Piper McLean P.O.V.

I lay in my hospital bed, cross-legged with Leo doing the same on the opposite end of the bed. We sit casually, playing a card game, waiting for someone to come tell us what happened.

My wrists are bandaged heavily and it still hurts to do too much with them, let alone move them. Leo's head was wrapped, same with his arm. I wondered what happened to him, but he said even he didn't know what happened to his arm. The girl that was "babysitting" us said not to take the wrap off, but Leo will find a way around those orders, I'm sure of that.

The girl left in a hurry a few minutes ago though, saying she had more a important matter to deal with, but she'd be back in a little while to check up on us.

"You got any fives?" Leo asks me.

"Go fish," I answer and he grabs another card from the pile. "Got and queens?"

Leo must have half the deck in his hands by now. How he doesn't have a single pair in all of those cards amazes me. I think it's just because he doesn't know how to play. He sighs and hands over his queen. I place the two cards into my stack.

Suddenly, the door to the infirmary bursts open, and Percy and Annabeth rush in.

"C'mon," Annabeth says to us. "We're getting out of here."

"Where will we go?" I ask.

"We have to go find Frank and Hazel. No one knows where they are," Percy says.

"Percy," Leo says, "do you remember anything from last night?"

"No, why?"

"Uh, nothing." Leo quickly shuts up.

"Guys, we can talk about this on the way," Annabeth states. "But now, we have to go."

Leo and I shot out of the bed and ran with them out of the building. We made it all the way to the strawberry fields without being seen. We almost got away too. Almost.

"Where do you think you're going?" a camper comes at us, yelling. "You're supposed to be in the cells!"

"Oh gods, run!" Annabeth shouts.

We do as she says, being chased into the forest by the small mob of campers. We make it all the way to Zeus' fist before finally being caught by none-other-than Chiron himself.

Percy and I ran into him... literally. We smacked into his horse half, falling to the ground hard. Percy holds his head as if it's hurting and I rub my wrists as they sting from the effort of physical activity.

We both stand again, noticing Frank and Hazel standing just beside Chiron. Hazel keeps looking over at Frank as if she thinks he'll go psycho at any moment. She and Leo were the only two who weren't controlled by the eidolons, so maybe something happened between her and Frank.

"Oh, Chiron, hi. Nice weather we're having isn't it?" Percy asks with a forced smile on his face. At his side, Annabeth face-palms herself and shakes her head.

"I see you've all managed to gather up an angry mob," Chiron says jokingly, which frankly surprises me. "Where are the pitchforks and torches?"

"Uh," Leo looks back at the crowd. "You don't really have those here, do you?"

"No, don't be foolish. Now, I might ask, what are you all doing?"

Nobody answers right away. After a few seconds of silence, Annabeth steps forward and simply tells the truth.

"We're leaving. We came to get Frank and Hazel so they could come with us. We need them for this. We plan to find Jason and Nico, because their kidnappers are probably connected to everything else. We just want to put an end to this, sir."

Before Chiron can answer, I spit the words out of my mouth, not meaning to be so clueless about it. "Jason was kidnapped?"

No one answers, but I'm not angry. None of them know how to form the words, and that tells me immediately that my fears are true. Jason and Nico have been taken.

"Percy knows where they are," Annabeth says quickly. "You said you had a dream, didn't you?" She turns to him and he nods.

Chiron thinks for a moment, but shocks all of us by saying, "You can go."

He agreed so fast, and it was so much easier than I thought it'd be. "Uh, great. We'll just pack some things and go," Annabeth decides.

Chiron nods, "Be fast. You need to hurry."

"Why?" I ask nervously. "Why do you say that?"

"Frank has explained to me that he's had a dream."

"It was..." Frank steps forward and begins to explain, but pauses to think of how to word it. "I saw Jason. I didn't see Nico at first though. Only Jason, and these people were... he wasn't looking good."

"Frank, stop tip-toeing around it!" I demand. "I want to hear exactly what happened. I don't care how horrible it is. Just tell me! I need to know!"

Frank looks me directly in the eyes. "They were torturing him. They were cutting him and injecting him with things. They weren't even trying to get anything out of him. I think it was only for pleasure. And after they finished with him, he looked so close to death, I wasn't even sure if he was still breathing. His face was so beaten, you couldn't tell if it was him just by looking. They stuck him in a straight jacket and threw him back into his room with Nico, and said they'd be back for Nico later."

I fight back the tears, promising myself I wasn't going to do this here. Not now, anyway.

We head quickly back into camp and pack only few things, each of us with our own backpacks. Before leaving camp, I run to Jason's cabin and grab a few of his things. Only a tee shirt, sweatshirt, jeans, and his gold coin, which I found on a nightstand in his room.

The group meets up again at the top of Half-Blood Hill. Everyone has their own bag of supplies and are looking nervous but ready.

"Guess we should just go then," Annabeth says. Percy puts his arm around her comfortingly.

"Let's do it," Hazel says and begins walking ahead of everyone down the hill. Frank just smiles and runs after her.

Leo walks by me and puts an arm around me. His warmth feels so nice and the gesture is so comforting. I give him my best smile.

"Don't worry Pipes," he says, "we'll get him back. Jason will be fine. We've made it out of worse situations than this."

I nod. "I'm just nervous. What if this time is different? We can't always win."

He gives me the craziest look I think I've ever seen. "Are you kidding? We do not always win. If we always won, wouldn't Jason be here with us by now? What have we really won, anyways? Just defeated Gaea really. But if we always won, our lives would be so much easier."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"I know I'm right. I'm Leo freaking Valdez!"

I laugh. "Alright, you can shut up now."

He gives me a toothy grin. "I'm ready to get my best friend back."

I smile back, "Me too."

Nico DiAngelo P.O.V.

"Jason, man, you have to help me with this," I say.

Jason, almost completely unconscious, still lay limp on the ground, coughing and shivering. I already dragged him halfway across the room trying to get him to his bed, but it's too hard. I decide to try getting the straight jacket off of him. I pull at the buckles, and after almost twenty minutes of doing so, it finally starts to come loose. Once it's finally off of him, I grab onto his arms and continue pulling him to his bed.

I know I can't lift him onto the bed myself, so I try waking him up again.

"Jason, hey bud, come on. Wake up, man." I shake his shoulder lightly.

He coughs again. His eyelids are obviously heavy, but he manages to open them the slightest bit. "Hey," he says quietly.

"Hey, can you stand?" It's a stupid question, but I ask anyway.

His eyes start to close again and I take that as a no. "Jason, please, can you just help me get you onto the bed?"

He opens hid eyes again and tilts his head up just the slightest bit. "I can't do it, Nico," he says, sounding upset.

"It's okay," I say. "I have another idea." I stand and grab the pillows off his bed. I throw them onto the ground, then grab the covers and throw them onto the ground too. I move back to Jason and drag him toward the sheets and pillows. I then lay out one of the sheets, then roll the unconscious Jason onto it. I place a couple pillows under his head and finally cover him with the other sheets.

Suddenly, the large entry doors are thrown open. I spin around to see why, finding Lycaon at the door.

"We're transporting you two immediately," he says and two large, quite hairy and muscled men enter and make their way toward me and Jason.

"Why?" I ask. "What's happening?"

Lycaon turns around, but before walking away he says, "Your friends have found us."

I feel the smirk cross my face. They'd get Jason and I out of this place.

One of the men grab me by the arms, the other throwing Jason's beaten body over his shoulder. I could hear Jason whimper, but he was still far too weak to fight back. The men take us from our nice room and once in the hallway, another man puts a sack over my head and we continue on our way.

Out of no where, I can hear Lamia's voice screaming at someone. "What are you doing? We still need them! We aren't done yet!"

Lycaon replies, saying, "We need to move them before it's too late! And isn't it your job not to be freaking out about this but to be finding the last piece?"

"Don't you dare tell me my priorities! We are going to keep them here until the job is finished. Understood?"

There isn't a reply, but something is mumbled and the man holding me back throws me forward. I lose my footing and fall forward and someone else grips my arm and starts pulling me along.

"What's happening?" I ask. That only got me a smack to the back of my head.

I hear a latch and the sound of metal scraping and a cold breeze blows over me. Someone throws me into a chair, and hands hold my arms down while they strap me down. When they finish their work, they remove the sack and a blinding light overwhelms me and I have to close my eyes.

"Make it fast," Lamia's voice says. "I need to go capture Percy Jackson."

A white hot pain shoots from my arm to my neck and I cry out. I bite my lip, trying my best to stop from screaming. The pain strikes again in my leg and I bite down harder, immediately tasting the blood. It occurs to my other leg, then my other arm, then my stomach, and so on.

"Stop!" I scream.

But it doesn't stop. This continues for a while, and I finally lose track of time. It just goes on, and on, and on.

A/N

Alright, guys. Sorry I haven't updated since October (I'm a horrible person, I know, don't remind me) but I just have so much going on. I'm writing four other books (would be five but I FINISHED IT! Whoop!) and I just told myself earlier "STOP. YOU NEED TO UPDATE YOUR FANFICTION." So, yeah. That happened.

Anyways, I'm going to really start thinking about this more often. I want to get this done soon, but knowing me and my absolutely horrid habit of procrastinating, that probably won't happen until I'm, like, 19 or something. (Btw, I seventeen now and I probably just exaggerated but who knows? I certainly don't.)

Welp, have a good one guys!(;