Next chapter.

162 reviews? Holy crap.

Think we can get to 200 reviews in the next three chapters?

This story is winding down. I am thinking around twenty chapters. This is, of couse, subject to change~

I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or The Lost Heroes Series. If I did, I would not be living in suburban Queensland.

If you happened to be watching the back of the house on Beachwood Avenue, you would have been treated to a strange sight, unrolling like a play on a stage. You would have seen a man crawl into a window, in his hand clutched a wickedly sharp knife gleaming in the moonlight. You would have seen the window close, and all would have been silent again.

Five minutes later, you would have seen the ground shake, and you would have seen cracks run up the white painted wall of the house where the window the man climbed in was located. You would have seen the wall disintegrate, showing the bedroom within. If you'd crept closer, you would have seen the man who'd crawled in the window swallowed up by a huge spire of earth. You would have seen two others, a girl and a boy, run into the room and flick on a light. You would have seen the woman on the bed surrounded by crimson blood.

You would have seen the man stoop over her, feeding her something that looked like a golden brownie. You would have seen the girl carefully extract the knife at the same time, and both of them carry her out of the house, into an anonymous sedan that was parked on the street outside. You would have seen them drive away without headlights, rounding the corner at twice the legal limit.

And you would not have been alone.

Annabeth awoke in the darkness. It was probably better this way, because she had a splitting headache, her side was incredibly sore, and the darkness wrapped around her like a comforting blanket.

She was lying on something soft. What it was, she didn't know, and she didn't care. She just knew that it was soft, and that she would sleep easily on it.

She curled over, hunching in on herself, and closed her eyes.

The window sliding open. The light footsteps of the intruder. His shadow along the wall. The incredible pain. He'd been caught, but it was too late.

She flung off the bed, eyes open, crying out in fear as panic drove her around the room, trying to find something, anything, to banish the darkness, the darkness that her imagination had made her enemy.

There, on the wall. Something. A protrusion. A light switch, perhaps. She flipped it as though her life depended on it. Maybe it did.

The switch was for the light, and Annabeth breathed a sigh of relief as the chandelier in the centre of the room flickered to life, hundreds of candles erupting into flame.

Magic.

So wherever she was, it wasn't normal. This hypothesis was also confirmed by her surroundings. She was indeed in a bedroom, though not one she knew. The walls were marble, shot through with gold, cold to touch. The floor was also marble, covered with thin rugs to ward off the chill on one's feet. The bed was large, lying on the side of the room, and there were shuttered windows, blocking out any light.

Annabeth's aches and pains returned along with her conscious thought. No longer driven by the entirely rational fear of her ex-boyfriend, she crossed to the windows, unshuttering them.

It was dark, but the sky and the terrace around her were filled with light. There was laughing, and the tinkling of wine glasses. Gardens and beautiful buildings clung haphazardly to the hill, and Annabeth knew she was in Olympus.

Feeling dizzy, Annabeth crossed the room again and turned off the light. The candles flickered out as though snuffed, shrouding the room in a darkness that was punctured by light and faint noise from outside. Not enough light to fully banish the shadows, but enough to see. Satisfied, Annabeth went over to the bed, climbing in and closing her eyes, turning her back to the wall and letting the calm feeling of finally being safe wash over her.

A knock on the door woke her.

Her headache had lessened considerably, but her side still hurt, which was strange, considering that when she checked it, there was no physical trace of a wound. She opened her eyes slowly and called out.

"Who is it?"

The door opened, and Thalia stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She was still dressed in clothing from the previous night—or what Annabeth guess was the previous night, though it could be nothing of the sort—which was stained with dark red blood.

Her first question was meant to be 'What happened?' However, when her lips form the words, they somehow morphed into 'Did you get him?'

Everyone in the room knew who the him was.

Thalia sat down on the bed next to Annabeth.

"Yep, we did," she said. "He's in a cell beneath the building."

"Why did they put him in a cell?" Annabeth asked, confused. "He hasn't done anything wrong…"

"They decided it would be safer," she said, "Considering he bit one of Poseidon's servants on the arm."

"Oh. Right. So, when are they interrogating him, then?"

"Right now. The curse has lessened a little bit. He hasn't tried to kill anyone yet, though of course, they're not taking any chances. I think that they'll be able to determine what if he is acting on his own free will. It's fairly obvious that he isn't."

Thalia stood up, pulling Annabeth up beside her. "How's your side?" she asked.

Annabeth winced. "It's quite sore, actually. What happened?" If there was one thing Annabeth hated, it was no knowing. It drove her nuts. Probably a trait that was passed on from her mother.

"Percy managed to hit you with that knife, after all," Thalia said. "Nico fed you some ambrosia, and it sustained you long enough to get you here. Apollo did the rest. According to him, the pain will go—very suddenly—in a day or so."

Annabeth nodded. "Where are we going?"

Thalia blinked in surprise. "We're going to see him. Duh."

I am deliberately keeping this story at around 1000 words. I prefer to give my readers short, sharp doses twice as often as my other stories' chapters.

Not much longer left to go in this story. May I remind you that not all the fates of heroes are happy. I, myself, are going to flip a coin to decided whether this story will have a happy ending or not. Death threats will most likely change my mind to the opposite of what you won't. But don't let that sway you; they amuse me greatly.

November Rising