And you can't fight the tears that ain't comin'

Or the moment of truth in your lies

When everything feels like the movies

Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive

And I don't want the world to see me

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

— "Iris," The Goo Goo Dolls

"I don't know. Do I want to bet?" The blind young woman turned her milky, unseeing eyes on me. I stared straight back into them, ignoring how unnaturally creamy and glazed they were. If she couldn't look in a mirror to judge herself, it didn't matter.

"No," I said. "You don't. Neither do I. But that won't stop me from telling this story."

The wild-haired girl raised her eyebrows, shifting onto crossed legs from her knees. "Mom, don't even think about it. I want to hear this story."

Adina laced her fingers behind her head. They must have felt like thousand-pound led, what with how hungover she was, but she didn't seem to care. Somehow I got the sense she was only bothering to keep this much control of herself because it wasn't just Rowan here. I found myself feeling even worse for both of them, but this was my story, not theirs.

My story that I swore never to tell, I reminded myself. I did my best to shut out the legions of voices ricocheting around my skull, all screaming at me not to do it, calling me some very inventive names, and swearing oaths of what they would do if I dared to share my cabin's story.

Because to tell my story, I would have to explain myself, didn't I? How would this make sense — any of this — if I didn't offer an explanation of my history. If you're transplanting a tree, you don't chop the roots off.

Besides, I thought with a smirk, I never swore on the River Styx. This excuse was met with a cacophony of shouting and cursing.

Harper, Gracie, and A.J. had all fallen silent. The rest of them, the puppeteers that ordered me what to do, how to live, and most importantly how deep to cut, would have killed them if they so much as uttered a sound. But I thought that, as angry as everyone else was about me releasing our cabin's skeletons in the closet, the three of them might have been smiling.

Claire, despite the consequences, was beaming harder than she probably ever did in life, growing up in our cabin's living hell. She had been waiting for this. Most of her life had been spent waiting for this, and all of her death.

Because she was as much Cabin 7's marionette as I was.

I wrenched my thoughts back to reality, to Rowan and Adina's faces looking at me expectantly. Because they might not have understood the gravitas of what I was about to tell, but they knew it would be one hell of a story. And I wasn't sure about Adina, but I knew that Rowan always appreciated a good story.

"Well, then?" Rowan asked. "You gonna tell us, or you just gonna sit there trying not to wince at the shit all over everything?"

I smiled — the cynical, crooked smile which I was starting to recognize as my real one. When I didn't have to force a confident, reassuring grin to show how positive I was about shit or keep everyone from losing their minds.

I opened my mouth, expecting to say something about how I had found the bottles that my cabin had once hid, had in fact not so much found them as known where they were since I was ten and blocked it out, had gotten drunk after slicing myself up with a rusty pair of scissors set aside for cutting bandages after they had outlived their stitch-snipping days, how I had, without quite meaning to, coerced my best friend into drinking as well, and tried to kill him with the broken glass from the bottles and a scythe charm which I had taken from my brother's corpse.

But that wasn't what came out.

Instead, I said, "My cabin tried. They tried to stick around, tried to keep up appearances of a good family, tried to be good older brothers and sisters to me. They never wanted me to end up where they ended up, turn out how they turned out. And I didn't. I turned out worse."

I paused and leaned back against the sheets. I would do this, but I would not look at Rowan and her mother's faces. I couldn't go quite that far. I didn't even mind the piss and shit that was soaked into the sheet, because it was warm, at least, a little warmer than the gray water which was racking my body with violent shivers.

"I never thought I could do worse than they did," I continued. "But I did. Because at least they had the sense not to drag innocent people into it. Well, they didn't do it on purpose, anyway." I let out a humorless laugh that scraped my throat raw.

Rowan shifted nervously. "When you say your 'cabin,' you mean . . ."

I shook my head. "You want answers, I get that. Rest assured you'll get them. I could just tell you the story of how I got drunk, which is what I said I'd tell you, but to tell you that story, I first have to tell you the story of my cabin, and then I have to tell you the story of my life before that, because if I don't, then none of this will make sense. You'll jump to conclusions, you'll judge, you'll think I'm lying, and if none of that, you'll think I'm dangerous. I won't blame you if you hear the full story and you still do — hell, sometimes I do, and right now is no exception — but promise me you'll wait until then. You have to know why I am the way I am . . . and if it doesn't make sense to me, maybe it will to you. I tried, and telling this is both the hardest thing I've ever done and the easiest. You have to know that I tried, and if I never make it out of my cabin, maybe you will."

Rowan darted glances from side to side, probably looking for an easier escape route. "But I'm not in your —"

I held up a hand. "Let me explain first, and then you can decide exactly where you are."

Rowan shut her mouth, and rested her chin on her fists, looking ready for story time.

Well, it was. Story time for demons, anyway.

I ran a hand through my tousled curls, tangled with blood, sweat, and sewer water. I swore that when I got back to camp, I would take an hour-long shower. If I could get out of the infirmary for long enough, that was. I probably wouldn't, but oh well.

"Yeah, so, I think you've already got the basic details of my drinking story. But the rest of it is worse . . . believe me."

Rowan tilted her head. "Did you, or did you not just tell us you tried to kill your best friend?"

I just shook my head. "Trust me," I repeated.

I felt a clench in my gut as I realized I would have to talk about him. I avoided that subject at all costs, and had ever since the first day . . .

But it was all cards on the table now. I couldn't keep them up my sleeve forever.

So I took a raw, shaking breath and began.

"I think I thought I was normal until I was . . . four or five, I guess. I'm from Austin — you know, Texas — and I pretty much just stayed there until I was . . . I don't know exactly. I think it was around my fifth birthday — not that birthdays are really a thing with me and my mom — and then it finally hit me. I was in Austin, all the time, but my mom wasn't. I had — have, I mean — a lot of family members — and I'd always be staying with some of them. So, I like to be around people, and it never really hit me until then that one of those people wasn't my mom."

I rubbed my eyelids, taking another deep breath before continuing. "And yeah, I wasn't going insane. Mom was just never around, and I didn't know why. Turned out, she was an alt-country singer. Now, I'm not entirely sure what that is, and I don't want to know. I don't listen to it — I make an effort not to. If anyone starts singing or playing anything they say is alt country, I have to leave the room.

"So, yeah, Mom was just always on tour, or, when she wasn't, traveling around. I was just too young to come with her up until then, because, obviously I was. And I hardly ever saw her. I didn't even think of her as my mom, really. Just another relative, albeit one that showed up less frequently than the other ones.

"And I know what you're thinking, because I'm thinking it too. Poor little well-adjusted boy with two parents and a lot of family members, who occasionally didn't get to see his mommy and was upset about it, not even caring that he had plenty of money, a stable environment, friends, and a roof over his head. Yeah, maybe his life wasn't the easiest one in the world, but what life is? At least he wasn't like us, homeless, hungry, getting beat up in shelters and begging on street corners. Getting drunk and high and crashing like KLM Flight 4085 the next day. Did I miss anything?"

I opened my eyes briefly, and they shook their heads. "Good. I didn't think so. And you know what? You're right. About everything. I was a stupid little kid who didn't get why Mommy never paid enough attention to him, but what the hell was I gonna do about it? Like I said, I was five.

"And it turned out five was old enough, because next time Mom showed up for a 'visit'" — I did finger quotes — "she took me with her. Congratulations, you misguided, confused five-year-old, welcome to your life of never having a stable environment, never being in one place long enough to make friends, never knowing exactly where you are when you wake up.

"And whenever Mom was performing, which was a lot, I would have to come with her because I was too young to stay home alone. And besides, we didn't really have a home, just stayed in a lot of hotels, or, when it was necessary, the car. Guess I wasn't trustworthy enough to stay there either.

"So, it was hang out in the back of the clubs, all alone except for maintenance people or whatever, and they don't really notice you. Little kid, lonely, scared, and not sure why his mom is too busy for him now that he's always with her, starting to wish he had never disliked his life back in Austin.

"Still not so bad, right? Right. Except that, don't forget, I was a small, scared kid with no means of defending himself. And there are plenty of . . . shadier characters in the show biz. That's just part of life. It would have been better if Mom had protected me from them, or at least tried, but she didn't."

Rowan drew back and blinked. Adina continued to be silent, staring at the ground. Maybe thinking about her relationship with her own child. Regretting, hopefully.

"Did you get kidnapped or something?" Rowan asked. She still looked slightly bitter and disgruntled, but I didn't hold it against her. If I was a homeless sewer girl, trying to take care of my 24/7 wrecked mom, listening to a guy who actually had a home and a family wax poetic about how his life sucked because he occasionally had to spend the night in the back of a club, I, too, would be ready to grab the nearest broken beer bottle and shove it up his ass. Rowan had amazing self control, really.

I shook my head. This story was not unusual for a demigod, but it was unusual for me — most demigods would have gotten killed at that point, or been rescued by their satyr, or had some last-minute demigod magic kick in and save them.

I was weak. I was powerless. If the . . . thing had wanted me dead, I would be dead. Do not pass go. Do not collect money from the bank.

But he hadn't, and I didn't know why.

And now I had to translate this story into the language of someone who didn't know about the world of gods and monsters, where you were taught you were either good or bad.

Actually, that would probably be easier to explain. Rowan and Adina would understand. The demigods would be confused as fuck, and I would agree with them.

"I didn't get kidnapped, but there was this guy —"

Rowan snickered. "Oh, there was this guy. You sound like a high school girl."

I reached over and shoved her in the shoulder. "Oh, shut the hell up. I didn't mean to sound like that. You read too many free corner books."

She smirked. "Maybe. Choose your damn words more carefully and maybe you won't sound like a teenage girl trying to explain why they just walked into their locker door while staring vacantly into space."

"ANYWAY, I never got kidnapped, obviously, because that would have been a way more interesting story to tell."

I shifted my gaze to my filthy hands, picking at the blood crusted under my fingernails. It had been there for years, and I thought I had long since given up trying to get it out. I guess I just needed to distract myself. The small bubble of humor and lightheartedness had popped, leaving me alone with the weight of the stories pressing down on us like a blanket made of broken glass and fear and loneliness.

"So, I was at the back of the club. I think I was about seven or eight, because I'd mostly stopped crying about being lonely and scared and whatever bullshit." I rubbed my forehead. "Yeah, I know how I sound. But I promise I'm not trying to garner pity or whatever, I'm just telling it like it is. I don't mean for it to sound like this. I wish it hadn't been.

"So, yeah . . . there was a guy. He was . . . I don't want to sound like a little kid and say he was creepy, but he was creepy. I just said that." I sighed, mentally altering little aspects of his appearance that betrayed him as inhuman, even in my mumbled, reluctant retelling.

"I don't remember much of how he looked, but I'll do my best. . . . He was smiling, kind of a nice smile, but crooked . . . kind of like mine, but less . . . sarcastic? I don't know. He had a hat . . . a bowler hat, maybe? I don't know. He wore it tilted over his face. Most of it was hidden in the shadow."

Rowan held up a hand. "Wait, wait, let me guess. He was wearing a long trenchcoat and black gloves." She looked disapproving, like she was disappointed in the creeper's lack of originality.

"Black gloves, yeah, trenchcoat . . . not so much. I think he was wearing . . ." I racked my brain; I actually had a hard time remembering this part. "I think he had a black leather jacket. Black jeans. Black boots."

"Guess he was just an emo child predator."

"I mean, yeah. And his face . . ." I shuddered, remembering the glistening black massive eyes that glittered out of the shadow, weeping oily dark tears. "He had huge eyes, that I could see even in the shadow . . . I know humans can't have black eyes, but I swear to God he did."

Adina stirred for the first time since I'd started my story. I thought she might say something, but she just slumped back against the wall, staring blankly into space. Or thoughtfully. I really couldn't tell.

"Maybe he was wearing contacts," Rowan said.

"Yes, maybe he was."

Flashback

I can hear him behind me before I turn around, I know because, even if I couldn't recognize him by the sound of his footsteps, Mom never quietly stands behind me like this. She would be talking, not — not this. And Mom isn't here. I would know if she was, because he would have talked.

I can feel all of my muscles tensing to the point of trembling, my breaths quickening and shortening, my fingers shaking so badly I almost can't turn the page of my book.

But I do, lowering my head even further, because maybe, just maybe, if I don't turn around or look up or cry or scream or any of the other things he hates, he'll walk off and leave me alone, and I can relax a tiny bit.

Not that I'm ever fully relaxed. Not when he's around.

I wait, breathing labored, for me to decide it isn't worth his time, that I didn't do anything wrong, that he should just turn around and leave.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Shit.

The open palm connects with the side of my face before I have a chance to draw a smooth, even breath, knocking me sideways out of the chair. My book slips from my grip, the page tearing as I desperately try to maintain a hold on it, and a corner of paper rips off and is clenched in one fist.

"Get up!" a harsh voice — his harsh voice — snaps. Although I can feel the bruise beginning to rise on my cheek, and I can't see through the haze of tears, I struggle to my feet, scrabbling on the ground for my book.

I shouldn't have done that.

His fist connects with my eye, sending me sprawling, gasping with pain and shoving a fist in my mouth to stifle my screams.

"Leave it!" he barks, as if I'm a dog trying to eat his master's dropped morsel off the floor.

I'm not in a mood to argue. I scramble away from it, leaping to my feet, my eye already beginning to blacken, automatic tears clouding my vision in a stinging haze.

I try to hide them, because he doesn't like it when I cry. And I know he just wants me gone, so I take off for the bathroom, the only place to hide in this goddamn hotel.

I slam the door shut and lock it. I know it doesn't mean much; he'll just break the door down if he wants in so badly, and damn the cost of the damages.

I collapse on the edge of the tub as the sobs finally begin to rack my body.

"I was ten when I first ended up at camp."

Rowan raised her eyebrows. "So we're finally going to get an explanation on the mysterious camp. And your mysterious cabin which I may or may not be in."

"Pretty much, yeah." I concentrated all my focus on a folded, dirty paper plate on the ground in a sea of trash. Smearing with pizza sauce, a rat nibbling at the corner. How cliche. "It's really just kind of a private boarding school . . . although it's free. Kind of."

"Kind of free? What the hell is kind of free?" Rowan looked extremely taken aback, and I couldn't blame her — after spending her life hearing about forty-thousand dollar private schools that she would never be able to get into because of money (at least I assumed she spent her life; maybe this was more of a recent thing), finding out that there was in fact a private school that did not cost money, and that a near-victim of kidnapping had been able to get in would undoubtedly inspire feelings of profound piss-offitude.

"It's free," I said, "although it's not easy to — to get in, you kind of have to be . . . it's hard to explain. But most people can't get in."

Rowan's eyebrows disappeared into her wild hairline. "Curiouser and curiouser, whatever the fuck your name is."

"Yeah, okay," I admitted. "There's shit I'm not telling you. Suck it up."

She barked a laugh. "I like you. Although you will be telling me, yes?"

I winced. I didn't really know how to respond to that — would I be telling her that the Greek gods existed, and that I was the son of one of said gods, and that the "boarding school" was really a training camp for fighting monsters that did, in fact, happen to have an education program for year-rounders that I could rarely attend thanks to my rigorous workload in the infirmary. Did I mention I have healing powers?

Still, though, Rowan could have just left me in that alley, and she did not. Didn't one good turn deserve another?

But I wasn't supposed to tell . . . I wasn't sure it was exactly prohibited by camp to tell other people about the Greek gods, but I was fairly sure that it wasn't exactly encouraged.

I mean, some peoples' families knew, but that was kind of necessary, seeing as they probably would wonder why their kids vanished every summer, or were literally never at home. Random strangers that one had met in an alley and a sewer, respectively, was probably a big no-no.

I wanted to tell. I did. But not tonight.

Rowan seemed to catch on to my ambivalence. "Yeah, okay, you're wondering if you can trust me. I get that. But who am I supposed to tell? A bunch of drug dealing assholes?" She gestured to the sewers around us. No one even looked up.

I sighed, feeling like way more of an asshole than the drug dealers were. "I really can't tell you. It's not that I don't want to, I just . . ."

"Understandable," Rowan said. "Whatever. Your choice. Now get on with the story."

"Okay, yeah, so, I was ten. My mom and I were in New York — I mean, I live here now, but basically, we were . . . I don't even remember where. One of the people who . . . well, they basically go around looking for people who are allowed to go to the camp. One of them found me."

Rowan looked taken aback. "What — do you go to fucking Hogwarts?"

I snorted. "Ha! I wish. But I'm not British. Yeah, no, like I said. Long story. One hell of a story too . . . Anyway, I went with the guy to the camp, and I guess I might as well tell you a little bit about it —"

"They're doing secret government experiments on you guys?"

"No — well, maybe. I don't think so. Anyway, when I say camp, I mean camp. We all sleep in cabins and eat in a dining pavilion and rotate activities and learning whatever and shit."

"Well, this place sounds thrilling."

"Yeah, and, head up, they've got a huge Greek mythology thing going on. I said there's cabins, and the way they decide what cabin you go into —"

"They use the Greek mythology Sorting Hat?"

"No, you idiot. All the cabins are organized by 'godly parent.' They're the twelve Olympians. Like, you got one cabin for Hermes, one for Aphrodite, and so on. So, the way they organize you is, they figure out what your personality is like, what kind of stuff you're good at, even what you look like — you know, all the kids in the Aphrodite cabin are super good-looking and all that crap. And then they make a decision, and you're stuck there, and suck it the fuck up if you don't like it."

"Oh." Rowan scrunched up her face. "So . . . basically, it's all based off of stereotypes, and you don't even get a say in it?"

A grin split my face. I had wanted for years to hear someone say that, to reassure me that I wasn't going crazy, and finally I'd heard it. "Yep, that's it. No asking to switch. No input on where you go. No saying you don't want to go into the Aphrodite cabin just because you're pretty."

"Wow . . ." Rowan was quiet for a moment. "That sounds . . . super damaging."

"Oh, it's damaging," I agreed. "Want to take a guess at what cabin I got put in?"

She took me in seriously, as if she were an art critic examining a piece. "Hmm . . . you've got blond hair and blue eyes, so based on that, I'd say Apollo, but judging by the fact that you appear to have sliced yourself up, and that I know you got drunk and tried to kill your friend, I'd say you don't seem particularly sunshiny."

I inclined my head in agreement. "Mm."

"You seem pretty smart . . . you speak well, anyway. And you swear a lot."

"Yeah, that's a holdover from my cabinmates."

"So, based on that, and the fact that I don't know what you're good at, I'm gonna say Athena."

I ruefully shook my head. "Nope, you were right with the blond hair and the blue eyes."

"Oh. So Apollo?"

I smiled crookedly. "Tragically."

"Wow." She was silent. "So . . . what does that mean?"

"Oh, you know, that I'm supposed to be good at archery, and love music, and have good medical skills, and I'm supposed to be super sunshiny and upbeat or whatever."

"Ah." She went back to examining me critically. "Yeah, I'm not seeing it."

"Yeah, well, you wouldn't," I said dryly. "Most of the people in my cabin are — were — not. But people didn't know that."

She raised her eyebrows. "Okay, this is interesting. Proceed."

I ran a hand through my hair. "Okay, I kind of have to ask, is your mom okay?"

Rowan's face darkened. She glanced over at Adina, who was continuing to stare blank-faced into the void.

"Ignore her," she said sharply. "This is how it usually is with her . . . whatever that was earlier, I have no idea how she managed to do that. Get back to the story."

"Right, so . . ." I pulled my gaze off the paper plate and up to Rowan's face. "Most cabins don't have a particular job to do, but since Apollo's kind of the god of healing . . ."

Rowan blinked. "You had to get a job healing or something?"

"That's it in a nutshell, yes. Since this was a Greek mythology-based camp, you can imagine there was stuff like sword fighting and other cool stuff I was never good at. And you can imagine that, when you give a bunch of twelve-year-old sharp bladed weapons, there's gonna be some injuries. And the staff could have done all the taking care-of-it themselves, but no. Apollo's 'kids' have to be healers. Never mind that Asclepius is really the god of healing, and I was quite literally ten years old, I had to be a healer. And yeah, I like helping people, but I don't know if I — if I wanted —"

Rowan shook her head. "That's fucked up shit to do to a kid, man. I know a kid who sells weed, and he never wanted to — his dad did it, and he basically forced the kid into the 'family business.' The guy wanted to get an honest job or something, but now he's stuck where he is, and he never asked for it. It makes them money, sure, but he never wanted that."

I sighed, rubbing my eye. "Yeah, so, I was ten, and I suddenly had to know all those complicated medical procedures, and constantly do infirmary grunt work — I hardly have time for actual fun activities the camp does, and I hardly get sleep because of the patients people have to take care of at night, and yeah . . . you know how it goes."

"Jesus Christ," Rowan muttered.

"And you want to know the best part?" I didn't wait for a response to continue. "None of the adults at camp bothered to teach us. We all had to learn from our older siblings like a goddamn medical commune."

"Shit."

"Yeah, and everyone in my cabin was forced into that, but I was the best at it, along with a couple others . . . At least, there were a couple others. And you want to "

"Oh? There were?"

"Yeah. Basically, all my cabinmates were sick of serving a camp that had their heads up their asses and their heads in the sand when it came to the welfare of their healers, and they . . . left."

Rowan blinked, startled. "They just left? And now you're alone?"

"Well, not really . . . I have two younger siblings. They're ten and eleven." I smiled, remembering Kayla and Austin. "I love them a lot, but neither of them are really good healers . . . Austin doesn't want to go home because his mom — well, we're not sure, exactly, because he won't tell us. That's his choice. But he's staying. And Kayla . . ." I racked my brain for an excuse. From her stories, she actually had a good relationship with her dad, but what are you gonna do? "She doesn't want to go home either . . . bad situation."

"And you couldn't leave them," Rowan surmised.

"Yep. I wasn't about to leave my little siblings alone in the cabin, and someone had to stay behind to run the infirmary. And I'm thirteen . . . yeah, I'm basically running it by myself. And since someone has to be on the night shift, right now, at least . . ."

She rested her head on her knees. "Your camp — school — whatever — is fucked up. You want my two cents?"

"I don't know. Do I?"

She stared straight at me, dark brown eyes boring into my own. "Get out. Don't stick around. I get that you don't want to leave your Kayla and Austin, but they're not your real siblings. You're not under any obligation to care for them. And the camp won't let the infirmary be run by kids that young."

"You don't know my camp," I said grimly.

We both sat in silence for a long moment, and then I took a deep breath. My cabin hadn't left. Rowan deserved to know that. I'd been putting it off, but . . . "Rowan?"

"Yeah?"

"My cabin didn't exactly leave."

"Care to explain?"

"I — yeah. I will."

I didn't, but what choice did I have?

I focused my gaze back on the pizza plate as my eyes began to burn.

Alright, I decided to make this one a two-parter. More information will follow on the fucked-up details of Will's cabin, as well as the guy who beat the shit out of him.