Location Unknown

He sighed. Apollo was lucky to have an ex-girlfriend like Kate Matthews. She was so… beautiful.

Who knew Hermes could have a cute daughter, let alone one like Kate? He thought.

Her eyes tightened and her hands went into fists. He stood up as he got a text from her – the lady who fell in love with him then ditched him because he died and went back with the other him, that dufus. He picked up his phone. She said:

Don't tell her your name or where she is. According to my future man, she's pretty smart and she'll try to get stuff out of you.

He sighed. Something's never change about her thinking he's stupid.

Got it.

He set his phone down and walked over towards her. She looked at him confused, but she looked dizzy. He brushed her hair out of her face, but she never took her eyes off of him.

"Who…" she tried, but he pressed his finger against his lips.

He reached over and picked up a syringe. He pushed it in her arm and put it in her. Kate fell back asleep, laying her beautiful side of her face on the pillow, relaxing. He sighed and leaned down and kissed her cheek.

Apollo might have had her for six months, he thought, but I'll have her for the rest of her life. She'll never think of that Apollo god ever again.

St. Helena, North Carolina

"This is too good to be a mortal kidnapping," Artemis said to Apollo, who was standing aside looking at the tree where Kate and he met all of the time with that guilty look in his eyes. "It had to be something to do with a monster – a Cyclops, maybe – that came and got her."

Artemis looked over at Apollo to see him touching a carving in the tree, running his finger in the carving. She sighed.

"Did you even hear me?" she asked.

"Huh?" he said the same guilty look in his eyes.

"I found something!" Aphrodite called.

He about sprinted towards her. Artemis followed, not running, but jogging a little behind. Aphrodite was holding up a red keyboard phone that had a Browning sticker on the back. Apollo grabbed it out of her hand quickly and looked at it. The screen was cracked and it had scuff marks on the edges. He tried to turn it on, but nothing happened.

Apollo sighed and stuck it in his pocket. "Great; it doesn't work."

"Sorry," Aphrodite said, batting her eyes at him. He wasn't even paying attention to her. The sun barely shown today because of Apollo's gloomy mood. She laid a hand on his shoulder. "We'll find her."

He sighed and walked away toward the tree. Artemis glared at Aphrodite.

"Seriously?" she said. "His girlfriend's missing and you have to flirt with him?"

Aphrodite rolled her eyes. "Please," she said, "don't hate me because I can get a guy while guys don't like girls who kill things. It's wrong and more of a manlier thing."

Artemis pulled her fist back to hit Aphrodite, her blood boiling, when someone caught her arm.

"Whoa, Sis," Hermes said. "Chill."

Artemis shot Aphrodite a look then put her arm down. "Find anything inside?"

"The peach cobbler that Lisa made, the ice cream in the freezer…" he said.

"No, about Kate!" Artemis said. "She's your daughter, remember?"

"Yes! And no, I didn't."

She sighed. Lisa walked up, and slipped her hand in Hermes's. She looked worried and nervous for Kate, but she put on a strong face and tried not to let it show. He squeezed her hand.

"We'll find her," he promised her.

She nodded. "How's Apollo?"

"Mad, worried, sad – just look up," Artemis said.

Aphrodite was twirling her hair, looking around innocently. Artemis knew she was hiding something about Kate, but she wasn't going to accuse her until she could prove it.

"I'm going to go talk to Apollo," Artemis said. "Hermes and Lisa, you guys can go around town where she would go. Aphrodite… go stare at yourself in the mirror."

Aphrodite frowned at her and walked away, her fingers flying on her iGod 4Z, the new phone that Hermes invented last week. The Z stood for Zeus, only because he got a little jealous that the first one was iGod H for Hermes and then the next was iGod 2H for Hephaestus that helped make it. Plus it got Hermes brownie-points with Zeus.

Hermes and Lisa got in Lisa's truck and drove off without a word. Artemis walked over to Apollo and found him sitting under the tree, fiddling with something she couldn't figure out what it was. It opened up, but he glanced up and saw her walking towards him and he quickly closed it back and stuck it in his pocket. Artemis sat next to him.

"We'll find her," she said, gripping his hand. "You said she always had a weapon on hand, right?"

He nodded.

"We've been searching this place for two hours and we haven't found a weapon anywhere. That means she still has it."

"Or that they killed her and took her weapon as a trophy," he muttered.

She elbowed him in the gut.

"OW!" he said.

"Don't think like that," she snapped. "Anything else about her I need to know?"

He was reluctant. Artemis was persistent, though.

"She told me a few days before she disappeared that she hated being stuck in this little town," Apollo said. "Kate said that she wanted to move somewhere that everybody didn't know who you were, or what you were doing at every second of every day."

"You think she might have ran off?" Artemis said. "Planting the phone, taking her weapon?"

"No!" Apollo snapped, his eyes suddenly becoming hard and cold. "She might have wanted to do something like that, but she's not like that. You don't know her like I do."

There was a nagging feeling in Artemis's gut that Apollo was trying to convince himself that Kate didn't run. That's what Hermes and his kids were known for: running. But the look in his blue eyes made her not say a word. First, she'd have to find out what that thing was he was playing with.

She nodded. "You're right; I don't. But no matter what happened, we'll find her."

Aphrodite grinned. When Apollo and her got together, Artemis would have to go. She reached in her purse and pulled out Kate's real phone. They were so easily fooled – especially Apollo. The sticker was so country it wasn't funny. Getting the phone was easy; when she had express shipping from Hermes-Express, the snakes delivered close to instantly.

Of course, it couldn't look like it was in new condition, so she threw it on the ground a couple of times, took the other real non-cracked phone, put it in her purse, and lied.

Did they think Hermes was the only one who could lie or something?

Aphrodite was hidden with her back behind a huge tree listening in on the two. So Kate wanted to leave St. Helena… This was just getting better and better.

Aphrodite snuck away silently until she was sure she was out of earshot from anyone or anything. She pulled out her iGod 4Z and dialed his number.

"Hey, I got some leverage for you to use on her," she said. "I need you to send someone to make it look like…"