Malcolm

Slowly, I reached for the bottle and pulled the note out. I unfolded it and read:

Ace, Stoll, Fitman

"What does it say?" Derek snatched it out of my hand and looked it over several times, Travis peeking over his shoulder.

"It's our last names," he said slowly. "But why...?"

"She already knows we've been sent to find her," I said.

Derek snorted and threw the paper down. "Well, good for her. Let's keep moving."

I scooped up the bottle, stuck the note back inside, and kept trudging along with Travis and Derek.

Along the way, we kept seeing more bottles of Greek Fire, and some of them were still half full.

Derek muttered something about littering as I picked up what seemed like the fourteenth one.

The darkness of the night soon fell, and the only light was the bright crescent moon and the stars. It was getting harder and harder not to mistake a tree for Travis.

That's when I saw it.

Just a flash in the dark, nothing more. It may have been my eyes playing tricks on me. But nevertheless, my head jerked in the direction that I swear I saw a streak of blond hair.

"Guys. This way," I said, beckoning them over to the left.

"What now?" Derek said.

"I think I saw-"

That's when I saw her. The same dull hair and eyepatch. The same glittering green bottle in hand. Leaning against a tree amusedly.

Travis noticed her too, and sucked in a breath.

"What-?" Then Derek noticed her, and he snarled.

He pulled out a knife from behind his back.

"Derek, wait!" Travis shouted, grabbing his arm and trying to restrain him. I ran and grabbed his other arm, but the son of the war god was too strong.

Vivienne noticed all this and immediately stood up straight, the bottle of Greek Fire dangling loosely in her hand.

Derek lunged at her, knife in hand, but he ended up slicing tree bark because Vivienne was too quick. She ducked under his arm and went behind him, but he whirled around and slashed at her face.

She leaned down and kicked him in the face, and was about to uppercut him when he threw down his knife and grabbed her arms. He twisted them behind her back and shoved her against a tree.

"Time to do what we should've done before," Derek snarled.

Vivienne tried to get away, but Derek pushed her to the ground with all his force, knocking the wind out of her.

That's when me and Travis seemed to realize that we had just been standing here this whole time. We both ran up and tackled Derek, and with both of our forces combined, we were able to hold him down.

"Traitors," Derek sneered. "Kill her!" He burst out of our grip, picked up his knife, and rounded on Vivienne.

"Aw," she spoke for the first time, "Don't be like that!" And with a snap of her fingers, she had Derek's knife in her hand. Then she threw it at him and it scraped the side of his face.

He growled at her and shoved her again, making her fall. Me and Travis tried to hold him back, but it was like an ant trying to stop an elephant. Derek managed to kick Vivienne in the ribs a few times, once to the nose with an awful cracking noise, until she grabbed her bottle of Greek Fire and threw it on the ground.

Green flames immediately erupted everywhere. Derek forgot about trying to murder Vivienne, and instead was frantically trying to get away from the flames, because they were making a circle around him.

Taking advantage of the situation, me and Travis ran towards her as she stood up. Blood was trailing down the side of her face, and the front of her shirt was soaked in red.

She kind of looked like she had come back from the dead.

"Vivienne, are you okay?" Without waiting for an answer, Travis tackled her in a hug. She seemed surprised for a moment, before awkwardly patting him back.

"I'm fine. But what-?"

"We were sent on a quest to find you," I said, pushing Travis away and giving her a hug of my own.

"But why?"

"Because we want you to come back."

She blinked. "What?"

"We want you to come back to Camp Half Blood."

A second passed before she laughed.

"You're kidding, right?"

She was grinning until she saw the looks on our faces.

"You're...not...kidding. Guys, I can't go back to CHB. I appreciate you coming to get me, but-everybody there is going to be like him," she jabbed her thumb at Derek, who was still running from the green flames.

"Vivienne, please. Why did you even leave in the first place?"

"Because everyone hated me. And they hated me so much that they set Greek Fire to the Hermes Cabin when I was still in it. Wait-correction. Annabeth set fire to it. And she was the reason people started bullying me."

"That was a misunderstanding," I pleaded. "Annabeth was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was probably Derek or something."

"Vivienne," Travis said dangerously, "If you don't come with us, we're going to kidnap you."

She smirked. "You wouldn't."

But apparently she realized we would when Travis picked her up, slung her across his shoulder, and started walking.

"Okay, okay! I'll come with you! Just-put-me-down! TRAVIS STOLL!"

Travis finally put her down and she sighed. "But you guys know everyone there is going to hate me."

"Things take time, Enna," I said, putting an arm around her shoulder. "But...we really want you to come back. Even Annabeth."

She let out a shaky breath. "Okay."