AN: Thank you for the reviews! This is Will and Skylar's POVs.

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HoO

Will POV

"Where!?" all of the guys shouted at once.

I sighed. "Mount Diablo."

The clue made perfect sense.

When I received questioning glances, I started to explain. "Um… Skylar and I went there last winter on a quest to heal the Golden Fleece. We kinda fell off a cliff when I saved her from a giant. Then Khione stabbed her with one of her poisonous icicles. So… yea, we have to go to Mount Diablo."

"Ok. So how are we supposed to get there?" James asked.

"I haven't thought of that yet." I said.

"Well, Aphrodite probably has the help of the other gods in this messed up plan. So she's most likely convinced Zeus not to blow Percy, Nico, Zach and Frank out of the sky if we go on a plane." Connor said.

"It's risky, but what other choice do we have?" Leo sighed.

The four of them who were mentioned looked terrified, but slowly nodded.

"Come on, let's go hotwire a van." Travis said, with a slight gleam in his eyes. That didn't exactly reassure me, but I had learned to trust the Stolls when it came to something like this.

Luckily for us, the camp van was unguarded at the time. Argus had just come back from driving in the city; he had been on official Delphi Strawberry business. He left the van out while he went to go and check on something with Chiron.

The Stolls quickly got started and we had a running engine within a few minutes. Percy volunteered to drive since he had had the most experience driving in the real world.

As we drove into the city, it was silent. None of us were in the mood for talking. There were too many regrets and questions at the moment.

Where had Aphrodite taken the girls? That was number one.

We abandoned the van somewhere near the airport and walked the rest of the way. I went to get the tickets.

"Hello, how may I help you?" said the attendant.

"Um, I'd like ten tickets to San Francisco." I said.

Praying silently, I put my hand in my bag and felt pieces of paper. Thank the gods.

I gave them to her, with our passports, which I had conveniently found in my bag.

Soon enough, we were on the plane. Some of the guys decided to get some sleep, which was pretty smart, considering it might be the last chance we had in days.

I closed my eyes, but thoughts kept getting in the way. Mainly about me and Skylar. What would happen if we didn't get to her and the others in time? I couldn't bear it if anything happened to her.

Why did I say what I did to her? All I knew was that if Aphrodite's plan didn't work, I would be losing the one thing that mattered more to me than anything else ever would.

Sighing, I managed to fall asleep. Thoughts and sounds of waves crashing along a sunny shore filled my mind. It kept growing louder and louder, until it came to a sudden stop.

I felt someone shaking my shoulders. "Will, come on man. We're here." Said Travis.

I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked down the aisle to the exit.

The flight attendants were smiling around at everyone and saying things like, "Have a nice day." or "Hope you enjoyed the flight."

I was the last one to leave the plane from our group. A flight attendant who looked much older than the rest smiled creepily at me and said, "I hope to see you again."

I shuddered and speed walked to where the others were waiting. I still couldn't get that creepy feeling out of my head.

James nodded at me. "We should get going. It's going to take a while to get to Mount Diablo."

I nodded. "The quicker we get there, the quicker we find the girls."

"We all want to be reunited with our girlfriends." Nico agreed, sighing.

Travis, Connor, and Leo squirmed uncomfortably at the word "girlfriend." They weren't actually going out with Katie, Lou Ellen, and Reyna. But it was no secret that they all had massive crushes on the three.

Jason frowned. "As much as I don't want to go back there after last year, let's head to Mount Diablo."

"Hopefully Enchilada won't be there this time." Leo muttered. I gave him a weird look, but Jason nodded, completely serious.

I could see the tip of the mountain, and we began going in that direction. We walked a few miles without any trouble. Except for the constant complaints.

"I'm tired!" whined Connor, for about the 100th time.

I rolled my eyes. "Nice to know. I didn't exactly understand what you meant the first ninety times."

"Can we get on a bus or something? I'd like to get there before dark, and it wouldn't be smart to arrive exhausted because we walked." Zach said.

"I second that." James said, raising a hand.

I sighed. "You're right. Let's go."

"There's a stop." Connor said, pointing to a tall sign that read Bsu Tspo. I was guessing it probably said Bus Stop.

We walked over and I sat on one of the benches. I pulled a map I got at the airport out of my bag and looked at it.

Feeling dizzy, I handed it to Frank. "You're the only non dyslexic one of us. Please tell me you can read this."

He nodded and looked over it.

We waited for about half an hour. Just as I was about to suggest we leave, the bus pulled up with a silent brake. It was already beginning to get dark, so we rushed onto the bus, not paying attention to that.

I looked at the driver as I was getting on and got an eerie feeling that I'd seen her before, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"Dude, go." Zach said from behind me.

I hadn't realized I'd stopped. I continued on and got one of the seats in the front, with a good view of the driver. If something happened, I'd have the best angle to attack. Something just told me we were in for a night.

The bus slowly pulled away from the stop and began to drive away from the mountain.

"Um… we're going the wrong-" Frank started, getting up.

"Silence! I will not allow this intolerance on my bus! Now sit down!" the driver snarled at him.

My eyes widened as I realized where I'd heard that voice before… the flight attendant… I hope to see you again, she'd said.

I looked at James, who was talking to Leo about something. I continued to stare at him until he finally noticed me and looked over. I widened my eyes, and he got the silent message. He gave a slight nod, and whispered something to Leo.

I sat there silently for a while, waiting until it was safe to attack, without accidently tipping the bus over or anything.

We pulled up a block or two from the mountain and I put my hand on my sword, keeping it ready.

I stood up and faced the others, who were putting their iPods and stuff in their backpacks. "Let's go, we don't have that much time."

I turned around and jumped. The driver was less than two inches away from me.

"You're not going anywhere, darling." She snarled, before turning into a… dracanae. Shit.

The overhead compartments opened up and nine more dracanae jumped out at us. We crawled back onto the seats as they stood in the aisle, glaring at us. I got out my sword and slammed the hilt of it into the window, shattering it. The others followed my example and we jumped out into the cold night air.

Not a second too soon. The bus went up in flames as soon as we left. "Sorry!" Leo called. I rolled my eyes.

"Run!" Zach cried, as the dracanae jumped out of the flaming bus and charged at us.

I ran for a good ten meters, before turning around to find the dracanae hot on my trail, sword in hand. We parried for a few minutes before it began to get serious.

She swiped across my chest and left a good sized cut. I winced. I had to end this, or else we would never find the clue. I faked right with my sword, then brought it around from the left. Jabbing it into the dracanae's ribcage, she dissolved into dust.

The others had almost defeated the rest of the monsters. But I could see more approaching from the remains of the destroyed bus.

"Let's go! There's too many!" I yelled above the noise.

They nodded.

I ran up the mountain, the others right behind me. I could feel burning pain going through my lungs, and my legs ached. I emerged onto the top of the mountain and collapsed on the ground.

I heard a small voice inside my head, Skylar's voice. It was counting down from ten. At three, I looked over to the place where we'd found the flower last winter. A pink note was in its place, but it was slowly fading. My eyes widened and I stumbled up and ran to it. I grabbed the paper and snatched it up just as the count got to zero.

The paper rematerialized and I sighed. That was close. The others ran up to me and stared at me expectantly. I looked down and began to read.

The edge of a platform, just because,

You didn't know who she was.

Seconds away from the end,

Wind never makes a good friend.

Skylar POV

Gods, was I tired.

I rolled over onto my side and fell with a thud. My eyes snapped open.

Well, this was not camp…

I was in what seemed to be the living room of a beach house. Eight other girls were there too, passed out on either the couches or bean bags.

Seph began to stir in her sleep. Her eyes opened and she glanced around at the room before looking at me. "Where in Hades are we?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, but it sure seems better than the Underworld."

She cracked a smile. "I suppose…"

It fell into silence after that.

The beach house seemed calm, a little too calm. Something felt weird, besides the fact that all of us just happened to show up here.

I spoke up. "Seriously, where are we? I'm getting freaked out…"

Suddenly there was a loud thump upstairs. Seph and I looked at each other with wide eyes for a moment before running to the stairs and making our way up.

We came to a closed door.

"I know it came from behind here." I whispered frantically.

"Ok, open on the count of three." Seph whispered back.

"One…" I counted.

"Two…"

"Three!"

I opened the door slowly with a creak, my knife in my hand already. McKenna was standing inside with her back to us, staring out at the ocean through a glass door.

She spun around and began to look woozy.

"McKenna!" Seph and I yelled, rushing towards her.

"S-seph… S-skylar…" she mumbled.

Her sword clattered to the ground and she doubled over, falling to the floor.

I shook her by the shoulders. "Kenna, wake up!"

Seph looked at me with wide eyes. "Quick, get her on the bed."

We carried her to the king sized bed and laid her down.

"She'll be fine for now, let's go down." Seph said.

"Ok, let's see if the others are awake." I replied.

Sure enough, they were. There were quite a few of us here. Me, Seph, Mckenna, and Katie, Lou Ellen, Annabeth, Thalia, Piper, Reyna, and Hazel.

They turned to look at us. "Where are we?" Katie asked.

I pursed my lips. "I'm not sure, but I think McKenna knows. She's passed out right now, so we'll have to wait until she wakes up."

"Guys, I'm starting to freak…" Piper said, "This isn't normal."

"Is this some kind of prison for demigods? They have ambrosia and nectar in the cabinets, all of us are demigods, and the TV says Ήφαιστος on it, it means Hephaestus!" Thalia asked.

"I don't think so, it's far too luxurious to be a prison. Unless whoever put us here is trying to toy with our minds, in which case, it's working." Annabeth said, glancing around, trying to take everything in.

I walked over to the glass doors leading to the beach and tugged on the handles, but they wouldn't budge.

We were stuck here, and we weren't going to be getting out any time soon.

AN: The girl's outfits are on Polyvore. The link's on McKenna's profile. And also, for some of you, reviews won't show because of the new chapter arrangement. But it'll go back to normal next chapter. Shoutouts next chapter to anyone who can tell us where the guys are going next :)

~Nessa, Kayla, McKenna