Chapter Three: My brother is not a cross dresser. Saturday, the sixth of August, two thousand eleven. Connor.

The character names of The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are owned by Rick Riordan. The original content, ideas and intellectual property of this story are owned by Separate Entity, two thousand fourteen. Please do not copy, reproduce, or translate without express written permission.

Content warnings for the chapter Mentions of rape. May contain triggers.

I woke up early Saturday morning. Don't get me wrong; I'd love to sleep till noon as much as the next male, but I had a deadline in three days and there were still a few bugs to work out of this latest string of code.

If you'd asked me three years ago what I wanted to do for a job, computer programming would never have even been on the list. After all, demigods and technology usually don't mix. But I like codes. They're like keys, and being the son of Hermes gives me a bit of an advantage when it comes to keys, locks, combinations, and all that stuff. Plus, compared to reading English with dyslexia, the random scrambles of letters and numbers are almost easy. It also didn't hurt that my dad had kinda invented the Internet.

I headed to my office with a bowl of cereal shut the door and headed to my desk. I was lucky; the company I worked for paid for Travis's and my apartment. I'd probably have to be a criminal to afford it otherwise. And despite my parentage, I had absolutely no desire to get involved in that sort of crime.

My office wasn't much bigger than a standard cubicle. There was a desk with a computer, and reference books and papers littered every flat surface. There was a bookcase on the back wall. But that was where the similarities to a mortal office ended.

The walls were plated in Celestial bronze, to prevent monsters from finding us. Did they track IPs or something? I wasn't sure, but better safe than sorry. The reference books were mostly in Greek. Where most people had bulletin or dry-erase boards hanging from their office walls, I had a full-size shield. And the bookcase housed Travis's and my weapons stash. Above the computer hung three wall clocks, labeled in Greek: the current time in Greece, the current time here in New York, and the current time in San Francisco.

The New York clock read eight fifteen AM—I'd been up for nearly two hours now—when someone banged on my door. "It's open," I called.

Travis poked his head in. "I'm going out."

I looked a little more closely my brother. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had that look in his eyes. I'd seen it often enough over the years. "Nightmares?" I asked.

He nodded, swallowing hard.

"When did you get to bed?" I asked.

"Katie woke up at a little after three. She went to bed at about five, so…" Travis's eyes went to the clock. "I think it was about two hours ago."

"Dude, what are you even doing up?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Can it, Travis! You know I've got work to do. You don't. Get back to bed. Now."

He shook his head. Obstinate bastard. "I need to go pick up a few things. Will you keep an eye on Katie for me?"

"Travis, we need to talk about what's going on with her. Has she told you what happened?"

His knuckles turned white on the door frame. "No. But does it even matter? We know. Hades, she knows we know. You think she doesn't realize we saw the bruises?"

"We should let the mortal police take care of this. We aren't a halfway house for college girls!" I was getting agitated. Katie showing up was bringing back memories that I wanted to keep far away.

"Connor." Travis's tone was different now. "This isn't going to be a permanent thing. A week, tops. Just so she can get a breather."

"You think wherever she's working or going to school is going to tolerate her disappearing for a week?"

"Connor, it's the beginning of August. Schools don't start for another two, three weeks at least."

"Travis, you know that's not the problem."

"Just keep an eye on her, okay? I'll be back in two hours, tops."

"Okay." I sighed. "I'll check on her. I was going to get a snack soon, anyways."

"She's not on the couch," Travis said. "She's in my room." And with that, he left.

In his bedroom? "Obstinate bastard," I muttered. "Obstinate, foolish son of a gorgon."

CUE THE LINE BREAK. IT GOES HERE.

At eight forty five I went to check on Katie, but something made me freeze. I heard a rattling sound coming from the kitchen. I slipped of my belt and snapped it out, watching as it stiffened and turned glowing bronze. I walked slowly, silently towards the kitchen.

What I saw was so unexpected, I nearly dropped my weapon. Katie Gardener was standing at the sink, up to her elbows in soapy water, washing a stack of dirty plates. I waited until she had placed the current one on the towel with the other clean stuff before making my presence known. "Good morning," I said.

I could have shot a gun over her head for the reaction my words got me. Katie spun around, back to the sink, gripping a knife in one dripping hand.

"C-c-connor," Katie said, like I'd just barged in on her in her own kitchen instead of mine.

"No," I said sarcastically. "The name's Sean. Have we met?"

Katie let out a shaky laugh. "Sorry," she said, "I woke up a little while ago and I was hungry and you didn't have any clean forks and Travis was gone and I just—"

"Katie," I interrupted, "slow down. I think there are enough clean forks for now. What would you like for breakfast?" As I spoke I tapped the hilt of my sword three times. It went limp and turned the color of leather. I fastened the belt around my waist again.

"What are my options?" Katie asked, finally putting down the knife.

"Well, let me see," I said opening the pantry. "We have cereal, cereal, and … cereal."

"Do you have, like, eggs or anything?"

"Check the fridge."

She did, and pulled out a cardboard carton. "How about cilantro?"

"What?"

"Do you have a spice rack," she asked like I was two instead of twenty.

I pointed it out to her, and she picked out a few jars. She took a frying pan from a cabinet—how did she know where those were?—and placed it on the stove. "Have you eaten this morning?" she asked me.

"I had cereal," I said, feeling defensive for some reason. Katie let out a snort.

"Sit down, cereal boy," she ordered, and I did. I watched as she cracked eggs into a bowl and then opened one of the spice jars. She sprinkled a pile of green flakes into her hand and closed her eyes. The flakes shuddered a bit on her palm, and a whiff of spice hit my nose. "This," Katie said without preamble, "is cilantro. Its related to parsley." And she sprinkled the flakes in with the eggs.

She did the same with each of the spices, pouring them into her hand, doing a little plant voodoo on them, and adding them to the eggs. Then she scrambled the mixture and poured it into the pan.

"I am swearing off of cereal forever," I said, taking another bite of the eggs. "Gods, Katie, you could put every breakfast place within a five block radius out of business with these eggs."

"It's just a hobby," she said. She was leaning against the counter with her own plate of eggs, eating neatly. "Where is Travis, anyways?"

"He had to go pick up some stuff."

There was a bang on the front door, and before I could so much as blink, Katie had replaced the plate in her hand with a knife.

"Relax, Gardner," I said. "It's probably just Travis. I'll get the door." Was it just my imagination, or did something cross Katie's face when I mentioned his name?

Sure enough, it was my brother. He had a couple bags in his hands. "Hey, Connor," he said, "What's that smell?"

"When was the last time you showered?" I asked.

"Connor."

"Your little friend is quite the chef," I said by way of explanation. "What's in the bags?"

Travis blushed a little. "Clothes. For Katie. She can't just wear our old stuff."

Travis Stoll bought clothes for a girl?

"How do you know what size she wears?" I wanted to know.

"I checked the tag on her dress. It's ruined, by the way. Those bloodstains aren't going anywhere." Travis's face was hard.

I just sighed and shook my head.