AN: F speaking. I apologize for all the cliffhangers, but I like writing them. Aren't I evil? :) Also I'm not sure if I made "Aliah" a little too evil, so please review. I don't own any characters you may recognize from the PJO or HoO series, duh. If I did I would be super rich and I would have dropped out of middle school by now.

~Caspian's POV~

"Wake up." I struggled to wake. I was lying down on a cold stone floor. My wrists were handcuffed. I had to get up. I was in danger, that I knew, but my mind was foggy. Thoughts drifted through it randomly, banging into each other like bumper cars. "Wake up now." I tried to wake. I managed to open my eyes blearily.

I was in a cell, with rows of bars instead of the front wall. Standing in front of the door were two armed guards with their backs to me, looked to be about five years older then me and pretty big. I probably couldn't take them in a fight, especially with the whole handcuffed thing going on. Standing in front of me, inside the cell, was Aliah. She wore a jagged sword and a smile that was just as cruel. I jerked back.

"Aliah! Where am I?" I gasped, scrambling away from her. I knew I was acting like a coward, but I didn't care. I was scared.

"You're in the Sanctuary, fool." She scoffed, taking a step forward.

"Stay away from me!"

"Can't do that. You should have thought of your fears before you ran." Aliah growled. "Now get up." I stood. "Follow me." I walked behind her out the door of the cell and down the hall. At a turn in the hallway, I spotted a chance. I turned fast and sprinted down the hallway, but I didn't make it five steps before I felt Aliah's sword at my throat. I stopped in a split second, frozen in my tracks, staring down at the jagged blade an inch from my neck. I gulped.

"Do not attempt to run. You've only lived this long because I want to humiliate you in front of the rest of my troops by killing you in a duel." I nodded. "Do not forget. Now try to run again and I will not be as forgiving."

The guards came up the hallway and one grabbed each of my arms and pulled me down the hall. I tried to look defiant, but thats not easy when your hair looks like you just rolled out of bed, you're being pulled down a hallway in handcuffs, and you're trying not to tremble in terror. I forgot about defiant and tried for not-totally-freaking-out.

If I was Percy I would bust out the magic sword and attack, or if I was Piper I could convince my enemies to let me go, or even invent a machine to pick the locks for me if I was Leo. But I wasn't, I was Casper, and I couldn't do anything.

And then I realized; I wasn't going to make it out. I could die here.

My eyes stung. I tried to even out my breathing. I couldn't escape on my own. My only chance was that my friends would somehow find Sanctuary and rescue me. But I wasn't sure they could. Sanctuary was very well hidden.

They led me into the dueling arena, the same room I had seen in my dream. Tall stone benches and a raised platform in the middle of the room, surrounded by the muddy sewer water. Then I noticed something was different; the stone platform was surrounded with a barbed wire fence instead of a stone wall. A shiver ran up my spine.

"Do you remember this place, Caspian?" Aliah asked. A smile traced her face, but her voice was still cold and dangerous. "We battled here. And when you lost, you lay on the ground and begged me for my mercy."

"I seem to remember it differently." I said cooly. I knew I had to remain calm on the outside, even though I was screaming on the inside. "I remember defeating your stupid guards and escaping Sanctuary."

"You are as childish as ever, Caspian." Aliah smirked. "But know that at sunrise tomorrow I shall duel you again." I winced, but tried to hide it. I had barely escaped the first time. "That does not have to be the way it is. If you join me and help me capture your friends to join my army, then I might allow you to live."

I forgot my fear. How could she possibly think that I would help her hurt my friends? How could she possibly believe that I would ever rejoin her after everything that she had done to me? "Over my dead body, you witch!" I screamed. "I'd never help you!"

"Fine, if you insist." She scowled. "Guards! Take the prisoner back to her cell!" The guards clamped their hands down on my arms and dragged me away from Aliah, back to the dark cold cell.

~Ella's POV~

The sun woke me up that morning. I sighed and wiped the sleep out of my eyes. When I was fully awake, I rolled over to see the bed next to mine, where Cas slept. She wasn't there. I sat bolt upright and tried to struggle to my feet but my blanket was knotted around my feet and arms. Literally. I was tied up with a torn bedsheet. That was just sad.

"Hey! Wake up guys!" I yelled, and everyone else woke up. "Get up!"

"Ahh! Marshmallow people!" Leo yelled. I gave him a funny look as I used the tip of one of my arrows to cut through the sheets and free myself. "I was having a nightmare…." He said, turning pink. When we were all free of out blanket bonds, we struggled to our feet.

"Hey, where's Cas?" Percy asked with a frown, turning around in a full circle.

"Thats what I've been saying! She was gone when I woke up! Someone took her!" I was practically in panicked tears. We all went into a panic, and started searching the side streets around the lot where we parked the bus. Annabeth and I combed the bus for clues, but all we found was that one of the back windows was broken, and there was a box of doughnuts on one of the seats. Cas's shoes were missing.

"Okay," Annabeth mused. "She left, brought back doughnuts and left again, and broke the window? This makes no sense. These clues don't add up to any logical conclusion."

"Yeah." I sighed. "Where could she be?" I hated myself for it, but I sat down on one of the seats and started to cry, pressing the palms of my hands on my eyes. "What could have happened to my best friend?"

"Hey," Annabeth said, sitting down and putting one arm around me. "We'll find her. It'll be okay. Cas is one tough demigod, she can take care of herself."

"I know." I wiped my tears on my sleeve. "We should keep thinking."

"Yeah," Annabeth said thoughtfully. "You know her better than anyone right?" Annabeth grinned at me, and I nodded.

"I like to think so."

"Okay, then think. Picture this: Cas has just woken up, and nobody else is awake. She has some money, she's probably hungry, and its a nice day out. Where would she go? Can we assume she's the one who bought the donuts?"

I glanced in the box. "They're all chocolate, so we can assume she bought them." Annabeth laughed, and I managed a watery smile.

"Alright, so shes back with the doughnuts, and then what would she do? Her shoes are still gone, did she leave again?"

"No." I was sure of it. "Well, she might've left again, but then there's no way the broken window fits into that."

Annabeth was pacing now, hands clasped behind her back. "So she didn't break the window. Then who-"

"Aliah." I knew it. I felt like I was breaking into pieces like a smashed mirror. "She took her, I know it, and she left us as some kind of sick test to see if we could find Sanctuary." Annabeth looked grave.

"If thats true," She said solemnly. "Then its time to tell the others about Aliah." I bit my lip. Then I nodded. It was time.

The others took the news surprisingly well when we told them about Cas and Aliah. I had expected them to be furious, but they weren't. Nobody shouted or got mad or looked betrayed. They understood that we hadn't told them for a good reason, or at least they were really good at hiding it if they were mad. We had to focus on finding Cas.

"Where would Aliah's people have taken her?" Hazel asked. "Any ideas, guys?"

"They would have taken her to Sanctuary." I said. The others looked confused, so I explained. "Thats what their base is called: Sanctuary, though its not much of a sanctuary from Cas's description of the place. That's where they would have taken her. To finish her duels so that Aliah could say she defeated the deserter, once and for all." The words tasted bitter in my mouth.

"Then where is it?" Percy asked impatiently. He looked upset and angry. He had just lost a sister he had only just found, after all.

"I don't know. Cas never told me. Its somewhere in Los Angeles, but thats is a big city." I said anxiously.

"Then lets go to Los Angeles." Percy's jaw was set. He had a determined glint in his eye that I hadn't seen before. "And find her."

Annabeth drove. I sat in the back by myself, curled in a ball on a seat. The others were scattered through the school bus. Jason and Piper were whispering at the back. Percy and Frank napped, and Hazel and Leo joked around with Annabeth while she drove. I ran my hand over a sewn patch on my jacket. It was blue with a big gold star on it. Cas had one just like it on her jacket. She'd given it to me a few months back, when we had become best friends.

"I'll find you, Cas." I whispered, trying not to cry. "I promise. I swear it on the river Styx."