I'm pretty sure the sound of my mother's neck being snapped will haunt me for the rest of my life, however long -or short, at this rate- it may be.

For a moment, the world falls still. For a moment, all I can do is watch as her feet stop kicking, and her arms fall limp to her sides, as the sounds of her choking are abruptly cut off.

The monster ("They sent the Minotaur," Mom had choked out, shock and terror plain on her face) let's go then; a meaty hand opens from around a fragile slender throat, and Sally Jackson's corpse falls to the cold, hard ground with a sound that startles everything into motion again.

Mom mom mom mom mom mom

Someone is screaming. My throat burns. Distantly, I know I'm the one screaming but I've lost all control over my body. Rage has taken hold of me and I scramble up, pick up the discarded sword with bleeding, scraped hands, and launch myself at the monster.

I hate you.

The Minotaur roars and swings his ax. I yell, louder, but it's less vengeful and more an echo of my grief, and swing the sword. My movements are clumsy, awkward because I've never been a fighter, and the sword isn't mine (it was mom's, and she wielded it like it was a part of her) but for what I lack in preciseness and experience, I make up with speed and fury.

My ancient heritage proves itself true.

The monster is slowly backed against a wall, confused, apprehension starting to creep in and cloud its judgment. But I'm starting to tire, my blows coming slower, my panting getting heavier. I'm only twelve, only yet developing muscle mass, only yet getting invested into this whole demi-god business, and the Minotaur is 8 feet tall, big and strong and packaged with thousands of years of experience.

There's only me, now. Only me.

Mom is behind us now, my back is to her. Discarded like some broken doll, body still warm but so, so still. The morbid thought is a mistake, it has no place in a fight, and it's a testament to my grief that it digs its way up and through the haze of rage and fear. But one mistake is all it takes.

Mom.

I falter. The sword is knocked out of my hands, and the wrenching breaks some of my fingers. I barely feel the pain through the adrenaline-fuelled panic. The half-man, half-bull roars triumphantly. I back away hastily, warily eyeing the enemy.

Its lips pull up grotesquely, bizarrely, as if the monster himself is not used to moving those muscles like that.

It's grinning. My stomach churning in a sudden onslaught of nausea. It killed mom, and now it's gonna kill me, and it's enjoying this-

The Minotaur charges, and I duck, let it think it's going to barrel into me. I push the knife between its ribs, right into its heart, feel soft skin and bone and blood. Then there's gold dust, just as I'm thrown back from the blow.

My head hits the ground first, and I know no more.

.

.

.

There are voices talking, bickering more like. One sounds rough, like a smoker, and a hell of a lot angry, while the other is young, past puberty but laced with an undertone of authority. I can barely distinguish what they're saying through the loud pounding in my head.

"...ades sent his fucking-"

"Of course, whose fault.."

"...with me, boy. Don't forget who you're sp-"

"...ods wont be happy when they hear what you di-"

What happened? Confusion lances through me. Where am I? Where's Mom?

My eyelids feel like they might weigh a ton or two, I can't seem to open my eyes. For one short second, all-consuming panic engulfs me. My breath hitches. Then the memories slam back and it takes all of my self-control to keep bile from rising up.

Crack. Mom. Monster. Gold.

I blink awake and groan at the bright sky. I turn on my side -Gods, does everything hurt- and try to shield my eyes. Hot pain lances through me, and I bite down on a scream, squinting at my hand. Three of my fingers have been gotten a hasty splint job, and my whole hand is purpling. It feels like one big ugly bruise, the throbbing there only matched by the one in my skull.

Gods, let's hope I don't have a concussion.

"Careful. I just splinted them."

I look up and see a blond guy kneeling next to my head. It's then that I notice that the background argument has stopped. No sign of the smoker. The kneeling guy is older than me but still young -not even twenty- even though the horrid scar on his face gives him a rugged, mature look.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Luke Castellan is talking to me.

My lips go numb. Why is he here? He should be at camp doing his counselor duties, or planning pseudo-evil plans with his monster goonies. He's not supposed to be here.

Neither am I.

"Who're you." I croak, ignoring that nasty little voice in my head. My throat hurts. Why does my throat hurt? Ah, right. I'd kept on screaming. I must have scrapped it raw.

"I'm Luke. Luke Castellan." He says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and helping me sit up, "Son of Hermes."

"Hermes," I mutter, drawing my knees to me and hugging myself into a tight ball, as soon as I'm in a sitting position. My head is killing me. "With the cool sandals."

That earns me a quick laugh, although I'm not sure if the hard edge under it isn't tinged with bitterness. "Yeah, the god with the cool sandals. That's my dad." He eyes me warily, lost on how to continue, "You know the... well, I guess you do, with the dust and the weapon-"

It takes me a second to get what he's going for, "I know I'm a demigod."

Luke looks relieved he won't have to explain the whole shebang to me, but the cautious look doesn't clear up.

His eyes, a cerulean blue, study me. I get the feeling I'm coming up short. Not that anyone in basketball shorts and a too large anime shirt. Clothes I liked to use as PJs. At least I had the foresight to grab my sneakers when Mom and I fled the house.

I squint at our bright surroundings. The alleyway is dirtier and fuller than I first thought. Five feet of it is covered in dark yellow glitter that sparkles where the rays of the sun hit them.

"What time is it?" It had been a bit before dawn when the monster caught up with us. The air feels cool on my skin. I hold back a shiver, not wanting to jostle my bruised body anymore than I have to. My nose wrinkles at the stench that permeates the air; it reeks of discarded trash, back-alley piss, and a tangy rusty scent I know belonged to the monster dust.

Luke doesn't seem to notice the awful stench. A good thing, I guess, since I don't think I smelt like roses either. "Six-thirty," he answers, after a look at his watch, "You've been out for a while."

No kidding, after that fall.

"Found some sheets."

We turn to look at the mouth of the alley where a Latino boy around my age is standing with some white sheets in his arms. Standing by Mom. Mom.

My eyes lock on her sprawled body, and the world narrows around me.

I've avoided looking at her till now. I can't move anymore, the full weight of realization rooting me to my place.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. Luke. "I'm sorry," and I hate the honesty in his voice, "We heard the screams. Came as fast as we could buy- She was already gone when we got here."

I know. Of course I know. I watched it happen. I was there when... When- I was there, useless and scared and weak. Still, a part of me had hoped. Hoped the awful crack if heard hadn't been her neck, had been her collarbone, or shoulder. Something fixable.

"Oi, sleeping beauty's awake!" The newcomer says, hints of a sneer on his boyish face. He drops the bundle of sheets carelessly on the ground. He's wearing an orange shirt with swirly writing on it. "Bueno, I'm Chris. Think you can help with this?"

With what? I want to ask, but it becomes obvious when Chris waves at the sheets. And at Mom.

Oh.

Oh.

Luke pats my shoulder. "Don't worry, I got it." And he stands up, leaving me shivering and curling unto myself.

My eyes don't leave them. They spread one sheet on the dirty ground and together they lift Mom up to lay her on it. It's unnatural how loose her limbs are, how still she is. I should help, I realize. I should be the one to-

My vision blurs. The world narrows around me, crushing, crushing me slowly. I start dry-heaving, and I am nicely in my way into a panic attack when Luke's voice breaks through the encroaching darkness.

"Hey- Hey! Breathe, okay? Breathe in- Wait… wait… Breathe out. Breathe in, wait, and out. In- yeah that's it- out." Warmth envelopes me. I realize I'm shivering like a leaf in the wind. I tug the warm object closer around me. It's a jacket. Luke's jacket. His hand is rubbing my back. "In and out. Slowly."

He's wearing a camp shirt, too.

It's weird how the brain chooses to focus on small details like that, even in the aftermath of a panic attack. But my shaking is slowing, my erratic breaths are calming and vision grows back.

"You alright, gringo?" Chris asks from where he's kneeling next to Mom. The sneer is still here but only barely. He does look more worried than derisive.

"Nobody came," I gasp, as soon as I have the breath for it. "It was so loud- We yelled for help- Nobody came-"

There's a frown on Luke's face. It deepens the shadows on his face and the scar on his face looks even more gruesome. "The Mist kept the Mortals at bay, probably. It's strange... Usually, it barely exerts any effort to distort what they see and hear. Not enough to completely muffle it."

Chris blinks, and starts looking around suspiciously, "You think there's someone else? Something else?"

Luke shakes his head, "No one can manipulate the Mist to that extent. Except for-" A ringtone cuts through his musings. Luke grabs a phone out of his back pocket.

"I need to take this. Behave," he snaps at the younger boy, before jogging to the far end of the alley, already tapping the screen.

Chris pulls a face but continues working. Soon Mom's body is effectively wrapped in stolen sheets. I stay fixated on the stains it's already accumulated. Brown from the ground. Red from-

The guy pulls me out of my head before I can finish the thought, thankfully. "Who's the lady?"

"Mom," I murmur, tugging Luke's jacket tighter around me.

Mama.

"Ah, thought so," the guy shifts, clearly uncomfortable. He gets defensive when I send him a look. "You look a bit like her. She's young. Coulda been your sis. Mine would be turning 30 this year."

That's the first time someone says that. The guy politely ignores my flinch, studying the yellow dust still covering a good part of the alley. It's like someone had tripped and spilled two bins of gold glitter from two stories up. It's fucking weird to see trash and party glitter mingling like that.

For a moment, all we can hear is the distant sound of cars and people waking up to fo about their day.

Luke comes back. "Our ride is on its way." His cerulean eyes study Mom before they come to rest on my -no doubt pathetic- form. I don't have the strength to do anything more than stare back with a haggard look.

"Hey," he says in a kind tone, "I didn't catch your name."

"It's Percy," I answer, dully, "Percy Jackson."

It's not. I'm a liar. But I've been one for a lifetime and it doesn't bother me anymore.

Luke kneels close to me, again. There's a faint upwards twist to his lips, a stark contrast to the severity in his brown eyes. It's as if he can't help it, as if something funny is always on his mind, despite the occasional harshness of the world. Or perhaps, it's that he finds funny.

Either way, the smile he gives me is genuine, "Hey, Percy," he says quietly, "It's nice to meet you."

My eyes water. I bury my face in my arms and curl into a tighter ball.

Transport turns out to be a rusted orange mini-van, graffitied with the letters from the Greek alphabet in bold green. The only ones I recognize are alpha, beta, and delta, the rest is a faintly unrecognizable mass of letters.

Argus, the driver, is a silent man with eyes in places where eyes shouldn't be allowed to reside. I know it's rude to stare but I can't help it. Does he also have eyes on his- One closed eye on his calf opens and I swear it gives me a wink.

I try not to hover when the man picks Mom up with the strangest care and puts her in the back of the van. She looks like a big potato sack, I think, and proceed to lose the contents of my stomach.

"What a wuss," I hear Chris scoff when I wipe my mouth, followed by a slapping sound. "Hey!"

"Here," Luke hands me a bottle. I expected water. A surprised sound escapes me when I taste my favorite drink of both lives. Mint tea. My headache recedes, along with the pain all over my body. My hand is still obviously broken, but it's like I'd taken a strong painkiller, I can barely feel the throbbing pain.

Luke is grinning at the look on my face, "Ambrosia," he explains, "Drink of the Gods, and guaranteed fixer-upper for demigods."

"I want some too."

"Shut up, Chris."

He ushers us towards the van and climbs in the passenger's seat in front of a pouting Chris. I'm behind the driver and recoil when Argus takes the wheel. There's an eye on the back of his neck. Thankfully, it's closed. Having an eye watch me for a whole car ride would've been the drop that spilled the bucket, pretty sure.

The van starts moving. We're leaving. Just like that. We're leaving this place. I cast a look in the rear-view mirror.

There's a man at the entrance of the alley. His back is to us, and it takes me a while to decipher the words on his black leather jacket, because of my dyslexia. Something I'm still not used to, after a life of being a bookworm.

War is Pleasure.

I open my mouth, about to comment, and then remember the smoker. I remember Luke's story. It's not hard to put two and two together.

"Where are we going?" I ask instead after we take an upturn and ride up the nearest highway. It's a question I know the answer to, but it's best to keep up appearances.

Cerulean catch on my green eyes from the rearview mirror, "Camp Half-Blood. The one place where our kind is safe."

Camp Half-Blood. Where once the name would've brought out tingling excitement, now I can barely muster an ashamed resignation.

Chris turns to me then, as if he couldn't keep to himself any longer. "So, what did you kill?" He shrugs at the look I give him. "That was a lot of stinky monster dust, back there. How many monsters exactly? We keep a record at camp. I think Annabeth's got the highest tally."

He kicks the back of Luke's seat, "Or Scarface over here." He deftly ignores Luke's scoff, opening a pack of gummy bears he got out of nowhere, and turns back to me, "So? What hijo de puta-"

Argus klaxons. All his eyes swirl and fix themselves on Chris. It has a creepily dizzying effect, but it effectively manages to curb Chris' big mouth.

The Minotaur's roars resound in my head. The smell of his sweat, that cloying barn animal scent, and human musk and blood, the rage in its eyes. The very human hand around Mom's throat.

Crack.

It takes all of my self-control not to whimper. I want to hide my face in my knees but resist the childish urge. Enough of that pathetic display. My answer comes quietly, "The Minotaur."

Silence, save for the rumbling of the car and the sound of activity on the highway.

"No fucking way."

"Chris-"

"What? There's no way a small pendejo puss-bunny like him managed to kill the Minotaur, Luke!" He snaps, and turns to me, grabbing a few gummy bears and flinging them at my head, "No fucking way in Hades! I didn't see no token!"

A token. The proof of the slaying of a monster. Medusa's head. The Minotaur's horn. He's not wrong. I killed the monster but I have nothing to show for it. No horn, or his nose ring, or even some fur. Another thing that makes me different from OG Percy. Am I even allowed to call him OG Percy after this?

First I take his body, now I get his mom killed. What's next? Siding with Kronos?

Luke glances at me through the rearview mirror, looking uncomfortable. "Must've missed it. There was a lot of-" He cuts himself off, probably not wanting to remind me that my mom died in a filthy alleyway the trash collectors had scrapped from their route months ago. Well, too late for that.

"We must've missed it." He finishes lamely.

Argus taps the steering wheel, calling for attention. He signs one-handed as soon as Luke turns his head towards him.

"There's always a token," Luke translates, "You will get your token. Give it time."

An eye on Argus' arm blinks slowly at me. I get the feeling he's trying to reassure me. I look away.

I don't want a stupid token. I want mom.

It's not until Chris speaks that I realize I said that out loud. "Tough luck, gringo."

I shove my hands in Luke's jacket, holding back a wince when I'm too rough on my splinted hand, and lean back in my seat, "I'm Romanian."

He waves his hand. My stomach rolls at the brown bloodstains on his sleeves. "Flavored mayo, yeah, yeah. American. Greek. Romanian. Mexican. Who cares? Half our DNA is myth, anyways. Luke, push the radio button."

Luke gives an audible sigh but obliges. Spanish music blares from the speakers. For a moment, all I can do is stare at them.

What. The hell.

This whole thing is surreal. A mythological man in flip flops is driving, a scarred guy is opening the window and tossing a phone out, a thirteen-year-old is humming through a pack of gummy bears with bloodstains on his sleeves. There's a dead body behind us-

And there's me.

Exhaustion slams into me, threatening to drag me under the waves. My eyelids suddenly feel heavy. Despite the rising heat in the car as the day brightens, I burrow myself in the neck of Luke's jacket and close my eyes.

I know, distantly, that things will only get more complicated from here on. And I know that I may have hit rock bottom but that doesn't mean I'm not able to dig further down.

There's still so many questions (Why are they here? Why didn't Grover come save us? What did I do wrong?), and so many things to resolve (What's gonna happen with Mom? What do I do? Where do I go after this?), but with the headache gone, in the safety of the car with three competent guys, and sweet Latin music serenading us, I let myself fall in the clutches of a dream.

Sleep. I tell myself. Leave it for later.

It's a long ride to Long Island.

.

.

.

A haze of green and blue. My earliest memory is vague. Yet, it's one of the best I have.

There's sound -a low laugh, a stranger's voice calling me Perseus and telling me you are my son- and there's feeling -warmth, comfort, you are safe here Perseus- and there's that certainty that the man in the memory is my father.

My father. The man Mom met on a beach twelve years ago. The man who loved her for one summer. A captain. A sailor. Someone bound to the oceans, just like me. Lost at sea. Not missing. Lost. Not dead. Lost.

A man I knew to be Poseidon.