Sorry, it has been over a month since I last updated. Happy late Thanksgiving, late Merry Christmas, and Happy Inauguration Day! I didn't have a lot of time for anything but homework. Seriously, my life revolves around homework. Anyway, this is the longest chapter I've written so far. Thanks to DogsAreAwsome, Holly Chase, and ILoveWillRiker for reviewing for the last chapter. I really appreciate it.

Anyway, hope you like the story!

Thalia's POV

I was glad that I had decided to turn back and get our backpacks. At first, I thought that I would find Luke right away. But of course, it didn't work out like that. So I decided that I needed to bring the supplies with me.

Turns out it was later then I first suspected. I had guessed that it was noon, but it was truly at least five o'clock.

The sun was already setting and there was a bitter wind stinging my face. I stopped in the shade of a bush and unzipped my pack. Inside were a few clean changes of clothes, a thermos of water, a few days' rations, a rain jacket, a regular jacket and, at the very bottom, my leather jacket. I took it out at put it on. I was warm again. Well, my face wasn't. It did nothing to keep my face warm. I shivered and ducked my head into the leather collar as a sharper wind stung my face.

I smelled something familiar in the air. It smelled like how it smells just before it rains. It was not a good sign. I needed to find Luke, and soon. I needed to find him before it rained.

I picked up our backpacks and went deeper into the forest. I didn't stop until I reached a clearing.

"Luke?" I called, "Luke, are you there?"

There was still no answer. I was starting to get very worried. It was about to rain, he had missing for hours but now, and it was getting darker by the minute.

"Luke?" I called into the empty clearing.

As I bent down to get our backpacks, I remembered something. I unzipped Luke's backpack and looked inside. His dagger wasn't in there. That meant he was armed.

Suddenly, the bushes to my right moved. I zipped his backpack closed, slung it onto my shoulder with mine, and readied my spear in one movement.

"Luke?" I called hopefully.

I heard a low, unhuman growl coming from the bushes. I backed away and went to touch aegis on my left wrist when I heard the bush behind me move too.

I spun around and saw Luke. I had thought that when I finally found him, I would yell at him for not waking me, then going off by himself. Instead, I just felt relieved that he was ok.

I opened my mouth to say something to him, but he beat me to it.

"Thalia, you won't believe what I- Hellhound!" Luke said to me.

I cursed under my breath and spun around. I had got distracted when Luke appeared that I had forgotten the thing in the bush behind me. That's when I realized that I had never activated Aegis.

I activated it just in time. A huge black dog a little bigger than an army tank came out from the bushes. How the bushes hid it all, I have no idea, but I didn't have time to think of that right now. Luke ran up beside me. He had his dagger in his hand. He looked sideways at me.

"Look, I'm sorry, but you won't believe what I found, I"- he started, but I cut him off.

"Later, we'll talk about it later!" I shouted.

The hellhound came running towards us. Its beady black eyes glared at me. As it came closer, I pointed my spear at it and yelled. Electricity shot out of the tip and hit the hellhound in the side. It yelped and retreated into the shadows. As I watched it retreat, Luke yelled out from behind me.

"Look behind you!"

I spun around and saw an even bigger hellhound. I charged towards it with my spear and yelled again. Electricity zapped the hellhound left paw and it yelped, but it still kept running towards me. I lifted my spear higher and zapped it again. It didn't even yelp this time. I raised Aegis as it charged towards me.

When it was only a few yards away, it leapt into the air and Luke ran towards it. In one slash, the hellhound was reduced to dust.

"Thalia, look behind you!" Luke yelled again.

Before I had time to turn around, I was knocked to the ground. I felt claws slash my shoulder, and my shoulder exploded with pain. My vision was blurring. The weight on my back disappeared, but when I tried to stand up, I saw stars, and fell back down.

I put a shaking hand on my shoulder to try to stop the bleeding. The blood had soaked through my leather jacket. I ripped it off, annoyed. I gasped in pain as the cold air hit the wound. It felt as if someone had set my shoulder on fire. I didn't to look at it, scared with what I'd see. I could feel something oozing down my back- my own blood.

That's when I heard Luke's voice. "Thalia?" his voice was full of concern.

"Luke, I'm over here!" I called.

I propped myself on one knee, or at least tried to. As soon as I did, a pain shot through my body, and I collapsed in agony. My head spun, and it felt like I was about to throw up. Then, I heard feet running towards me.

"Thalia, oh my gods, what happened?" Luke said as he knelt down next to me.

I couldn't see straight, and when I tried to turn my head to look up at him, my shoulder exploded with pain. I shut my eyes tight as the pain subsided.

"Thalia, I need to stop the bleeding." I heard Luke say.

I opened my eyes. My vision was back. I nodded my head, very slowly. I closed my eyes again, feeling like my skull was going to crack in two. I felt Luke gently move my arm. He slid a jacket under my bleeding shoulder and gently tied it together so that it stopped some of the bleeding.

"Did that hurt?" Luke asked.

"No" I said, even though it was starting to hurt.

I slowly sat up. Luke stood up and held out his hand. I grabbed it with my good hand and stood up. I staggered and Luke steadied me by grabbing my good shoulder. He picked up our backpacks, which I had dropped a few feet away.

"Are you ok? You sure you can walk?" Luke asked me.

I'm sure." I told him. To prove it, I took a few shaky steps, but Luke hand was still on my shoulder.

"Lean on me" Luke told me.

I leaned on him, and he put his arm around my waist to support me better.

I remembered last night, when he had touched me, I had blushed and acted like I little girl. Looking back now, I felt like throwing up at how I acted. I thought that I would never do those things. I felt stupid now. I snorted at the memory.

"What?" Luke asked, turning to look at me.

"Oh, nothing," I told him. To change the subject, I asked him, "Oh, by the way, what did you want to talk about?"

"I found this abandoned warehouse full of stuff that we can use." He said. "It has food too, so after we get to camp we can go there. I don't think the tent will hold against the storm that's coming."

"Yeah, but why were you gone so long?" I asked him.

"I had to make sure that there were no people there." Luke answered.

We limped into our camp and I sat down outside the tent.

My ripped, bloody jacket was still in my hand. I threw it down angrily. That leather jacket was my last one. My first one had been burnt by a drakon, which I mistook for a dragon when I first meant one, but they are NOT the same. The other one had been left behind in a cave that we had stayed in for four nights before we figured out that the cave belonged to a bunch of psychotic homeless guys. Now this one was ruined.

Fuming about my jacket made me forget about my ripped shoulder, momentarily. My shoulder burned like it was on fire when I moved it slightly. I hissed in pain.

Luke came out of the tent with a canteen of nectar. Nectar is a drink of the gods. It heals almost everything, but if you take too much, you can burn up, literally.

Luke knelt by me and trickled a small amount of nectar on my shoulder. It stopped bleeding and most of the blood disappeared. My shirt was still covered in blood.

"We should get you to a hospital; you've lost a lot of blood." Luke told my worriedly.

"Luke, if we went to a hospital now, they would what to know why two minors are on their own, and why one of them has a shoulder that is ripped open." I told him, mentally rolling my eyes.

"You have a point, but you did lose a lot of blood." Luke told me.

"So? I'll be fine." I told him.

"Okay, but sleep for a little bit. It'll make you feel better," Luke told me. "At least do that."

I opened my mouth to protest, to tell him that I wasn't tired, but I did feel dizzy. So I closed my mouth and nodded to him.

"Okay." I said reluctantly.

I crawled into the tent and laid down on my sleeping bag. I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep.

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