Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Welp here we've hit the first major-ish changes in the rewrite. If you're skimming 'cause you read the previous iteration, you could probably still do that, although I will say the changes will be important later, though sooner than you'd might think.

Anyways, thanks for all of the responses/kudos so far (they mean a lot to me!), and I'll see you next week. ;)

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

Μὰ Δία – By Zeus/I swear to Zeus

Slight CW: Implied/Referenced rape/non-con, though it's never explicitly stated


~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 3: My Best Friend Turns Out To Be My #1 Stalker~


Confession time: I ditched Katie as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

I know, I know. It was rude. Probably even one of the rudest things I have ever done, even. But Katie was freaking me out, what with how she was looking at me like I was a dead man walking whilst murmuring, "Why him?" and "This can't just happen again."

So, when we got off the bus and Katie went to use the restroom – after making me promise that I was going to stay put and wait for her – I waited for a few moments, before I grabbed my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi that was going uptown.

"East One-Hundred-and-Fourth and First, please," I told the driver.

Now, a word about my mother, before you meet her.

Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the whole entire world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was seven, and her uncle was a busy doctor who didn't really have the time or patience to care for her. Which was kind of ironic, considering that when he got cancer, my mom dropped everything – high school, college, and her dreams of becoming a novelist – to take care of him. Because of this, after he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

I don't have any memories of him, because he left a few days after I was born – if that. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told me that he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret, especially because he was already married – twice over. Then, one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey or whatever, probably to see his wives since I kind of always assumed from my own skin tone that he was Middle Eastern, and he never came back.

Lost at sea, though, was what my mother always told me. Not dead. Just lost.

(Yeah, right.)

After I was born, my mom not only raised me, but also worked odd jobs and took night classes to get her diploma on top of that. And she never complained or got mad, not once, despite the fact that I was far from being an easy kid.

Not long after my fifth birthday, though, she married this guy called Gabe Ugliano, who was nice for about the first thirty seconds after I met him before showing his true colors as a world-class asshole. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe, because the guy reeked like moldy, garlicky pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

Between the two of us, I knew we must've made my mom's life a living hell – especially with how he treated the both of us. My coming home from the bus terminal was a good example of this.

Because when I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work already, Smelly Gabe was there in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television was blaring ESPN, while chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Without even looking up, Gabe said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Yeah," I replied apprehensively. "Where's my mom?"

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

That was it. No "welcome back," or "good to see you," or even "how has your life been the last six months?"

At least he didn't seem to be in that bad of a mood. Yet.

Idly, I noticed that Gabe had put on weight. Again. He looked like a tusk-less walrus in thrift shop clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, and all of them were combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

Supposedly he managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but with how often he stayed home, I doubted that, because surely he would've been fired for it a long time ago. But I guess it doesn't really matter where he got his money from, even without mentioning his other...proclivities, because he always spent it on the same two things: nauseating cigars and beer. Lots of beer.

He also spent my money on it, too, whenever I was home. That, and his gambling funds and whatever. He called it our "guy secret," but really that was just code word for "don't tell your mom unless you want to wake up with bruises at the very least tomorrow morning."

"I don't have any cash," I told him, the lie slipping off of my tongue easily.

He didn't believe it, though. Not for a single second. Instead, he raised a single eyebrow, before saying, "You took a taxi from the bus station. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under my roof, then he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, gave me a look that was twinged with sympathy. That was his thing. He was always sympathetic, but he never actually cared enough to really tell off Gabe, much less report him to the police for the shit he did. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."

"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.

Eddie just scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys snickered, but didn't say anything else.

"Fine," I said with a roll of my eyes. Then, I dug my wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money onto the table. "I hope you lose."

"I wouldn't act so snooty, boy," he sneered. "I saw your report card on the table."

The, not to mention what you being home means part went unsaid.

Without another word, I walked to my room and slammed the door. Well, I should say that I walked to the room that was supposed to be mine but, in all actuality, wasn't. Because whenever I was at boarding school, Gabe used it for his "study." Of course, he didn't study anything in there except for old car magazines and pictures that made me want to vomit, but it was a good enough excuse for him to shove my stuff into the closet, leave his muddy boots on the windowsill, and make the room smell just as bad as the rest of the apartment did.

I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.

For a second, I thought about leaving the apartment and going out to do something, if only to just get away from Gabe. But then, I remembered those pictures and started to bustle around the room to clean them up, my thoughts all the while on Katie and the lady at the fruit stand. Soon, it wasn't just nausea my stomach was starting to churn with, but a combination of guilt and fear. The feeling only amplified when I heard footsteps walking down the hallway, because if they belonged to Gabe, that could only mean one thing...

Then, I heard my mom's voice, just on the other side of the door, ask as she knocked, "Percy?"

And my anxiety melted.

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room, which is exactly what she did a moment later. Her eyes have this tendency to sparkle and change color in the light, kind of like mine, except hers change in varying shades of blue instead of varying shades of green. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's also got a few grey streaks mixed in her with long, chocolate brown hair, but I've never thought of her as old – especially because my grandfather was already greying by the time that he and my grandmother died, or so I could see in the pictures of them.

But enough about them. Back to my mom. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all of the good things about me, none of the bad. And I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, Gabe included, although he absolutely would've deserved it.

"Oh, Percy," my mom breathed, before she pulled me into a hug. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"

Her red-and-white Sweet on America uniform smelled like some of the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all of the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples" like she always did when I came home, which I attacked with a ferocity that came with having not really eaten all day.

While I did so, the two of us sat together on the edge of the bed, with her running a hand through my hair as I told her about everything that I hadn't managed to put in my letters, as per her request.

Well, almost everything, anyways. Because I had a feeling that my mom wouldn't like the fact that my math teacher had turned into a demon and tried to kill me, much less the fact that I was hiding a pen which could turn into a sword in one of my pockets.

Not long after my mom walked into the room, Gabe decided that it was prime time for her to wait on him hand and foot. "Hey, Sally," he yelled from the other room. "How about some bean dip, huh?"

I gritted my teeth.

"Don't mind him," my mom said soothingly. Then, with a smirk added, "I have a surprise for you: we're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

She hummed in confirmation. "Three nights at the cabin, like always."

"When?"

A smile. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe had said there hadn't been enough money – he presumed that my mom rented the cabin, and she didn't want to tell him otherwise because of the blowout which would undoubtedly immediately ensue.

Speaking of the devil, he appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I wanted to punch him, no matter what it would cost me, but I met my mom's eyes and understood that she could handle it from here, just until she was ready to leave for Montauk.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe in the same soothing tone she had just used on me. "We were just talking about the trip, that's all."

Gabe's eyes narrowed. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I knew it," I couldn't help but mutter then. "He's not going to let us go."

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money, that's all. Besides," again with the smirk, although it was just mischievous enough to be construed as a smile this time, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

Gabe softened a bit. "So, this money for the trip...it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey," my mom replied.

"And you won't take my anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

He scratched at his double chin. "Alright. But only if you hurry up with that seven-layer dip...and if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Only if you apologize for... I thought angry, though I wasn't able to finish the sentence inside my mind, much less say it out loud.

My mom's eyes were warning, telling me not to make him mad.

"I'm sorry," I muttered at last. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please, by all means, go back to it right now."

Gabe frowned and stared at me for several long moments, probably trying to detect the blatant sarcasm he couldn't pick up, what with his tiny brain and all.

"Yeah, whatever," he finally decided, before he went back to the living room to finish up his game.

"Thank you, Percy," my mom said after he left. "Now, I'll be right back."


An hour later, we were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me pack up the car. All the while, he kept griping and groaning about losing my mom's cooking and, more importantly, his '78 Camaro for the whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, boy," he warned me in a way that was entirely reminiscent of the uncle from Harry Potter as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

"Of course, Gabe," I gritted out, knowing better than to remind him of the fact that I was only fourteen – soon to be fifteen – and couldn't even get a temporary permit yet.

After I closed the trunk, Gabe lumbered back towards the apartment building. As he did, I suddenly remembered the hand gesture that Katie had done on the bus and I got an idea. With a grin, I clawed the first three fingers of my hand over my heart like she had, before shoving it towards Gabe. The screen door then suddenly slammed shut so hard it whacked him on the ass and sent him flying up the staircase, just like if he'd been shot from a cannon.

Nervously, I turned to look and see if anyone had noticed, but nobody had. And even if they had, I told myself as I got into the Camaro, they'd probably blame it on the wind or a freak accident with the hinges or something like that. Not on a kid who had secretly killed s demon math teacher and knew that there was something going on which was much more magical than mundane life because of it.

Nevertheless, I told my mom to step on it.

Our cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half-sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold for anyone but me to swim in.

I loved the place.

We'd been going there since I was a baby. Apparently, my grandparents had been given it as a wedding present, and my mom hadn't had the heart to sell it when her uncle died – which was a good thing for me, because although she never said it, I knew Montauk was the place where she had met my dad almost sixteen years ago, back when she had been living here for that summer and working at one of the diners as a waitress. The city had been too expensive for her, you see. Yeah, she'd really been that poor following my uncle's death. It was shitty, I know.

As we got closer to Montauk, my mom seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned a mesmerizing ocean blue, the same color as the Long Island Sound.

We got there at sunset, opened all of the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on all of the blue candy my mom had gotten as "free samples" from her work.

I guess this is probably where I should tell you about the blue food.

You see, during one of their arguments, Gabe had told my mom that there was no such thing. To me, it had seemed like a silly thing to argue about at the time, but now I kind of wonder how silly it was, because ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes and blue chocolate chip cookies. She bought blue corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. She even put blue food dye in Gabe's mayonnaise jar once, since he was the only one in our "family" to like the stuff. Although, the backlash hadn't been that funny, at least not for me.

All of this, along with how she had refused to take his name when they got married, was proof to me that not only was my mom not totally suckered by Gabe and his abusive tendencies, but she also had a rebellious streak, too. Like me.

When it got dark, we made a fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents had died in the plane crash. She told me about her own mom, who spoke Icelandic, and how she regretted that she had never been taught the language well enough to teach it to me, too. And she told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she finally had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Which would never happen, not while Gabe was around, but it was nice to pretend.

As she did, I became struck with the desire to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the pen-sword, but I didn't. Again, I had a feeling that my mom wouldn't like hearing about it and, even worse, it would most likely cut our trip short.

So, I asked about my dad instead.

My mom's eyes went misty at the mere mention of him, just like they always did. I figured she would tell me the same things about him she always did, but I didn't mind...not this time, anyways.

"He was kind, Percy," she told me. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."

She paused, before turning to look out at the sea. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He'd be so proud."

"Proud about what?" I wanted to ask. "Proud about how I have ADHD and dyslexia? Or how I've been kicked out of nine schools in nine years, now? Or how I let Gabe – and never tell you or anyone else about it?"

I felt angry with my father then, an anger which bubbled hot and thick in my stomach, along with disgust and semi-resentment. Maybe it was stupid, but I hated the fact that he not only cheated on his wives and whatever, but also cheated with my mom of all people before leaving her mere days after I was born. Yeah, I know she wasn't exactly blameless in all of that, but that didn't change how he had left us either, leaving us to be stuck with Smelly Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked after a while, desperate to change the subject. "To another boarding school?"

My mom pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know," she answered honestly, voice heavy. "We'll have to do something, sweetie. I'm just not sure what that 'something' is, yet. Or...or what it should be."

I perked up. "So there's other options?"

Wordlessly, she nodded.

"Like what?"

"Your father...he wanted you to go to this place, when you were old enough. Technically, I should've sent you there a long time ago, but Percy..." she trailed off, before shaking her head and sighing.

Despite just wanting to change the subject from him, I couldn't help but frown. "What? What is it?"

"It's dangerous," she said. "Maybe not in the way that you're in danger with me, but that doesn't make it any less dangerous. And if I send you there...I might have to send you away for good. And I don't want to do that."

My head was spinning. Why would my dad, who obviously didn't give a damn about us, want to send me to a place that could be dangerous? And why was when I in danger with my mom, the nicest and most caring person in the world?

Because, a small voice in the back of my mind said. Because Mrs. Dodds wasn't the only monster you've faced before.

Instantly, I called to mind all of the strange and scary things that had happened to me over the course of my life. Like the one time in the third grade when a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers had threatened to call the police on him, he went away growling, and yet no one had believed me when I told them I was sure I had seen how the man had only had one eye, right in the middle of his head under his broad-brimmed hat.

And before that, there was the time when I had been in preschool, too, and a teacher had accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot a snake had slithered into. My mom had screamed like a banshee when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

Everything was adding up, I knew. Everything had to be connected, somehow, someway. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed the answer strayed from my grasp, and it was frustrating beyond belief.

If only I had a hunt, a nudge in the right direction, I could figure it out. I had to, if only for my own sanity.


That night, I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and three beautiful animals – a white horse, a golden eagle, and a black wolf – were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its talons. The horse reared up and kicked the eagle's wings. And the wolf was attacking the horse's hind legs with its huge, bloodied mouth.

As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled from somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I wanted to run towards them, to stop them from killing each other with all of my might. But something – no, not something, a hand was holding me back, in a death grip I couldn't escape from. Angrily, I looked up to fight off whoever it was that was holding me back, but when I did, all I saw was a pair of blue eyes, colored with the same shade that the blanket the lady called Necessity had been crocheting.


I woke up with a start.

Outside, it was storming something awful. Rain was pelting the roof of the house like hail, and lightning was making false daylight and twenty-foot tall waves pounded the dunes like artillery.

I rolled over in bed to wake up my mom, but it didn't matter, because with the next thunderclap she immediately sat up with wide eyes and whispered, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island had never seen hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the window, I heard a distant bellow – an angry, tortured sound which made my hair stand on end.

Suddenly, there was a pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown, rushing into the only other room of the cabin besides the bathroom and threw open the lock. I hurried after her.

On the other side of the doorway, Katie stood there, drenched from head to toe, against a backdrop of rain. Her eyes were wide as she looked at the two of us, but that wasn't what I was focusing on.

"Μὰ Δία, I've been searching all day," she breathed out raggedly, and at the same time another clap of thunder boomed. "What were you thinking?"

My mom looked at me in terror – not scared of Katie, but of why she'd come.

"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I stammered out something about Mrs. Dodds, the pen-sword, and the lady called Necessity. My mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

Without immediately saying anything, she grabbed her purse and tossed me my rain jacket. Then, she ran a hand through her hair and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"

Katie grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards the car, but I didn't look to see in front me to make sure I wouldn't trip or something. I couldn't.

Instead, all I could do was star at the vines that were wrapped around Katie's legs and arms in a way that made it obvious they were growing off of her body.


Word Count: 4,178

Next Chapter Title: I Teach Myself Bullfighting