So I know I haven't updated all summer and I am sooo sorry. My computer had a virus for a long time and it took one and a half months to get it fixed, and then my internet broadband stopped working right. On top of that, my friend introduced me to the Mortal Instruments, so blame her. Sorry!

Because I haven't updated in more than two months, this is a very long chapter, well, for me anyway. It's more than four thousand words.

Thanks to my reviewers, Kendrix D. Brandon and ILoveWillRiker! Thanks so much for your reviews. Hopefully you guys don't hate me, but I don't blame you if you do.

Anyway, here's the story, hope you like it.

Thalia's POV

We tore through the forest as fast as we could. We didn't even know if any monsters were even following us, but we weren't going to stop and give them time to catch up to us.

"Do you think they'll follow us?" Luke asked me over Annabeth head as we ran.

I didn't answer him for a minute. Then I turned towards him. "Once they figure out they didn't kill us yet," I told him simply. "That's when we should start to worry."

He nodded in agreement. "Thalia, do you think—"

Suddenly, Annabeth screamed. I grabbed the back of her jacket and pulled her out of the way just in time as a burning tree fell in front of us.

I looked up to see what happened and cursed. The fury that had attacked Annabeth earlier was now flapping ten feet above my head on its bat-like wings, cackling at us in glee as she cracked her whip, which sent sparks to the nearby trees and set them on fire.

"Now," I muttered to Luke, "Is when we start to worry."

I tapped my bracelet and it spiraled outward, expanding to its full size just in time as monsters came crashing out of the forest. I turned around and slammed into a dracaena. It went cross-eyed and slumped forward onto my spear.

"Thalia!" Luke yelled, turning around and drawing his sword and sliced at the dracaena surrounding him.

"No, just go! I'll cover you from behind!" I commanded, as Luke turned towards me.

Luke gently pushed Annabeth in front of him and ran, and I followed close behind, brandishing my shield behind me to fend off the monsters that I knew were in shadows.

We ran as fast as we could through the forest. I could still hear the monsters shrieking behind me and the glowing of the spreading fire, and I knew that we couldn't stop just yet. I didn't have a clue where we were going, but we needed to get as far away from the monsters as we possibly could.

After what seemed like forever, the shrieking started to fade away, but I knew we couldn't stop now. I pushed on, going even faster now, my lungs burning.

Annabeth stumbled slightly and I caught her, holding her gently in front of me. Luke saw this and panted, "We just need to go a little further!"

I nodded at him in understanding.

After a few minutes, Luke called, "Over here!"

He turned sharply and Annabeth and I followed him, and I narrowly missed running head-first into a tree.

The trees started to thin out in front of me and I breathed a sigh of relief when we walked out of the woods and came to an abrupt stop.

Then I saw the familiar red brick building with the pealing sign that read: RICHMOND IRONWORKS. The brief feeling of relief dropped out of my stomach and left an empty feeling in its place.

I turned towards Luke, trying to stop the annoyance boiling up inside of me. I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, Annabeth asked, "What are we doing here again?"

"That's what I would like to know!" I snapped, annoyed. "Why are we here Luke, what if there are monsters here? Why didn't you tell me we were coming back here?"

Luke looked at me, and said calmly, "We need to get more supplies."

"Oh," I mumbled. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking." This is exactly what made him mad at you in the first place. I scolded myself silently. I still didn't quite believe that he wasn't mad at me about yelling at him, and I didn't want him mad at me again.

"It's alright, but we need to hurry." Luke told me.

Annabeth walked to the warehouse quickly and I started to follow, but Luke grabbed my arm.

"Thalia, I didn't want to tell you before, but the nectar and the sword weren't the only… well… non mortal stuff in that building." He whispered.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean, there was more stuff for demigods in there," He whispered, so quietly that I had to lean closer to hear him. "That's why I brought us back here. Maybe there are things in there that we can use."

"Thalia, Luke! Are you coming?" Annabeth asked, walking towards us.

I looked up at Annabeth. "Yeah, we're coming!" I called. I lowered my voice and leaned closer to Luke. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I thought it was a trap," He told me. "And when I showed you the weapons that I found, you seemed to think the same thing. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to worry you anymore than you already were."

I sighed loudly. "Luke, if you thought that it was a trap, why didn't you just tell me? I get that you didn't want to worry me," I said quickly as Luke opened his mouth to argue. "But you could have at least told me after we got out of that warehouse."

"A lot of things happened after that and I just… forgot about it." Luke admitted.

"Oh." I nodded in understanding. "Well in that case, we probably can use some more weapons."

"That's what I was thinking."

"We also need food." I pointed out.

Luke nodded in agreement again. "Yes, we do. We only have a few more days' worth, if even that. I don't know if there's any more food in there, though, but we better hurry."

"And Luke," I added. "Next time you come up with an idea like this, tell me first."

He smiled. "Of course."

That's when I realized how close Luke and I were. Our foreheads were almost touching. I coughed and moved back a few steps. I really, really hoped my face wasn't as hot as it felt.

Without looking at Luke, I turned and followed Annabeth into the warehouse.

When we walked in through the door, it did not look like how we left it. There were deep gouge marks in the floor as though something had been dragged across it. One of the shelves had fallen over, leaning precariously onto the others, so that one wrong touch and all of it would come crashing down. Everything on it had been scattered around the room.

I exchanged a look with Luke. It seemed like he was thinking the same thing I was: This can't be good.

"Okay, we only need to get what we can carry easily," Luke told us as we walked carefully to the back of the warehouse and started looking through the shelves.

"So that means no tent this time," I finished for him.

"No tent," Luke agreed.

I looked around and found a melted plastic crate full of what used to be metal. I nudged it slightly with my foot and bent down to look at it closer. It didn't look like regular metal. The pile was still giving off heat, and it glowed faintly golden. Celestial bronze.

"Luke, come look at this!" I called.

"Yeah?" He answered, coming out from behind the shelves.

"There might be no more weapons left," I told him, gesturing at the melted pile. "It looks like the monsters found some of it."

Luke caught my eye. He looked confused for a moment until he saw what I was showing him. Comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh, no…" He muttered.

"What's this?" Annabeth suddenly exclaimed.

I turned around and saw Annabeth looking at a large, rusty, and broken freezer. Luke and I walked up beside her. The strange thing I noticed about it was that it was the only thing in the room that didn't have a thick layer of dust on it. I looked at the lock: it was rusted shut.

Luke drew his sword. "Stand back," He said.

He hit the lock and it cracked easily. I got a grip on the lid and tugged.

I looked inside and gasped. There were weapons inside, and I could tell by the faint golden glow that they had that they were Celestial bronze weapons.

"Well, I don't think the monsters found these weapons," Luke stated, looking at me out of the corner of my eye.

"I did say they found some of it," I defended myself.

Annabeth looked confused. "What are you talking about?" She asked.

"Oh, nothing," I lied.

Luke turned towards me and inclined his head towards the freezer. "Come on," He said. "Let's see what we found."

All three of us looked into the freezer. Many of the weapons were broken.

Luke moved a bent sword out of the way and asked, "Can you use a bow and arrows, Thalia?"

"I don't know, I've never tried," I told him. "Why?"

As an answer, he pulled out a bow and a quiver full of arrows. "Should we take it?"

"I probably can use it—yeah, we'll bring it—it doesn't look that heavy," I agreed.

I looked back in the freezer, and shifted through the broken weapons. After a few minutes, there was a large pile of weapons and other things that we could use at our feet—a bow and arrows, a tin box of ambrosia, a few bottles of nectar, an extra sword, and a few stray javelin tips.

"Well, I think that's all," Luke informed us.

"Let's see if we can find a few sleeping bags," I told them. "We'll be able to carry them."

Luke nodded in agreement. We walked to the shelves and started looking through them.

"I found blankets too," Annabeth said, as I pulled three sleeping bags out from under a shelf.

"Yeah," Luke agreed, holding up a kerosene lamp and blew dust off it. "We might need these; hopefully they'll fit in our backpacks."

After a few minutes, I had the sleeping bags and the blankets in my backpack, along with the javelin tips. I had the bow and arrows on my shoulder. Luke had the lamp and the sword, and Annabeth had offered to carry the nectar and ambrosia in the backpack that we got her.

"Where are we going now?" I asked Luke as I he helped me force the last sleeping bag into the already overflowing backpack.

"I was thinking we could go to our old hideout on the James River," He whispered back. "But we need to make sure that we're being followed."

"Yeah," I agreed, and then I remembered a very important detail that we all forgot about. "But first we need food."

"Where should we look?" Luke asked. "Last time we were in here, all I could find were those old chips, and we took them all with us. And we left them in the tent."

"Maybe there was some that you didn't find," I said hopefully, but I doubted it.

"Maybe," Luke said, shrugging his shoulders. By the tone of his voice, I could tell he doubted it too. "And it couldn't hurt to look. What could go wrong?"

Famous last words, I thought, but I nodded, agreeing.

"Okay, we haven't looked behind there real good," He nodded towards the back of the warehouse. "We'll look around there."

He got up and I followed. We ducked underneath the weak shelves, careful not to touch them.

I stood up from the floor and brushed off my jeans. I looked up and saw that the whole wall was lined with shelves. The shelves were filled with rusty metal tin cans and old, wet cardboard boxes.

"Well, I'll take this side," I said, pointing to the far right shelves, and then I pointed to the opposite side. "And you can take that side."

"That'll work," Luke stated, and then went to work pulling cardboard boxes off the shelf and opening them.

I walked over to the far right shelf and started pulling boxes off the wall.

As I removed the last box, something sticking out from behind the back of the shelf caught my eye. I ran my fingers along the shelf expecting to feel smooth metal wall, but instead felt bumpy metal. I looked closer and sure enough, I saw metal hinges.

I grasped my fingers underneath the other side of the shelf and pulled. The shelf gave away a few inches.

I gasped. "Luke, come here!" I called franticly.

Luke dropped the box he was holding and spun around quickly. "What?" he asked, startled.

"I think I found a do—" I said, but was cut off by Annabeth's scream followed by a large crash.

"Annabeth!" Luke and I cried out as we spun towards the sound of her voice.

Luke disappeared underneath the leaning shelf and I followed close behind him.

I wasn't watching where I was going. My foot hit a can, and it rolled out from underneath me, sending me crashing down to the floor.

I grabbed the shelf to pull myself up, forgetting that it was unstable, and everything on it rained down around me. I scrambled back on my feet, grabbed my mace canister—which I had dropped when I fell—and ran out of the way just in time before the shelf collapsed.

Luke and Annabeth were back to back in the center of the room, surrounded by hoards of monsters, about to be overwhelmed.

I needed to give them time to get out.

I tapped my bracelet and it expanded to full size. The hellhounds in front of me sensed me and turned around, and a few lunged at me, then tried to back away when they saw Aegis, but I didn't give them time.

I swung my spear tip towards the ground, imagining electricity coursing through me, and hoping that what I did before happened again. Sure enough, I felt the same feeling of pins and needles being pressed into my skin. When I opened my eyes, electricity was making the air around me hum.

The monsters franticly backed away from me, trying to avoid the electricity. I ran towards them and raised Aegis, with the electricity still crackling around me. By the time the electricity stopped, only a few had made it out the door.

I turned towards Luke and Annabeth. When I saw them, the triumphant smile that had been on my face slipped away. Luke was supporting Annabeth, who was very pale.

"Luke!" I called worriedly. "What happened?" Then I saw that Annabeth had her hand clamped over a spot on her left arm and I realized she was injured.

I grabbed Annabeth's backpack off of the floor and quickly grabbed the nectar out of it. I ran towards them.

"A hellhound got her before I came," Luke explained as he carefully set Annabeth on the floor.

I knelt beside her and trickled nectar onto the single large cut that ran from her shoulder to her elbow. The cut began to close as soon as the drink touched her skin. Within a minute, the cut was fully closed and the color was back in her face.

"Can you stand?" I asked her. She nodded and took my outstretched hand and pulled herself up. I turned to Luke. "We should get going before more monsters find us."

He nodded. "Yeah, let's go." He picked our backpacks off the floor and handed mine to me.

I put the nectar back in Annabeth's bag and handed it to her. I followed Luke out the door.

Luke led us into the forest, and soon the clearing was left far behind us. The trees got thicker the further we went, and I bit down on tongue to stop myself from pointing out that we were trying to get away from the forest, not trying to go farther into it.

Through the small gaps in between the trees I could see that the sun was setting. None of us had realized how late it was.

Luke stopped and leaned against a tree. "Let's just take a short break, then we'll keep moving."

I nodded and sat down next to him, leaving enough space between us for Annabeth.

I breathed out, closing my eyes and leaned back on the trunk of the tree. Annabeth leaned against me and I put my arm around her.

I heard a slight rustle in the bushes to my left and I tensed. My eyes shot open. Luke jumped at my sudden movement, and his eyes shot open too. Annabeth lifted her head of my shoulder and tensed beside me.

We jumped to our feet as the bushes exploded and hellhounds and various other Underworld creatures jumped out.

I quickly looked around. There were too many to fight them, so there was only one thing to do.

"Run!" I screamed. I wrapped my left arm around Annabeth, with Aegis on my right. "Run!"

Luke followed behind us as we dogged around trees and plants. The woods, which had been silent a few minutes ago, were now full of the sound of monsters crashing through the trees towards us.

"Get them!" the fury screeched behind us. "Get—gah!"

I looked over my shoulder and saw that the fury's wings were too big to fit in the gaps between the trees and got wedged in between them. I laughed. Luckily for us, all the other monsters chasing us got stuck behind it. Hopefully they would stay that way.

We slowed down when we couldn't hear the monsters anymore. After a few minutes, the trees started to slowly thin out around us. I fell back next to Luke and Annabeth followed.

"Where are we going?" She asked, hiking her backpack higher up on her shoulders.

I looked at her. "An old hideout that Luke and I made." I told her.

We continued through the forest the rest of the night, but soon it got too dark to see ahead of us even with the glow of Luke's sword. We decided to stop and rest for the night. We left early the next morning at sunrise.

We had been walking through the forest for what seemed like hours, when Luke pointed ahead of us.

"We're close," Luke informed.

I looked where he was pointing. Through the trees, I could see the river that spread out in front of us.

"We'll find it if we just follow this," Luke told us, and led us to the bank of the river.

I nodded. We had following this same river a few months ago, trying to shake off the monsters that had been following us. Luke and I found that if we walked in the river we wouldn't leave a trail. We had spent that whole day walking through the river, until we came to a small bank. We had stopped there and we had found the cave. Luke had camouflaged it, and we had stayed there a few weeks before we moved on.

"Are we going to walk through the river?" Annabeth's question jarred me out of my head and back into reality.

I don't know," I said truthfully. I looked at Luke. "Should we?"

"Yeah, I think we should," Luke told me. His expression told me that he liked that idea as much as I did. "We need to, in case any monsters catch up to us. We don't want to leave a trail they can follow."

I nodded, wishing that we had another choice. I followed Luke into the river, and winced when I felt the cold water seep into my shoes. Having wet shoes were uncomfortable and irritating. Annabeth gasped when she stepped into the water. I knew exactly how she felt.

After a few hours of sloshing through the river, we finally came to the familiar small bank. We got out of the water, fast.

When Luke camouflaged the cave, he had taken branches and woven them together into a door. It blended so good with the surroundings that the only way you could tell it was there was if you knew where it was, and if it was open.

We went a little way away from the bank and stopped at what looked like a pile of brambles, but I knew better. Luke pulled it, but since it had rained a few days ago, there was mud around the door. The three of us pushed the mud out of the way, and pushed open the door.

The hideout was exactly how we had left it. The floor was covered with old leaves that Luke and I had put there. There was a small ice chest in the corner, filled with a few pairs of clothes and a few jackets.

The three of us settled down in the shelter. We hadn't been here in a while and we needed to fix it up a bit.

"Ok Annabeth," I turned towards the little girl. She looked at me quizzically. "Do you want to help fix this?" She nodded eagerly.

"Ok," Luke said, pulling himself off of the ground. "Let's make this door stronger. And get rid of these leaves."

I nodded, and we when to work gathering leaves and branches. Annabeth helped me spread the leaves across the ground, while Luke wove the branches into planks. Together the three of us pushed the planks over the opening and fastened one side of it to the stone. It was a lot stronger that the old one, and it blended into the surroundings better.

"Wow," Annabeth's eyes were wide and curious.

"Great job, kiddo," I told her and she smiled up at me. I high fived her.

"Can I go in?" She asked, excited.

I laughed. "Of course."

"Well in case this isn't enough, I'm going to stay up and guard it, ok?" Luke told me after Annabeth went into the hideout.

"Luke, you need sleep!" I argued.

"I'll be fine," Luke reassured me. "You're the one that needs the sleep."

"But—"

"Thalia," Luke said, holding up a hand.

"Fine," I huffed. I turned and went into the shelter.

I sat down on my sleeping bag, but I had no intention of actually falling asleep. My mind was too awake. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the cold stone wall, thinking.

As far as I knew, all demigod dreams were, well…vivid. I had asked Luke about it when I first met him, because I had thought I was crazy, and he had told me that he had regular nightmares. But he never told me that he saw future events in his nightmares.

I still remembered the dream I had had a few nights ago, with Annabeth in it. Before we had even met her. I hadn't thought about it until now, but it confused me. Why would I dream about someone who I hadn't even met yet? And none of that had ever happened, so did my mind make it all up?

I knew there was something I was missing, and then I remembered that there was also another person in the dream that I didn't know. I had never seen him before, and I couldn't remember his name. So much had happened in eight days that I had forgotten.

And another thing was bothering me too. Why had all those weapons been in that warehouse, and how the heck had they got there? Had the gods finally answered our prayers and put those weapons there?

I snorted at that thought. The gods never helped us before, why would they give us weapons?

I shook my head to clear all my confusing thoughts. My eyes found Luke's back. I needed to think about him too. He had been the main person I had been worried about; the other things were just minor problems.

The more I thought about it, I realized that I still thought he was mad at me. It was like walking on glass around him. One wrong move, and everything would break.

I would lose the one person that I care about most in the world. That one person used to Jason, but I had I lost him. I didn't want to lose Luke too. I didn't know what would happen to me if I did.

I needed to talk to him.

I walked over to where he was sitting by the opening of the shelter. When he heard me, he turned around and asked, "Couldn't sleep?"

"Yeah," I said quietly. He moved over so I could sit next to him. "I'm sorry that I yelled at you." I told him.

Luke's eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. "You were worried, and you already apologized for—"

"No, I'm not talking about that." I said quickly. "I'm talking about when you went to get us more supplies and I snapped at you before I even knew what was going on."

Luke laughed. "You already apologized for that, and besides, you had the right to—and don't say you didn't," Luke said quickly, because I had been about to interrupt him. "Because I didn't tell you where we were going and I should've. I should've told you that there were weapons in there, and I didn't. So yes, you had the right to be angry at me."

"You're my friend, and I should've asked what you were doing before I just—"

Luke leaned back against the stone wall and frowned lightly. "And, you know, I think this has to be the most times I've heard you apologize in the last few days. Ever since I yelled at you, you've been apologizing to me left and right. I told you, I thought you were angry at me and I didn't know why, so I got mad. I don't want you to think I'm going to get mad every time you yell at me. I don't want you to apologize every time you yell at me, because most of the time, I deserve it. So please don't act like I'm still mad at you, because I'm not."

At his words, it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my chest. "Really?" I asked him.

"Yeah," He said softly, smiling slightly. "And like I said before, you wouldn't be you if you didn't boss me around."

I laughed. He held out his arms and I leaned into them.

Since the worry that had been keeping me from falling asleep had disappeared, I now felt very tired, and Luke's arms felt very comfortable. I felt my eyelids drop, and everything went dark.

So there's the chapter. I really wasn't expecting it to be so long, but I did it bit by bit, and it just got really long.

And a big thank you to the readers who haven't given up on me, even though I did say that updates would be more frequent over the summer. Please review, if you want.