just robbed an art museum and leaving behind a newly vacant, smelly apartment.

I wouldn't miss it.

I've been excited for a while to get this chapter out. Let me know what you think! Fun fact: I had this chapter written weeks ago, but Nemesis wasn't in it. Instead, it was just a regular mortal who had fallen for Gabe some way or another. And then I realized that was completely unrealistic. No one could ever love him.

Another fun fact: The title of this chapter is named after Junkyard by Zac Brown Band. I felt like the lyrics fit pretty well to Percy's situation here.