AN:

I'm going to be honest with you guys, this chapter was supposed to come out yesterday. All it needed was to be reviewed, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it given the circumstances. I was not particularly in the best state of mind to do anything, let alone write.

I was, and still am, devastated by the deaths of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and the rest of the people who had their lives cut short so shockingly yesterday morning. I know their passing has caused immeasurable amounts of hurt for so many, myself included. For those of you feeling similarly to me, my heart reaches out to you. I strongly urge all of you, whether the tragic event affected you or not, to take a lesson from what occurred yesterday. Life is short, fragile, and completely unpredictable; it doesn't care who you are or what you've done for the world. Because of that, I just want to implore all of you to enjoy every moment of life and love as strongly as you can.

As some of you may have realized by now, I'm a huge quote guy. I use tons of quotes I love in my writing, and the tragedy that occurred yesterday has left one particular quote by C.S. Lewis in the forefront of my mind.

"Isn't it funny it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different."

It's amazing to me, that two days ago, so much of the world was oblivious to the mourning they'd feel so soon. We take each day for granted, letting each moment pass by as if it were nothing. In reality, change is happening all the time, and you really just have to stop and actively search and find it, as it's not often as clear as it was yesterday. I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't let your life just be a mindless march. Cherish the march, sure, but know why you're marching, and enjoy the scenery.

Now, enough about that. For those that don't care to hear the preachy feelings fest that was, I'm sorry. I just had to get that off my chest. Any of you who feel a similar need for an outlet, know I am available. Anyways, enough depressing talk, here's what you came here for, chapter 4 of "All That's Left"

XxXxX

It was a strange sensation, knowing she could see him, but he couldn't see her. Watching him through the one-way mirror, she could feel hate bubbling over in her stomach like a pot left to boil. It wasn't in her nature to feel such righteous fury, but she permitted herself these emotions just this one time given the man who'd become the target of her ire. Ethan Nakamura.

Even bruised and bloodied, he still cut an imposing figure. He was cuffed to the desk, his long hair greasy and disheveled. A foul grimace adorned his face, only adding to the menacing visage painted by his most prominent feature. Opposite his one cold eye was an inky black eye-patch, masking the empty pit of his abandoned eye socket. His wicked appearance only aided in fueling her fury, not that she needed anything more than what had initially sparked. The bastard had kidnapped her mother after all, and that was cause enough.

She couldn't bear to look at him anymore. She was afraid that if she allowed herself to continue to watch him, she would end up doing something rash and inadvisable. Tearing her gaze away from the vile menace, she turned to her mentor, a question forming on her lips.

"Are you sure about this?" Hazel asked curiously, putting aside her anger. "Do we really want to send Piper in there alone with him?"

"More than sure." Percy affirmed, uncrossing his arms. "Piper's the only chance we have of getting anything out of him. Guys like him? They don't crack just because guys like me have a mean right hook. What we need, only she can provide."

From her left, the soft click of a door handle being turned grabbed her attention. Golden eyes flickered towards the quiet noise, landing on a kaleidoscope of iridescent colors. It was Piper, with Jason in tow. Not for the first time, Hazel was in awe of the Cherokee girl's natural beauty. As always though, the most impressive thing came next. Her voice.

"Are we ready?" Piper asked. Her stare drank in the aura around the room for a moment. "Relax. I'll get what we need." She tacked on, obviously having noticed the tension.

Her voice was smooth and delicate, like a gentle forest creek. It washed over Hazel, sending a wave of tingling comfort down her spine. She knew well enough that Piper was using her cybernetic enhancement, but she chose not to fight it. The comforting sensation that came with her sing song voice was a thing of wonders, even when Piper wasn't trying. Experiencing the full charm of her ability was entrancing in a way. You could feel the pull of her voice, feel it manipulating your senses, but no matter what you couldn't help but let it happen.

"We know you'll take care of it. You're the best for the job." Jason said encouragingly from her side, looking at her with a strange reverence.

That was another thing Hazel had noticed in her time there. Jason was laughably infatuated with Piper. The Cherokee girl was harder to read, so Hazel had no clue if the feelings were reciprocated, or if Piper even knew about them. She seemed to rotate between aloof and oblivious of Jason's affection on most days.

"Best get to it then." Percy interposed, nodding towards the interrogation room.

Piper nodded, turning and stalking into the room with Nakamura. Her whole demeanor changed from what Hazel usually saw. Her hips held more sway, her head was more upturned, and her face was frozen in a sultry smirk. She looked less Piper and more seductress now. Jason and Percy seemed unsurprised, telling her this was typical of interrogations here. She couldn't help but note the irregularity of the whole scene despite their nonreactions. This was definitely nothing like any interrogation she'd ever seen in the movies.

As Piper entered, the battered man looked up from the cold metal table, eyes, or eye rather, taking immediate interest in what he saw. There was confusion there, coupled with a healthy dose of curiosity and excitement. Clearly, like Hazel, this was far from what he'd been expecting.

"And who might you be? I thought they'd send someone… Uglier." he said confidently. He seemed interested in Piper, but not because he was taking her seriously.

"You flatter me, but I'll be the one asking questions. Is that alright with you?" Piper asked, her head tilted to the side daintily.

Even through the glass, Hazel could feel the tug of Piper's words at her mind. The girl was laying it on thick, and the control it inspired was nearly tangible. Deep in her core Hazel could feel a deep desire to listen to every word that dripped from the Cherokee's lips. Hazel's tongue tied itself into knots, halting her from comment. Her throat had locked up and Piper held the key.

"I… Of course it is." Nakamura responded, his breathing shallow.

"Good." Piper responded, walking closer to him. He lustfully eyed her up and down, but if Piper minded, she didn't show it. "Now, there's just a few things I need to ask you."

"I'm not telling you anything." Nakamura hissed, ripping his eyes off of her.

"No?" Piper quirked an eyebrow.

"No." he affirmed, setting his mouth in a determined line. He refused to meet her kaleidoscope gaze.

"I'm impressed." Percy commented. "The guys don't usually make it even this far."

"Really?" Hazel questioned, finding her voice again.

Percy smiled at her as he nodded to Jason opposite him. Turning to her other side, she took in the enthralled form of Jason Grace. He was too enraptured in Piper's performance to even notice them talking. It was almost cartoonish, the gob smacked look on his face.

Back in the interrogation room, Nakamura's face slowly morphed to match Jason's. Piper hadn't taken no for an answer, instead drifting even closer to him now. She trailed a single slender finger up his arm, tracing his figure as she walked behind him. He tried to lean back so his gaze could follow her form, but a hand to the back of his head halted him. His eye glittered with yearning, as if this was some sexual game.

Hazel could understand how for Nakamura this could feel less like interrogation and more like seduction, but from her position it clearly wasn't. As Piper sashayed slowly around him, it would look teasing to the casual observer, but to someone looking more closely, she wasn't doing anything of the sort. She was stalking. Prowling. Lurking. She wasn't a seductress. She was a hunter.

"Now now." Piper chided airily. "If you won't give me what I want, then I'll just have to go." Piper leaned down into his ear, her mouth just centimeters from his head. "You don't want me to go, do you?" Piper whispered, laying it on heavier than ever.

"No. Don't go!" Nakamura cried, jolting forward in his chair. The cuffs tugged against his skin, biting deep into the raw flesh on his wrists, but he didn't seem to mind. Piper rose behind him, a victorious smile on her face. She shot a wink to them through the mirror before prancing her way across from Nakamura, gracefully seating herself opposite him.

"Well then I guess we're just going to have to have a conversation, aren't we?" Piper said, her voice floaty and teasing.

"Yeah, sure, whatever you want." He replied, almost manically. "Just don't leave."

"I'm right where I want to be." Piper responded, winking at him. He seemed to melt at the gesture, now completely in her control. Even to the outside observer it was clear that Nakamura was putty in Piper's hands.

"So," Piper began, leaning onto skinny forearms. "All those people you kidnapped, are they alive?"

"Yes." He said, sounding like a man hypnotized. In a way, he kind of was.

"Where are they?"

"I… I don't know." He admitted, looking heartbroken. His lone eye screamed apology, as if his soul burned because he couldn't help her.

"Aren't you the one who took them? You just lost track of dozens of people?" Piper pushed on.

"No I… We… I didn't lose track of them, per say. More I… handed them over." He spluttered out.

"To whom?" Piper pressed; eyebrows furrowed.

"I can't. He'll kill me. Or worse." Nakamura protested; terror wrought across his face.

"Oh, come on." Piper pouted. "You can tell me. I'll keep a secret." She grinned encouragingly.

"Al… Alright. I don't know what he looks like, his identity was always masked, but I know his name... It's Luke. Luke Castellan. And he's one dangerous son of a bitch."

Hazel turned to Percy, hoping the name would mean something to him. His face was contorted into a frown, but she couldn't tell if the cause was recognition or confusion.

"Luke Castellan." Piper repeated, testing the name on her tongue. "What did he want with them?"

"I don't know, honest. He found me one day. Said he heard I was the best smuggler in town, that I had the best men money could buy. He offered me a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"Money, drugs, weapons, even some fancy new tech. I don't know where he got any of it, but he wasn't telling, and I wasn't asking. All I know is, he'd come to me with a name, and my gang and I would have to bring them to him, or else the payments stopped."

Hazel's eyes widened at the significance of what he'd just said. This Luke guy selected who was taken by name. There weren't some random kidnappings. Every incident was calculated. There was something more sinister at work here.

"What did he do with them? How was he picking them?" Piper said, obviously emotional. Hazel could tell she realized the importance of what they were uncovering as well.

"I don't know what he did with them. All I know is that he wanted them alive, said he needed them that way for whatever he was planning. I don't know how he picked them either, just that he was very obsessive that I only ever brought him the ones he specifically asked for."

"Only two more questions." Piper said gently, her voice soft, but with a hidden edge. "Do you know where he took them? Or where I could find him?"

"No," he said sadly, shaking his head. "He never let me see where he went. Every time I had him followed, purely out of curiosity, my men ended up dead. We'd find them laying in an alley in a pool of their own blood. All I know is, he's not from around here. He had upper city written all over him. You want to find him; I'd suggest starting there."

Piper stood, giving a satisfied nod. She turned to leave, being chased to the doorway by his desperate cries for her to stay. He was flailing in his chair violently as he bellowed, but she ignored him, shutting the door softly behind him as she returned to her companions.

"Luke Castellan? Any of you heard of him?" Piper asked, eyes dancing between them.

"No," Jason admitted, free from his Piper induced trance now. "I've never heard the name. I'll get every person we have in the field searching for him. There's no stone in the city he can hide under."

"We should see if Annabeth can dig anything up in the usual databases as well." Piper supplied, earning a nod from Jason. "Even then though, with just a name, it will be like finding a needle in a haystack."

"Unless…" Hazel muttered, an idea forming in her head.

"Unless?" Jason repeated.

"Unless we don't just look for Luke. What if we're looking at this wrong? We just found out that everyone that was taken was hand selected. There must be something making him pick who he picks, right? If we can find out how he's picking them, we might be able to figure out why. And if we know why he's taking them..."

"We might be able to figure out who he'd go for next, and then follow the trail." Piper finished.

"I like it." Jason agreed. "It's your idea, I'll put you and Percy on that."

"Speaking of." Piper chimed in. "Where did Percy go?"

Only then did they realize he was gone. Inwardly Hazel berated herself for taking her eyes off of him for too long. She knew Percy well enough to know he had a nasty habit of disappearing without you noticing. They whipped about for a moment, wondering where he could have gone, but that question was answered quickly.

A gunshot echoed from the interrogation room, causing them all to jump. Inside, Percy stood over the corpse of Ethan Nakamura slumped against his chair, a hole in between his eyes. His arm was still outstretched, the dull metallic glint of his gun reflecting the bright overhead lights back at them.

"Percy, what the hell?" Jason yelled, slamming a fist down on the intercom button, sending his voice into the room.

Percy looked over to them, spying them through the one-way glass. His gaze fell right on Jason, which was creepy given the fact that they knew he couldn't actually see him. He slowly lowered his gun, hiding it behind his back like a toddler trying to keep something from their parents. His face adopted a childish grin, as if they didn't all know he'd just shot Nakamura.

"What?" Percy asked innocently. "I thought we were done with him?"

"Percy, we don't just execute prisoners, no matter who they are." Jason scolded.

"You're right." Percy said rolling his eyes as he held up a pair of handcuffs. "But he was escaping, see?"

"You're hopeless." Jason retorted, his eye twitching. Piper looked rather amused by the whole thing.

"Whatever." Percy said. "We ran through his goons like we were playing a video game, but now you're squeamish about killing when it's the guy who organized what we've been fighting against this entire time?"

Jason blinked. As gruesome as it was, Hazel could see his point. Why go through the trouble of killing all the faceless bad guys just to let the ones that really matter live out of some sense of betterment? That was a moral tight rope they couldn't afford to walk.

"He's got a point, Jason." Piper said, echoing Hazel's thoughts.

"I know. He almost always does." Jason admitted bitterly, taking his hand off the intercom button.

"Then why does he bother you so much?" Hazel interjected, coming to the defense of her mentor. She knew Percy's methods were sometimes gruesome, strange, and even downright insane, but they always seemed to bother Jason far more than anyone else, and she wanted to know why.

"Because… As much as Percy is on our side, as much as he's good at what he does, as much as he's good at heart, he's a loose cannon." Jason said tactfully, eyeing the man tapping his foot impatiently against the floor in the next room. "And a loose cannon eventually points your way."

XxXxX

Hazel thumped her head against the wall rhythmically, cherishing the dull throb that came with it. The faint ache that accompanied the monotonous pounding served well to drown out her frustration. Across the room, Percy seemed equally upset. He was frantically flipping through the files again and again trying to find something they'd overlooked. They'd been at it for hours, but still the thing connecting all the missing people was a mystery.

"So let's run through this one more time." Percy breathed out, running a hand through his unruly hair.

"We've gone over it a thousand and one times." Hazel groaned.

She slumped further in her chair, her back sliding down as her chin came to her chest. Her brain was fried from pouring over the same documents for hours on end.

Percy let out a breath. He started gathering the wrinkled files strewn throughout the room and straightening them, evenly stacking them back into a neat pile. Crossing the room nimbly, he sat himself directly at Hazel's side. He plopped the recently reorganized documents down on the desk in front of her, tapping the top paper emphatically.

"I know we did. But we must be missing something."

"Fine." Hazel grumbled, pulling herself back up in her seat, leaning her head on a hand precariously.

"Let's start simple." Percy began, flipping through each document slowly, sea green eyes tracing the ink with hunger. "What do we know for sure?"

"We know that every single victim was taken from the undercity and that every single one of them was low income, which is essentially the same thing." Hazel recapped. "But that doesn't help us much. If being poor was the criteria, he wouldn't have been so picky. Everyone here is poor. They could've just plucked anyone off the streets."

"Right." Percy agreed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "What about acquaintances? Family members? Job history? Favorite color? Anything from Annabeth's profiles that can link any of them to each other?"

Hazel flicked through her copy of the dossier Annabeth had given them on every single person that had gone missing. None of them were related. None of them had any similar job history. They had no overlapping known acquaintances. Although the reports Annabeth had scrounged together were thorough, she was pretty sure they didn't include favorite color.

"No, none of that." Hazel said sadly, her lips pressed into a thin line.

"And medically? Do they all have the same blood type? Are they all particular juicy organ donor prospects? Theoretically this Luke guy could have gotten access to medical records and been using them to harvest top grade organs and blood for black market use."

Her fingers danced over the paper, turning from page to page rapidly as her golden eyes searched for a pattern. Desperately, her head scanned page after page, only to find another let down. The blood types were different, and they weren't all ideal organ donors either. Another dead end. Just as she was about to keel over in defeat, an idea formed in the back of her head. She latched onto it, clinging for dear life.

"What if it's not just them? What if it has something to do with their family's medical history?" She asked slowly.

Percy's eyes widened.

"I'll have Annabeth get that to us as quickly as possible." He rushed out, already heading for the door. It slammed against the outer wall, crashing back into place with a bang, leaving her to wait for his return. She took the opportunity to rest her brain, actively looking anywhere but the all too familiar documents in front of her. It didn't last long though. Percy was back within the hour, a new stack of files clutched in his grasp.

"If there isn't something here, I have no clue where to look." Percy huffed out, coming through the doorway more gently this time.

He handed her a stack of papers, this time including more than just family history. This time, the actual medical records of immediate family were included as well. The workload was heavier, but hopefully the payoff would be sweeter. Reinvigorated they got to work.

They read together in silence for a while, giving the occasional expletive as they both chased after endless patterns only to see them fall flat too soon. Hazel wasn't sure how much longer she could take it. The longer she flipped through the files, the more she wanted to tear her own hair out. Her idea had been a complete disaster so far.

"There's nothing." She mumbled out after a while longer, unable to hold in her frustration. "I thought I had it. But there's nothing. Another dead end."

"I think so too." Percy agreed, shaking his head. He sounded defeated. "But if the connection isn't here then where is i-"

She waited for him to finish, but the end of his sentence never came. Looking up from her papers, she found him staring intently at the page in front of him, mouth agape. Rising quickly, she was leaning over his shoulder in a heartbeat.

"What?" she said hopefully, eyes darting across the paper in his hand. "What is it?"

"It's so obvious." He muttered, blinking rapidly. "I don't know how we missed it after all this time."

"What is it?" her voice came out barely above a whisper.

"The cybernetic gene. The one that allows people to mesh with the cybernetic enhancements. It's rare, am I right?" he asked, guiding her to the same revelation he'd just had.

"Yeah, sure, but not everyone who's been taken had it. And not everyone was related to someone with the gene either." She argued, not entirely following his train of thought.

"I know." He admitted, flipping through some more pages. "But every single person taken was one of the two. Look through it. Any cybernetics capable people that went missing, everyone else in their family is normal. Any normal individuals missing, they have at least one cybernetic capable person in their family. Never multiple cybernetics, never zero."

She flew through the records now, easily spotting the distinction after he'd pointed it out. It was so clear; she had no clue how it had taken them so long. He'd been right, it had been hidden directly under their noses the whole time. A thought stopped her though.

"What about me? I don't have the cybernetic gene, and neither does my mom. I would've known. She would've told me. We break the trend."

Percy's eyes softened, and his mouth gave her a consoling half smile. Sliding a single sheet of paper to her across the table, it took one look to see that she was wrong. The file said everything. Her mother had kept it from her. Her mom, the one who she shared everything with, had withheld something from her, and she had not even the faintest idea why.

"I'm sorry." Percy said sincerely, his face clearly conveying regret. "I don't know why she'd keep it from you, but your mother did have the cybernetic gene. It's why she was taken. It has to be."

He whispered the last part, desperation spread across his face. They needed to be right about this. It was obvious how much he regretted telling her that her mom wasn't as honest with her as she once thought, and if he'd uncovered that ugly truth for her all for nothing? She swallowed a lump in her throat, pushing her emotions to the back of her mind. It hurt, knowing she'd been lied to, but she couldn't let it bother her right now. Crying wouldn't save her mom, action would.

"So what does this all mean then?" she asked, avoiding the topic altogether. "Castellan took my… Is taking all these people for something to do with cybernetics, right?" she managed to get out.

"It seems that way." He nodded. "I just have no clue what that something is."

"Any guesses?" she prompted, wanting to at least know where his head was at.

"Yeah," Percy said worriedly. "Just one. The only reason I could think of is that he's studying the gene. And there would only be one reason someone like him would want to study it."

"Which is?"

"To weaponize it."

There was a pause while she pondered his theory.

"But isn't it already weaponized?" she argued, purely for understanding. "It's literally only ever used to outfit soldiers… And I guess some of you guys."

"In a sense." He said, drumming his fingers frantically on his leg. "But not in the way I'm describing. If I had to guess, this Luke guy is studying how the gene develops, and if there's a way to replicate it."

In a flash, Hazel's eyes widened as she realized implication of what Percy was describing. The science of the cybernetic gene was one that was still a bit of a mystery, although not for a lack of trying. The gene only ever developed in humans, making it difficult to do any testing on it without violating morality. For someone like Luke though, who wouldn't care what his experimenting did to the subject, the secret to replicating the gene could be close. With that science behind him, an entire army of cybernetics could be at his disposal.

"That would be…" she trailed off, at a loss for words.

"Devastating." Percy finished. "You saw how much damage Jason can do back at the shipyard. You saw how dangerous Piper is. I've told you about the insane things Frank is capable of. Imagine If Castellan, or someone like him, got their hands on an army of people like them. He'd be unstoppable."

"How do we stop something like that?" Fear tickled her voice.

"Before it happens if luck is on our side." He rubbed his hands down his thighs nervously. His foot was tapping the round at a blistering pace. "Now that we know how he's picking his targets we just have to identify the next one. I'm sure there's others with the gene throughout the city. Once we know who they are, we set people up to watch them. We let one get taken and follow the kidnappers back to whatever pit they crawled out of. If we're fortunate, Luke, the missing people, and everyone who's earned themselves a bullet will all be under one roof. Everything we need, gift-wrapped in a shiny red bow."

She nodded, sensing the excitement in his voice. She felt it too now, that electricity. They were so close. All they had to do was wait. Pretty soon, they'd be the ones with the upper hand. Luke Castellan and his operation were going down. A smile stretched across her face. They'd done good work today.

"I'll get this to Annabeth as quickly as possible." Percy said, rising from his seated position. "We don't want to waste any more time."

She watched him go, his feet treading lightly beneath him. Just as he crossed the threshold, a thought hit her like a truck. Something that had been on her mind earlier, but she'd lost in the thrill of their discovery.

"Percy, wait!" she called after him, halting him before he could disappear around the corner. He stopped in his tracks, eyes falling on hers with a shining curiosity.

"You think of something else?" he said patiently, waiting for her to speak.

Despite the question she was about to ask, she felt her heart swell at the way he talked to her. It was another thing about him she'd come to appreciate. No matter how much she bogged him down with questions or random thoughts, he never seemed bothered. He was an incredibly impatient man, but endlessly patient with her. For someone who'd rarely seen other people have the patience to hear more than a sentence from her, it meant more than she could describe.

"I… I uh… I…" she finally spluttered, her previous thought eluding her for a moment. She wasn't sure how to frame the delicate question.

"You 'uh'?" he smiled, like her stuttering was extraordinarily charming. It was the same way people look at puppies innocently doing hilariously silly things. Pure joy and amusement from something so simple.

"I uh… I didn't see your medical records in the pile." She finally managed to squeak out. "Or your mother's, for that matter..." she trailed off, leaving the question lingering in the air like morning dew.

His eyes darkened, his brow furrowed, and his posture stiffened. In a sentence, he'd done a complete one eighty, going from joy to something quite the opposite. Her primal instincts told her she'd made a mistake, that she shouldn't have asked, but part of her argued that she deserved to know. Percy was her closest friend, and she knew that she was probably his. Whatever it was that he was so upset about, she wanted to know, even if it meant standing in the face of his anger.

"That's a… It's complicated…" He said finally, his voice hard.

"You don't have to tell me, but if you want to… I've got the time." She murmured. Hazel patted the seat next to her gently, a gesture of invitation. He seemed to accept it, his previous anger washing away like chalk in the rain by the time he sat next to her.

"No… I should, it's just… I don't know…" he began, clearly struggling for words. His mood had changed so quickly. Cheerful, wrathful, and now somber, all in the span of moments. He was flippant like the sea, and his tormented eyes were reflecting that now. She could see he was thinking, and she gave him his time. It wasn't right away, but eventually he continued.

"I don't know why there weren't medical records for my mother and I." He admitted. "Annabeth checked every single database known to man. There was nothing."

"Nothing?" the words fell out of her mouth like tumbling stones.

"Nothing. It didn't end there, either. She thought it was strange, so she started to search other databases besides medical. No insurance. No home ownership. Not even citizenship." He hissed the last word. "According to the entirety of the internet, of every record book, government or private, Percy and Sally Jackson have never existed on this earth."

"How long have you…"

"A long time now. Only Annabeth and Jason know, and now you. I didn't want them to tell the others because then they'd ask questions, and I just don't have the answers for them."

She'd never seen him look so haunted. She couldn't imagine what it was like to learn that according to the world you weren't a person. That your mother wasn't either. All those times he'd told her he was a ghost, and it had never felt more real than right at this moment.

"Why wouldn't any records exist? Did someone erase them? Are you the cybernetic capable one? Is your mom?" she finally managed to choke out. Her words were barely above a whisper. She knew he didn't want questions, but she couldn't help herself. Her shock was ruling her body.

Slowly, he looked up from the spot on the floor his eyes had been latched onto. Sea green irises, rimmed in red, met hers. He looked beaten down, worried, and far from anything she'd ever seen from him. This was something different entirely from the person she knew. Something more raw. More real. More human.

"That's the thing Hazel… I just don't know."

AN:

There you have it, another chapter in the books. I'll keep this brief, considering the long AN at the beginning. To recap, we now have an actual big bad guy. That's right, Nakamura was just a steppingstone, as I'm sure you all could've guessed. Still, the truth is far away. As much as they feel like they have things under control, there's much they don't know about what's going on in Sapphire City, not to mention what's going on with Percy. Hopefully you guys are enjoying the mystery to go with the action. As always, please please please let me know how I did. Anyways, until the next time,

Peace.