Okay, I am really doing it this time, I swear! Stop laughing; Rick took a whole book.
Also, a warning—this chapter contains an extremely graphic death, so if you get triggered by things like rape or disembowelment, maybe take a rain check on this one.
Don't want to give away too much, but let's just say that this fic is rated M for a reason, and it's not just the suicides.
Sure, it was originally rated T, but I changed it because I'm fucking paranoid.
We didn't have to go far to find a wounded demigod. A girl, a daughter of Aphrodite, a little older than me, had sustained a serious leg wound. She had managed to crawl to the edge of the fray, bleeding, groaning in pain.
"Harper, look for other injured demigods. See if you can get them over here," I ordered. She nodded and took off. Then I dropped to my knees beside the girl, ignoring the sharp sting of broken glass in my legs.
Her eyes flickered with recognition. "Will?" Her voice wasn't too weak—a good sign.
Suddenly, I remembered her. "Olivia!" I exclaimed. "Olive? Wait, do you prefer Olive or Olivia?"
She laughed weakly. "Olive's fine."
"Can I . . ." I nodded toward her leg.
She nodded her head, wincing. "Yeah, see what you can do. It got sliced pretty bad, and burned." Her voice was so hoarse and quiet I could barely hear it. She was shaking, soaked in sweat. Her face was smeared with blood and brick dust. Nevertheless, her eyes had a glint of mischief in them, and she was smiling—a faint smile, to be sure, but a genuine one.
No, the children of Aphrodite should never be counted out.
Olive wasn't kidding about her injuries. Her leg was a nightmare—had I not been as experienced as I was, I would have gagged. Not only was the entire thing bent at an unnatural angle, but several patches of it were so scorched that the blackened skin had cracked, revealing thin fissures of pinkish-red skin that looked oddly liquidy. Shiny, kind of. A wide, ugly scar ran down the length of her entire leg, so deep I could see the glint of white bone beneath. It was surrounded by the blood that smeared her entire leg, and I could now see where it had been leaking from. Jagged shards of broken glass were interspersed throughout her entire leg, sending blood dripping over everything. As I touched the wound to gauge its severity, I felt one of them slide deep into the sensitive web of flesh between my thumb and forefinger, forcing me to hiss in pain and yank it out. Not that I was complaining—I welcomed any excuse to take my hand off the wound.
Oh gods, what would I tell her? Seeing as it was my job to stay calm so that patients would stay calm, I hardly reacted, but I was inwardly panicking. Healing this would take energy and time—energy I might not have, and time I definitely did not have. I fucking hate working as a war medic—every second you sit still with your patient, there is the chance for your head to be sliced off, your back to have a knife plunged into it, a dragon to sneak up behind you and torch you.
Speaking of such . . .
Olive's eyes went wide, and she screamed, "BEHIND YOU!"
I whirled around and dove to the side just in time to have only the leg of one pant torched. Oh, lucky me—it had already been torched multiple times in the last several hours. Hardly any protection between the white-hot flames and my bare skin.
Did I mention I fucking hate working as a war medic?
Roaring pain seared across my calf. It was so intense that, despite all my training and practice keeping calm and keeping in control, I allowed a scream to rip from my throat.
I scrambled backwards, ignoring the broken glass and concrete that sliced my arms hands and to ribbons, twisting my leg back and forth through the pulverized building materials until the fire had been extinguished and all I was left with was a pant leg seared off below the knee and a brilliant red calf covered in blisters leaking fluid.
The pain was so intense that I could feel myself beginning to black out, but then a thought shot through my mind with enough force to send me slamming to my feet.
"HARPER!" I screamed. If a dragon had managed to escape from the crowd of demigods fighting it, Harper could have easily been caught in the crossfire—of the straight-on fire, depending on how you want to look at it.
Far away, or maybe just incredibly weakly, a voice called, "Will!"
I breathed a sigh of relief. Harper was okay, at least for now.
I wasn't too worried about Olive—the dragon's attention was fully on me. I heard no sign of the other two—maybe they had been killed by the demigods, or maybe they had left to find an area with easier food, or killed them and then left. I didn't want to ask which, but I no longer heard the clashing of swords and the shouting.
Then I chanced a glance over my shoulder, and got my first full-on view of the dragon.
It was tall, maybe fifteen feet, and at least twice that long from nose to tail. Most of its scales were a dark, indigo blue; it almost reminded me of the night sky. It's wings had undertones of mahogany brown and midnight black, and its eyes—
Hold up. I'm making it sound pretty. I need to not do that.
It bared its fangs at me, saliva dripping down to eat steaming holes through the glass and concrete. Oh, great. It had corrosive spit. Guess it was the gift that kept on giving.
Snapping its massive jaws again, it roared a blast of fire that would have scorched me like one of my campfire marshmallows had I not scrambled out of the way. Fighting the dragon—or more specifically, dodging its fire—was a tricky business, and would have been, with any dragon. In fact, I would have been completely doomed if not for a conversation I had once had with Michael, a few weeks after the infamous drakon incident. Quintus hadn't been kidding about it happening more and more frequently—a dragon, juvenile but deadly, had attacked the border. Michael as well as a few other archers had been dispatched to ward it off.
He had later been complaining about how difficult it was to dodge the fire dragons breathed.
I'd asked, "How do you do it?"
He'd replied, "Well, you have to get to the side, not try running forward. Don't attend the Prometheus School of Running Away From Things.* You have to get to the side, and I mean far to the side, or else the tongues of fire'll get you. Not to mention while you're dodging, you have to stay as low to the ground as possible. In fact, curl in a ball if you can. The lower and farther to the side, the better. Just don't stay on the ground, or you'll get your head ripped off."
Present-day Will hadn't forgotten those instructions, and did his best to follow them. Because the Fates love me, the ground was covered with broken glass and other building materials. By the time the roll had brought me back to my feet, my neck, arms, and exposed leg had been sliced to ribbons.
I stood facing the dragon, breathing hard, dripping blood. I realized, at the most terrible moment possible, that I had a bow and arrows. If I hadn't lost any on the ground, of course.
"Fucking shit," I muttered under my breath.
The dragon hissed, narrowing its yellow eyes. I noticed with some interest and disgust that from its tear ducts was leaking a constant stream of oily black fluid. It splattered on the pavement and rubble, hissing and steaming. Of course.
Before I could at least try to draw an arrow before I was killed, the dragon's eyes bulged. It seemed to gag on its tongue, more corrosive saliva pouring out of its mouth. Then it fell face-first onto the road, slowly collapsing into dust.
Squinting, I peered through the cloud of dust, my eyes stinging. "Kayla?" I called.
"Yeah, it was me!" she shouted back.
A second later, both Kayla and Austin came running over. "Do you know you have a bow?" Austin asked dryly.
"Yeah, well I was gonna put it into effect in a second." I peered into the rubble. "Did . . . did you get all three dragons?"
I caught a hint of pride in her bloody, exhausted face. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."
I punched her shoulder. "Come on. Let's go see if Harper and the others are okay."
Harper and the others were not okay.
My sister found us first, unharmed but shaken. "I—I don't—" She shook her head. "There are six half-bloods over there, and all of them are injured. I couldn't get too close . . . some of them might have—you, you know, recognized me."
Kayla raised her eyebrows. "Recognized you?"
"I'll explain later." Unlatching my field medic kit and allowing myself to take a small piece of ambrosia, I jumped over a fallen chunk of concrete and headed into the war zone. "Come on, let's see what we can do for healing."
I didn't see Olive anywhere, but I told myself she might be with the others.
We managed to find all six demigods. Four of them were alive, one with a broken arm, two with serious burns, one with a long claw mark sliced across his chest. We did, or rather I did, what we could for them.
"All right, all three of you need to head to Plaza Hotel," I told them. "There's food and more bandages there, and you can get some rest."
One of the daughters of Demeter protested. "But we have to fight—"
I nodded toward her broken arm. "You're not fighting anyone, not in your current condition. Rest. Take more ambro and nectar, as much as you can without combusting. You might be in fighting shape in an hour or two. Can all of you walk?"
They all nodded.
"Good. Do that."
A son of Athena asked, "Are you guys just going to keep sending people there? It's probably already overcrowded, and you're going to run out of supplies."
I nodded grimly. "You're right; we'll have to find another base. You'll know when we do. For now, just go."
They didn't look happy about it, but they nodded and headed off.
Kayla turned to me. "Where do we go?"
She looked exhausted. Her bottom lip was trembling. I realized that she was still limping slightly, compliments of her bad ankle.
"I—I don't know," I admitted. "We just have to find a place with a lot of injured demigods."
Austin glanced around. "Shouldn't be too hard."
"No, it shouldn't." I put an arm around Kayla's shoulders. "Are you okay to walk, or do you want me to see if you can do something about that ankle?"
She shook her head. "Save it for the—you know, the other demigods."
I shook my head in amazement. "You're an angel. Okay, but I might have to carry you. You'll need your strength for, you know, fighting."
She tried to protest, but then slumped against a lamppost, trying to hide her grimace of pain. All that, and taken down by a twisted ankle. "Okay, fine. I can't walk great."
I let her climb on my back. Shivering despite the heat, she wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and rested her head tiredly on my shoulder. She weighed almost nothing; carrying her took no more of my energy than carrying a large cat would have. Or maybe that was the adrenaline rush.
As we headed out of the rubble cloud, Harper sidled up to me, her face pale. She put her mouth up to my ear and whispered, so quietly I could barely hear it, "Don't let the younger ones see it."
I saw what she was talking about soon enough.
Olive was lying in a gutter, her throat ripped out so viciously that her head was almost severed from her body. One of her eyes had been ripped out of its socket and was staring, glazed and unseeing, at the destroyed street. Filling the socket were shreds of skin, both blackened by the fire and unblemished. They spilled over the edges, sticking out of the gaping black hole. Her mouth was open, filled with more of the same, as well as several strange, coarse, curly black hairs that must have come from . . . no. I refused to consider that. The other eye was a white and pink mess, a volcano of goop and stringy stuff. Blood poured from her neck, smearing her vomit-covered shirt. Her stomach was ripped open, slimy guts and organs spilling out as if she had been autopsied. I managed to identify the small intestine, spleen, and gallbladder before I stopped, disgusted with myself. One of her hands was resting on her lacerated chest, fingers scrabbling in the blood. Her injured leg had been nearly torn from her body, not to mention clawed back open.
And her arm . . . I had to force back the bile that rose in my throat. It had been completely wrenched from its socket, littering the sidewalk with torn flesh and shards of bone. Some of the skin had been ripped off of it, leaving patches of it a gruesome, gleaming red.
And the worst part . . . the arm . . . I had to force back a sob. Oh, gods . . .
The arm was sticking out haphazardly from between her legs, the area which was leaking blood profusely. The remaining skin around the area of her arm which had been roughly shoved into Olive's vagina was pushed up, wrinkled and torn from being forcefully shoved out of the way.
Not only had some evil, despicable creature, monster or human, ripped off her arm and raped her with it, they had done it so quickly and silently that none of us had had a clue it was happening.
Olive wouldn't be smiling mischievously anymore.
Much as I didn't want to move closer to my friend's violated corpse, Kayla and Austin hadn't noticed it yet, and I had zero intention of ever letting them know what had happened to Olive.
So I shifted position so I was closer to the corpse, shielding it from Austin's view. To Kayla, I simply whispered, "Don't look."
She had seen enough to know not to question it. She didn't know what she wasn't supposed to be looking at, but she knew she didn't want to see it. Choking back a sob, she buried her face in my shoulder.
Now that I was closer to the body, I could see that someone had written words in a spidery scrawl in the gutter next to Olive's body.
Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?
At first, I thought they were written in some strange kind of glue, but then the filter burned away, and I saw that they were written in bloody semen.
I looked away.
As soon as we were well out of view, I put Kayla down. "Be right back," I told them. "I just need to check something real quick."
As soon as I was out of the sight of my siblings, I fell to my knees between two parked cars. Hunched on my bloody hands and shredded knees, I vomited up all the nothing in my stomach until I was crying and my ribs were aching, retching up every despicable thing I had seen and done.
Finally, I felt a warm hand on my back. "It's okay, kid, I know." For the first time ever, Harper sounded as if she'd been crying.
I stood up and threw my arms around her, burying my face in her shoulder, all dignity and field medic restrictions momentarily put on hold.
"It—Olive—the girl—" I gasped through my sobs.
"I know, Will. I know. We'll be okay."
"But I—I knew her," I forced out. "We were friends, or sort of, at least. I thought she might be okay! There was maybe a chance—if she got to the hotel—she had a fucking nickname, Harper. How could she—why—"
I lost it again.
I could feel another finger pried from the cliffside, another weight threatening to pull me down.
When I finally managed to pull myself back together, erasing the memory of the girl's body as best I could, I remembered that Kayla and Austin had been alone for gods know how long.
"Are the younger kids okay?" I whispered into Harper's shoulder.
"They're all right," she whispered back. "They're hidden. They don't know why we're back here."
"Good."
We were silent for a moment, and then we pulled apart, wiping away tears. I could believe that something that horrible could happen to a girl who was so kind and gentle and brave. It could have just as easily happened to me . . . or Harper . . . or Kayla . . . or Austin. (In a different location, but that hardly made a difference.)
Come to think of it, did either of them even know what rape was? It was likely that Austin knew how sex worked, seeing as he had come to camp when he was ten, so it was highly possible that he had learned before that. (I myself had learned when I was nine, from a dirty-minded friend a year older than me who lived near us in Texas, at least when we lived there and not all over the place.) Still, though, it was also possible that he hadn't known before he came to camp, and if that was true, I found it extremely unlikely that anyone would have filled him in. Most of the people in my cabin did not strike me as likely candidates for explaining the birds and the bees. And Kayla had come to camp when she was nine, so it was even more likely that she hadn't known. And even if she had asked her dad, how would that conversation have gone. Hey, Dad, where did I come from? Funnily enough, Kayla, I actually have no idea how that worked either. And again, she probably wouldn't have learned it at camp. And even if both of them had known what sex was, that wasn't a guarantee that they knew what rape was. Though I had learned about sex when I was nine, I hadn't learned the definition of rape until I was eleven.
If we all made it out alive, I would have to have a very serious talk with my younger siblings.
Harper and I locked eyes, and a silent agreement passed between us. We would not share the story of Olive with the kids. We would not tell them why we had briefly left.
We would not let the same thing happen to them.
Both of us felt utterly sickened at the thought of finding our little sister or brother lying twisted in a gutter, ripped to shreds, violated with one of their own appendages.
We would keep them safe.
It would never happen to them.
Or to one of us.
Pulling ourselves back together, we left the spot between the cars, now spattered with blood and vomit, and made it back to our siblings.
I embraced both of them tightly, clinging to them like a drowning man clutching a life preserver, before allowing Kayla to climb on my back.
"You okay?" she whispered in my ear.
"Okay as I can be," I whispered back.
And it began once more.
We spent nearly an hour tracking down injured half-bloods, lost half-bloods, hiding half-bloods. We healed them as best we could, then sent the worst ones off to the Plaza Hotel to get some rest.
Frequently, we encountered injured half-bloods still fighting monsters. When those situations arose, Kayla helped by taking them out with her bow.
Finally Harper looked at me and said, "We need to find a better place to put the injured."
She was right, obviously.
"Let's just get back to the hotel," I said tiredly. "Then we'll figure it out."
And we headed back the way we came.
My lungs burned. My eyes burned. My legs felt like lead. My back ached from carrying Kayla. Still, though, I was grateful for her arms around my neck, her head resting on my shoulder, her body shaking with suppressed tears. It was an excellent reminder that, much as I wanted to give up, I couldn't leave. I had two younger kids to take care of.
It took us a much shorter time to make it back to the hotel than it had taken us to get to wherever we were, mainly because we didn't keep stopping to fight monsters and fix wounds. Although we did run across a couple of hellhounds and dracaenae, we dispatched them to Tartarus easily with our bows.
By the time we reached the hotel, I was about ready to collapse from exhaustion, and the others didn't look much better. I nearly fell on my face as we walked inside, but I didn't, because that would have been a goddamn bad idea.
The entire floor was covered with the wounded—a groaning, sprawling mass of bodies, bloody, battered, and broken. A couple of them were already gone, blank-eyed, chalk-faced, while a couple more seemed to be painfully breathing in their last breaths.
We hadn't been fast enough.
Kayla choked back a sob, and Austin leaned into my shoulder, shaking. I wanted to do the same to Harper, but I did not.
Instead, I turned to look at the others, blocking out the pained cries, the smell of festering flesh and vomit. "Any ideas as to good locations?"
Harper shook her head. "I don't even know if we can move them. Some of them seem pretty stationary. I don't speak from experience, but I'm pretty sure walking several blocks away while suffering from two severed legs is kind of a hassle."
Austin rubbed his forehead. "But we can't leave them here. They'll just keep piling up, and who knows how many are on the upper levels? Besides, it's only a matter of time before the monsters break in."
I hate it when Austin's right.
My mind began to race, flipping through every possible solution. "Okay, we need a place not too far away. Somewhere the monsters can't get in."
"Isn't it obvious?" Kayla said quietly, not lifting her head off my shoulder. "We have to take them to Mount Olympus."
A faint bell began to ring in the back of my head. "That might work."
"It's not too far away," Harper agreed. "Only about a mile and a quarter."
"And the monsters probably won't know where to look for us," Austin said.
I looked at the others. "Are we all good? We take them to the Empire State Building? We're all in agreement?"
They nodded. A rare moment of our entire cabin being on the same wavelength.
Kayla spoke up again. "How are we going to move them? Not all of them can walk, and you can't carry all of them."
I lifted my chin and cracked my knuckles. "Can't walk yet, dummy."
Harper sighed. "Please tell me we won't have to drag your unconscious body to Olympus along with everyone else."
"Don't worry, I won't fully heal them. Just enough so that they can walk. And the bigger ones can carry the smaller ones, just like me and Kayla." I unlatched my medic kit and handed it to Harper. "The three of you, use the supplies in here, along with the other things the Hermes kids brought us. Seeing as none of you have healing powers, you'll have to heal the old-fashioned way."
Austin blinked. "But, none of us are good at healing . . ."
"You don't have to be good, just make sure you can walk." I smiled crookedly. "Besides, you're still children of Apollo. You have healing in your blood. You'll figure it out."
For all the people who are going to say that we should have just sucked it the fuck up and stayed in the Plaza Hotel . . . well, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong, given what happened, but if it was our cabin's nature to be family-bound instead of duty-bound, most of my older siblings wouldn't have killed themselves, taking the rest along with them.
Healing was hard.
And painful.
And exhausting.
Our one lucky break? The first floor was the only one filled with the wounded, which meant that we didn't have to go through the same thing on every floor of the hotel.
The dead people? There were two, both of whom I had known. There was Eliza, a daughter of Hephaestus, and Aaron, one of the unclaimed.
Eliza's cabin would make a burial shroud for her. Aaron's . . . I honestly had no idea. Maybe the Hermes cabin, since that was what cabin he lived in.
It was then that I discovered the use of the cloth.
Every field medic kit, for reasons I had never understood until now, has a few thin, blank white clothes folded up in the corner. I had asked my siblings about them multiple times, but they always just shook their heads and said that with luck, I would never need to find that out. With the way they said it, I was sure that I would, indeed, be finding out, probably sooner rather than later.
I were right about that.
The cloths, unfolded and shaken out, were just the right size to drape over a human's face.
The dead watched us no longer.
The final cloth—I had only been supplied with three, although I needed more—was folded up as small as I could get it and slipped into my battered pocket. Why, I didn't know, but I knew that I would need it soon enough.
The hotel lobby was quieter than it had been, now that people were no longer groaning in pain quite as loudly as they had been. They were by no means okay, but they knew that they would soon be moved to a safer place, and they were now healed enough at least to walk.
The older ones were, anyway.
Kayla, Austin, Gracie, and I, as well as several less-injured campers and Hunters, moved around the room, helping everyone to their feet. Several older or stronger campers and Hunters could carry the younger and the injured.
By my count, inside the room, there were twenty-eight injured campers and eighteen injured Hunters. That was bad—for all of us. I desperately hoped Percy had a plan.
"All right," I called. "Everyone ready to go?"
There were nods and a chorus of dull assent. I opened the doors, and we all headed out into the daylight.
We had gotten about a mile when the birds attacked.
I should have guessed it would be the Stymphalian birds again—they seemed to follow me as if I was a magnet. I wished I could attract something else—puppies, for example. Or, if it had to be birds, at least, I don't know, sparrows, or something.
But noooooo.
At first, we didn't notice the birds. Well, to be clear, we noticed them, but we ignored them. They were flying so high up that we couldn't see how large they were. Ergo, we figured they were just pigeons, raiding the trash cans and snack carts now that their owners were fast asleep.
But more and more of them joined, until there was a flock of twenty or thirty of them in the sky, a seething black mass.
"Uh, guys . . ." Austin said quietly, "is that normal?"
The flock dove closer to us before pulling back up. Razor-sharp beaks snapped. Steel talons curled. Cold beady eyes flashed.
Chills erupted up my spine, cold sweat making my shirt stick to my body. I had seen all those features before. A long time ago, but I remembered them as clearly as crystal . . .
"We have to run!" I shouted, grabbing my bow and nocking an arrow, just in case there was a chance I could fight. "NOW!"
"Kill as many as you can!" Pollux shouted, blatantly ignoring me. "There aren't that many!"
I cursed and slapped my forehead. "You fucking idiot, they are incredibly hard to kill!" As a general rule, I tried to avoid insulting people and swearing at them, but I was certain that at that moment we had bigger problems. "Not to mention the fact that more are joining!"
I was right—already the flock had grown to forty or fifty birds. They were much closer to us now, to longer deterred by our swords and bows.
"He's right!" Katie shouted. "We have to run!"
We took off.
We couldn't run as fast as we might have, seeing as many of us were carrying younger kids on our backs. Ironically, the point was for us to move faster.
Ah, well.
Most of the weapons—swords, spears, and knives—were useless. The birds were too small and too fast for us. My cabin and I were the only ones who had a hope, but no matter how many birds we managed to take out, more took their place.
One of them swooped right above me, its razor-sharp talons carving several grooves into my head. I screamed in pain, firing an arrow that missed the bird and hit a stop sign.
"How far are we?" Drew shouted, apparently focused on keeping the birds from ruining her hairdo.
"A quarter mile!" Harper hollered back.
The birds were on us now, razor talons slicing our skin and clothes, beaks that felt like ice picks digging into our flesh. I saw one camper go down, then another.
Harper shouted at me, "What kind of arrows do we need?"
I honestly had no idea what would be the most effective against the birds. However, I had learned not to doubt the deadliness of pyrotechnics. "Try fire!" I shouted, taking out a bird that was trying to peck out Austin's eyeball.
The air was filled with screams of pain; we were all covered in blood, our clothes tattered, chunks of our hair missing, but Harper, not deterred, nocked an incendiary arrow and turned to fire it.
That was when it happened.
I didn't see the arrow—it wasn't fired by one of us; I had no idea that I should be on the lookout for one.
But I saw it clearly, happening as if it was in slow motion.
The arrow was a perfect shot—deadly straight. I saw it flash through the air. I heard the whistle of the air it shoved aside. Arrows are selfishly determined like that.
I think I screamed Harper's name—I think I did, anyway, I have no memory of it, but I must have. I wouldn't have stayed silent; I know I wouldn't have.
It wasn't an incendiary or explosive arrow, thank—someone. Whoever fired it, I guess, but I wouldn't be thanking them.
It tore through Harper's neck like tissue paper, a spray of blood fanning out, the drops catching the sunlight and sparking like rubies.
I found myself wishing, for the first time in my life, that the day was cloudy.
In a split second's decision, Harper's eyes narrowed. She had never been the greatest shot in the world, but her arrow was shot with deadly accuracy, catching the largest Stymphalian bird directly through the chest.
The fire spread.
And Harper, almost lovingly, placed her bow and now empty quiver a broken chunk of concrete.
Then she collapsed to the ground.
The birds were now shrieking, panicking, flying into one another in their haste to get away. Fire leaped from one to another as if they were lightning rods in a storm.
I heard Austin raise his voice and scream, "GO! Get to Olympus!"
The crowd took off, no longer pursued by the birds. Kayla and Austin were with them—neither of them had seen what had happened. They would notice I wasn't with them, and be worried, and maybe even terrified, but it would be okay. I would see them eventually.
I dropped to my knees beside Harper, ignoring the pain of a thousand scratches all over my body, ignoring the pain of every injury I had sustained that day and the night before it.
Harper was lying on her back, gazing up almost peacefully at the sky. The sun had dipped behind the clouds, and I now found myself wishing that I hadn't wanted the sun gone. I was shivering, covered in an oppressively heavy blanket.
Blood was pouring from the side of her neck, eddying and swirling as it ran in little rivers down the street. The arrow hadn't hit her jugular vein head-on—if it had, she'd have been dead in seconds—but it had clipped it good, and there wasn't much time left.
"Well, shit," Harper muttered. "Jeez, Will, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you, honest."
I was nearly sobbing in horror, although it would have been impossible to see from an outside perspective. I would have—and did—appear to seem completely and utterly calm. "No—not, Harps, you're not leaving. I might be able to fix it—it I—" I cut myself off. I didn't know how to fix a ruptured jugular vein, and at that moment, I recalled with shocking clarity what Michael had once told a wide-eyed ten-year-old Will about this exact same injury.
"Say your goodbyes," he'd told me, "and mutter your curses."
That had been a blow for younger Will—finding out his brother couldn't fix everything, that there were some things that he could only look bitterly at and shake his head.
But Harper reached over and laced her fingers through mine. Her brownish-blue eyes were clouded with pain, yet her voice was perfectly steady. "No, no, that's not what I meant." Her eyes flickered to the side, taking in the blood, before locking onto mine. "I was talking about before."
The bottom of my stomach dropped out. "It—it destroyed me, what you did. The night when I found out you left—" I swallowed, remembering my promise never to tell this story, but then plowed on, "I ran away from my cabin, to the cluster of rocks by the lake. You know them?" She nodded. "I punched the rocks. Again and again. My fists were bleeding, I was crying, there was blood everywhere, I was so scared, and so angry—"
I shook my head.
Harper smiled sadly. "It was Lee who told me I should leave."
There was no surprise, only a sense of dulled pain and horror, lost in my emotionally detached field medic brain. "Lee."
She nodded. "He didn't pressure me or anything—well, he kind of did, actually—he said I should join, he couldn't, one of us had to, the Olympian gods sucked the fucking root. You know."
I tried to picture Lee saying that last part, and found to my surprise that it wasn't that hard to do. He had changed. A lot.
"So I joined," she continued. "But I—I never wanted to leave you, Will. You were my main argument for staying. But Lee said it would be fine, he'd take care of you. I don't think he expected . . ."
"Take care of me," I echoed hollowly. "He killed himself. Right in front of me."
She coughed weakly. Blood dribbled down her chin. "I believe it. And I believe he honestly thought he was doing you good."
"That fucking idiot." I paused. "I really miss him. And Michael. And all the others."
She smiled sadly. "I do, too. I didn't mean to leave the army—in fact, I don't know if I really have—but when I saw you on the bridge—you were so close, Will. It was horrifying. I never want to see you like that again."
"I scared me too," I whispered. "Fucking selfish. I would have left Kayla and Austin."
"Never leave them," she whispered. "You've got a good family."
I smiled. "I do. I have the best family."
"I love you so much, Will."
I squeezed her hand. Her grip was so weak. "I love you too, Harps."
"Do me a favor, will you?" she asked. "My necklace. Take it. I don't care what you do with it, but don't keep it. Just . . . something that feels right, okay?"
I squeezed her hand again. "I promise."
She smiled sadly. "Our cabin didn't deserve you, you know. We, especially our head counselors, have a long history of blood, violence, abuse, drugs, anger, self-harm . . . and yes, it always seems to end in suicide."
I nodded sadly. "I know."
Suddenly, her faraway gaze was fierce and direct. "You are not our cabin, Will. You'll make a far better head counselor than they ever were." Her breathing hitched.
"I will."
"The world is dark, Will." With a final, heroic effort, she squeezed my hand back. "We can choose to shine as bright as we can, or choose not to. It's your life; you live it. Just because all of your head counselors chose a path doesn't mean you have to."
"Claire didn't kill herself."
"Claire didn't," she agreed. "She was the only one. And promise me one more thing—you will burn this system to the ground."
"I will."
She smiled. "And dance on the ashes."
I started to reply, but then her eyes were empty, her gaze soft and faraway, and I knew she couldn't hear me. Blood still leaked out of her throat, but much more slowly now, practically a trickle.
I could have cried. Now that Harper was gone, there was no one around to know. It would have been easy.
But I did not. Instead, I unclipped her necklace and held it tightly before slipping it into my field medic kit.
I pulled the cloth out of my pocket.
I shook it out and placed it over Harper's face. The ends floated down to meet the blood-soaked ground.
Then I slowly rose to my feet and moved on.
Mount Olympus was no longer a ghost town.
Kayla and Austin, as well as several dryads and nature spirits, were doing an admirable job of healing the wounded, considering I was not there.
As I looked around, I realized that several more bodies had been placed under burial shrouds—none of them were decorated, just plain colors. Same as our cabin's always were.
Kayla and Austin were huddled together over a body. I couldn't tell if they were alive or dead. I couldn't see whose it was. I didn't want to, but I knew I would have to.
It was once again Kayla who saw me first. She briefly glanced up from her work, and gave a startled yelp. She leaned over and whispered something to Austin, and they both leaped up and ran over.
Well, that settled it. I knew now whether the patient was living or dead. Field medics don't run away from a living patient.
My brother and sister tackled me in a two-way hug, shaking with relief. "Where were you?" Kayla demanded, her voice tinged with anger. "We thought the birds got you! We thought we'd have to—to—" Her voice broke.
I gently cupped the back of her head. "I'm okay," I said softly. I hadn't cried—not since seeing Olive's corpse, anyway. But in the sad, broken city of Olympus, tightly embracing my siblings, I could feel the familiar burn creeping up behind my eyelids.
I forced it away.
Austin glowered at me. "Why'd you leave? You could've at least told us!"
"You were already running," I pointed out. "You had to get away, and the sooner you got all the injured up here, the better."
Kayla reluctantly pulled away. "Well, what the hell were you doing that was so important that you had to let us think you were dead?"
I didn't answer, not at first. Instead, I walked over to the body that Kayla and Austin had been hovering over. A Hermes boy—Henry, if I was remembering correctly. I wasn't sure exactly how he had died. There were marks around his neck, bruises that made it look as though he had been strangled, but there was also a deep wound in his throat. It could have been strangulation, or bleeding out, or some combination of the two.
Having no more face coverings, I ripped a piece off of his jacket, my hands no longer shaking. I gently draped it over his face.
I didn't speak while I was doing this. Finally, I sighed. "Harper's dead."
Kayla's eyes filled with tears. "Harper what?"
I took a deep breath. "It—the birds got her." I thought about telling my siblings about the arrow, but some part of me wanted to keep that secret from them. I had no idea where the arrow had come from—I would need ballistics for that—but it had been an incredibly straight and powerful shot. It would have torn straight through Harper's throat had she nod unwittingly moved at the last second.
There were two groups of people at the battle capable of firing a shot that perfect. One was the Hunters of Artemis. The other was . . .
Well, I think you can guess who the others were.
But everything in me rebelled against the thought of letting my little siblings know that the monsters weren't the only thing they had to look out for.
The demigods of our cabin could be angry, vengeful, and utterly furious with deserters. It was horrible, but I could honestly see Maddox, Ayesha, and Kingsley becoming so furious at Harper for abandoning not just their cause but them that they would fatally shoot her.
Was it even worse that I wasn't surprised?
And the last thing my cabin needed to know was that not only might they get killed, they might get killed by one of their estranged siblings.
Burn this system to the ground, she'd said. And dance on the ashes.
She was right.
Austin shook his head, rubbing his forehead. "Then I guess it—it's just us now."
I put a hand on his shoulder. "You're right. Come on, let's see what we can do about healing."
My first girl was a lost cause.
There is a point which we healers call the gone, not as in the Maze Runner books, but as in, it's useless to try and save them, don't waste your energy.
She was a daughter of Demeter, about my age, with messy brown hair and hazel eyes. They glinted with gold flecks and would have been beautiful in sunlight, but they were clouded with pain, desperately trying to focus on mine.
I knelt beside her and took her hand. She gripped it weakly, her breathing labored. Her chest was a horrorscape of slices and lacerations. Touching her was sending constant pulses of pain and fear through my whole body, but I held her hand anyway, giving her one last thing to hold on to.
She finally managed to focus her eyes on mine. "W—Will?"
I smiled gently and squeezed her hand. "Alex."
"You remember me?"
I examined her hand, the dirty, broken nails, the chuffed and bleeding knuckles, as if she had been punching through brick walls instead. "I remember all of you."
Her eyes slid off of mine briefly before locking back on. She weakly squeezed my hand. "I'm scared, Will."
"I know."
"I don't . . ." She coughed weakly, blood running down her chin. "I—I don't know where I'm going, or if I'll see my siblings . . ."
I rested my chin on top of our interlocked hands. "I don't know much, Alex, but I do know this—wherever your siblings go, you are going too."
It was truer than she would ever know.
I would know all to well.
She coughed again. "I really miss them."
"I bet you do." I gently pressed my lips to her hand. "Sleep now, Alex. You'll see them again."
"I'm so tired . . ." she whispered, her grip further weakening.
"I know, Alex. Rest. It'll be alright."
"I don't . . ." Before she could finish her sentence, her hand slipped out of mine.
I leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.
Then I placed a piece of her torn shirt over her face, and stood back up.
I continued making my rounds.
I was by now so charged with adrenaline that it was difficult to hear anything over the buzzing in my ears. In the last twenty-four hours, I had bled, screamed, whimpered, sobbed, and sweated out so much frustration, fear, anger, and misery that all I felt anymore was a dull, aching promise curled up, immovable, in my chest.
I will not be my cabin.
I lost track of how much time had passed when Jake ran up to me, breathing hard. Half his face was bloody, he had a black eye on the other side, his shirt was in tatters (I mentally cursed myself for glancing at his chest; this was no time for that bullshit), and he looked completely panicked.
"Will, you—you have to—," he panted. "The—Kronos—it—"
He didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to.
I stared at him, my face ashen. "We have to get down there."
He looked terrified. "Do we?"
"Yes, you idiot!" I threw down the scrap of cloth I'd been holding on the boy's face and leaped to my feet. "Come on! The elevator!"
Kayla and Austin materialized next to us. "We're coming with you," Kayla said.
I shook my head. "No, no, you're not."
Austin rolled his eyes. "I knew he wouldn't let us."
"No!" I snapped. "Kronos is out there, and I don't care if you're two of the fucking incarnations of God, you are staying the fuck up here, because I am not losing another sibling!"
They both recoiled—they'd never heard me snap at them before. Before they had a chance to argue, I sprinted for the elevator, Jake, to his credit, at my heels.
The elevator was already jam-packed with demigods, all of whom wanted to see whatever crazy shit went down. I saw Percy, Annabeth, and Grover standing by the buttons, and I backed into a corner, as far away from them as I could get.
Jake noticed. "You allergic to Percy or something?"
I winced and shook my head. "He destroyed a bridge. While my brother was on it."
"Oh." He was silent for a moment. "That sucks."
"Yeah, no shit."
He winced as he wiped some of the blood off of his face. "How many of you are left?"
I sighed, leaning against the bar. "Three of us. I'm the oldest." I grimaced. "Guess that makes me head counselor now."
He was silent for another moment, before quietly saying, "Well, welcome to the family."
"This family sucks ass."
"Indeed it does."
We didn't say anything else until the elevator doors opened.
The street was a nightmare.
Campers and Hunters were sprawled everywhere, broken, bleeding, dying, and dead.
And frozen in a block of ice . . .
"Well, look who finally showed her fucking face," Jake muttered.
Clarisse must have lost a fight with a Hyperborean giant, because she and the chariot our cabin had given her were frozen in a massive blueish ice block.
"Bitch," I muttered. "Now she shows up."
That wasn't the most concerning thing—that was that Kronos and his army ringed the building, standing only twenty feet from the doors. They hadn't noticed us—they were preoccupied with Chiron, who was standing directly in front of them.
"Does he have a death wish?" Jake hissed, disbelieving. "What is he . . ."
"I don't know," I said grimly. "Come on. Let's find a place to hide."
A mixture of relief and confusion rippled across Jake's face. "A place to hide? I thought we were fighting."
"Right," I muttered. "And I'm the newlY little horse, living a smoothbeautifully folded fucking world. Come on."
There were entirely too many places to hide in the rubble. It was really quite refreshing—a plethora of options, some of which would lead to us getting killed about five seconds later than anyone else!
We ended up at the dark doorway of a half-collapsed building, right next to the Empire State Building. We obviously couldn't have gone far, and this would hopefully keep up safe.
As we stepped inside, my nose was hit with the scent of blood, vomit, and festering flesh. Clearly, our cabin hadn't found all the injured.
Jake felt along the filthy, dusty wall until he muttered "Yes!" and flipped a switch.
Industrial lights immediately flickered on causing us to yelp and clamp our hands over our eyes. When the pain of the bright light lessened, we lowered our hands and looked around.
We were in a massive parking garage. Despite its huge size, only a few cars were occupying it, their drivers fast asleep. I felt a momentary surge of relief—they, at least, were safe.
The garage was full of dust and dirt, making me wonder when it had last been cleaned. There were ramps leading both up and down. Possibly the others levels were more popular, and that was why this one only had a few cars?
"Shit," Jake muttered, looking around.
"Shit," I agreed.
Two campers and one Hunter were all sprawled on the ground or slumped against the cobweb-covered walls, groaning in pain. A little girl, no more than seven or eight, huddled next to one of the campers, crying. A second Hunter was dead, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling.
I sighed and pulled my field medic kit off of my belt. "Come on. Let's do what we can before the fireworks start out there."
Jake looked around nervously. "Uh, what do I do?"
I pulled out a bag of ambrosia and a flask of nectar. "Give them some of this. It should help. I'll see what I can do about healing."
Jake nodded and headed off for the other side of the garage.
The sad-eyed little girl came up to me and gently tugged on my shirt. "Can you help my sister?" she asked quietly. "She fell and she won't get up."
I shook my head. The girl was tiny, and about eight years old. Her curly blond hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, though it was so dirty it was impossible to determine its original shade. Her clothes were tattered. She had several scratches on her face. They sent an eight-year old into war . . .
"I'll see what I can do," I said quietly. "What's your name?"
"Cheyenne."
"Okay, Cheyenne, show me where your sister is."
The little girl led me across the garage, sniffling and wiping away tears. Her sister was lying on the ground, her body curled around the deep wound in her stomach. I recognized her instantly—Carrie Jacobson, a daughter of Hermes.
I knelt next to her. Even before I took her hand, I knew it was useless. Her eyes couldn't focus on me. Her breathing was almost nonexistent.
I pulled away, my heart pounding, my stomach falling. What would I tell Cheyenne?
The girl smiled hopefully. "Can you save her?"
My heart broke. I had to work hard to keep my hands and voice steady. "I—I'm sorry, Cheyenne. There's nothing I can do."
Her eyes went wide. Her lower lip began trembling. Outside, although I had closed the door, I could hear shouting and clashing, a battle in progress. Hundreds of people were screaming, which meant that the mortals had most likely woken up.
"You—you mean my sister's gonna die?" Her voice was so soft and quiet I could barely hear it. A tear spilled down her cheek.
I took her hands. "I'm sorry, Cheyenne. I am."
She buried her face in her hands and began to cry. I desperately wanted to comfort her, but I had a job to do. I took Carrie's hand again, ignoring the pain.
She suddenly drew in a sharp, ragged breath. "W-Will?"
I smiled sadly. "Wow, everyone seems to be recognizing me today."
Tears filled her eyes. Blood dripped from her stomach. "I—I can't go, Will. I need to—to take care of Chey."
I shook my head, squeezing her hand. "I'm sorry, Carrie. I can't do anything."
She nodded, seeming resigned. "Then please—please take care of her."
My heart fell into the abyss. I couldn't have another kid to take care of. I was in no place for that. My fingers trembled on the cliffside, their grip loosening.
But I nodded. "I will."
"Promise?"
"I swear it," I said firmly. "On the River Styx."
She nodded again, relieved. "Thank you."
She had no jack to rip a piece off, so I was forced to steal part of one from the body of the Hunter. I would have just left her face as it was, but Cheyenne was crying and clinging to me, and I knew she didn't need to have her sister stare at her like that.
Ignoring the battle outside, I finished healing the others.
When it was over, we sat in a huddle, my arms wrapped around the little girl, who was still crying. We had debated opening the door, but none of us wanted to see the carnage.
However, it didn't matter what I wanted.
Pulling away from Cheyenne, I stood up. "I have to go outside."
Cheyenne immediately burst into fresh sobs. "Will, no! Please, don't!"
It was exactly what I had said to Lee.
I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Chey, I have to. It's my job."
Jake sighed. "You're gonna fucking die."
"No, I'm not," I said firmly. "I'm coming back. Until I do, Jake, take care of Cheyenne."
The girl buried her face in my side, shaking. "No!"
I kissed the top of her head. "I'm coming back. I promise."
Jake raised his eyebrows. "Really?"
I lifted my chin. "Swear on the Styx."
I'd never made that oath, not once in my life, and now I had made it twice in less than an hour.
"And, Jake?" I said. "Take the injured down another level. Be better protected in case something happens."
He nodded. "I will."
I left the building.
The battle still raged as fiercely as ever, but I didn't notice.
I had a job.
The bodies were everywhere. Some were alive, and those I healed, then sent off to the abandoned parking garage with a promise that I would come and find them once the battle was over.
Some were already dead.
Some—and these were the worst, and the most painful—I held their hands, softly talking to or with them and easing their pain, playing Doctor Sleep until they were gone.
I did not cry.
I did not fall.
Nico was fighting, as were Hades, Demeter, and Persephone. I noticed this dimly but it didn't really register—I was far too absorbed in my work.
Eventually, I saw Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, and Grover running like hell for the elevator, going after Kronos. I desperately wanted to follow them and make sure Kayla and Austin were okay, but as I said, duty-bound before family-bound.
I survived with relative ease—the monsters were too preoccupied to bother with a thirteen-year-old field medic.
The ones I healed weren't all demigods. Many mortals had been injured and lay groaning in the streets and gutters. They raised no objection when I healed them.
Some of the bodies looked like Olive's.
There is one mortal face I remember clearly. It belonged to a little girl, aged six or seven. Even younger than Cheyanne. The sun brought out rusty highlights in her curly hair, although I couldn't tell if it was its natural color or if it was blood. She was curled in a gutter, her arm bleeding from a deep gash. Painful, but not difficult to take care of. I didn't even need to apply salve or a bandage.
As I helped the little girl back to her feet, she whispered, "Are you an angel?"
I hugged her and shook my head. "No, just someone who helps where he can. Go find your family."
She nodded and ran off.
Hours passed.
Monsters fell.
I don't know how much time had passed before the remaining ones finally turned monster tail and headed for the hills.
"Yes!" Nico screamed. He stabbed his sword into the ground, and a group of skeletons clambered and clawed their way out, chasing after the monsters.
It didn't matter.
My work wasn't done.
I lost track of how many jackets I ripped.
I was kneeling over a mortal girl my age, holding her hands and gently talking to her, when I felt someone's eyes boring into the back of my head.
When the girl was gone and her face was covered, I looked up.
Nico was standing behind me, still holding his wicked black sword. "What are you doing?" He didn't sound judgemental, just honestly confused. That was a first.
I stood up, wiping some of the blood on my hands off on my pants. "I do that with all the dying ones. Hold their hands. Talk to them. Try to ease their pain. Make going a little easier."
He blinked, as if the sentiment did not compute. "Why does it matter? They're going to die no matter what you do."
"Exactly. That's why it matters." I nodded toward the Empire State Building. "Think Kronos is dead?"
A cold, creepy smile spread across his face. "Kronos can't die, but his host can. And he has."
"So Luke is dead." I kicked sullenly at a chunk of concrete, my hands in my tattered pockets. "That's not something to smile about."
He narrowed his eyes. "Why not? Kronos is dead. Typhon is gone. We've won the war."
I snorted, remembering my cabin, Harper's death, Cheyenne clinging to my shirt. No, we certainly hadn't won, even if we had defeated Kronos. But there was no use trying to explain that to Nico.
Before I could figure out what to say, Nico cursed under breath, shading his eyes. "Fuck. What is that?"
I peered up at the top of the Empire State Building. "Uh, appears to be a massive blue flag."
"That was a rhetorical question, you fucking idiot."
"You know, I know that is supposed to be an insult, but I will take it as a compliment any day." I shook my head and started off.
He called after me, "Where are you going?"
"To let the others know it's over, obviously," I called back.
When I made it back to the parking garage, the lights had been turned back off. The others were hiding.
I felt along the wall until I found the light switch Jake had flipped. When I turned the lights on, there were two yelps of pain. Jake yelled, "Jeez, dude, how about a fucking warning next time!"
For the first time in a long time, a genuine grin split my face. "Jake!"
He jumped up, Cheyenne at his heels, and tackled me in a hug. "Is—is it over?" he mumbled into my shoulder. "Are we okay?"
I hadn't given him good news in a long, long time. "We're okay."
Levels below us, the survivors of the parking garage all cheered, laughing and shouting and howling at the ceiling with joy and relief. Their celebration echoed up through the damp, dusty stairwell.
Mount Olympus had come alive.
The gods were back. The sun was shining. The place was filled with beauty and laughter and music.
I didn't care. I was exhausted. I was covered in blood. Everything hurt, inside and out.
Jake was glued to my side. On an ordinary day, my stomach would have been filled with the electrocuted butterflies, but as I may have said, this was not an ordinary day.
Cheyenne had, as soon as she'd seen the decimated Hermes cabin, hugged me tightly and ran off to them. I was glad she was with her family, although, true to my promise, I would be looking out for her as well.
Jake eventually stopped walking and looked at me. "Are you okay?" I asked.
He showed me a hint of a crooked smile, his eyes full of tears. "No."
I stepped forward.
Our hug was filled with blood and sweat and tears and tattered clothes.
Jake finally peeled off to find his cabin, and then I was alone. I still hadn't found Kayla and Austin, and I knew what that meant, but I didn't think about that, wouldn't think about that.
My mind was a mess.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, a girl's voice said, "Yeesh, what do people have to do to get recognized around here?"
Kayla and Austin were behind me, their skin sliced to ribbons and covered with blood. No wonder, Mount Olympus had been destroyed.
I covered my face, trying to hide the tears in my eyes. "You guys okay?"
Identical grins spread across their faces.
A group hug, full of equal parts laughter and tears, had never felt so amazing.
I paid no attention during the meeting.
Kayla, Austin, and I kept to ourselves in the corner, dirty, bloody, and shell-shocked, though I didn't allow myself to show it. I wrapped my arms around my cabin's shoulders and held them close. They were both shaking with exhaustion and tears.
All I remember is what Percy convinced the gods to do.
Everyone would be remembered. Everyone would be claimed. No one would be forgotten.
He actually did something good here. He actually helped someone.
I don't remember when we were finally allowed to leave, but I do remember what I did.
I told Kayla and Austin to keep walking and that I'd be right back. Then, carefully, almost lovingly, I placed Harper's scythe necklace in one of the golden flower pots that had survived the demolishing. With luck, no one would know it was there.
"One world of corruption deserves another," I whispered tenderly. "I hope life gives both of you a thousand with a hand that's on fire. I know I will."
When I rejoined Kayla and Austin, they were at the back of the group, having waited for me.
"I told you guys to keep moving," I said.
Austin leaned on my shoulder while Kayla wrapped her arms around me.
"Will?" she whispered.
"Yeah?"
"I want to go home."
I hugged my siblings tightly, and then we rejoined the group of dirty and fucked-up demigods. We fit right in.
"I know," I said. "I do too."
Austin leaned his head against my shoulder. The entire group fit in the elevator now, now that we had lost so many. "I miss the way it was," he said quietly.
I missed our siblings. But I didn't miss the way it was.
I would not be our cabin.
I would learn.
I would be better.
Wow, actually did it!
This is easily the longest chapter I've ever written, but it's worth it. I loved writing it.
And now I get to start on Heroes of Olympus!
The words written near Olive's corpse are lyrics from "I'm On Fire" by Bruce Springsteen.
Reviews please!
*Credits to CinemaSins for this joke
