Regrets collect like old friends,

Here to relive your darkest moments,

I can see no way,

I can see no way,

And all of the ghouls come out to play,

And every demon wants his pound of flesh,

But I like to keep somethings to myself,

I like to keep my issues strong,

It's always darkest before the dawn.

- Shake It Out, Florence and the Machine

There is a moment in this chapter, where I describe one of Reyna's moves as 'tic-taced off a wall'. This is a parkour move where the person side jumps off of a wall. Reyna is an overall badass in this one, and my inspiration for her is Tauriel from the Hobbit (because I ADORE her and I adore Reyna so why not?). Hope you all enjoy! As always, thank you for reading, and feel free to leave comments, or like, or follow. Or just read, that's cool too :). Ya'll are the best :)

We were standing in an alleyway next to the hotel where the auction was being held. "Ok, how do we get in?"

"We should've gotten some clothes from the Amazons," she said. Skippy nickered behind us. "Shh boy. We'll be fine."

Great, now Skippy was part of our thing. "Why do we need clothes?"

She raised her eyebrows at me. "You want to go to a shady, but none-the-less fancy, auction looking like a homeless person?"

I finally took a good look at our clothes. There were burn marks and holes in both of our outfits. "No wonder that bus driver didn't want to let us on the bus," I said. "But we're not going to auction."

"So then how, o prodigal son, do you propose we get into the auction?"

"We're not going to the auction."

She raised her eyebrows at me. I pointed up. The garbage chute was right above us. "Awww man. That's low even for me," she complained.

"What? Little Miss High-and-Mighty can't handle some garbage."

She pouted. "The things I do for acceptance." She stepped a few paces back. "Give me a boost," she said, grinning.

I frowned at her, not sure what she was talking about. Then she started running straight towards the big, garbage bins, and I understood. When she jumped, I used the air currents to push her higher. She landed on top of the bin, crouched, and jumped again. Again, I forced the air currents to push her upwards, and she landed in the chute. She looked down at me. "Coming Saving Grace?" I smiled slyly and took off, using the air currents to push myself straight into the chute next to her, landing in a superhero pose."

She rolled her eyes. "Show off!" The she punched me and said, "We make a pretty good team though."

"Ow," I said, rubbing my shoulder. "If we're so good, why'd you punch me?"

"It's preferable to hugging you."

I rolled my eyes, and she smirked at me. "After you, oh Great Master of Air," she said, bowing to me.

"God you're such a dork." She grinned. I started up the chute, she right behind me. "You're much happier now," I commented.

"It feels good to be so close to success. It's just adrenaline."

"You're too focused on the end and less on the journey. You need to be more focused on the journey, oh humble pupil."

She snorted. "Yes Master Air. I will remember your sagely advice." I turned around and grinned at her, and she shoved me playfully. For the first time in my life, I felt content. Here I was, walking up a garbage chute with someone who infuriated me most of the time, and I was content. Reyna didn't look at me like I was her Saving Grace. She just looked at me as a friend, an equal. She didn't need me. She could've probably gotten this slab all by herself, but she looked at me to help her. Not save her, help her, and that was refreshing. She was new and refreshing. Damaged, yes, but there was something peaceful about being around her. About being around someone who looked at me, and didn't see my dad, but me. And then I realized something.

"You chose me," I whispered.

"What?" She frowned at me.

"You chose me!" I repeated, louder this time.

"Are you okay? Maybe I gave you too much ambrosia."

"No, back when you volunteered for this quest. You chose me then."

"I told you already –"

"Yes, you said you needed to prove something to yourself, but you chose me to help you. You let me in." I said triumphantly.

She looked at me like she was trying to glare at me, but again, there was that terror right underneath. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

I grabbed her left shoulder. "Look, you don't have to talk about anything. Whatever's going on with you, take your time. But if you need someone, I'm here."

She scoffed and moved away from me. She had put her walls back up. I was afraid that I'd just pushed her away. I didn't want that. I wanted her to be around, to be close. I needed someone like her in my life. Someone who saw me, because I was afraid I would lose myself in other people's illusions.

She kept walking and I followed her in silence. I frowned, something didn't feel right. "Isn't it weird that this garbage chute is so big? Like how many garbage chutes do you know that are this big?"

She didn't reply, just kept walking. Finally we got to the end. "There's your answer," she said, pointing down.

I looked down and saw about a dozen cyclops working in the kitchen. "Since when do cyclops cook?" I whispered.

She shrugged. "They're good with their hands. Maybe that extends to cooking." She squinted at a sign straight in front of us. "The Temple of the Sky Hotel – Kitchen," she read.

"The Temple of the Sky? Think they'll like my dad?" I said.

"Doubt it," she said. She was gripping her hunting knives tightly, her shoulders set, preparing for a fight.

"Hey," I said, grabbing her shoulders and turning her towards me. "We'll be fine."

She scrunched up her nose. "That's our thing now, isn't it?"

I grinned at her. "You bet your ass it is!"

She took a deep breath. "Let's do this." She looked around. "What we need is a distraction. We don't want to attract attention to ourselves."

I grinned. Distraction, huh? Coming right up. I concentrated on the air in the room. Then I bent my will over it, forcing it to blow pot covers, spoons, knives, vegetables, a turkey, and cooking utensils all over the room. She turned towards me and I heard her say, "Are you doing this?" I didn't respond, it was taking all my concentration to keep the objects afloat. The cyclops screamed and ran, chaos reigning in the room. Two of them ran into each other and fell to floor, knocked unconscious. I willed some of the utensils to fly after the other cyclops and they fled the room.

Reyna didn't miss a beat. She jumped down from the chute and headed for the exit sign. I followed her. Once we were out into the stairwell, I let the winds go and the sound of crashing metal reverberated around us. She ran down the stairs, turning back only to say, "That was brilliant!"

I grinned at her. "Master Air at your service."

We found another door, pushed it open, and found ourselves in a long hallway leading to a set of really big, really golden doors. "Where do you think that leads to?" I asked.

"Probably somewhere fancy. Maybe fancy enough to host an auction."

We crept towards it. I didn't like being here. It was too open and too cagey at the same time. If someone were to burst through either door we'd have nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. If they wanted to fight, well, I just hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Obviously, the world needed to prove me wrong. I was just reaching forward to touch the door when Reyna shouted, "Look out!" She grabbed me by the back of my neck and pushed me down, covering my body with hers. I heard a loud thwack and looked up to see a dagger sticking in the door, right where my hand was a second ago. "Why do people keep throwing things at us? What happened to a good old fashioned brawl?" I grumbled.

She rolled her eyes at me. "We can take it up with them later Master Air. Let's just take 'em out first."

She jumped to her feet and bent her knees, preparing to spring at them. But there were so many of them. There's no way we should've gotten through. I stood up behind her. "Reyna, there's no way."

She just smirked at me. "Watch and learn pretty boy."

Two monsters –two dracaenae – slithered towards us ahead of their group, pulling out long, cruel swords, and hissing to reveal sharp, venomous fangs. I pulled out my gladius and held it in front of me, getting ready to attack. Reyna ran forward. One of the two slashed at her with her sword, but Reyna dropped to her knees, spun on them, slashed with one hunting knife across the dracaenae's stomach, and came back up under the other's guard, stabbing her through her neck. They both disintegrated into dust. Then she ran, tic-taced off the wall to her left, jumping over a laistrygonian giant and his javelin, spun around in mid-air, wrapped her knees around his neck, twisted and brought him to the ground. She slashed her knife into the leg of the giant behind him, pulled it back, stabbed the laistrygonian she was choking, got up and threw her knife into a hellhound at the back. She left a pile of dust in her wake and she had done it, it felt, in less time it took for me to blink. She was still slashing through monsters and I finally came out of shock, parrying swords with my gladius, ducking slashes and, occasionally, getting the lucky kill shot. I turned around to find another dracaenae raising a sword over my back, but before she could do anything, sand spilled out of a gaping hole in her stomach. When she melted away, Reyna was staring at me, chest heaving, eyes wide open. One of her hunting knives lay at my feet, where the dracaenae had just been standing. I hadn't even had the chance to raise my gladius to defend myself.

"Thanks," I muttered. She strode towards me, bent down to pick up her knife, and pushed past me.

"Now let's see what's behind this door."

We finally pushed it open. It led into a big ballroom with floor to ceiling windows on three walls. The light of dusk filtered through the window painting our faces salmon and purple. I looked at Reyna. Her brown eyes looked darker and were open wide. They had that same fire I had seen a few days earlier when we had sparred. I was about to ask her about that, when she said, "There!"

She ran over to a line of glass cases to our right on top of a stage. There were four other items in addition to the slab. An old Roman helmet, a Spartan shield, an old anvil, and a sculptured phallus.

I walked over to the phallus, feeling the heat crawl up my neck and my face. She walked over to me and smirked.

"You're all red."

"Why would they just have that lying around?" I sputtered.

Her smirk deepened. "Sex toys."

I looked at her and I must have looked pretty scandalised because she laughed. "Gods, you're so innocent Jason. Ancient Romans saw male genitals as symbol to ward off evil. Penises were everywhere in Ancient Rome. Outside people's doors, on the walls of people's homes and public buildings, even over babies' cribs." I stared open-mouthed at her. I wasn't sure what to say to that.

"How do you know so much about this stuff?" I finally managed to ask.

"Because I read," she said, shrugging in an off-hand way. She was walking towards the slab. "Let's just get it and go. Before someone comes and tries to stop us." She reached into the case and pulled the slab out.

"Weird," she said.

"What's weird?" I said, coming over.

"No lasers, no traps, no guards. It' like they're begging us to steal it."

I took the slab from her and shoved it into my backpack. "Can we please worry about it being too easy when we get out of here? I really don't want to fight anymore right now. Maybe we already took out the security."

She shrugged. "Okay." We managed to make it back to the kitchens without too much trouble. When I pushed open the door, the place was a mess, and the cyclops still hadn't come back.

"They're not very committed to their jobs, are they?"

"This is too easy," she said.

"Relax, everything will be fine." We climbed into the chute and picked our way back to the alleyway. Unfortunately, everything just could not be okay. The alleyway below us was crowded with monsters, of every kind. There was no way we could fight our way through this.

Reyna was about to step out in front of me, but I pulled her back. "There's too many."

"Come out come out, children," a voice called from below. I looked out to see a man with a cruel face and a cropped haircut grinning up at us. That grin sent shivers down my spine. Reyna stepped up next to me.

"What do you want?" she shouted.

"Oh come now child. Give me the slab and I will protect you from this horde of monsters. My lord Kronos has commanded that we protect the child of the Big Three. He believes you can help us do important things."

"Yea right. So you'll save me and shred my friend to pieces. No thanks. I'll take my chances," I shouted back.

"Don't be a fool boy," he snarled. "You've nowhere to run. You go back, the cyclops will hand you over to me. And don't think they'll be so fooled by flying dishes again." I gulped. We'd walked right into a trap. "Hand over the slab and nobody gets hurt."

"No," Reyna said firmly.

Something flicked behind the man, and I barely had time to flatten myself against the wall of the chute, pulling Reyna against me, when two sharp spikes flew past me. "What the-?" I said.

"Manticore," she said grimly. She stepped back out. "I thought your boss told you not to hurt Jason Grace. He won't be pleased."

The manticore snarled. "It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of inflicting pain on puny demigods. You'll forgive me if I seem a tad bit excited."

Reyna's face hardened. In the evening light, it looked almost cruel – a darkness swirling in her eyes. She raised her hands. "Fine you've got us!"

"What are you doing?" I whispered.

"Trust me," she said, her eyes pleading with me. That darkness was still there though, and it made me afraid. She jumped down onto the bins and then down in front of the manticore. He grinned cruelly at her.

"See that wasn't so hard. Now give me the slab." She pulled her backpack off her shoulders and held it out to the manticore. He reached towards her, and as his fingers closed around the straps, she grabbed his hand. He tried to pull away, but she held on tightly.

"You like pain, beast? Then let me show you pain." I could see her pressing her fingers into the manticore's wrist and suddenly, he began to howl. I covered my ears. That howl was filled with so much pain, so much hurt, it felt like ice was growing from the inside of my heart, boring through the rest of me. But I couldn't block out all the screams of torture coming from below – the manticore wasn't the only one screaming now. I looked down at Reyna – there was black smoke curling off of her, stretching like hungry, greedy fingers towards the monsters that were like fodder. One by one, the black smoke consumed them, not leaving even a speck of dust behind. Finally, Reyna let go of the manticore. He was on his knees, whimpering, eyes red with pain.

"You tell your master this. Tell him we're strong and we do not fear him. We will not surrender to him." The manticore didn't move. "GO!" she yelled. He whimpered and scampered out of the alleyway. We were alone.

I remember how afraid I was on our way back. How could one little girl have so much pain – so much so that it was enough to disintegrate an entire army. I wanted to ask her, I wanted to reach her, but I didn't know how. She was exhausted – her shoulders sagged, her own eyes were red, and they weren't their usual brown – but she was also so distant. I knew she didn't want to talk about it. So I just wrapped my arms around her waist, squeezed her, and whispered, "Thank you for saving us," before falling asleep on her shoulder.