Good news, I should be able to start posting more often. Bad news . . . I think you can guess what the bad news is.

It was still dark outside when I was finally lucid again.

I wasn't sure how I knew that then — to be honest, I still don't. I kind of have an eternal clock, but not to tell specific times — it's really just based off of the sun.

It's like, okay, is the sun up? Great. Is it more towards the middle of the sky? No? Okay, more toward the east or west? West? Great, sun's gonna set soon.

Then, I knew the sun was still down and maybe wouldn't be up for another hour or so. Thing was, I had no idea if it was even the same day I'd fallen asleep. I don't know exactly how I knew I'd fallen asleep — I didn't remember waking up, or for that matter, falling asleep in the first place.

The dream? Yeah, that didn't come back to me until later. Which was definitely a mercy. That, I was sure of.

When I finally returned to reality — or realized I did, anyway — as I've said, first thing I realized, the sun wasn't up yet. Also a mercy, only I didn't understand that until later.

Until I met Rowan.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The second thing was, I wasn't in the position I'd fallen asleep in. I only knew that because it had become extremely familiar over the past several months — culled in a corner, knees to my chest. Maybe even curled on my side, if I was feeling particularly daring. Which I wasn't, but I wasn't in that position when I woke up either. Drunk Will was apparently not particularly daring either.

I was on my knees.

That wouldn't have been particularly unusual — I'd been on my knees a lot in the past year. Not asking for help from the gods — I wasn't sunk quite that low. But I'd been pushed down there, and it hurt less just to give in than try to stand back up.

But I hadn't fallen asleep on my knees (if I even could), so there was no reason I should be there now.

See, during REM sleep (AKA dreaming sleep), our bodies are paralyzed. That's why we don't act out our dreams. Hence the term "sleep paralysis," which occurs when our minds wake up from REM sleep but our bodies don't, resulting in our not being able to move. And then there's the whole business of shadowy monsters lurking in corners, but I'm a healer, not a ghost hunter.

We are off track. Point is, while we dream, our bodies don't move. I had most definitely been dreaming. It's true that not all sleep is REM sleep — that doesn't occur until about ninety minutes after your head hits the pillow. So, theoretically, I could very well have made it onto my knees between REM sleep and lighter sleep.

Only demigods aren't built like that.

We're a bit different, which took me several conversations with my siblings and several times watching and monitoring demigods while they fell asleep to realize. It's true that we do sometimes sleep like normal people — light sleep first, REM sleep second. But more often, our entire period of sleeping is REM sleep, which shouldn't be possible, but neither should summoning hurricanes or lightning storms.

I was like that — constant REM sleep, always dreaming. I hated that. Demigod dreams were terrifying, confusing, and all too often, especially for children of Apollo, prophetic. Not the good kind of prophetic, at least, not for me. More like, okay, you and everyone else in your cabin are going to die painfully soon! Have a terrible day!

But the point is, I was always paralyzed when I slept.

Meaning, I shouldn't have been able to move in my sleep.

Meaning, I had woken up and moved.

Which made sense, if not for the simple fact I didn't remember waking up, or moving — things I definitely would have remembered under normal circumstances.

It was then that I realized something else — my eyes were still closed.

I hadn't made a conscious decision to close my eyes, or even realized they were closed until that moment.

I would have opened them.

Thing was, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

Whatever I had been doing on my knees, I definitely had no memory of it, and I definitely had not been looking. That probably meant that I hadn't wanted to see what I was doing, whatever it was.

It was then that I had my epiphany:

What the fuck had I done?

I had no idea. All I knew was that before I'd fallen asleep, I had been crying . . . and laughing . . . there was blood, a lot of it. And the pain. All over my upper arms and legs and torso . . . my shirt was soaked with blood. I knew that.

There were slices . . .

I was still frozen. Under any other circumstances, I would have rubbed my eyes, trying desperately to figure out what the hell was going on, only now . . . I didn't know for sure, but I had a feeling that moving my hands . . . moving any part of my body, really — would be a goddamn bad idea.

I put the slices there. I did that, and then . . .

I didn't remember. All the events of the past several hours had blurred into a mystery slush in my mind, slush the color of dirty snow right before it finally melts away and the sun sparkles off the sidewalks.

But no sun would come out for me, not when we still had an hour or so of night.

There were rusty scissors. It was that I had sliced myself up with. Because . . . why? Why had I done it?

Because you almost cried, dumbass, one of the voices whispered. You almost cried, and that meant you deserved to . . .

All right, settle down, I thought. Okay . . . so I sliced myself up with a pair of rusty scissors. That was nothing new . . . well, I would have to give myself a tetanus shot. That was new. For me anyway. But I'd done it for other people, and it couldn't be that much harder on myself.

And I couldn't feel the cuts. Everything was numb . . . my entire body. Like I had . . .

Like I had taken drugs.

You did take drugs, you idiot, the voice whispered. Only those drugs come from pine trees, and they weren't really here, you just thought they were.

Besides, it wasn't the pine sap that was making my stomach twist itself into knots of fear.

I wouldn't mind the drugs, another voice whispered. Those two always seemed to be at odds, like I had Coke and Pepsi fighting over who had the superior soda (though their sodas were the exact same) in my head.

You don't have to worry about them, the second voice continued. Sometimes you think you do, but those "drugs" are just a sticky arboreal product made of water, minerals, nutrients, hormones, and sugar, and their intentions have always been good. What did this was something far more evil, something designed to hurt.

Yes, something did this. Something far more twisted and damaging than anything tree sap could come up with.

Only . . . what was this?

I didn't know, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to find out.

You knew where they kept the moonshine.

The voice, one I had never heard before, broke through the defenses of my mind as easily as if they were tissue paper, unignorable as the pounding, searing pain that had started to throb behind my temples, although the rest of my body remained blissfully ignorant.

You always knew, the voice continued. Ever since you were ten . . . oh, you might not have realized it then; you were way to young, but it wasn't long before you were mature enough and experienced enough to know that the dusty brown bottles the older campers kept under their beds were not some long-forgotten medical storage implements, they weren't things they kept to remind themselves of home, they were fucking liquor, but I don't know if you ever allowed yourself to know that.

I didn't know the voice. It sounded like it belonged to a girl, maybe about sixteen or seventeen, and it was about then that I realized I had heard it before, in a dream . . . she had tried to tell me something, something important, only I hadn't listened, and I didn't know her name,

(Claire she's Claire your older sister)

But I knew she was . . . different, somehow. It was the kind of thing I could have put my finger on when I was fully conscious and aware of my surroundings, with a functioning memory.

I did know one thing, though: I did not want to hear her.

I knew because I remembered a time similar to this one, one where I had been told things, things similar to the things the voice (Claire) had been telling me . . . and I had panicked.

I used to talk, when I was alone and I didn't think anyone could hear me . . . I was aware of it then, and I stopped. Hadn't done it for years.

Did you really stop, though? Or did you just think you did?

Why did I stop? I remembered now, only if the voice (Claire) hadn't been talking, I wouldn't have remembered it . . . I didn't want to relive that day any more than I wanted to listen to the voice (Claire, when are you going to say her name it's Claire), but I didn't think I had a choice . . . I had been eleven or twelve, probably closer to twelve, because it was after I had "stopped" talking to myself. I had been sitting with my cabin, at night . . . we should all have been in bed, asleep, but although "lights out" had been called, the Christmas lights were still on, and we were all sitting in a circle, on the floor, talking and laughing like normal kids having a sleepover. If one of the patrol harpies had heard us, we would have been fucked, but none had . . . possibly our cabin was soundproof, so that the children of the music god could continue making music without being punished, but that was a theory for another day.

We had been talking about . . . I don't even remember, and suddenly . . . fuck, I hadn't thought of this day in a long time. The details were almost as blurred as those of the night before, but that didn't matter; I wasn't so much remembering the day (or the night, really) as living it. But the conversation had turned to much . . . darker matters. I didn't remember any specific stories (except one) or who told them — that was buried so far down in my muddled consciousness that a team of godly deep-sea fishermen couldn't have pulled it out. But I did remember there were stories the likes of which I had never heard before . . . stories of suicides, cutting addicts, drug addicts, rape, incest . . . there was drinking, I remember that. It always seemed to come back to the bottle. If I lived to be a thousand years old, I would never forget the story of the girl — my sister — whose mortal mother had drunkenly pushed a bottle of alcohol into her hands, telling her to try it, it's good, it feels so good, forget, forget, forget . . . she had grown steadily more and more insistent, calling her a pussy, shoving the dirty bottle at her so hard that beer began to slosh over the top, spattering my sister's shirt, reeking like garbage. My sister had shrieked and tried to flee, but her mom lunged for her, pinned her down, and forced the beer down her throat in such a way that she had no choice but to shove aside her disgust and painfully swallow it. The whole time, my sister had been crying, struggling to break free, begging for mercy, mercy from her own mother, but no mercy came . . . not until dear old Mum finally managed to force the last of the bottle down her protesting throat. Then, exhausted from her struggle, her mom exhausted from her alcohol intake, they had both fallen asleep. Neither of them had ever spoken of The Incident (when the girl said it, you could tell she thought of it that way, in all capitals), and the next day, they had returned to their normal schedule of my sister doing all the work and keeping the shabby apartment in their possession and the two of them alive, her mother drinking and smoking and snorting coke, all of which she had bought with money she had stolen from my sister, who had been saving it up to pay for college.

She had been twelve years old.

It was at this moment when everyone fell silent, and I had no idea why, but I heard some vague muttering, disturbed, detached, and I had a vague idea that it was me, and the words had been coming louder, more insistent, and I had curled into a ball, crying, rocking back and forth, repeating a phrase over and over, and I had no idea what it was, what I was saying, until one of my brothers (I didn't remember for sure who it was, but it must have been Michael, no one else in the cabin would do what he did, even to help) had grabbed the front of my shirt and punched me clean in the face with a shout of "Will, snap out of it!" I remember one of my sisters had pulled him of, shouting what the hell, what was that for, what the fuck is wrong with you, and I just sat there dumbly, shaking my head, blinking my eyes, feeling the sharp pounding on the side of my face beginning to fade to a dull throb, until I had finally managed the words, "No, he's right." Then I looked around and realized everyone was staring at me with a mixture of fear and concern until Gracie finally asked, "What moonshine?" Now it was my turn to stare at her with a mixture of fear and concern. "What?" She shook her head. "You just kept saying . . . 'I know where they keep the moonshine. I know where they keep the moonshine.' Over and over . . ." That had done it. That was it . . . I didn't know what I meant when I said that, I hadn't meant to talk to myself, but I broke down, crying again, sobbing, really, and I just kept saying, "I don't know. I don't know." And Gracie's arm was around me, encouraging me to give it up, it's okay, take a deep breath, you'll be alright. I wouldn't, of course, but she had no way of knowing that —

That was true. Gracie could be a bit . . . prying . . . at times, but her intentions had always been good . . . better, even, than the intentions of the villainized pine sap.

But that hadn't stopped me then . . . I had talked to myself, fucked up, said some things I shouldn't have said. And then, well, I never talked to myself again.

"At least, I thought I didn't," I whispered. Shit . . . what was wrong with my voice? It sounded as though it had been coated with sandpaper and stuck full of broken glass . . .

That was it. Broken glass. It wasn't the pine sap or the rusty scissors . . . those things weren't bad. Still, though, broken glass was never supposed to hurt . . . it wasn't designed for it, in any case. And I'd thought . . . what was it? That whatever did this — whatever this was — was designed to hurt. Only I didn't know what this was . . .

It wasn't just the broken glass, although that was part of it. There was something else, something that had an evil job and did it damned properly, and something else — the broken glass — that didn't have an evil job but had done one just the same.

I realized, with a kind of wry self-appreciation, that I had been aware of the fact that I was kneeling on the floor for no more than a minute, and I'd managed to write a twenty-page essay on REM sleep, restored my memory of what I'd done with the rusty scissors, written a second essay on the components of pine sap, listened to the ranting of a voice I couldn't possibly have known the sound of because I'd only heard it in a dream, and relived one of the most terrifying memories of my life, so scary simply because I had no idea what I'd said.

Wow, I was good.

The wrenching headache still persisted, but it was no longer the only feeling in my body. My arms, legs, and chest were all starting to sting, compliments of the self-inflicted wounds from the rusty scissors. But that made sense; they were cuts, cuts hurt. No, what I was more concerned with was the growing pain in my hands. They didn't just sting; they felt fucking poisoned, as if thousands of Asian Giant Hornets had all attacked them at once. The pain didn't stop either — in fact, it seemed to flare up again, even worse, with every minute tremble of my hands.

I realized for the first time where my hands actually were: one of them was pressing against the floor, while the other one was clenched around my Camp Half-Blood necklace. I could feel the beads roll and slide in my iron grip. The rawhide string was damp with sweat and blood.

I realized, more aware of my surroundings than before, that the pain in the hand which was pressing against the floor was much worse than the one wrapped around my necklace. I concentrated, still unaware to open my eyes, and I realized that the floor was covered with sharp, jagged pieces of broken glass. Some were only slivers; some seemed to be almost as large as my hand, but as I was still unwilling to move it, I couldn't tell.

Okay . . . and the floor was wet. Blood. Definitely blood. My clothes were soaked in it.

It seemed like more blood than there should have been. Yes, I sliced my limbs to shit, but I didn't go very deep. They wouldn't take more than a week or two to heal. So then . . . why the blood?

I had a feeling it had something to do with the mysterious second party, the one meant to hurt.

Yeah, no shit! Claire's voice shouted violently and without warning. Obviously! You're still kidding yourself, still pretending that you don't know. You should know better, after everything you've seen! You knew where they kept the moonshine, you always knew! You said so yourself, after you'd just turned twelve. True, you didn't know you were saying it, but really, considering some of the crap you come up with nowadays, those are probably the most honest statements.

"Shut up," I said quietly, in the same broken whisper. "Just. Shut. Up."

But Claire wasn't finished. She had something to say, after all this time. Lee didn't listen, Michael didn't listen, Phoenix didn't listen, and now fuck the world and everyone in it if she wasn't going to make me. She had found a chink in the armor, and she was damn well going to drive her dagger in.

And yeah, you didn't say anything but 'I know where they keep the moonshine,' but that's bad enough for two reasons: one, you were only twelve, which is bad, and two, you learned when you were ten, which is worse. And you might have come close to telling your cabin any or all of the gory details, and I think you might have, but although your body shut down on you, your brain knew damn well what was going on and shoved you into a feedback loop. You thought you were saving yourself, but you didn't. The little bit that was allowed to slip out was incriminating enough on its own.

I wanted desperately to clamp my hands over my ears, but I knew now that my fingers and palms were covered with broken glass, stuck full of it like porcupine quills, even worse than the night I had smashed the vial against the wall. Touching myself . . . bad idea.

Now I can see it; my eyes are still closed but the image is there; blurry, out of focus, but glaring at me, pulsating, evil, incriminating, as Claire had described it. The blood . . . it wasn't mine. The glass in my fingers. It's all right, this image — a duct-taped crate, pressed against the wall in a corner, lest it be found, gods forbid our cabin be in even hotter water than it already is.

It's behind an old bin or medical files for campers that no longer exist . . . I know those files. I know that bin. I know those cracked floorboards and spiderwebs and dirt-filled corners. Everyone else avoids this room like the plague, but I love it . . .

And in the crate . . . bottles. Dusty brown bottles, spiderwebbed with cracks, smells creeping out from the warped bottlecaps, intoxicating, disgusting, and this

(we'resorrywe'resorrywe'resorry)

is called moonshine liquor. Illicitly distilled or smuggled liquor. Also called coffin varnish, horse liniment, or stuff and tarantula juice. Charming.

Outside drinks are already forbidden in camp; what they'd do if they found out my cabin hid liquor . . . I didn't want to think about it.

The pain in my hands worsened. Fuck, how long had that glass been under there? Long enough to contaminate it with enough diseases to take down a full-grown rhinoceros, that was for sure.

So, we're all in agreement then? We drank the fucking liquor?

No arguments.

"All right," I muttered. "Everybody out of the pool."

I was now aware that there was a bitter, sour taste in the back of my throat — of course there was; even long-time alkies couldn't hold that much poison in their stomachs, and it was bound to come back with a vengeance the next morning. While they had zero memory of it, in my case.

"Focus," I muttered, not caring how much it hurt my throat. "You have to . . . you have to remember."

So . . . I'd almost cried, went into No Man's Land, sliced myself up with rusty bandage-cutters, got the bottles my cabin had been hiding in there for gods-know-how-long, got drunk, broke some of the bottles, which explained the broken glass in my hands and on the floor . . . then somehow came back to reality on my knees, with no memory of waking up or the night before?

No, I still couldn't remember. I had sifted through everything that wasn't slush, snapped every icicle off the roof, packed every snowball I could . . . was that it? It didn't seem right . . . there was more. I know there was.

So I took a deep breath, mentally steadied my hands, and plunged them both into the pile of slush. It was freezing; the shock nearly forced me to pull back out. Whatever was in there . . . I was not supposed to remember it.

Well, fuck that.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I began rooting around, searching for every possible glimpse of reality I had managed to hold on to through everything. There was nothing.

Nothing.

Blackness. Dark, empty blackness.

I continued searching, even though I had the horrible feeling the slush was beginning to bury me.

And then . . .

There.

Triumphantly shouting in my mind, I clamped my hand around the chunk of unmelted ice; it was so cold, it burned my hand, but I didn't relinquish my grip on it, and slowly, painstakingly, I began dragging it back out of the slush. It was a nightmare — I had been right that the slush was trying to drag me in, and when I finally managed to pull free, bits of half-melted snow and ice rained down from my hair and blood-soaked clothes.

There had been a voice, hadn't there? Shouting my name? A pounding on the door? No, I hadn't been alone. Someone else had been with me.

Not only that, but someone who cared enough about me to drag their ass to the infirmary in the middle of the night, risking death by patrol harpy, and damn near break the door down.

A friend . . . that was something new. I did have those, didn't I?

Who was it, though? Not Kayla or Austin; they were exhausted, and wouldn't have woken up for anything. But who else . . .

There was no one.

No, one of the psychotic Uno duo whispered, there's someone. You know damn well who he is; you've been crushing on him for the last several months. And there's no use denying it; nobody gives a fuck if you like guys while we're in the middle of this crackhouse. So suck it up, open your eyes, and figure out what the fuck is going on here, capeesh?

Okay, so maybe it was Jake, my friend and (I had to finally say the words; I couldn't run from them forever) crush, but what had happened . . .?

Although I would have loved to run away from the slush pile and never see it again, I still refused to open my eyes, and I had to know what had happened to Jake. So I plunged back in, the horrible feeling that I was being buried returning.

I always hated winter — the cold, the snow, the ice. I was wrong once again — all of that is nothing compared to the slush.

I officially hated spring more than winter, words I never thought I would say.

But nobody cared what season I liked or didn't like or had zero opinion on; I had a job, no? Which, yes, frequently involved sifting through freezing piles of filthy slush, not to mention diving in head-on and pretending you weren't shivering and disgusted. So I remembered what I could.

It was . . . not long after dark that he showed up, I don't think. No, no more than half an hour. I'd spent the thirty minutes doing mindless infirmary tasks, filling the empty space before it could swallow me whole in a last-ditch effort to fill itself. And then. . . . Yeah. The back room. The liquor.

And Jake.

Fucking shit.

Then what?

I didn't know.

I didn't fucking know.

Hunched in my knees in the back room of our infirmary, blood running down my fingers and soaking through my clothes, my head pounding as if a spiked mace was slamming into it, coated with a heavy layer of grime, broken glass stinging my hands, I began to cry.

I never let myself off.

Never.

When I finally yanked myself back to reality, more awake than ever, I still wasn't alone.

No other human — no human — had found their way into No Man's Land; everyone avoided it like the plague. But I could feel them, clustered all around, digging their fingernails into my shoulders, trying to wrap their hands around my brain. They're always there, wrapping around me like a blanket made of bloody rocks and broken glass, held together with pine sap. Can't change that.

"They're not very happy with me," I whispered, and stifled a giggle. No, I'd imagine they weren't happy with me at all.

Fucking vultures, yet another voice muttered. This one, I knew perfectly well. It had been the same voice to make sure I was okay after I had my first nightmare. She rarely swore, but after all this shit, I couldn't blame her for betraying her ideals a little.

I missed her. More than I could say.

It's always the night, Harper continued. They always come in the night. And you're right . . . they aren't very happy with you. But don't focus on that. Instead, focus on getting your fucking eyes open.

She's right, Claire agreed. They'll hurt you if you let them. Fight back. Open your eyes, clean up the glass, clean up yourself, throw out any remaining bottles . . . if there are any, that is. True, you downed a shitload of coffin varnish like kool-aid earlier tonight, but you can work past that. . . . Just figure out what happened with Jake. You have to listen.

"Oh, wow, my dead sisters just turned into Doctor Phil," I whispered huskily. Talking hurt. I should maybe not talk.

Good fucking idea, one of the Uno duo whispered. Now are you going to listen or do you need more broken glass in your hands?

"This place is turning into Grand Central Station," I whispered. All right. I'm listening.

Good. I know you probably don't remember it — hell, even Harps doesn't like to remember it, and she was alive then — but there was a day a long time ago, even farther back than the day you decided to quit talking to yourself. And I know you won't have to dig around in our old friend the slush pile for this one, because if you forgot all the nitty-gritty details, it was entirely intentional. You did that, not any of us — the ones hovering your shoulder don't try to hurt you, even if they do. You hurt yourself plenty that day. But I think if you go back, you might remember something, something even eviler than the broken glass, although don't get me wrong, that did plenty of damage. But it might give you a clue as to what happened . . . if you're willing to look, that is.

Look where? Into the past, with my mind, or into the present, with my eyes? It was getting more and more complicated by the minute.

She just said look, one of the Uno voices said hesitantly. The voice seemed to be that of a boy, and for just a moment, it almost seemed like A.J., who had been just another casualty on display the day the bridge burned. She didn't really specify . . . I guess it's your decision.

He was right. It was.

I remembered the day that Lee died all too well. I wasn't allowed to forget it — it haunted me, sticking to me like a shadow, but so, so much colder and darker. I could see the giant's club, clotted with blood and hair . . . his tortured, anguished expression . . . Harper's face staring at me from across the battlefield that wasn't a battlefield, because demigods would turn anything into a display of courage and heroics.

That's good, but go forward a little, Harper said. You know what you need to remember, and you know where you need to find it . . .

She was right. I did.

It was a beautiful sunset that day, undoubtedly the best I'd seen. Of course, I was only eleven, and I hadn't seen too many sunsets, but that didn't matter. And while I was watching the sunset . . . the coldness. Around my neck. The razor sharp edge of the charm. It sliced my skin, if I moved in the right (or wrong; depends how you want to look at it) way. Because of course the traitors would give you a necklace that would stab you in the back.

That charm was a killer.

You're right, Claire said. It is. And I think you know what it can do. What it has done.

But that . . . that's impossible, I argued. I left it on — on Mount Olympus. I left it . . . well, I don't remember where, really, but I know I did. Harper told me to — to do something that felt right. So I did.

I did tell you that, didn't I? Harper mused. Well, I know where you left it in the moment, and I know what's been done with it since isn't right, not in the slightest. By that, I meant it doesn't feel right for you, although it's also objectively wrong, of course.

"Right," I muttered. "Objective . . . if you say so." The scythe charm . . . I did leave it on Mount Olympus. I did.

Well? Claire demanded. Are we planning on sitting around talking with our eyes closed all day, or are we opening them and figuring out what the fuck went on in that slush pile?

Opening them . . . I had to do that, right? Didn't I? It was my responsibility . . . whatever I did, it was my mess to clean up. I had been kneeling here, that I could remember, for what? Five minutes? Ten? It felt like hours. It wasn't . . . I don't think it was, anyway. Time flies when you've got nothing to do but argue with the voices in your head.

Oh, shut the fuck up, Uno Voice #2 snapped. It was another girl, definitely, and I was almost sure that it was Gracie. Get moving. Mentally ADHD monologuing won't get you out of this.

Right, you're right. I'm sorry.

Don't be sorry. Be opening your damn eyes.

She was right.

As usual.

I tried, I did, I'd never tried so hard to do anything in my life, but the most I could accomplish was a slight twitching of my eyelids, which showed me nothing and did nothing for me except filling me with a deep, inexplicable terror and disgust. I had no idea what I'd done, but I wasn't supposed to see it, which was fine, it was fine, maybe I didn't want to see it, I definitely shouldn't be seeing it; that was all good, better to kneel here, even with the blood and the glass and the grime; I could work past all of that, even the others, the shades hovering over my shoulders, I could ignore them, maybe, hopefully, I'd better, and if I didn't, if I couldn't . . . Well, then I wouldn't have to worry about opening my eyes, now would I? Yes, that would work, that would be okay —

(WHAT ABOUT JAKE!?)

The thought exploded inside my mind, ricocheting around my skull so loudly that I took the hand which had been resting on the floor and clenched my forehead, my fingers dragging through shaggy curls, matted with blood and coarse with grime. The glass slivers in my fingers sliced shallow furrows into my scalp, warm rivulets of blood trickling into my eyes, ruby drops clinging to the ends of my eyelashes.

It seemed to be all the voices rolled into one, all terrified, furious, disgusted, but terror was dominating, an underlying message of WHAT DID YOU DO?! I didn't know what I did, that was the terrifying part. And it was at that moment when my eyes snapped open as if somewhere, higher and more powerful than Mount Olympus, higher and more powerful than God Himself, some cosmic switch which had been resting in the OFF position for so long had been flipped.

The first thing I saw was the writing on the wall.

Blood. Thick, dark, viscous blood, running down the wall like glistening ruby rivers, the same words scrawled over and over again.

We'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorryWe'resorry

The writing on the wall.

I knew it.

The blood was dripping into my eyes now, but I was terrified to wipe it away; I had no desire to fill my eyes with shards of glass, and I didn't blink it away; I had even less desire to close my eyes; I knew I wouldn't be able to open them again. They stung and burned; but it was only later that I realized it.

I knew now why I was kneeling.

I was kneeling over a body.

I'd seen Jake in some pretty shitty places before — at an all-time low, if you will. That was nothing compared to this.

His eyes were closed, his breathing harsh and ragged, but he was breathing. Which seemed . . . unexpected. I wouldn't have thought . . .

"Fuck," I hissed, placing a hand on his chest, ignoring the way the glass sliced divots in his skin. If he was going to die tonight, it wouldn't be from a few tiny slices.

When I was sure he wasn't in any immediate danger, I pulled my hand away. The glass wouldn't kill him, but I was eager not to do any more damage than I'd already done.

His torso was a horrorscape of lacerations and stab wounds, jagged little holes and trenches filled with blood like some weird horror movie fountain. Much of the carnage seemed to be concentrated around his heart, both in quality and quantity — the slashes and stabs were deeper, so close together it was difficult to see normal, unmarked skin. All of the wounds weren't deep enough to do permanent damage — if Jake was lucky. Luck, however, hadn't been on our side of late.

Several of the wounds still had shards of dirty, broken glass in them. Only the ones lower down on his chest. The ones in the upper left . . .

Resting gently on Jake's chest, directly over his heart, was a silver charm.

A silver charm, and shaped like a scythe.

Blood glittered on its razor edge.

Hyperventilating, breaths escaping my throat in an uneven trying-not-to-cry sound, I lifted my violently shaking hands to my face, staring at them in horror. My fingers trembled; a few of the less deeply embedded slivers loosed their hold on me, falling to the floor with a minute clattering sound. Blood smeared my hands, dripping from my fingers and palms, running down my wrists.

I wasn't sure what I had done to Jake, but I did know two things.

One, the amount of glass scattered around . . . I couldn't have drunk that much by myself and still been alive.

Two, those wounds weren't self-inflicted.

Jake's face was ghost pale, his clammy skin coated with the same layer of grime that covered me. We looked like we'd been sweeping hell's chimneys. Which we had, in a way.

I don't know how I did it, but I dragged myself to my feet. My legs trembled, and neary refused to support my weight. I knew this feeling well. Jelly legs. You get it from being scared.

A long, long time ago, in a different world, I had been waiting in the back room of a club my mom was performing at. That in itself wasn't unusual — I'd done it plenty of times. That was just how it went. It was fine with me. I was too big to be crying over such things. If I sometimes huddled in the corner, tears in my eyes, desperately lonely, what of that? But that day, the man had approached me, the man with a crooked grin and a hat tilted over his face, hiding most of it in shadow. I think it was his eyes more than anything. They glitter cruelly out of the darkness, large, black, glistening wetly, oily liquid like tears running down his cheeks. He had wanted me to come with him, had first started out charming, polite. I could trust this man, he said, he was good and kind and I'd have a better life with him . . . it didn't occur to me until years later that he might have been right. But I'd said no, too terrified to scream, too frozen to run, even though every part of my brain (in what would later become The Voices) had been shouting at me to do just that. Get the fuck out of here! Scream! Scream your fucking head off! But I hadn't screamed, hadn't done anything besides huddling in the corner, furiously shaking my head. He had left. He didn't want to make enemies. After that, I could hardly use my legs to crawl. Nobody understood why, and I wasn't brave enough to tell them.

Finally, I was able to drag myself over to the filthy, cracked sink in the corner. It was five times as ancient as Chiron, it had been there (as far as I was concerned) since the dawn of time. The stick, creaky faucets, when turned on, would ominously creak and hiss for several seconds before spitting out intermittent jets of coffee brown water. The Hephaestus kids could have fixed it in a minute, but as I've said, no one wants to come back here. And it was this exact contaminated water that I now stuck my hands into.

The pieces of glass finally relinquished their hold on my hands, dropping into the drain, spiraling around and around. The blood turned the coffee water a dark magenta color that forced me to choke back a throatful of bile.

I don't know how long I stood there, the grimy faucets spitting out brown water that ruined purple. But finally, the blood flow lessened, and I was able to crank off the tap.

I gripped the sides of the sink, bowing my head and struggling to control my breath. My knuckles were scraped and bleeding. Again. My curly blond hair, matted with sweat and blood, hung in my face.

I wanted to lift my head; my neck was aching, but I couldn't bring myself to look in the mirror.

I don't know how long I stood there before I pushed myself off. I swayed back on my unsteady legs, feeling like a newborn horse. All of a sudden, the world spun alarmingly. Spots danced in front of my eyes. I immediately slid down the wall and thudded to the floor, burning with heat, goosebumps prickling on my arms and up and down my back, breathing as if I'd just run a marathon. My stomach clenched. What felt like zips of electricity ran up and down my legs and sides. My headache flared up, a strangled noise escaped my tortured throat as I hunched on my knees once again, clutching my head.

I have to get up, I thought, almost incoherently. I'll die right here if I don't.

But standing up — making any movement, for that matter — was out of the question. So I just knelt there, gritting my teeth, stomach and head swirling sickeningly.

And I didn't die and didn't die, and finally, the wave of nausea and pain passed.

And I realized something.

I had to get out of camp.

If I didn't, I would . . .

What? What would I do? Slit my wrists? Drink formaldehyde? The idea was almost laughable now.

But that didn't matter.

What about Jake? A.J. asked. Are you gonna leave him here?

Short answer — yes. Yes I was.

But not entirely alone.

I needed paper, and a pencil, or maybe a pen — hell, I'd scratch in the letters with my fingernails if I had to.

Shakily making my way over to the other side of the room, I fumbled with the lid of the medical file bin — the bin behind which, not so long ago, my cabin's bug juice bottles had been hidden.

My fingers screamed in pain as I pried off the lid, and when I finally managed to flip it over and to the side, I gripped the sides of the cracked and filthy plastic box, breathing hard. Then I fumbled my way to the back of the box. The back was where the oldest files were kept, and chances were, whoever's file I grabbed would be long dead.

I fumbled out one of the papers, tearing it several times, blood and sweat from my hands dripping onto it, crumpling it in my fist. Hyperventilating now, I blindly reached back into the crate, groping around until I found a pen that, when I pulled it out, looked older than the sink.

But I didn't care and didn't care, even when I had to scrabble the tip of the pen around on the paper for several minutes before I produced a faint, inconsistent ink. I would take it.

I collapsed back to the floor, already scribbling furiously, not giving myself time to think about what I was writing, because I didn't want it to be a lie. I sat there on the floor, curled up awkwardly, my body and face seared with grime, sweat, and blood, gasping for air, my head pounding, alternating between burning hot and freezing cold, the blood on the floor hideously warm against my body, and since no one was around I let the tears streak the dirt on my face and the sobs wrack my body.

I'm on a sugar crash

I ain't got no fucking cash

Maybe I should take a bath

Cut my fucking brain in half

I'm not lonely, just a bit

Tired of this fucking shit

Nothing that I write can make me

Feel good

Feeling shitty in my bed

Didn't take my fucking meds

Hyperpop up in my ears

Everything just disappears

Don't wanna be someone else

Just don't wanna hate myself

I don't wanna hate myself

Instead I wanna feel good

- "Sugar Crash," Nansi and Sidorov

Some of you may be wondering about the man Will saw in the club. Oh, don't worry. I have big plans for him. Possibly not in this story. But someday.

You may have noticed that he didn't kill this weak, vulnerable young demigod.

Which means he wasn't a monster.

Reviews, please. Feedback is appreciated.