Hey guys! Thanks for all the reviews last chapter. So, a lot of you caught me on my mistake last chapter with the Athena mix up. I fixed it on Saturday after reading all the reviews. It should be better now. I meant to say Hera instead of Athena the first time. Sorry. I'm on antibiotics, so it's kinda making me a little weird. Right after I take it, that is. And I think i had just taken one of my pills before writing that part. Sorry! I'm gonna skip the reviews, because I just took a pill and who knows how I'll mess that up? So, if I make any other mistakes, please point them out. Just be polite about it. Thanks guys! I own nothing but please enjoy this chapter. :)

Percy's POV

I paused, about to try to help her, tell her I was calm, that there was nothing to be afraid of, when something exploded off to my right.

I turned to face the flames that I undoubtably caused. Maybe I am something to be afraid of.

The dancing flames off to me right reached higher than the roof of my mom's apartment, higher than that drakon was tall. They were blue on color, contrasting with the red sky and ground.

"Oh my..." Zoë whispered on my left. I turned around to face her. Her face was illuminated by the blue inferno behind me, making her look like a ghost that had come to haunt me. For a second, I forgot that she wasn't actually dead. I thought her ghost really had come back to ask me why I didn't protect her, save her from death.

The fire flared up. Zoë spoke again, and I remembered that she wasn't actually dead; she was alive with me. The fire died back down to it's previous height.

"What is that? Why is it blue?" Zoë asked, staring with slight fear at the fire. When I turned around to look at her, i saw Chaos staring with slight fear at me.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked frantically, looking behind me to make sure there wasn't come freaky monster sneaking up on me, or Iapetus lurking with his minions.

"How'd you do that?" Chaos asked me, staring at me like I was a freak.

"Do that?" I gestured to the massive fire. "I didn't do that!"

"Yes, you did!"

I opened my mouth to protest, but a soft voice intervened. "Yes, you did."

I spun around to look at Zoë. Timidly, I asked, "I did?"

I held my breath, hoping I was wrong.

"You did."

All the air left me in a swoosh, leaving me feel like I was sucker punched. "How?"

Zoë couldn't meet my eyes. "As you were yelling about Poseidon," she started gently. I flinched; I had been yelling? "You started to glow. Your skin shone with a blue aura. As you continued, the glow got brighter, until finally, you stopped. But I think that your rage had just kept building up, and..."

Next to her, Chaos mimed an explosion with his hands. The part of me that wasn't still sucker punched wanted to make a sarcastic comment. Unfortunately, that part of me was so small that the sarcastic comment never came to be.

Flatly, Zoë finished her explanation. She gestured to Chaos's fading explosion miming and said, "And that."

I nodded slowly. I caused that explosion. I almost killed all of us. I let my anger get the best of me.

Zoë isn't safe. Not with me around. Hell, even the creator of the universe couldn't stop that!

Or wouldn't, a small voice in the back of my head said. Maybe that was meant to happen.

Yeah, I retorted sarcastically. And he wanted me to kill everyone too. Great plan.

The small voice didn't speak up again. I think I scared it away.

I looked at Zoë and tried to meet her eyes, to see what she was thinking about all this. She avoided my gaze.

I scare everyone away.

Chaos clapped his hands together. "Why don't we make camp real quick? I was planning on just flashing us to your training facility, but I think it might be best if we all just cool down after what happened."

Zoë and I both made sounds of agreement, neither of us looking up from the ground.

When I looked up again, Chaos had made three nearly-identical tents appear. Zoë must've seen me look up out of the corner of her eye, because she too started to examine the tents. She immediately found the tent that appeared to be the biggest and claimed at as her own. I picked the one that looked the smallest for myself, giving the creator of the universe the middle sized one.

Before Chaos and I crawled into our tents, he said, "I think we should have someone on watch. Just in case–"

"I'll do it," I interrupted. Chaos stared at me for a long time, as if he was trying to see into my soul. Finally, he nodded.

"We'll switch in an hour. I'll do the next shift." With that, he disappeared into his tent.

I stood outside for a few minutes before my legs got tired. Opting out of sitting on the dusty red ground, I decided to look in my tent for a chair.

The inside of the puke-green tent was larger than I thought it'd be. Chaos must've worked magic on the inside, because I could easily stand up in it. Luckily for me, there was a chair right next to the small entrance.

After sitting outside in the chair for a good ten minutes, I started hearing a voice talking to me.

"Look at what you did!" The demonic voice yelled at me. Obeying it's words, I stared at the fire. It was still burning, just as tall as it was when it was started. Several monsters were silhouetted against the blue flames, gazing in wonder at the inferno. One seemed to think it was an illusion and went rushing into the fire, only to retreat engulfed in blue flames, screaming in agony and rolling on the ground to rid himself of his personal fire. A second later, the screams stopped. All that was left of the unfortunate beast was a scorch mark on the ground and a like of golden dust.

"You think people needed this? You think the monsters wanted a new torture added to their daily life in Tartarus?" The voice asked.

"But they're killers, murders—"

"What about Tyson, your Cyclops half-brother? If he was killed, he'd return here. What about Ella the harpy? She'd return here. Mrs. O'Leary, your hellhound? Blackjack?"

"Okay, I get it!" I snapped, stopping a further lecture.

"Do you? Do you really get it? Because you started that fire, and who knows what other ones, out of rage for Olympians that arent anywhere near here. You had no regard for the innocents."

I was hit by his words, but hid it under a scowl. "What do you want me to do? Apologize?"

The voice changed the subject. "Look at you friends. They don't need you. They'd already be gone from this hell-hole if you didn't hold them back. You just have to ruin everything, don't you?"

I hesitated. "I don't—"

"Yes, you do," the demonic voice snarled. "There are so many times when people would've been better off if you weren't there."

"Name one," I challenged.

"The night Annabeth died. The hellhound was attracted to your scent, not hers. Yet who's the one that was lying, bleeding out, in the grass?"

That was a low blow. I was floundering for a comback, and the demon I was speaking to continued.

"She would've been spared if not for you being there. She would've have even been there if you weren't. The hellhound was meant for you, not Annabeth. She died in your place. You had a chance to save her, and you blew it."

"But..." I tried to come up with a retort, but my mind came up blank.

"Who're you gonna let die next? Chaos already took a drakon for you. That was meant for you, but he saved you. So did Zoë. Are you going to let her die? Trying to save you from a rogue Cyclops or some other foolish monster that the legendary Perseus Jackson should be able to defeat? Are you going to watch as her blood is spilled on the same earth that Annabeth's was spilled on?"

"No. No, I'd die before I'd let that happen," I said, trying to stand up for myself.

"How can you protect her? Your scent is too much. All the monsters are attracted to you, even if you're no longer the son of Poseidon. So how are you going to stop Zoë from ending up like Annabeth?"

The demonic voice was silent as I thought up an answer. He was right. He was right about everything. I couldn't let Zoë die, not like Annabeth. Zoë has to se Artemis again. She has to see the moon and the stars, at least one last time. How do I ensure that my scent doesn't get her killed, like it got Annabeth killed?

Finally, it came to me. "I'll run away," I announced. "To protect them. To protect Zoë."

The demonic voice was silent.