Author's Note: Sorry this took so long, people. I was super busy, and I was finishing Secrets & Sleepovers, and writing one-shots, and songfics…one-shots in the forms of songfics. Bottom line: I finally finished this chapter! I didn't change it up too much from the way it was before, but I just made some adjustments for the sake of accuracy, like making Drew the head counselor (and yeah, I know I said this isn't Heroes of Olympus but there are some elements of Heroes that I'm keeping, but not the actual plot. I don't really like writing what's going to happen).

Tell me what you think of this chapter!

Disclaimer: I'm not Rick Riordan.

Chapter 7: Jessica Goes out with the Ghost King

In my dream, I was standing in a dark forest. Snow was falling heavily from the clouds, through the leaves, and onto the ground. It was eerily quiet…not a sound except for the harsh whistling of the wind.

The cold air stung my eyes and bit into my skin. I shivered, feeling like I couldn't breathe. All I wanted was warmth to come and for the freezing feeling in my chest to go away. And for some reason, I had the feeling something was terribly wrong. The hairs stood on the back of my neck and arms.

A split second later, I heard it: an ear-piercing shriek of pain. The sound echoed through the whole forest. Unfortunately, I recognized the voice as Annabeth's. I froze for a few seconds, listening. I heard her moan, and that's when I started to run. I called Annabeth's name over and over. I got no responses.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, I found her. And the sight chilled my blood. Annabeth was lying on her side in the snow, her back to me. Her curly blond hair was covered in icy snowflakes. She was writhing in pain, but it seemed like she was losing strength, which scared me a lot. After a while she became still. The snow was turning dark red around her. I ran straight to her and knelt beside her. I turned her over as gently as I could, so I could see her face. Her eyes were glassy. There was a nasty gash in her side, and by the looks of it, someone had slashed her with a sword and made a deep cut.

"Percy..." Annabeth whispered, barely moving her lips.

"Who did this to you?" I asked quietly.

Annabeth winced. "Percy...don't..." She didn't seem able to finish.

"Don't what?" I urged.

"Don't...trust...her..." She whispered with difficulty.

"Who?" I asked.

Annabeth grasped my hand. "Just...don't..."

She didn't finish. Her eyes rolled back. Her grip on my hand loosened. Her body went limp.

Once again, the silver Athena shroud with the initials A.C. flashed in and out of my vision.

I was jolted awake by a sudden sting in my chest. I was lying in a soft bed inside the Big House. Annabeth was standing over me, wiping the sweat off of my forehead with a cold washcloth.

"Percy." Annabeth let out a breath of relief. "What happened to you out there? We found you shivering on the ground, just like at your school the other day."

I told her about Avery, and her icy sword, and about the mist I'd accidentally inhaled.

Thalia was standing by the door. She was wearing the golden laurels, meaning that her plan of making alliances had worked. "A sword made of Stygian ice?" she asked when I'd finished. "I didn't even know swords like that existed."

"Actually," Annabeth started, "there is one Ancient group of people that do..." She shook her head. "But they're just a myth. They can't possibly exist."

"I said the same thing about the gods. Turns out that Poseidon's my father," I said sarcastically.

Annabeth glared at me. "This is different, Seaweed Brain. This group of people never existed. At least, there was never any real proof. They were just an urban legend." She looked so troubled, and it worried me.

I sat up, too fast. My head started throbbing again, and it made me dizzy. Even so, I manage to drag myself out of the comfortable bed. I placed a hand on the mattress to steady myself.

"Whoa, wait," Thalia said, walking toward me. "Slow down. You sure you can stand yet?"

"Yeah." I nodded, closing my eyes to keep the room from spinning. "I'm going back to my cabin."

"Do you need help?" Annabeth asked.

I shook my head and headed out the door, stumbling only a few times as I made my way back to Cabin Three.

As I lay in my bunk, I thought about my dream. Something was definitely going to happen to Annabeth, and what I saw in my dream scared me worse than anything I'd ever dreamed of before. I was exhausted, but I was afraid to go to sleep. If I did, I might have that dream about Annabeth again, and I did not want that to happen. I took a deep breath, but exhaling made me cough until my torso was completely sore.

"Are you okay?" a voice whispered. A shadow appeared upside-down in front of my face. I jumped.

"Jessica, don't do that. Please." I sighed.

"Percy, what's wrong?" Jessica asked, climbing down from her bunk and sitting next to me on mine. "You've had that cough since you got here."

"I know," I replied. Thinking about it, I'd had this illness, whatever it was, for five days.

"And it hasn't been getting better," she whispered. "It's been getting worse."

"I know," I said again.

"Have you told Chiron?"

"I was...going to," I admitted, "but...I decided to wait, just to see if I would get better."

"You're not better. Are you going to tell him now?" she asked.

"I will...but not just yet," I said. "I'm sure I'll be fine. Usually, with an illness, you get worse before you get better." I tried to believe my own words, but it was pretty difficult.

Jessica faced me and stared at me for a long time, but I couldn't read her expression in the dark. I doubted that she believed me, but she just nodded. "Well..." she said finally, "I hope you get better soon." She pulled herself back onto her own bunk. I spent the rest of the night with barely an hour of total sleep.

The next day, everyone was busy asking each other to the dance. It seemed to be an even bigger deal than the Fourth of July fireworks, and everyone was frantic for a date. At lunch, Travis Stoll stood on top of the Hermes cabin and asked an Aphrodite girl with dark, curly hair named Mona. I didn't know her very well, but apparently Travis liked her a lot.

She smiled at him. "Sure, I'll go with you," she answered. The Hermes cabin erupted in cheers.

Travis's brother, Connor, tried to ask Drew Tanaka. She was the new head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin, but she was the exact opposite of Silena Beauregard. Drew was one of those girls who wore way too much makeup and had way too much attitude, and sat staring at her reflection during capture the flag. No one at camp really liked her that much, honestly, but somehow she had this weird way of getting what she wanted, just by asking for it.

Anyway, Connor tried to ask her to the dance. He stood on the bench at his table. "Hey, Drew, wanna go to the dance with me?"

Drew turned at the sound of her name, but after Connor's question, she looked like the last thing in the world that she wanted was to go on a date with him. "Um, sorry," she replied. "You might want to try someone else, honey." That was another thing with Drew. She called everyone "honey." I didn't understand why.

Instead of cheers, there was laughter, and a lot of "Ooo's" and "Ohhh's" around the pavilion. Connor sat down, blushing, and I felt a little embarrassed for him.

Jessica shook her head. "What is that girl's problem?"

I shrugged. I was still feeling pretty awful, and I wasn't really hungry. I just kept circling my plate with my fork, half-heartedly putting food in my mouth every few minutes. I was just so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open. My cough was getting worse and worse, and my head felt heavy, and my stomach was turning, and all I wanted to do was go back to my cabin, climb into bed, and take a nap.

My sister looked concerned, but she didn't say anything about it. Instead, she asked, "Have you asked your girl yet?"

I frowned. "You mean Annabeth?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, I meant me," she said sarcastically. "Yes, Annabeth! Have you asked her yet?"

My frown didn't go away. "I have to, like, formally ask her?"

My half-sister looked at me like I was completely crazy. "Uh, yeah," she told me. "No wonder she calls you Seaweed Brain."

Wait…so I had to formally ask my own girlfriend to a dance? That didn't make much sense to me. "Wouldn't it be assumed that Annabeth was going with me, since she's my girlfriend?" I asked Jessica.

She shook her head solemnly. "Nope. You know what they say about assuming: when you assume, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me.' So get up and go ask her."

I'd never heard that expression in my entire life, and I was a little bit offended by it, but looking over at the Athena table, watching Annabeth laugh with her siblings, then steal a glance at me and wink, I knew I had to ask her formally. Knowing Annabeth, she'd never let it go if I didn't. She'd scared me enough when we weren't dating. Now that we were, I couldn't mess that up. "I'll ask her at the campfire tonight," I decided out loud.

Jessica just shook her head. "Cutting it close, dude," she muttered. But she didn't argue too hard.

At the campfire, I sat next to Jessica. We sang some really cheesy campfire songs and toasting marshmallows and doing your typical campfire stuff. I tried to enjoy it, but I was seriously starting to feel sick. I went into a fit of coughing so bad that I actually started to feel nauseous.

Jessica glanced over at me. "Did you tell Chiron yet?" she asked.

I shook my head, unable to answer verbally because of all the coughing.

"Did you ask Annabeth to the dance yet?"

I shook my head again. Finally the coughing stopped.

"Get up and ask her now."

"Not now."

Jessica stared at me for a second, then stood up. "Excuse me! Excuse me, everyone!" she called out.

The Apollo kids stopped singing. The rest of the campers stopped talking.

"Annabeth Chase!" Jessica called.

Annabeth looked around at everyone, then back at Jessica. "Yes?" she asked hesitantly.

"My brother Percy has something he wants to ask you."

I glared at my little sister. But since I was being put on the spot, I had no choice but to stand up. I could feel my cheeks burning. I leaned down and whispered in Jessica's ear, "I'll deal with you later." Then I looked over at Annabeth. "And Annabeth," I said, "Would you..." I trailed off, then took a deep breath and continued. "Would you go to the dance with me?"

It looked like Annabeth blushed, but maybe it was just the firelight. Either way, she smiled and said, "I was waiting for you to ask. Of course I'll go to the dance with you, Seaweed Brain."

I breathed a sigh of relief and sat down again as the rest of the camp cheered and whistled. I sat next to Jessica.

"See?" she whispered. "Easy, right?"

"Yup. Just remember that what goes around comes around," I replied.

Jessica smiled and winked at me. The weird thing was, I wasn't mad at her. Despite being almost insufferable, Jessica was a pretty cool thirteen-year-old girl. She was the first person I'd ever met who actually understood what it was like to be a demigod child of Poseidon. Not that I didn't love Tyson. I mean, I'd been through so much with the big guy. But he just wasn't a demigod.

I smiled back at my little sister. She really wasn't as bad as she acted.

"I just have one question," I said to her, "just so I know you're not being hypocritical. Did anyone ask you to the dance?"

Jessica blushed and stared into the flames. "Yeah, so?" she answered quietly.

"So who asked you?"

She kept her eyes on the campfire. She didn't say a word.

I nudged her with my shoulder. "Come on," I urged.

Jessica flipped her blond and blue-streaked hair out of her face. "You really want to know?" she whispered.

"I wouldn't be asking if I didn't want to know."

"Fine." She looked at me with those sea-green eyes. Her irises looked gold in the firelight. I wondered, off-hand, if my eyes looked the same to her right then. "I was asked to the dance by..." She trailed off, looking away from me.

"Who?" I asked once more.

Jessica gave a little smile. "That Son of Hades, Nico di Angelo."

Yup. I paired Nico with an OC. Why not? Everyone deserves someone. And I love Nico. This was really just a filler chapter with a sprinkle of obvious foreshadowing. I hope you liked it! More exciting stuff is coming up! And I don't have Secrets to work on anymore, so I promise a faster update. I don't promise that update in the next week, though…sorry. I'm too busy next week. But as soon as I can work on it, I'll update.

By the way, Drew's last name really is Tanaka. She's in Kane Chronicles and her last name was mentioned. So I didn't make that up. Just so you know.

Um…yeah. Oh yeah, and I'm probably going to be working on my Valentine's Day at Camp Jupiter with PixieKindOfCrazy…but I am not sure when I'll be updating that, because both of us are pretty busy. I like that story a lot, so I really want to work on it. But for now, I'll try to work on this one a little more.

Thanks so much for your love and patience!

Reviews are very nice and make me smile :)

~Mandi2341