Walk With the Shadows [ Percy Jackson OC ]

EIGHT | Ophelia

OPHELIA WASN'T ABOUT TO LET Alex have all the fun. Though listening to elevator music for 600 floors almost made her regret ditching him, especially as the threat of death awaited her at the bottom. She didn't doubt he'd chew her out for it later, after this was all done. If they survived.

They'd survive. She and Alex had been through too much to be defeated now.

Evening revitalized her strength. It still hurt to breathe, but not so much that she couldn't work through it. After spending all day in the care of the medics, the least she could do was spend the night doing what she did best. The shadows would aid her.

With a jolt, the elevator slowed at level 5. Ophelia's stomach churned. She hadn't realized how fast she'd been descending. Ophelia unsheathed her dagger when she passed the third level. The serrated black blade gave off a dim glow.

A muffled explosion rocked the elevator car. Ophelia twisted the blade in her hand. The tight black leather wrap of the handle molded to her grip. A few heart beats later and the doors slid open, flooding her with chaos, and the stench of blood.

Hurrying down the long lobby of the Empire State Building felt like it took a hundred minutes, not a hundred seconds. She could hear screams and the shrieking of monsters beyond the shattered doors. The crimson glow from the blood-red sunset framed Kronos's dark forces.

Only chaos described the scene that met Ophelia beyond the threshold. Bodies lay strewn about, the bodies of her fellow campers. Two Hunters, the last of their arrows notched, stood behind a smoking, burned metal corpse of a car. One girl, a blonde who couldn't have been older, at least visually, than thirteen, had a gash down her shoulder blade.

Connor and Travis lay knocked out against the building. Ophelia couldn't speak. She saw Clarisse not far off frozen in ice. Other sons and daughters of Ares lay dead or unconscious around the perimeter of the entrance way. One had a spear in her chest. Ophelia looked away from the unseeing green eyes of Ares's daughter.

Kronos's forces formed a wide semicircle beyond the carnage. At the apex stood a vanguard of demigods. Ophelia recognized several of them. Jenna, daughter of Morpheus. Silvia, Ophelia's half sister through Hecate. Both held violet battle standards. Between them, a tall sixteen year old with an eye patch. Ethan Nakamura. Nemesis's son.

Behind him, tall and proud with golden glowing eyes, stood Kronos. Stood Luke. Ophelia knew she could never understand Alex's love for his half-brother. But she had befriended Luke too. Four years ago, he'd saved her. He'd given her a family. Hecate had led her to his side and for the first time in half a decade, she'd had friends.

The last two Hunters of Artemis shouted, loosing their arrows. No one in Kronos's army even flinched. The arrows hit a ward conjured by Silvia and bounced harmless to the ground. Ophelia didn't have time to react before the Hunters vaulted over the car, trying to reach Kronos in a futile charge.