Hello! I'm back, and again it's been a month since I updated. My teachers have started reviewing for AIMS. Yes, already. My teachers want us to be "ready" for the testing, and it's in April! Anyway, this chapter is the longest one I've written so far. I hope you guy like it!

Oh, and thanks to my reviewers: ILoveWillRiker, PugLover830, and candyland7! I really appreciate it, you guys! To ILoveWillRiker, I'm glad that you love the story, your review made me smile. And to answer candyland7's question, it will be this chapter that they meet Annabeth.

Some of the quotes are from The Last Olympian and The Demigod Diaries. I used them only because they are great quotes and I couldn't word it any better. They belong to Rick Riordan, not me.

Anyway, here's the chapter. Hope you guys like it! Please review!

Thalia POV

I woke up with another headache. I've been getting these a lot lately.

As I rubbed my forehead to try to get rid of the headache, I accidently elbowed Luke in the face. He sat up quickly.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to hit you" I told him, my eyes shut tight in pain.

"Are you ok?" He asked worriedly.

I shook my head. "It'll go away soon." I told him.

As I rubbed my head, Luke got out of the sleeping bag to make breakfast. He's cute even when he wakes up. I thought. Wait, what? I shook my head vigorously to get rid of that thought. It didn't help my headache though.

Once my headache had gone away, I got up to go next to Luke, where he had made a fire.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," he said back, "do you want something to eat?"

"Sure, wait, there's food here?" I said incredulous.

"Yeah, if you consider chips food" he told me, holding up a crushed bag of potato chips.

"Sounds good to me," I nodded at him.

Luke opened the bag and poured the contents into a dented bowl he had been carrying in his backpack. You couldn't really call what fell out chips. More like chip powder. But I wasn't going to argue. I took a handful of the powder and poured it into my mouth. My eyes watered at the amount of salt.

"Very, very salty," Luke spluttered. His own eyes were watering up.

"Yeah," I coughed out.

After we had finished the chip powder, we decided to look around.

Luke was right, there were a lot of supplies for us to use. Where we were going to put it all, I had no idea. After what I guessed was a half an hour, we had found matches, a new tent, a first aid kit, new backpacks, blankets, and more crushed stale chips. All of this was covered in a layer of dust.

"Well, these are not going to fit into our backpacks," Luke said, after we had spread out all the supplies around us.

"You think?" I said sarcastically, rubbing my sore, dirty hands on my equally as dirty jeans, "Maybe we should clean up, then we can figure all this out," I said, gesturing at the supplies.

"Great idea," He agreed.

I stood up and went over to where I had laid out my clothes to dry. Luckily, they had dried. I stuffed them into a new backpack. I turned around and saw Luke looking through the supplies on the far wall again.

"Luke, we already have all the supplies we need, so why are you-"I started, and then stopped when I saw what Luke was holding in his hands. In one hand he was holding a stack of towels and in the other he was holding what looked like bottles of shampoo.

"Well, let's clean up," He said simply, "there's a bathroom with a shower at the pool we can go to."

I noticed my mouth was open. I closed it quickly. "Where did you get shampoo?" I asked, looking at the bottles in his hand.

"Over in the corner we didn't look in yet" He answered, inclining his head to the corner he had found the shampoo in. "Well, let's go"

He grabbed his backpack, threw it over his shoulder, and walked out the door. I quickly grabbed my backpack and followed him.

When I caught up to him, I asked, "Wait, where is the shower?" Without words, he pointed across the street. I saw a brick building right next to the pool. "When did you have time to check that out?" I asked.

"Remember you said I was gone I long time?" He said. I nodded. "Well, I looked around, you know, to see what was around us, and I found that."

"Oh," I nodded in understanding.

Once we reached the building, we found out that the gate was locked. I looked at Luke expectantly.

"What?" He asked me.

"Can you…" I started, gesturing at the lock.

He frowned, but after a few seconds his shoulders slumped and he nodded.

Luke had a kind of power, being half god and all. Like I had had the power to control and call lightning, Luke had some powers to be able to unlock locks, doors, and the occasional trapdoor. I knew he didn't like to use his power, because it was a power he got from being a son of Hermes. He resented his father, because he had left and never visited him or his mother. I felt the same way. My father had left me with my unstable mother and a baby brother. He only visited once, and he didn't even talk to me, let alone look at me.

Luke's power came in handy, even though he didn't want to use it.

I look over at Luke. He brushed his hand over the lock and it clicked open. He took it off and opened the gate.

"Are you coming?" he asked. He handed me a towel and a bottle of shampoo.

"Yeah" I told him, following him inside the gate.

Once we got to the showers, I looked at the shower. I hoped that it actually had running water. I stepped in, expecting either no water or ice cold water. Instead, it was warm water. Wow we've been having a lot of good luck lately; first we find the warehouse, then we find the shampoo, then I take an actual warm shower.

Don't get too used to it, Thalia. I thought. Knowing our luck, we would have to run into a hoard of monsters sooner or later. This was too good to be true.

After twenty minutes, I reluctantly got out of the shower. Once I had gotten dressed, I met Luke outside.

"Ready?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said, "do you have any idea where we're going after this?"

"No clue, but we can probably stay in the warehouse for a couple more days before the monsters find us again." He answered.

"Yeah, but we better be ready, in case the monsters find us sooner." I told him.

"Yeah, you're right, but let's find something to eat first." He said after a while.

We went back in the warehouse. I started to go through the supplies lying on the ground while Luke went over to the nearest store to get something to eat. Apparently he had found some money by the pool showers.

Once he got back, we decided that we would keep the tent, the matches, the first aid kit, and the new backpacks. The blankets would just weigh us down, and we already had sleeping bags.

Once we had packed everything away, we sat on the ground to eat the sandwich that Luke had got.

Halfway into my sandwich, I heard a faint metal ping from outside. I whipped my head around to look at Luke. Judging by the look on his face, he had heard it too. We weren't alone.

"Something's close by," Luke said. "And I have a feeling that it's not a regular mortal."

"What do think it is?" I asked, slowly rising to my feet.

Luke pulled out his dagger, and I tapped my bracelet. It expanded into Aegis. I grabbed my mace can and that expanded into my bronze spear. We crept outside. Luke pointed wordlessly to a pile of metal at the end of the alleyway.

I frowned. I whispered, "Are you sure?"

Luke nodded. "Something's down there. I can sense it."

Suddenly, there was a loud clang. We slowly walked towards the metal. We stopped when we were right over it. Luke motioned for me to hold back. Then he mouthed, one, two, three!

When he lifted the metal, a little girl in flannel pajamas flew at him with a hammer. Before he got hit in the head, Luke grabbed her wrist and the hammer fell to the cement.

"No more monsters!" she screamed, kicking Luke in the leg. "Go away!"

"It's ok!" Luke said, struggling to hold onto her. "Thalia put your shield away! You're scaring her!"

I unfroze. I had forgotten that I still had my shield and spear out. I quickly put them away.

"Hey, little girl," I said gently, "It all right, we're not going to hurt you. I'm Thalia. This is Luke."

"Monsters!" she screamed.

"No," Luke said gently, "but we know all about monsters. We fight them too."

"You're like me?" she asked, still suspicious.

"Yeah." Luke said. "We're... well, it's hard to explain, but we're monster fighters. Where's your family?"

The girl's expression turned angry. She couldn't be more than seven. She had tangled blond hair and stormy, intelligent, gray eyes. She was definitely a demigod. I had a feeling that she was going to be very powerful.

"My family hates me. They don't want me. I ran away." she said.

My heart felt like it had shattered. I heard pain in her voice that was too familiar. I looked at Luke, and we silently made a decision. We would take care of this girl.

I knelt in front of the girl, and put my hand on her shoulder. "What's your name, kiddo?" I asked.

"Annabeth."

I smiled. So did Luke. That name seemed to fit her.

"Nice name," Luke said, "Annabeth. You're pretty fierce. We could use a fighter like you."

"You would?" Annabeth's eyes widened.

"Yeah," He said, before pulling his dagger from his belt. "How'd you like a real monster- slaying weapon? This is Celestial bronze. Works a lot better than a hammer."

Annabeth took the knife gingerly. She studied it, her mouth gaping slightly.

"Knives are only for the bravest and quickest fighters." Luke told her. "They don't have the power of a sword, but they are easy to conceal and can find weak spots in your enemy's armor. It takes a clever warrior to use a knife. I have feeling your pretty clever."

"I am!" Annabeth smiled. I laughed and messed her hair.

"We'd better get going, Annabeth," I told her. "I have some clothes and food for you."

"You're…you're not going to take me back to my family?" Annabeth said. "Promise?"

Luke knelt down and put his hand on her shoulder. "You're part of our family now. And I promise that I won't let anything hurt you. I'm not going to fail you like our families did us. Deal?"

"Deal!" she said happily.

"Now come on, let's get you cleaned up." I said, leading her inside the warehouse.

I will probably be updating around the 15 th, because that's the end of the school quarter. I also will, for sure, be updating around the 25 th, because of Spring Break.

Thanks for reading! Please review!