Emma Myers' eyes shot open as she woke up from her nightmare, heavily sweating.

She kept having the same nightmares over and over again. In fact, it was more of a memory playing without end. She was with Max, in the Long Island Sound, when a daughter of Athena and a son of Ares came and took him brutally, taking him from her. They said it was his fault and all of the other childs of the Dark Gods that people were disappearing, and that from now on, he wasn't welcomed any longer in Camp. They didn't even left him enough time to say his goodbye to Emma and to his friends, or to take his stuff from his cabin. The daughter of Iris wanted to leave with him, but the demigods had set up a night patrol stopping them from leaving, saying it was "for their own safety". She had tried to leave multiple times, everytime being caught. Her heart was filled with sorrow, not knowing where her boyfriend was, fending off monsters and trying to stay alive. She completely fell into despair when the cabins of Erebus, Nyx, Thanatos and so on were destroyed, replaced by auxiliary cabins to the Olympians. She grew sick of what felt like an occupation, and one night, she joined Olivia Serenity Steele, Jenna Mallory Winkel, Robyn Walsh and Aurora Aldenberg at the outskirts of the camp. She had a small backpack with her important belongings, but not much. She didn't knew where they would go, but she couldn't stand spending anymore time in Camp.

Aurora Aldenberg, the daughter of Ares, took a pair of smoke grenades she smuggled out of her cabin and threw them near the camp's boundaries, masking them from the sentinels. The girls all rushed forward to freedom, and danger. Emma regretted nothing. She was going to find Max, her Shadow Boy.

Two mounths later

"Emma, wake up."

The daughter of Iris groaned and covered her face with her pillow to hide her eyes from the sun. Jenna just woke her up to continue their march toward Fort Hoft, the place where Max lived before camp. The daughter of Iris knew he hated his place, and Jenna knew it too. But they had to check if he was there. And they had been told they would find answers there.

Iris told them this. The goddess paid the group a visit when they were in Manhattan, telling them that the minor gods and the dark gods were furious against the Olympians, and that they needed to regroup the different now-outcasts. They would find in Fort Hoft the answers to how they would manage to regroup the now scattered demigods.

Yawning, the ginger strectched her arms before getting up. Jenna was already packing her stuff, and once she got dressed, the two of them packed her tent back up. It had been a gift from Hermes: the god of messages was the protector not only of the thieves, but also of the merchants and the travellers. The tents revealed to be comfortable, their sleeping bags warm, as the nights of this november were fresh.

After a few hours of walking through the hills, to go faster than just following the road who had to get around all the natural formations, the group of demigods reached Fort Hoft. Jenna couldn't help but frown; she knew from Max the place was a mess, but at this point? It was around mid-day, and some junkies were already wasted in the streets. By the corner of her eye, she saw a police patrol, and even if she wasn't familiar with this kind of thing, she knew that they sure as hell weren't allowed to wear kevlar vest and hold M16 assault rifles. They seemed more like an occupation force than anything else.

Meanwhile, Aurora was looking at the town's map, trying to find the cemetary, and frequently glancing around to check if anyone was tryign to approach them. But the expression on her face kept away the thugs searching for easy preys, kowing they didn't wanted to mess with her. While Jenna and Emma constated how Max's life there must had been terrible, Olivia was doing bubbles with her chewing-gum, being rather bored.

They soon reached the cemetary, who was completely empty, save for a couple of gothics. The two seemed almost out of place, being happily holding their hands while sitting on top of a grave. This city was rotten by the manipulative power of the rich, plagued by the violence of the thugs and the local mafia. And yet they were there, happily spending some time together. However, as the two goths spotted the group of girls, they got off the grave and prepared to run away, and they would had, if something didn't catch the boy's eyes. He suddenly stopped, and hesitantly approached the group, uneasy. His girlfriend followed closely behind, protectively placing a hand on his shoulder as she gave the four demigods an inquisitive look.

"I don't know how the hell you got that, but this, that you have right here, is most definitively Max Farraday's symbol." Aurora, Jenna and Olivia turned to Emma, who looked down at her necklace. It was a gift given by Max for her birthdy a year ago, and it was representating a skull in the middle of the mark of Chaos, something Max liked referencing to. Emma was about to speak, but Olivia was faster. "Yeah, and who the hell are you? What if it belongs to Farraday?"

The two gothics exchanged a look, before looking back at the girls before them.

"You might want to hide that... last time Farraday was seen, it was after shooting Antonio Anders, the richest guy in town."