Wow, unlucky number 13!
It may be that some terrible misfortune will befall cabin 7 in this chapter.
I mean, even more terrible than usual.
It's gonna be sad.
I genuinely almost teared up writing it, and I haven't had a good, solid emotion in years.
We had pulled apart, and moved to a safer place, Kayla and Austin wiping away their tears and me wincing as scabs on my legs cracked. The ambrosia had helped, but the pain was still intense enough to make my legs throb whenever I moved. I wasn't too concerned with that, though—pain I could soldier through. My head was still pounding, and the left side felt as though someone was beating on the inside with a metal hammer wrapped in barbed wire. The shaggy curls on that side were soaked with blood, matted to my scalp. I lightly brushed my fingers across Ground Zero, and couldn't stifle the gasp of pain on my lips.
Kayla gave me a concerned look. "What happened to your head?"
"Cracked it on the railing," I said, wincing. "Probably a concussion. And I, ah, lost a tooth."
"Baby or adult?"
"Uh. Adult. I think." I grimaced, mopping the blood off my lips. Great, great, a chunk was missing from one of them. This was going to be one for the diary.
"Well, that sucks." Kayla's head shot up, then she spun around. "Shit," she hissed. "Dracaenae."
Austin and I spun around too. Behind us was a squadron of five snake ladies, marching forward with their shield locked and spear tips bristling over the top, making them look like a demonic hedgehog. They hissed, spitting fire. Their armor protected almost their entire bodies. Trying to take them out with three inexperienced kids, two of whom couldn't shoot for shit, would be suicide.
I couldn't tell if they'd seen us or not—we had moved into the shadowy alley outside of the railing. The downside to this was that a massive patch of fence, which was supposed to prevent us from going over the edge, had been obliterated by an explosion—probably one of our arrows. It had definitely taken out a few monsters, but the downside to this was that it left us with four feet of charred, smoking concrete to balance on. Beyond that was the river—huge, deep, a twisted black in the dim moonlight. It was full of swirling chunks of concrete, broken glass, nails, horns, hooves, and claws. Anyone who took a dive into there, if they survived that fall (which seemed unlikely), would be sliced and pummeled to pieces.
Kayla, Austin, and I had been gripping the rail—it, too, was charred, creaking, and had had large sections of it blown off and burned away, but it was the only thing keeping us from dying by a combination of blunt-force trauma, hypothermia, drowning, head injury, and laceration—but, by silent agreement, we all let go and slipped into the blackness.
Have you ever tried running down a four-foot-wide walkway, alongside a fifty-foot-drop into a death river, while suffering from lacerated legs, a concussion, a violent cough, and bleeding profusely? Not to mention the fact that the walkway was littered with broken chunks of bridge—the bridge that you are standing on—and the section you're in is likely to collapse from an explosion or fire any second. An explosion or fire that you set up?
Not to mention the fact that right behind you is a team of monsters, and I'm not talking about a ragtag group of mangy alley hellhounds or dragons. No, this group is a well-oiled killing machine. They will put a spear through your heart without a second thought, spattering the bridge with thick, glistening blood, slimy organs, some mushy gray pieces that look like cauliflowers—you may recognize them as brains.
Only you'll be the only one to recognize them because everyone else will be too preoccupied with fighting for their own lives to notice you, and maybe after the fighting is over, when the monsters have all been reduced to piles of dust and a few scattered war trophies that nobody wants to touch, the remaining survivors, bloody, limping, battle-hardened, grim-faced, will all gather together and ask, hey, what happened to them? They were here fighting a second ago, and then . . . . After that, their voices will trail off, they'll look around and take the blood and gore, the scraps of bloody orange or blue cloth, and they'll cast their eyes away and shake their heads. The littlest ones will bury their faces in their hands, tears dripping between their fingers. The older ones will want to cry, of course, but they can't, and more than that, they'll want it to end, because they know all too well that there's no way out of it for any of them.
And maybe they'll even do the young ones the consideration of taking them along with them, because they know goddamn well that the same fucking thing is waiting for them, and they never want them to have to go through that . . . . They are the ones who wrap their arms around their little siblings, the ones who look up to them, who trust them, and tell them that they love them and always will, press a kiss to their wild, blood-soaked hair, and walk away, strait into the gun or the knife or the club, already clotted with blood, flesh, and hair.
The bridge is already littered with guts, blood, brains, bloody clothes, and bits of bone, some of it with shredded skin still clinging to it.
Afterwards, there will be more.
It took us seven minutes to make it to our cabin's base—seven long, agonizing, terrifying minutes. The alley that ran by the patches of fence that hadn't yet been incinerated or blown away were a welcome safe haven—I hadn't realized, before the attack, how much I had relied on the precautionary fence. Not that I had even been touching it, but standing next to a fifty-foot-drop, even if you are the world's best balancer, is always easier with a fence in the way. Not to mention a guardrail or two.
"Are . . . we . . . close?" Austin gasped. The poor guy was still coughing from the smoke he had inhaled; his throat had to be dryer than the Sahara Desert.
Kayla glanced back, then stopped, her hands on her knees. "Yeah . . . couple more minutes. They're trying to keep closer to the edge of the bridge . . . you know, make retreating easier. Um, if we have to . . . I hope we won't."
I shook my head, leaning against one of the rare sections of fence. "We might have to, if this keeps up . . ." My voice trailed off. I twisted around to peer back into the dark alley. Then my eyes widened. "Hit the dirt!"
Kayla and Austin didn't question it. They smacked into the ground so hard and fast they probably both had gravel embedded in their chests and faces. I would have winced in sympathy had I not been preoccupied.
I leaped to the side, vaulting over the railing as a slavering black hellhound snapped where my head had been only a second before. The hellhounds that had cornered me and Austin before had been huge, but even the largest one was like David compared to this massive Goliath.
The hound was at least twenty feet tall at the shoulder, its razor-sharp claws at least eleven inches long, its head as large as a small car. Massive fangs hung down past the dripping jowls.
It growled with fury, smashing straight through the railing, its thick, swinging tail taking out the section of fence, leaving Kayla and Austin balancing precariously on the edge of a narrow alley. They could have moved into the road, but that was where the fucking hellhound was.
"Damn it," I grumbled. "You couldn't have at least left the fence alone?"
It cocked its head as if confused that its prey was talking back to it. It was evidently used to creatures who curled into pathetic balls and allowed themselves to be eaten.
I may have mentioned that I was not the fastest at nocking arrows, but fuck if I wasn't about to take advantage of the distraction.
My bow was in my hands before I could blink, an arrow nocked. I had originally compartmentalized the arrows in my quiver—incendiary on the left, explosive on the right, ordinary in the center. But my busy schedule of running, hiding, dodging, falling, and curling into aforementioned pathetic balls had mixed the projectiles into a deadly jumble.
Had I been able to see what I was grabbing, had I possibly had time to grab a fistful of arrows, I would have been able to tell them apart. All our arrows were black with neon green fletching, but they had bands of color at the base of the fletching—red for incendiary, yellow for explosive, blue for ordinary. The downside was that, although the colors were neon, they were difficult to tell apart in the darkness. Luckily, there was plenty of firelight to see by.
But there hadn't been time to examine the arrows, and although my ADHD battle reflexes had allowed me to load an arrow quickly enough to hopefully kill the hellhound before it killed me, what they did not allow me to do was see in the dark.
Therefore, I had no idea what kind of arrow I was about to shoot. If it was an ordinary arrow, I was most likely dead; if it was incendiary or explosive, I would have a chance. I sincerely hoped the arrow was an explosive; they were the most dangerous—and their ways of killing the most gruesome.
And that was assuming my aim was accurate, and if my training sessions with Kayla had taught me anything, it was that even though I could usually hit somewhere on the target from a reasonable distance, I couldn't count on it, and I was terrible under pressure, which was what I was under right now.
All these thoughts flashed through my head in less than a second.
The hellhound, evidently deciding that it could live with talking prey, uncocked its head and snapped its jaws, yellow foam dripping down to splatter among the blood and ashes on the bridge.
It was too late to second guess my (undoubtedly terrible) aim. I pulled the string back and let the arrow fly.
As you may have guessed, my aim was not accurate.
On second thought, I really don't know how accurate it was. The hellhound, seeing my arrow coming, immediately leaped to one side, seeming to thwart my evil plans of world domination.
But what happened next . . . well, have you ever seen a jackknifed truck? Cab goes one way, trailer goes another, next thing you know, the semi is sprawled across the road, the cab on its side, the trailer sent sprawling sideways.
The hellhound obviously did not do the second part—hellhounds don't have cabs or trailers, the reason being that they don't have wires to connect the two.
But the hellhound's tail was a second late in swishing out of the way, and it was that that the arrow caught the side of.
I don't know what happened to the arrow—I think it went skittering over the top of the tail, but after that I lost track of it—but at that moment, I did become sure of what kind or arrow I had shot.
Fire.
Fire that immediately flared up as if the hellhound's fur had been doused in gasoline. It raced up the tail, fur charring and crumbling to ash everywhere it touched.
I didn't stop to argue—I slung my bow over my back and skidded back to my siblings. Both the bridge and the railing were gone, leaving us with nothing to hold one to except one another.
The hellhound growled—whether in pain or anger I couldn't be sure—and twisted in a circle, snapping, shaking its tail as if it could put the fire out.
The trouble with fire, as anyone who has ever seen a bonfire would know, is that while blowing on a small flame such as that of a birthday candle will put the fire out, blowing on a larger fire will only serve to help it grow.
The hound forgot this.
The flames flared up, leaping to the dog's back legs, then flank, then sweeping its front legs up in a blanket of fire with a rushing roar. Everywhere the fire touched, the hound crumbled into a combination of blood and dust. Claws melted. Fur blackened. Flames race up and down the dog's body and legs.
The creature, now lying on its side, had started up a high, panicked, keen, full of pain and fear, and so high pitched that Kayla and Austin had to clamp their hands over their ears. I desperately wanted to do the same—my hearing was better than theirs, and it felt as though razor-sharp needles were being driven into my brain—but I was white-knuckling the backs of Kayla and Austin's shirts to keep them from falling into the water. We were all frozen; we could have by now moved into a safer place, heck, we could have-should have-abandoned the burning hellhound and run like fucking Olympian athletes, but none of us could move. We were, in a morbid, horrifying way, captivated by the gruesome spectacle.
The fire had reached the dog's head, and although no more sound emanated from its mouth, it continued opening and closing soundlessly. I could clearly see the flames beginning to lick up the back of its throat.
The slimy black tongue was the first thing to go, collapsing into dust; teeth melted like popsicles and dripped down over the gums before crumbling into powder. The flames licked around the snout, threading through the nose, causing viscous black fluid to drip from the nostrils. The bridge steamed and hissed where the drops splattered.
The eyes were the last to go—horribly, hauntingly, human. One of them collapsed in on itself in a shower of slimy pink chunks, green goop and more thick, dark fluid. The second popped, scattering the bridge with the same disgusting ingredients.
The dark, charred carcass collapsed in on itself, exploding into sickeningly yellow dust. The cloud drifted through the air, thinning the farther away from the beast it got, so that by the time it reached us it was indiscernible in the night.
We were all silent for a full minute, staring at the scattered pile of dust. The only sound was our labored breathing; I was still clutching my siblings to keep them on the bridge.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I said, "I was wrong."
Kayla gave me a confused look. "What do you . . ."
"I thought the explosive arrow was the most effective killer, with the most disgusting results," I said grimly. "I was wrong. Come on, let's go find the others."
The others, as it turned out, were in even worse shape than we were.
The fires had grown, both in size and number, as we neared their base. Now it was difficult to walk past, over, and under them without being burned, or, at the very least, having your clothes or hair singed.
We kept to the alley, sticking in the shadows. The monsters were everywhere here—hellhounds (though none as large as the one I had killed) bounding around, phalanxes of dracaenae, shields locked and spears bristling, a pack of telkines, crazed dog-seal-human sea demons, several small dragons, further torching the bridge with their fiery breath, several viscous harpies (who I would not have trusted to drive a strawberry truck), and entirely too many more monsters to count. Most of them didn't notice us, but several looked our way, and were immediately taken down by fires, explosives, and simple archery talent. We could thank Kayla for most of those—she wasn't even eleven, but she was a better archer than Austin and I put together.
We finally found the area the conflict seemed to be centered in. Several cars (I noticed with a twist in my gut) were ablaze. Then I noticed, through the smoke and heat waves, shadowy, rippling figures moving between the cars, ducking behind them, firing arrows, and (to my relief) pulling unconscious figures out of cars and dragging them away to a safe place.
We were fighting back.
The three of us clambered over the railing, dropping to our knees behind the nearest parked car. I dug back out the bag of ambrosia, and passed two pieces to Kayla and Austin. I thought about taking a piece for myself, but declined, despite my aching, bloody head, aching, bloody legs, aching, bloody mouth, and numerous other aching, bloody things. The others might need it more than I did.
A hazy, shimmering figure materialized next to us, then dropped to the ground. Gracie slumped against the car, breathing hard, wiping blood from her forehead. I couldn't help but feel a surge of relief seeing my older sister. Gracie was here; it would be alright.
"Wow, you three take long enough?" Despite her bloody face, singed hair, burned arm, and sliced-up leg, she was grinning.
"Hey, you try setting enough traps to hold off an entire monster army in the dark with no prior experience setting traps," I grumbled.
"Yeah," Kayla put in. "I think we did quite well, all things considered."
Gracie's smile faded. "Well, I'm glad. You might have killed plenty of monsters, but there are a hundred more of them . . . we lost Brody and Neva."
I winced. "Neva?"
"Dracaenae got her. Wrenched her head right off." Gracie made a yanking gesture with her hand. "Like pulling off . . . I don't know, a bottle cap or something. On the plus side, it was quick; she didn't suffer."
I fumbled my kit back open, pulled out a piece of ambrosia, and handed it to Gracie. She bit off a corner, sighed with satisfaction, and leaned against the car, chewing slowly and looking at the sky.
"Well that's . . . something," Austin said quietly.
We were all silent for a moment, and then I spoke up. "What do you want us to do?"
Gracie smiled humorlessly. "Nothing we can do. They've fucked us all right, good and final."
My eyebrows went up. Gracie never gave up, she never smiled that bitterly, and no matter what, she never swore.
More silence. Kayla finally said, "Have the others given up?"
"Michael hasn't, but he's stubborn as a mule. A.J. says we have a chance, but I don't know if he actually believes it or if he's just trying to keep himself together. The rest of them . . . they'll keep fighting until they're hacked to pieces, but they know what'll happen. It . . . well, they're trying to keep their minds, but it's a jungle out there . . . and in here." She tapped the side of her head.
Now I was smiling humorlessly. "'Keep your time, keep your mind, keep humble.'"
Austin joined in. "'Start your life in the middle of the jungle.'"
"'Young blood,'" Gracie muttered.
We lapsed back into silence, and then I stood up, brushing dirt and blood off my pants. "Well, guess I'll be heading off. Field medic's gotta field medic."
Gracie stood up too. "I'll work on getting people out of their cars. Keep as much blood off our hands as possible, you know."
Kayla and Austin shared a confused look, but I understood. Gracie and I shared a small smile. A real one.
Gracie turned toward our younger siblings. "You two, more traps. The other way, not the way you came. We're expecting a second wave. It'll be useful to have more traps down that way, you know . . ."
We knew, all right.
You can't keep it from coming—sadness, misfortune, sickness, poverty, loneliness, pain, drinking, drugs, yes, death—and I don't think I'm wrong in saying that it's going to come, all right.
You can't keep it from coming, but you don't have to give it a chair to sit on.
Reattaching my field medic kit to my belt, I headed off. Fires flickered around me and the smoke made my eyes water.
Rub your eyes, be surprised, keep hungry
Stay alive, try to lose all of your money
You
Young blood
You
Young blood
Michael was behind an overturned school bus, occasionally leaping up to send flaming arrows at the monsters. I doubt it struck terror into the hearts of our enemies—the Minotaur was still alive and well, bellowing, swinging his Omega ax, not caring who he took out.
As I watched, hiding behind my own car, one of my siblings went down beneath the ax, a familiar brown buzz cut vanishing into shadows. I realize with a sickening jolt that the blades were shaped like Omegas, the last letter of the Greek alphabet, because that was the last thing his victims would ever see.
I had to fight back a sob. I hadn't known Cory well—he was one of the newest members, and usually spent all his time on the archery range. But he was patient, and kind, and . . .
Oh, shit. I might as well say it. He reminded me of Lee.
Had reminded me.
Oh dear, oh dear, I'm sorry
As I knelt behind the car, utterly frozen, I saw the Minotaur lean over and lock his massive, meaty fingers around something on Cory's chest. He gave the thing—whatever it was—a sharp yank, and he straightened up, the thing hanging off of his massive hand.
That you grew up so soon
It was Cory's Camp Half-Blood necklace.
A cold year and no high school parties
Then, holding the end of the ax of the ground with one hand, he wrapped the necklace around the base of one of the blades. It wasn't the first, I realized—dozens of them were tied there, as well as several on the other side. All belonging to his half-blood victims.
I've been drinking alone
I had to fight the bile that rose in my throat.
Oh, I've been drinking alone
I couldn't stifle the sob of horror on my lips, though, and I was glad I was hiding alone—field medics aren't supposed to cry. Call it Unspoken Commandment #13.
So, don't fear, don't fear the warnings, they're bitterer than most
My fingers closed over my own Camp Half-Blood necklace—the only necklace I could wear anymore—feeling the beads roll and slide under my fingers. Similar to one of those . . . what is it called? An abacus? Something in that vein. A hand–operated calculating tool.
Four years, of driving across the country
In a way, I guessed they used our necklaces in the same way, except they weren't calculating numbers or dates—they were calculating loyalty.
For empty seats at their shows
I gripped my necklace tighter. I missed the thin chain with the scythe charm—cold as it was, I never felt like a liar wearing that one. I never felt dirty, or traitorous, or . . . what was the word I had thought, even though I had never heard it? Blighted?
And they've been drinking alone
You don't remember that, I told myself. Nobody remembers random words they think a year later.
So
But telling myself did no good. The necklace—although it had branded me a traitor—was completely and utterly mine, in a way my bead necklace never had been.
Keep your time, keep your mind, keep humble
But . . . it didn't have to be that way, did it? I didn't have to hide my necklace, or be ashamed of it . . . either of them. I shouldn't, anyway.
Start your life in the middle of the jungle
But I did.
You
Maybe it didn't matter if I chose to wear a Camp Half-Blood necklace, or a Kronos necklace . . . I could make either one my home.
Young blood
The others couldn't.
Rub your eyes, be surprised, keep hungry
They hadn't been taught that, the Hephaestus cabin or the Demeter cabin or the Aphrodite cabin. (Of course, if you ask most people, they'll tell you no one taught those girls anything except how to do hair or makeup. That's not true, but no one bothers to find that out. I didn't have a choice.)
Stay alive, try to lose all of your money
From what I'd seen, it was only us. Us traitors who shamelessly mixed colorful painted memories with freezing silver charms so sharp that the edges sometimes sliced our skin like razor blades.
You
Because it was our home.
Young blood
I struggled my way to a standing position—my legs had fallen asleep from kneeling for so long—and took my hand off my necklace.
The Minotaur might take it tonight, but by the titans, by the Olympians, and by the primordials, I would put one one bitch of a fight.
Careful of the traps, fires, and flying badgers (why not?), I made my way over to Michael's hiding place. It was admittedly nicer than mine—slightly less charred, with 50% less blood and vomit splattering the concrete. And did I mention that I only sustained second-degree burns behind that bus instead of fourth-degree burns?
Livin' the life of luxury, I tell you what.
"Will!" Michael called. He beckoned me over. He looked slightly better than the others—the only injury I could see was a bloody gash down one forearm. It was so deep that I could see the glint of bone, but despite that, he was grinning like a crazed madman. His eyes glinted dangerously.
No, he hadn't given up.
I nodded toward his arm. "What happened there?"
He glanced at it as if surprised, as if he hadn't even realized he'd been hurt. "Oh, uh . . . I think it was one of the flaming arrows. They're fucking everywhere, but I guess you've already noticed that."
I dug out yet another piece of ambrosia and handed it to him. "Want me to get it?"
"Yes, please do." Michael dug out another arrow and fired it at a dracaenae. He cursed under his breath when it glanced off the thing's armor. "Fucking things are pretty much invincible. If you can get past the armor, their scales are hard like diamonds. The weak spots are hard to find."
I gently placed a hand over the wound (he hissed in pain) and began chanting under my breath. The hymn was a familiar one—not the original one he had taught me, but nevertheless good for healing cuts, bruises, and burns.
I had used the melody so much that I didn't even think about what I was saying—my mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to think of ways to possibly get us out of this. I knew perfectly well that there really was no point, but I hadn't fully accepted it yet.
My hands were shaking so badly that it was difficult to unroll a bandage. Michael watched me sympathetically as I struggled to wrap it around the burn, wincing at the pain in my cracked, burned hands.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Anything that can, conceivably, happen to one's hands on a burning bridge in the middle of a monster attack," I said grimly, finally finished bandaging the wound.
"Have you had any ambrosia?"
"Not for a while," I admitted. "I was saving it for the others."
"Take some," he ordered. "Now."
"But it—"
"Will," he said in his this-is-not-up-for-fucking-debate voice, "I am your head counselor, and, seeing as you are a field medic, your boss. You are going to eat some ambrosia or so help me, I'll rip off your fucking face and throw it to the hellhounds."
I grimaced, the gruesome memory of the burning hellhound still fresh in my mind. "Uh, yes, doctor."
I pulled out an ambro square, leaving me with only five more.
Tears filled my eyes as I swallowed it, but I told myself it was just the smoke.
Michael put a hand on my shoulder. "I'd be the most worried about your head, if I was you . . . what happened there?"
I lightly touched my head, wincing slightly despite the relief the ambro had provided. "When the monsters were charging, Austin and I were hiding behind the railing . . . I had an arrow in my hand, I wasn't really sure what it was. But when the army reached us, we climbed over the railing . . . at which point I jumped onto a hellhound's back . . . at which point I jammed the arrow in its neck . . . at which point I realized it was an explosive. Well, not realized, more like quickly learned."
Michael grimaced in sympathy. "Yeah, those explosives are bitches. That's why we only use them in battle."
I continued, "Well, the hellhound exploded under me . . . I mean, obviously, it did. Bitch sent me flying into the railing. Cracked my head pretty good."
"It's bleeding pretty good." Michael reached out to touch my head, and I reflexively ducked away.
He snorted. "You always got pissed about people touching your head."
"It hurts!" I protested. "Especially when you touch it."
"Exactly. That's why I'm going to fix it. Now stand still."
My head throbbed when he placed a hand on it; I wanted to pull away, but I knew better than to argue with Michael.
He muttered the same prayer I had used on his arm, and I felt the pain slowly ebbing away until it vanished.
I gave him a crooked grin. "That worked."
He wiped the blood off his hand on his pants. "Yeah, well, never shave half your head. That style does not work for you."
I opened my mouth to make some smart-ass comment, and then the words died in my throat. There was a shape flying towards us over Michael's shoulder, nearly indiscernible through the smoke-filled dark, but squinting, I could make out two figures on its back."
A grin spread across my face. "Uh, Michael . . . look who showed up."
He turned around, and then he smiled too. "Finally."
"Glad you could join us," Michael said. "Where are the other reinforcements?"
"For now, we're it," Percy said apologetically.
Michael grimaced. "Then we're dead." He sounded almost exactly like Gracie. I hadn't realized how much he had been depending on outside help. I silently resolved never to make the same mistake.
Annabeth looked at him. Both her and Percy looked extremely out of place on the bridge—they weren't covered with burns, for one thing, and their clothes and faces weren't smeared with ash and soot. That probably wouldn't last long.
The daughter of Athena asked, "Do you still have your flying chariot?"
"No, left it at camp. I told Clarisse she could have it. Whatever, you know? Not worth fighting about she said it was too late. We'd insulted her honor for the last time or some stupid thing."
"Least you tried," Percy said with a sigh.
My brother shrugged. "Yeah, well, I called her some names when she said she still wouldn't fight. I doubt that helped. Here come the uglies!"
Faster than I could blink, he nocked an arrow and launched it. I instantly clamped my hands over my ears, recognizing it as an ultrasonic arrow. They were easy to tell apart from the others, as they were blue with pale purple fletching, instead of black with green.
Unfortunately, my hand couldn't keep out the horrible noise the arrow unleashed when it found its target—like the world's biggest hand strumming the world's loudest guitar string. An out-of-tune guitar string.
Our environment was likewise affected. Monsters dropped their weapons and clapped their hands, claws, paws, and tentacles over their ears. Several ran, or simply disintegrated.
I realized with a flash of gut-wrenching guilt that several cars had exploded. I desperately hoped that Gracie and the others had managed to move the sleeping drivers and passengers in time.
"That was my last sonic arrow," Michael grumbled.
"A gift from your dad?" Percy asked. "God of music?"
An evil grin spread over Michael's face. I automatically backed up a few steps before he could order me to clean the mouse corpses out of No Man's Land before Gracie could get to them. "Loud music can be bad for you. Unfortunately, it doesn't always kill."
He wasn't kidding—the monsters that had headed for the hills were coming back, shaking off the pain in their ears.
"We have to fall back," Michael said. "I've got Kayla and Austin setting traps farther down the bridge."
I winced as I remembered my siblings' job. I hoped they were doing okay without a guard . . . or a person tall enough to set higher-up traps . . . or a person to keep them from falling off the bridge. I desperately hoped they were doing okay.
"No," Percy said. "Bring your campers forward to this position and wait for my signal. We're going to drive the enemy back to Brooklyn."
Michael barked a humorless laugh. "How do you plan to do that?"
Percy drew his sword—a three-foot-long, leaf-shaped blade, Celestial Bronze glowing in the light of the flames.
"Percy," Annabeth said, "let me come with you."
"Too dangerous," I said. "Besides, I need you to help Michael coordinate the defensive line. I'll distract the monsters. You group up here. Move the sleeping mortals out of the way. Then you can start picking off monsters while I keep them focused on me. If anybody can do all that, you can."
Michael snorted. "Thanks a lot."
Annabeth nodded reluctantly. "All right, get moving."
"Can I get a kiss for luck?" Percy asked. "It's sort of a tradition, right?"
Annabeth drew a knife and stared at the monsters. "Come back alive, Seaweed Brain. Then we'll see."
Despite my immediate impulse to yell Woah, wait! I do not approve of this plan! I had to smirk. The immature part of me wanted to yell, Oh my gods, will you two just start dating already!
But I held my tongue.
Michael turned toward me. "You need to get Kayla and Austin. Now."
I didn't question it. I ran.
Despite the lingering pain in my legs, I sprinted down the alley faster than I ever had in my life—and that was saying something, considering the past several hours. My stomach rolled as I ran through sections of the bridge where the fence had burned away, but I didn't slow my pace.
No monsters had managed to get this far—if nothing else came out of this night, at least we had accomplished that.
After several minutes, I found Kayla and Austin setting arrows where they would hopefully be set off by the charging monsters.
I was tempted to sneak up behind them and yell Boo!, but as they were rigging dangerous explosives that tended to go off with little to no provocation, I decided to go with the more direct approach.
"We have to go! Now!"
Both of them leaped up and spun around, Kayla forgetting that she was holding an explosive arrow. Immediately, before it could go off, she hurled it away, in the process destroying a large section of railing and fence.
"Thanks a lot, you piece of shit," she grumbled.
I rolled my eyes. "Forget the damn arrow! I wasn't kidding!" As quickly as I could, while we ran back the way I'd come, I relayed Percy Jackson's plan to Austin and Kayla.
Austin blinked. "How do they know this'll work? Seems like a good way to get killed."
"I'm pretty sure we've already decided that was the most likely outcome of tonight," Kayla pointed out.
"Hmph," Austin grumbled.
"It does seem weird," I agreed. "I mean, one guy to distract the entire army? I know he's a good fighter, but that seems . . ."
"Idiotic?" Kayla suggested. "Shitheaded? Fucking selfish?"
"I was going to say overconfident."
We had by now reached our cabin. They were hiding behind the same overturned school bus Michael and I had been hiding behind several minutes before.
Gracie glanced up at the sound of our return and sighed with relief. "Guys, they're back."
The rest of the cabin looked up, which meant . . . oh, gods, there were just two others, weren't there? It was me, Michael, Gracie, A.J., Kayla, Austin . . . that was it. Brody, Neva, and Cory had all bitten the dust.
Or the blood-soaked chunks of charred concrete, depending on how you want to look at it.
We were all that was left of our cabin.
A.J. beckoned us over. "Watch. This is pretty interesting."
At first I didn't see what he meant, and then I understood.
Percy Jackson was fighting the Minotaur.
And not just fighting—winning. Winning by a lot. He was beating the shit out of that bull monster, slashing it with his sword, smacking it in its massive gut, slicing off both horns. The Minotaur looked almost confused, as if it couldn't fathom that it was being beaten by a fifteen-year-old half-blood.
"The curse of Achilles," Gracie murmured. "Hestia said it, but I wasn't sure . . ."
It was true—Percy's clothes were ripped beneath his armor, his hair was singed, but as far as I could see, his body was unscathed.
"Fucking shit," Kayla breathed, firelight reflecting off the wondering glow in her eyes.
"Fucking shit is right," I muttered. "I can't believe . . . oh, shit!"
The Minotaur was charging Percy, confident that he could kill him even without his ax. Percy was backed up against the edge of the bridge, the Minotaur's ax braced against the railing.
There was no contest.
The crunch echoed across the bridge.
"Thanks for playing," Percy said.
He lifted the disintegrating Minotaur by his legs and tossed him over the bridge as if he was casually flicking aside an annoying insect.
For a second, we were all gaping at him, open-mouthed. Then we snapped back into action.
It was a good thing we did, because Percy had charged the army.
Yes, you heard that right. One teenage boy. 999 monsters. And he charged them with complete confidence—like he knew he was going to win so there was no point in fear. He looked almost terrifying—he had a fierce, blazing look in his eye, his massive glowing sword smeared with blood.
We did the logical thing—we stood still and didn't follow him.
Hey, in our defense, we were not invulnerable, and it's not like we did nothing. We fired arrows—regular, explosive, incendiary, marshmallow. (Again, not really.)
We weren't even careful not to hurt Percy—even if we did hit him, I had a feeling that the arrows would shatter against his skin as if they were made of glass and he, diamonds.
A few arrows managed to sink into the chinks in the monsters' armor, but we weren't really the useful ones. The son of Poseidon was worth thousands of archers all by himself.
Percy was unstoppable—he decapitated hellhounds, exploded dracaenae, sliced through armor like tissue paper. His hair and eyes were wild, his skin smeared with soot, his clothes torn and covered in blood, and he laughed—laughed a high, insane, cackle that sent shivers up my spine.
I knew I had laughed like that, I just couldn't remember when.
I honestly don't know who I was more scared of.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the monsters couldn't take it anymore. They turned snake tail and bounded back down the bridge, several more running straight through fires in their haste to escape. I was careful not to look at them—I had seen all I wanted to with the hellhound.
Percy sprinted after the enemy, and we after him, still firing the occasional arrow. Not that it mattered—they were already on the run. The arrows were, in a strange way, our final word.
"Yes!" Michael shouted. "That's what I'm talking about!"
We had nearly reached the opposite side of the bridge—Brooklyn, if I remembered correctly. The sky was beginning to turn from black to indigo in the east—the sun would finally rise. We hadn't lost.
"Percy!" Annabeth screamed. "You've already routed them. Pull back! We've overextended!"
Percy didn't listen.
He continued hacking and slashing, mad with the fervor and blood of battle.
"He's not gonna turn back," Gracie muttered. "Blood's in the water."
As it turned out, Percy didn't have a choice.
The reinforcements were here.
At the base of the bridge, thirty or forty demigods were gathered, mounted on skeletal horses. One of them carried a purple banner with a black scythe.
I knew that scythe well. I had worn it for a long time.
The lead horseman nudged his horse forward, then removed his helmet.
Kayla's bow fell to the ground with a clatter, and I had to white-knuckle mine to keep it from following.
We all knew Luke was a traitor, of course, and we all knew that it was his body Kronos had chosen to possess, but still . . .
Even as a child of the poetry god, I couldn't find words to express how erie it is to see the face of a human—a nice, normal face, the kind of face that could belong to any random human—but see the gold eyes, with no pupils, no irises, just solid gold, and know exactly what the human is.
And he used to be a head counselor. I heard he was a really good one.
"Now," Percy said grimly, "we pull back."
The horses charged.
Their skeletal hooves pounded against the pavement; the entire bridge shook. We pulled back arrows and fired—it would mean nothing, but neither could we just stand and watch.
Several of the demigods fell.
I realized with a sickening, horrified twist that I might have just killed one of my siblings. Among the fallen demigods could easily be Ayesha, or Kingsley, or Maddox, or—I felt absolutely disgusted—Harper.
And even if none of the fallen were my siblings, that didn't change the fact that we'd just killed several people—demigods, like us, who had families and friends and might have wanted to be something when they grew up. Who honestly thought they were doing the right thing.
It could just as easily have been me up there.
I hated myself.
"Retreat!" Percy shouted. "I'll hold them!"
Several minutes ago, we would have doubted him.
Now, there was no question in our minds.
We ran like the fucking devil was after us.
I had run that bridge several times in the last few hours. Then, my eyes had been watering, I had been coughing, my legs and head had been throbbing, and blood had been running down my mouth, thighs, and face. Now, thanks to the ambro, the pain was reduced to a tolerable level of just-had-a-monster-explode-under-me-and -throw-me-into-a-bridge-railing agony. The blood had mostly stopped. But the ambro didn't stop smoke, and I was still coughing, my eyes burning.
There was only one problem.
Michael.
We had only been running for a couple minutes when he stopped, breathing hard. Being his cabin mates and having no idea what the fuck to do when we weren't following him, we also stopped. Kayla slumped against me, coughing. I slipped an arm around her chest and held her tight. Austin leaned against my shoulder, and I put an arm around him too.
Michael turned to face us, a steely glint in his pale blue eyes. Oddly enough, they were the only feature we had in common.
"I have to turn back," he said.
"Michael, don't be an idiot," said Gracie, exasperated. "You're not turning back."
"Yeah, man," said A.J. "We need you here. You can't bail out on us now."
"I'm not bailing out!" Michael shouted. "They need me over there!" You'll all make it to the end of the bridge, and—and get out, but I have to help Percy. I'll join you guys if I can, but I . . . don't know—" He cut himself off.
Austin leaned his head against my shoulder, and Kayla buried her face in my chest. "It's gonna be okay," I whispered. "He—he'll get out." My voice cracked. The words sounded fake, even to me.
"No!" Gracie shouted. She drew her last arrow from her quiver, snapped in half, and threw the pieces to the ground. "You're not leaving us too! Every time we need someone, they do a shitheaded move and get themselves killed, or—or kill themselves—" Her voice broke.
"Gracie," I interrupted softly, "it's okay."
She glared at me. The glass behind her eyes had shattered—for the first time, I saw not the kind, responsible field medic, but the fifteen-year-old girl who had run away from her mother, who had had her brother die by her hands, who had lost too many of her siblings, whether to circumstances that couldn't be predicted or changed . . . or very easily could.
She still stubbornly insisted on trusting.
"We can't stop him," I said quietly. My eyes were full of tears now, but I continued. "He has to help Percy . . . I think—I think this is how it's supposed to happen."
"But he—"
"Might make it out alive," I interrupted again. It was a lie. And I was a terrible liar.
Apollo was the god of truth, after all.
But nobody bothered to correct me.
"Gracie," Michael said, even quieter than I had, "it's okay."
She clamped a hand over her mouth, choking back a sob. A.J.'s eyes were full of tears. Kayla and Austin's shoulders were shaking with sobs.
Michael walked over to the three of us and wrapped his arms around us. Gracie and A.J. joined us, and we stood together in a tight, unbreakable knot.
I didn't know what to say to these people—these bullheaded, idiotic, infuriating, amazing people that I would fight my way through hell for. They had kept me awake at night, forced me to chew my mouth to shreds, hid secrets from me, and made me hide in a dusty stage room of cobwebs and rat shit until the dirt and dust smeared my arms and I had to fight back scared, lonely sobs.
My family.
And it was time to let them go.
"I love you guys," Michael whispered, his voice breaking. "I love you guys so much."
I swallowed. "Same."
"Same."
"Same."
"Same."
"Same."
Michael pulled away. "Then . . . remember that. Always."
He nodded sadly toward the end of the bridge. "I'll go help Percy . . . g—good luck."
He ran off. I noticed that he only had a single arrow.
A.J. looked at us. "Well? Are we running, then?" He wiped his eyes."
"We're running," I agreed.
And we were.
The song is Young Blood by Noah Kahan, in case anyone's interested.