The next day, I decided to walk to the spot where Percy, Annabeth, and Conor were going to meet me. I realized that NYC wasn't the labyrinth I thought it was when I first came here. I knew where I was going. I became a bit too sure of myself, and took a shortcut through an alley I knew was safe.

"Arielle!" I heard my name being called. I turned around and found nobody. "Arielle!" Conor's voice was more frantic, panicked almost. I looked around, the light from the sun peeking through the buildings. What was he doing here?

"Conor?" I called.

"Over here!" I heard the voice say, strained. Looking around, I saw nobody. I kicked away trash at my feet and searched for a place where Conor could be. Pushing away a scrap of cardboard that hung on the side of the brownstone wall, I found a gaping hole in the building. Before I went in, though, I pulled out my phone and texted Annabeth, whose number I got yesterday.

R Percy and u ok? I think Conor's in trouble. Come to the alleyway btwn east 60th & 61st. Then I heard a masculine scream. I pocketed my phone and ran in without hesitating. I wish I waited for a couple more minutes for Percy and Annabeth and Conor to show up. Or maybe call 911 or something. But that would be logical, and that's not my style. I'm more of an act now think later kind of person. Must be the ADHD. Which was why I never even hesitated, not even stopping to wonder why Conor called me Arielle instead of Ari, like he always did.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I stupidly tried to navigate through the dirty tunnels that I recognized as a sort of ancient subway tunnel. I shone my makeshift flashlight (aka my phone) through the darkness.

"Hello." Conor's voice said behind me. I jumped, startled. Conor was fine: so why did he sound so terrified before? I got goosebumps down my spine as someone breathed behind me.

"There you-" I turned around and screamed. Because instead of Conor, a horrendous creature was smiling gruesomely at me.

"Seafood for dinner, yum," it said in a deep, monsterous voice. I dropped my phone, and it shattered in pieces as it made contact with the floor. So much for indestructible samsungs, I thought wryly to myself despite the situation I was in. And then I felt myself get hit and the world turned black.

I woke up bound completely by ropes. My head pounded and I could barely breathe. I struggled to open my eyes, and I looked around for where I was as my eyelids fluttered open.

I realized that I was in an abandoned brownstone. Some light peeped through various holes in the ceiling. The bricks were barely put together, and it was obvious that the building was poorly structured. The glue cement or whatever it was that kept the bricks together was cracking, almost nonexistent in places. The main source of light was a humongous fire crackling in the middle of the room. A figure was hunched over near the fire, covered with some disgusting green leather. It didnt know I was awake, instead choosing to tend anxiously to the fire. It was huge: each of his hands were probably my size. And the smell radiating from it was awful, like a skunk died in a pair of sweaty, dirty gym socks and was left to rot in a gym locker for years. A chill ran through me: that wasn't leather. It was its skin. But what scared me the most wasn't the weird green tinge of its skin, or the fact that it was probably 10 times my size. What terrified me was the fact that this creature only had one eye.

My ADHD was kicking in, and I felt myself hyperaware of everything. I noticed that there was a bronze-colored knife nearby. I tried to scooch there without making too much of a noise. But as I moved a tiny bit, I heard a crunch as I made contact with the ground. I automatically looked at the cyclops: thankfully, a loud crackle from the fire masked the sound I made. When I looked at the ground, though, I almost blew my cover by screaming bloody murder. What made the crunching noise was the hundreds of bones scattered on the ground. And those weren't chicken bones.

I frantically cut my ropes with the dagger. It looks so easy in the movies, I thought bitterly. Eventually, the ropes were cut off and I was free. I silently tried to hide in the shadows and escape, even though the exit was on the other side of the cave.

The Cyclops grunted, satisfied with the fire, and sauntered over to where I was just a couple minutes ago, tied up and helpless. With a roar, it began looking everywhere with its one eye. I shuddered inwardly as its gaze went past my corner.

Knowing that the only way to escape was to fight, I looked at my options. To be honest, the probability of me escaping without a scratch was highly improbable. Noticing that there was a ladder leading to a second floor. Well, at least it looked like a second floor: it was just a sheet of metal with a lot of holes in it. I climbed up the ladder silently, and almost made it to the top. But then I felt a stab of pain in my head, and stumbled a tiny bit on the rungs. The sound of my sneaker on the metal was loud in the silence of the vast space, and he lumbered over to me with a ferocious roar.

Don't ask me how I did it. Maybe I'm secretly ninja. Maybe I watched too many kick-ass movies. But I honestly don't know what came over me. I jumped off the ladder and landed on the cyclop's neck. Then I stabbed him right in the jugular.

The Cyclops roared and threw me off, and I went flying into a corner. Pain seared through me as I felt a piece of shrapnel go into my abdomen area. You were too weak, I thought to myself feebly. This is what happens when you're weak. And then I passed out.

I was curled up in the corner trying to protect myself. But there was no escaping anything. My stepdad stood in front of me, his eyes bloodshot from taking too much drugs and his breath smelled like alcohol. He waved a beer bottle haphazardly around in a drunken stupor, the beer dripping everywhere. I blinked tears out of my eyes as droplets got into them.

"You pathetic little mess!" he said. "I can't believe you actually thought that you would get away with it!"

"I was hungry," I whimpered in a childlike voice.

"I was hungry," he imitated me, his voice rising hysterically. "Haven't you heard? There are people dying of hunger every damn day! So what makes you so special, huh? What makes you so much more deserving?" His voice got dangerously low. "Let me tell you. Nothing." He took a swig from the bottle. "You are pathetic." He took one last sip from his now empty beer bottle and peered at me. "Are you crying?" He said in a normal tone. And he threw the bottle at the wall. "You're weak!" He screamed at me. "Tears should be from pain. And you- you don't know pain. I'll show you what pain is." As the glass rained on me, i saw my torn reflection from a small shard of glass, one of hundreds littered around me now. Blood traced around my hands. and I felt salt in my mouth as he punched me in the jaw repeatedly until all I could see was red.

I woke up, gasping. There was a pounding in my head. Putting my hand on my ab region, I felt wet warmth. Blood. I moaned in pain.

"Arielle." I heard Conor's voice say. I curled up in fetal position, refusing to feel comforted by the soothing voice.

"It's not him, it's not him," I mumbled to myself, trying to sound convincing. Tears began to fall down my face.

"Arielle, are you okay?" Now it was Annabeth.

"It's not them. It's not them," I kept saying hysterically. I felt a pair of arms wrap around me. I screamed, and tried to push away. I stood up and stumbled over my own two feet. A pair of arms wrapped around me. Familiar arms. I choked a sob: they came for me.

"It's okay," Conor said in my ear. Sobbing, I hugged him as hard as I could.

"It's you," I gasped. He smiled.

"Yeah, it's me," he replied. "And I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you, in the state you're in." His blue eyes glowed in the fire that still burned in the middle of the room. The fire that was supposed to roast me alive.

"What happened?" Percy asked.

"There was a, a thi-" I gasped in pain, doubling over. Conor laid me down on the ground, and I felt the coldness replace the warmth that radiated from his body. I tried to get up.

"Whoa, Arielle. Lie down, you're hurt," Annabeth said. She seemed like she wanted to get closer and check my wounds, but she refrained from it. Stubbornly, I sat up, despite protests from Conor.

"No, you're too weak to get up!" Percy said exasperatedly. I glared at him, even though I knew that wasn't what he meant. I leaned against the wall for support.

"See?" I said stubbornly.

"You're leaning on the wall," Annabeth said. "That's not standing, and even now you're not healthy enough to do that! Just sit down." Her voice was soothing.

"I'm not weak," I said. I stood up stubbornly, taking my hand away from the wall. I looked down at my stomach: there was a gaping hole in my tank top. Skin showed there, at least what remained of it. Most of the area was red, and not just from blood. The gash that the shrapnel made was long and deep. "Damn! That was my favorite tank top!" was all I could think of saying before my world turned upside down again.