Changing the Future

Chapter 43

Needless to say I spent the rest of my summer running around like a chicken with its head cut off, constantly running back and forth between gods in an attempt to keep them allied with Olympus. Some goddesses like Nike and Iris promised to stay faithful to the gods while others, like Nemesis and Mellinoe, said hello by trying to kill me.

Such charming personalities, right?

Anyways, as the summer drew to a close, I cut myself off from the gods again, reminding them that the school year was about to start up again and I hadn't touched any of my summer work that was due in two weeks.

But before I devoted myself completely to biology and chemistry again, I attended two last major events: the bead ceremony at camp and Percy's birthday.

The Hephaestus cabin, who had been tasked with designing this year's bead, chose to etch a gold maze onto a gray bead in honor of the Battle of the Labyrinth. On the backside of the bead were the names of the fallen demigods. I couldn't help but swallow a lump in my throat as I ran my finger over Cleo's name, wishing that she were still here, before sliding it onto my leather necklace with my other eight beads.

On the last day of camp, I rode into the city with Percy and several other campers that were catching Greyhounds to go back home. Annabeth said she was going to stay behind a little longer to take care of Chiron as his leg recovered, and Luke promised her that he'd be the one to drive her to San Francisco once she was ready. As for Will, he was staying for the year as well, saying that he needed more practice in first response care for the upcoming war.

War, such a dark, nasty word, but we all knew it was coming, especially now that Percy was about to turn fifteen.

Not to mention the fact that my dreams had been getting significantly darker, what with my father contacting me every chance he could, telling me every night that I was a traitor and that he was going to take great pleasure in killing me for siding with the Olympians. And every night, my nightmare would end with someone or something shoving me into Tartarus, my father's cruel laughter echoing in my ears as I fell into the deepest, darkest pit in the mythical world.

Even now in the van, which had no air conditioning and was driving in the middle of a sunny day, I shivered, as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. Percy gave me a worried look, but I waved him off, which only made him more suspicious.

"Everything okay?" he asked, his hand subconsciously reaching for Riptide as Argus drove the van into one of the many tunnels that were a part of New York's highway system. I knew he'd had some bad experiences with tunnels, but not all of them were monster infested.

"Yeah," I lied, hearing Kronos' threat replay over and over in my head like a broken record. "I'm fine."

You will pay dearly for your transgressions, daughter, he'd said. I will allow you to watch as I kill every one of your demigod friends before chopping the gods into a billion pieces as they did to me, scattering their remains into the depths of Tartarus. Then, daughter of mine, we shall have our fun, where you shall learn the consequences of your mistakes. PERISH FOR YOUR ACTIONS!

I shook my head in attempt to rid myself of his voice, choosing to stare at the bricks lining the inside of the tunnel as we passed through. At this point, almost everything was better than my nightmares, including having to do about five hundred questions, five essays, and three research papers for school.

Ah, the joys of college.

Percy shrugged, but he didn't look convinced.

About thirty minutes later, Argus dropped Percy and me off at the bus stop. Now, I could've just shadow-traveled or mist-traveled us, but Chiron had been warning me against using my powers so much, telling me that I was drawing too much attention to myself amongst the monsters and turned gods.