I'm updated a lot faster than I thought. I have a oneshot up on my Tumblr, just so you know. I don't think I'll be uploading it on here though.

IIII Winter Wolf IIII- Haha. Don't worry. He won't.

CrazyCountryGirl12- They're normal, but they were experimented on.

ICECREAMROCKS don't dis me- Oh my gods. Thanks so much for your review. You're awesome. XD

Do you think we can hit 100 reviews for this chapter? It'd be awesome if it did. Maybe I'll do something special for the 100th reviewer? I dunno. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Now, Ariadne didn't seem like the type of person to be working in a mental hospital. She had her hair done in black ringlets and blue eyes. She wore gold hoop earrings and bracelets and reminded me of a princess.

"Oh, so um, you run this place?" I asked stupidly.

Ariadne laughed. "I don't own it, but since my husband, Dionysus, is out, I'm taking over for him."

I couldn't even process that information through my head. This beautiful lady was married to Dionysus, an alcoholic pig. But the fact that Dionysus owned a mental hospital didn't surprise me.

"You're that girl that came by a few days ago, right?" she asked.

A few days? Had it already been that long?

"Yes," Annabeth said. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but were you part of the making of the Labyrinth?"

Ariadne's blue eyes widened as she made the connection.

"We're looking for the string. It's an emergency," I said.

"You two look starved. I'll pack you some things just in case," she said and led us up the stairs. "Tell me what's going on. I'm the only nurse here right now, so there's nothing to worry about."

We quickly gave her a brief rundown as she packed us three bags of food, water, and money.

"My string," she muttered. "Yes it works, but not as accurate as someone with the sight."

"Like Rachel?"

She nodded. "Yes, just like your friend, Rachel." I saw her exchange glances with Annabeth. "It gives you the quickest way out, but not necessarily the safest, and people with strong magic can tamper with it. But it works."

"That's good enough," Annabeth said. "Can you give it to us?"

There was a big explosion outside the hospital that caused the building to shake.

"Oh no," she said. "I guess those people you were talking about are here. You two need to hurry."

"But where's the string?" I asked as dust showered us from the ceiling.

"Chris has it," Ariadne said. "It seems to calm him down somewhat, so I gave it to him. His room in the third one from the right on the third floor. I'll catch up with you two later."

I was going to ask how she was going to hold them off, but Annabeth grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs.

The hospital was huge, almost as big as Goode. The wall crumbled, and snake legged women slithered in.

"Oh my gods, what are those?" I yelled.

"Monsters," Annabeth said and drew her knife. "Dracaenae from the Greek myths. Get ready to fight."

"I can't just kill them!" I said as Annabeth stabbed one through a chink in the armor.

"They're not human and they're out to kill us," she reminded me.

As if on cue, one of them lunged at me, and I quickly drew my sword and stabbed it through her gut. She wailed and fell dead.

More monsters came in through broken windows and we tried to fight our way around them. I was very aware of the dead bodies I was stepping over.

"At least there aren't any human warriors yet," I said.

"They're too valuable to risk. As for monsters, they can just create more and more," Annabeth said. "Next floor."

We found Chris's room and barged in. Chris was sitting in the corner playing with a blue ball of thread.

"String leads the way," he mumbled. "String. String."

"Thank goodness you got up here safely," Ariadne said. She had some dust on her face and clothes but seemed to be okay. "They'll be coming soon. You'd better hurry."

She pried the ball of yarn from Chris's hand. "Come on Chris. I'll give you another ball of yarn, okay? More string for you later."

"String. Get the string," he said and reached for the string.

Ariadne reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a red ball of string. "Here. This for this."

When Chris was preoccupied with the other ball of yarn, Ariadne gave us her string.

"You'll have to find the entrance again. Do you know how?" she asked.

"Yes, thanks for everything," Annabeth said.

Right then, Nico popped out of the shadows and collapsed in front of us.

"Whoa, Nico!" I said. "You okay?"

He coughed. "Yeah. I've been practicing shadow-traveling for a while now. I found an entrance near the sewers. I'll shadow-travel us over there. Grab on."

We held his arms and he melted into the shadows.

I felt like I was falling in a deep dark pit. The wind howled and I felt like my face was peeling off… again.

Then we came out just as quickly from a shadow of a tree. Nico groaned and his eyes rolled up in his head.

"Over there," Annabeth said pointing across the street. Then the monsters came.

"Quick!" I said. "There's no cars. Come on!"

I hoisted Nico on my back and ran across the street. That slowed me down, and the monsters were catching up until they were right behind me. One of them shot an arrow that hit my thigh. I winced.

Annabeth pressed her palm against the top, and it slid open.

"Percy!" she yelled, but we both knew that I wouldn't be able to make it. "Use your powers!"

The sewer. I could feel the water under there. I felt a pull in my gut, and I yelled. Sewer water came blasting out of the entrance and arched over me in a wave. It splashed onto the monsters at high velocity. They started spitting out the sewer water and I quickly made it to Annabeth.

"You first," she said, and I started climbing down. After a few rungs, Annabeth followed.

"Any nectar?" I asked. "Or ambrosia?"

Annabeth looked in her backpack. "Looks like Ariadne get supplies of the experiments too." She pulled out a Ziploc bag of things that looked like lemon bars.

She broke off a piece and fed it to Nico who mumbled and turned in his sleep after eating it.

"Percy, let me see your leg," she said.

"I'm fine," I said. I pulled out the arrow which left a rip in my pants and a stream of blood.

"Nope," she said. "Give me your leg Seaweed Brain."

She opened a canteen of nectar and poured some on my wound. I winced and instinctively grabbed Annabeth's hand. I blushed.

"Sorry," I said.

"Whatever," Annabeth said, and I thought I saw her blush too. She bandaged my leg.

"Do we have any plans after this?" I asked.

"Back to New York," she said. She sighed. "Let's just rest up here for the night. I'll take first watch."

"You sure?" I asked. "If you're tired, I can—"

"I'm fine," Annabeth said. "Don't worry about me."

I gave her a skeptical look but pulled out a blanket from my backpack and fell asleep.

Annabeth woke me up for next watch a few hours later and decided just to let Nico rest. The air started to get chilly and Annabeth huddled up in her blanket. She sat next to me, saying that she couldn't sleep.

"Aren't you tired?" I asked.

She nodded. "But I can't sleep."

"Is something wrong?"

"I'm fine," she said.

"That's what they all say, but there's always something wrong."

She smiled. "Fine, Seaweed Brain. Something is wrong, but well. I don't want you to judge me."

"Why would I do that?" I asked.

"You never know," she sighed. The unsaid name stayed in the air. Luke.

I cleared my throat. "Yeah. So can you tell me? I promise I won't judge."

"Well, you know how I got into Goode for attempted murder, right?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Well, I realized that it wasn't something inputted into my brain. I didn't do that. I was just a problem child that nobody wanted. So I ran away, and they wanted me to be part of the experiment so they caught me, Thalia, and Luke. But that's not my main problem," she said.

"The thing is, I accidentally went to San Francisco through the Labyrinth and I ran into my family," she sighed and closed her eyes. "I don't know how, but my dad recognized me. My stepmom was outraged. She hates me. Anyway, a monster tracked me down and attacked us. I wasn't ready for that, and one of my little brothers broke his arm. I didn't want them to tell me that I was exiled from their little family so I just ran off back into the Labyrinth."

"What are you going to do now?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said miserably. "I never really liked them anyway, but they're the only family I have aside from Athena. And besides, this is more important."

Annabeth made a face when she realized the ground was wet. I hadn't gotten wet because of my new powers, but Annabeth would probably get soaked. She sighed and just tried to fall asleep while sitting. It worked until her head fell on my shoulder.

I felt my face heating up, but I didn't dare wake her.

"Let's go," Annabeth said once she woke up. "Let's see if this string really works."

I woke up Nico who seemed to be in a better condition than yesterday.

Annabeth dropped the ball of yarn and it started rolling away on its own. We started running after it, and Annabeth screeched to a halt as two walls crashed into each other and then split back apart.

"We have to time this carefully," Annabeth said. "I'll go first."

She waited for the walls to crash again and slipped in while they were separating. She advised us when to move from the other side.

"Now!" she yelled, and we sprinted across.

The walls crashed right behind us, almost clipping my hair.

"That was close," I said.

"There's much worse things up ahead," Nico said.

On that happy note, we continued on our way.

We almost fell into many traps. Once we almost fell down a sliding pit of crocodiles, and another time we almost got pierced straight through our bodies with spikes on the walls. Then these crazy tree roots strangled us. We got away, but Annabeth got caught by her long hair.

She scowled and pulled out her knife. She cut off her hair where it was being pulled and continued on our way.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Please, Percy. It's just hair. I can grow it back," she said, shaking her head. "It's cut unevenly, but I can ask Silena to trim it later… if we make it."

We chased after the string, and I noticed after a while that the string balled up on the other end and followed us out.

"Here!" Nico said. He climbed up the ladder where the string stopped at and pried open the circular lid.

I collected the string and climbed up. The sunlight blinded me.

"It's New York," Annabeth said. "It's real."

The way Annabeth said it made it sound like we discovered some magical fairy land. But then again, we weren't allowed to go out, and she was in Goode for a long time.

As for me, it was just like I remembered it, but this was a part of New York that I hadn't been to.

"So where are we?" Nico asked. "Like where in New York?"

"I don't know," Annabeth said. "But now we know that we can leave the school. We should go back and start bringing the students out."

"Through the Labyrinth?" I asked.

"We have the string," she pointed out.

"What about Rachel and Grover?"

No one answered that.

"We'll find them," Annabeth said.

"They're not dead. I know it," Nico said.

I raised an eyebrow but didn't question it. "Let's find a place to stay or meet up first. Then we can go back and get the others."

"Sounds like a plan," Annabeth said.

Nico lagged behind as we made our way around the streets. We tried to keep a low profile as much as possible. No one really gave us strange looks. I guess that's New York for you.

We moved to a more familiar part of the city, and I recognized my old school. It looked so dirty and small compared to Goode. I wondered if there were any of my old gang members there.

"Let's keep on moving," Annabeth said turning back around. "I think I found a good place."

She ignored my questioning look and turned to a more isolated place. There was only one building there. It was a low brick building which was strange to see.

"What is this place?" I asked, trying to read what it said.

"Hestia's Hearth," Nico said. "I think."

"She's part of the Olympians," Annabeth said. "From what I've heard, she's really nice. Maybe she can help us."

"Annabeth, we don't have enough money. It's probably a five star hotel or something like that," I said.

"Hestia is nice to everyone," Nico said. "Even to me. She's not going to chase us out."

He opened the door and stepped in. Annabeth met my eyes and shrugged.

"Hello," a woman said.

She had brown hair and was wearing a brown dress with her head covered in a shawl. Her warm brown eyes gazed upon us.

"Lady Hestia," Nico bowed.

"Oh, it's you again!" she smiled. "Who are your other friends?"

"Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, and Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena."

I frowned at him for giving so much information away, but he looked at me reassuringly that didn't reassure me at all.

"I'm guessing you have a story to tell me," she said. "I'm Hestia. Come on in. I'll make you some lunch."