All adults lied.
That was the thought that gnawed at Thalia Grace over and over, like a half-feral dog ripping at scraps. Grown-ups talked sweet, offered nice promises about forever or about being there tomorrow, but those words turned empty once tomorrow arrived. She had learned that in a living room that felt cramped, that smelled of cheap booze and regret, and now she was reminded of it again in the gutters of a city that hardly seemed to notice her, a place she drifted through with stiff limbs and a hollow stomach.
She was nine. She was also homeless. She was also alone.
The sidewalk under her scraped her bare heels—her soles had grown callused over the past weeks, but the pain flared anyway. At least it was a steady reminder that she was still here, still breathing.
The evening sky darkened, casting long shadows across curbs and alleys. She wanted nothing more than to shrink into those shadows and vanish because the less they saw her, the better it would be—the less the monsters saw her, the less the creeps among the regular people saw her. But it was not that simple.
She shivered, hugging her thin jacket close—an ugly old, probably hand-me-down coat riddled with holes. She was not sure who had donated it or where it had come from exactly. She had found it near a shelter's trash bin.
The fit was too big, sleeves dangling to her knuckles, but it was better than freezing in the open. The city air was chillier than usual that night, prickling her skin. She tried to tell herself that a bit of cold was no big deal, that she was strong, tougher than normal children, that she could handle it, endure it. But in a quiet corner of her mind, she just wanted a blanket and a safe bed.
Her gaze flickered to a flickering streetlamp overhead. She checked every face that trudged past, scanning for what most would see as impossible: scaly tails, glowing eyes, unnatural movements.
She knew better by then than to trust what they appeared to be. It could have been an old man in a ball cap, could have been an empousa disguised by the Mist. She could not guess. She could not risk it. She breathed a little faster, stepping backward into a recessed doorway of a boarded-up store, letting a couple of adults hurry by.
They chattered with each other, not glancing at the ragged, skinny girl half-hidden in the gloom.
It was not them she was mainly scared of—though she was also scared of them, in a different sense. Sometimes normal grown-ups could be the worst: the men who cornered her under flickering neon signs, demanding things she didn't have or offering rides for "favors"—whatever that meant.
She was quick. She could dart away. But for the ones that were not human at all...there was no guarantee she would always be able to outrun them. She did not know how they were able to smell her. She could not hide whatever scent saturated her, that attracted them.
A hollow pit twisted in her stomach. She tried not to think of food because there was none left in her pockets, and thinking about it only made her hungrier.
She rummaged anyway, turning them inside out in desperation, hoping maybe she had missed a crumb, but found only lint. With a clench of her jaw, she pushed away from the doorway. No point staying put, where some wily beast might sniff her out. She had to keep moving.
For a moment, she allowed herself to melt into her memory of him, a tall figure with a gentle voice, telling her once, "Don't worry, Thalia, I'll never leave you."
She had believed it. She had been so dumb. She had clung to those words at bedtime, even after Jason was gone, even after he was gone back when her so-called father and the stink of sour wine of her mother flooded the house. She used to breathe in that promise the way normal kids breathed in bedtime stories.
And now? Now it just hurt, just thinking about it hurt. Her uncle Alex—someone who made everything safe, who took her out for walks, who sang with her silly tunes because she asked him to, who taught her how to write, how to count, who had always been patient with her, who had been more of a parent than her genitors, who had been both her father and her mother—was gone.
He had left her.
He was probably somewhere, busy being clever, having fun living a life free from her mother, free from her father, free from her. A life where he was happy. He had no reason to linger for a worthless niece, not when her father was a god who never cared and her mother was a drunk who couldn't stand upright most of the time.
Still, the thought made bitterness swell up in her chest. She scowled. He had said he would never go, but there she was, scrounging for safety in the middle of the night in winter when the only thing she wanted was his presence.
He was another adult, another liar, like her mother, who always promised she would be better, or like Zeus, who had always liked to say the things he did were necessary when they were not—when he could have chosen never to leave.
"Did Alex stop loving me?" she wondered internally. Maybe, maybe she messed up, did something to drive him away. Maybe it was her fault or maybe it was something long overdue.
He was too good to stay with a messed-up kid like her—dyslexic, with no patience, unable to read books without difficulty or be normal, not wrong the way she was.
Maybe he left because he saw that she was trouble, that she would become trouble just like her mother, and good guys like Alex deserved normal kids, not kids like her, not someone like her with the blood of Zeus and Beryl Grace.
Her feet carried her along the pavement until she spotted an alley that was better hidden from the street. A battered dumpster stood near the back door of a closed diner. The place was locked, lights off, but the shadows behind the dumpster could maybe give her cover from watchful eyes, normal or otherwise.
She steeled herself, stepping around bits of broken glass that glimmered in the faint glow from a distant streetlamp. She could not afford to shred her feet any further. She found a patch of relatively clean cement and slid down to a crouch. The alley stank of rotting produce and rancid grease, but at least it was quiet for the moment.
Her thoughts spiraled again to Beryl, her mother—one more liar, the first of them in an endless line.
"Mommy loves you," that was what she used to say, back before the smell of alcohol drenched her clothes. After that, it was "Mommy will be better."
She would say that before looking at a bottle and deciding it was easier to drown in drink than to care about her daughter, to care enough to hold her promise.
She hated how Beryl reeked of alcohol at noon, how she let Zeus come and go, never minding if each time he left, all her good efforts to stop drinking failed spectacularly.
Thalia's lip curled in bitterness. Sometimes she imagined her mother collapsing in a puddle of her own filth, too drunk to breathe. She imagined not feeling sorry at all.
She used to wish for someone to come rescue her, preferably Alex. She had hoped he would come back just for her, tell her that everything was fine, and take her away, but he did not come. She held out for years, but Jason being gone, her mother giving up Jason—it was too much. She had to leave because she knew deep down if she hadn't, she would have hurt her mother, and she didn't want to be like her at all or worse. More importantly, she knew it would have made Alex sad because he loved Thalia's mother, loved his sister even after all, when Thalia herself didn't.
She had been done waiting, done hoping for illusions. The street was her home now—if home was the right word. She exhaled, shifting slightly, trying to find a position that didn't jab her spine. The cold crept up from the concrete. She rubbed her arms briskly. Adults were liars, she thought again. Best to rely on no one but herself.
A skittering noise far down the alley set her pulse racing. She stiffened, peering into the darkness. Just a rat, maybe, but her mind leaped to images of scaled reptilian monsters or that half-woman, half-something that had tried cornering her behind a grocery store last week. She had swallowed a scream that day, barely slipping under a chain-link fence as the creature hissed in fury. She was not sure if it was real or if the the thing that hid monsters from normal people's notice had disguised it, but it sure didn't look like any normal human.
She fled until she was panting and dizzy, not daring to check if it followed. She didn't know how to fight. She didn't like to fight. She didn't want to fight. She didn't want to be hurt. She knew without a doubt that each encounter could easily be the last.
She felt her eyelids droop, her body begging for rest. She would try, but she knew she couldn't relax for long. She set an imaginary timer in her head: Just a bit, Thalia. Twenty minutes, then up. She tried to calm her breathing, arms around herself for a semblance of warmth. So tired. It was a bone-deep exhaustion that never fully went away. She couldn't remember the last time she truly slept in a bed, the last time she slept feeling safe.
Her mind drifted, unbidden, to a memory of Alex kneeling by her side, wiping the tears from her cheek after Beryl had forgotten her and left her alone to go travel with Zeus.
He had said: it'll be okay, Thals. I promise. She could almost feel the ghost of that gentle hand on her hair.
Where are you now? she wanted to scream. Why did you vanish? Why did you break your promise?
.She wondered if Alex had regrets the entire time, if he only stuck around out of pity. Well, pity or love made no difference now. She was homeless, and he was nowhere.
A nearby siren wailed, slicing through her half-slumber. She jolted upright, heart hammering. That alarm might have been normal city noise, or it might have been something else entirely. No, she scolded herself. Stop seeing monsters in everything. But she couldn't help it. Hunching low, she crept to the alley mouth, peering around. A police car sped by, lights flashing, heading off to some other crisis. She relaxed by a thread, stepping back. That was when she heard a voice behind her.
"Are you lost, sweetheart?" The words were quiet, maybe kindly. But her gut clenched. Her eyes flicked to a tall figure in the gloom, half-lit by the streetlamp beyond. She couldn't see details—only that they were wearing a coat, maybe a uniform. She couldn't be sure. She kept silent, trying not to shake.
"Why don't you come with me," the figure said, stepping forward. The voice was deceptively calm, but there was an undercurrent that set her nerves on edge. She couldn't see the face well, but the posture was too stiff, too predatory. She stepped back, ignoring the question.
"Kid, it's not safe out here." A coaxing note. Another half-step closer. The lamplight shifted, revealing teeth that appeared…sharp? Or was that her imagination? She felt her stomach lurch. Run, her body was screaming at her.
She didn't wait to see if this person was human or something else wearing a mortal shell. Her flight reflex kicked in. She twisted around, leaped for the chain-link fence at the far side of the alley. Hands scrabbled for purchase. She had done this before. Her arms strained, her knees bumped, but she managed to pull herself over the top. She didn't look back. She couldn't. She just dropped onto the other side, landing hard. Pain blasted up her ankles. She stumbled but forced herself upright, sprinting down the next street with tears pricking her eyes.
Her legs burned. She kept going, hearing only the gallop of her heartbeat. After a few frantic blocks, her lungs screamed, and she slowed, leaning on a lamppost. There was no sign of pursuit. Her vision blurred with tears she hated letting fall. She pressed her forehead to the cold metal, panting. she was so tired of running.
She slid down to the curb, chest tight, and tried to breathe properly. Breathing hurt. Everything hurt. Wasn't her father supposed to be a god, the king of the gods, master of the sky? Could he see her? Why was he doing nothing? What was necessary in all of this?!
He had told her once that if she wanted his attention, she needed to pray for it. She hated him, hated him almost as much as she hated her mother. She hated them all. She would not beg for him, she would not pray for him. He didn't deserve it.
She shoved the thought of him aside and took a deep breath. She had bigger problems. She had to focus. She needed a new place to hide, but it was late, and she couldn't keep stumbling around.
In the distance, she spotted neon letters for a cheap motel. Maybe she could find a corner behind it. She gritted her teeth and limped forward, ignoring the constant throbbing in her ankles.
She eventually found the motel's side lot, half-enclosed by a rotting wooden fence. There was a dumpster again—her life revolved around dumpsters, apparently. She moved behind it. Less stench this time, or maybe she had grown used to it. She spotted a soft patch of cardboard. That was something. She eased onto it with a ragged sigh, arms folded tight. If the monsters came, she would run again, she guessed. She couldn't outrun them forever. One day, she knew she would not be able to, that she would have to fight.
She closed her eyes, tears sliding down the side of her nose. Part of her wanted to scream. Another part wanted to close off every feeling. She tried to recall Alex's face. She could see a faint outline: his serious eyes, the gentle tilt of his smile, the way he used to ruffle her hair when she pouted. The memory soothed and hurt all at once. He told me it'd be okay. Then he vanished. Is that how worthless I am?
Gods, I wanted to be your daughter instead of your niece, she admitted silently to the night. I wish… She couldn't even finish the thought. Because the heartbreak might have swallowed her whole.
Wind rattled overhead wires. She listened to city noises—a distant honk, the hum of traffic, random footsteps. Each footstep could be a monster. That paranoia was her constant companion. She was too exhausted to fight it. She rested her cheek on her knees, letting the shudders pass.
Time slid. She was not sure if she dozed, but the squeal of brakes on the nearby street dragged her back to awareness. She rubbed her eyes.
She stood, legs wobbly. If the city was a labyrinth, she was a tiny mouse scurrying through it, avoiding predators. She wandered around the motel's corner, scanning for water or leftover food. Sometimes you found half-eaten takeout near trash bins. Not that night. She found only empty cans, crumpled wrappers. Not one piece of real food. Her stomach clenched in despair.
A headache pulsed at her temples. She might have had a fever—her throat felt scratchy, nose drippy. Just another joy of living outside. Her eyes flicked upward at the swirling clouds. She wondered if her father saw her. Fat chance. She almost wanted to laugh at the idea of the king of the sky giving a single hoot about the ragged child of his blood. He hadn't helped her mother, sure hadn't helped Jason, sure hadn't helped her. She was all alone. The gods? They either didn't notice or didn't care.
She stepped out onto a side street, hugging the building's wall. A flicker of motion made her freeze: a silhouette at the far end. It stood unnaturally tall, too wide in the shoulders. She couldn't see a face, but her instincts screamed monster. Her pulse rocketed. She slipped behind a parked van, trying to stifle her panting. The silhouette seemed to sniff the air. If it was one of those savage cyclopes or some lesser beast wearing illusions, it might pick up her trail.
She crept along the van's side, forcing her body to move quietly. Each step set her heart hammering. She prayed it didn't see her, that maybe the gloom hid her well. She wondered if Alex would have known how to distract it. He was always resourceful, always had a plan. She missed that calm presence so fiercely her chest ached. But no time for that now. She edged around the van's front. The silhouette was gone. Maybe it had turned away or slunk into some other alley. She didn't trust it. She ran anyway, ignoring the complaint of her tired muscles.
The city blurred in a haze of cheap streetlights, battered storefronts, and graffiti-scarred walls. Her breathing rasped. She passed a group of older homeless men around a burn barrel. They glanced at her but paid no real attention. Even they might have been safer than some random policeman, ironically. She wanted to approach them, see if there was warmth, but the idea of half a dozen adult men in the dark made her stomach knot. She kept walking.
The night dragged on. She drifted close to collapse. She tried another block of shops. Occasionally, she glanced into the reflection of a window, saw a gaunt, dirt-streaked face staring back: her own. She hated that face. She hated that she was so young and so alone. She hated everything. She wondered if it would be easier just to let a monster finish her off, but the thought terrified her so deeply that she clamped her eyes shut, pushing it away. No, she decided. She would keep going, if only out of spite.
Sometime near dawn, she found an old parking garage. It was mostly deserted. She hoped maybe an upper level would be empty enough to give her a hideout for a few hours. She headed up the concrete ramp, her steps echoing. One flickering overhead fluorescent lit up the second floor. She tensed at the hum, but there was no sign of life. She ventured deeper, eyes darting. Her breath condensed in the chilly air. She shivered. No monstrous presence that she could sense. Good. She set her back to a pillar, sliding down until she sat on the cold cement. It was not comfortable, but it was sheltered from the wind. She might manage a short rest.
Her eyes drooped. A flood of exhaustion swept over her. She imagined she saw Alex stepping out from behind the next pillar, crouching to wrap a blanket around her shoulders. She imagined he was whispering that he was sorry, that he lost track of her, that it was time to go home. But she knew it was a lie, a dream. The tears slipped free again. She hated crying—it made her feel weaker. But no one was there to see it and tears were the only warmth she had.
All adults lied.
So here is in my opinion one of the most important chapters because Thalia in this fic at least is the one seen as the most important. Also, if you're a PJO fan, you would realize that Alex's presence made the timeline change. Jason should have been given at 2 years old, not as a baby, Thalia should have been between 9 and 10 when she left Beryl, when she ran away but here for the best and the worst, she had an adult, a paternal figure that showed how she should be treated, that treated her and loved her more than biological parents did in her opinion which meant she was less tolerant of Zeus and Beryl bullshit and way more uncaring of their love etc. Hope y'all liked the chapter and sorry for not posting all this time.
PS: I got a :
p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / Eileen715. Don't hesitate to visit if you want to read more or support me or for any other reason.