~ ☼ ~

I was lucky my parents did not know the truth about what was happening in the Greek world, or else I would've been screwed.

As they drove me to my friend/sort of brother/comrade-in-arms Alec's house in Brooklyn, my mom chattered away about the upcoming summer at Camp Half-Blood. Little did she know about the danger her daughter was in.

"I think you should learn how to play another instrument!" she said, smiling as she turned to face me. We were in my Dad's Subaru Impreza, on our way to Sheepshead Bay, but Dad was too busy trying to navigate New York traffic to add anything to the conversation.

I still call him Dad, but... y'know.

"I don't think so," I said, smiling back at her. "Violin's enough for me."

I patted my violin case. I'd need it this summer, if I still had my fancy magic music powers. I hadn't seen them come out at all when I'd been playing the instrument in school, but then again I was completely okay with not controlling the minds of a bunch of 10th grade orchestra members.

It was crazy I was 16 already. Part of me was still stuck at age 10, which had nothing to do with camp, I just liked being 10. I knew I looked different then I had last summer - before, I still kept some resemblance of emo with my straightened hair. Now, I had cut my hair to my shoulders and it fell into loose waves that would turn frizzy the moment I had to do any running. And I wore a Camp Half-Blood shirt with my denim shorts and converse - it felt like the only thing I could do to support everyone.

"I've always said you'd be good at piano," said my dad, finally. He jerked the wheel, then swore at the city traffic. "Or singing!"

I shivered. "No thank you."

Kiera's prophecy from last summer rang in my mind, because it had called me the singer. Sometimes I wondered if she had ever even gotten a real prophecy, or if she'd made it up.

"We're here," Dad said. "I think?"

I looked out the window. He'd parked in the driveway of a tiny brownstone with fencing all around it. Alec's grandparents, who he lived with, were doctors, but he said they still kept a pretty modest life. And sure enough, Alec was standing on the front porch, waiting for me. At the sight of him, I felt better and less like my parents' pushing was gonna suffocate me.

I waved to him through the window, then got all my stuff.

"Are you sure you don't want to meet him?" I asked my parents.

"Nah," said Mom. She waved a hand. "We'll leave that all to you."

I think part of the reason she never asked in detail about Camp Half-Blood was because she didn't like thinking about Apollo. I still wondered all the time how exactly they'd gotten together. She was a music teacher, so I guess there was that, but...

Apollo just seemed like a world away from their normalcy.

"Okay," I said. I steeled my face as I put it through the seats. They both kissed me on the cheek, then I said, "I'll talk to you guys later."

"Stay safe!" Dad called as I left the car. "We love you!"

I smiled, because at least he did. I had to give it to him - even after I'd found out he wasn't my real dad, he hadn't changed a thing. I guess he had already known I wasn't his daughter, because when he and Mom got together I'd already been born. But it was news to him to find out who the real father was. I'd say he was taking it like a champ.

"I love you too," I told them, then lugged my violin and backpack up to the porch.

Alec was leaning against the front porch. He was wearing a flannel and cargo shorts, despite it being like 80 degrees out. Maybe he was trying to taunt Apollo's heat as much as he could.

"Hey-hey-hey," I said as I reached him. "How's it hanging!"

"Hey," he said, smiling back at me. He took my violin case from me, then gave me a big hug. "How was the drive?"

"Well, you know," I said. I shrugged. "I still can't believe they're even gonna stay here."

The reason they'd driven me here was because my Mom had successfully petitioned Dad to finally let them take a weekend to visit NYC; after they dropped me off here, they were going to Manhattan to see some Broadway shows. Ordinarily, I would've wished I were with them, taking in air conditioning and soda in plush seats rather than on my way to certain doom, but being with Alec made me feel differently.

Even though we were a little awkward right now.

Because here was the thing: when a grown, mature adult finds out something in their family is different then they'd thought, it's easier to... you know. I guess, deal with it without having an existential crisis? But key words here are: grown, mature adult. My dad was in his 40s when he'd found out the news about the Greek Gods are real.

Alec had not taken his own crazy news nearly as well.

That news, if you weren't paying attention is this: he wasn't Apollo's child. He was Hyperion's. Which made him, first of all, way more powerful than we'd ever imagined. Second of all, he was a demititan, not a demigod, and therefore people had started to whisper. And third of all, most importantly, he was not actually my brother. And that's what you missed on Drops of Sunshine.

"Yeah," Alec said with a chuckle. "Did they decide on a musical to see?"

"Probably Wicked. My mom likes it a lot."

It took Alec a minute to come up with something in response. Then he grinned. "That makes sense. That's like, the most emo musical."

That was depressing if it were true, given that so many of the albums I liked would've done so well as musicals. But I just rolled my eyes.

"My mom is not emo," I said. "Trust me."

Alec scanned his eyes over me for a moment, like he was just realizing I wasn't really dressed super emo anymore, either.

Then he looked away, and I did too.

When he didn't say anything else, I was like, "Well. We should get going."

"Yeah," he said. "I'll get Grams."

Ugh.

Not to Grams, but to that interaction. It was like once we'd found out he wasn't my brother we didn't feel like we could get away with teasing each other, and that was what 99.9% of our interactions were made up of. Now we were stuck with only that .1%, like the stuff Clorox doesn't get. Keeping with this bizarre metaphor, that meant were gonna get E. Coli. Great!

Alec came back out of his house a minute later with Grams Thompson behind him. I hadn't officially met her yet, because Alec hated talking about his life outside of Camp. It was astonishing he'd even offered to do this, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse, or gift brother-not-brother, in the mouth.

"Ah! AJ!" exclaimed Grams as she bustled out. "Finally, you're here!"

Before I could even respond, she wrapped me in a huge hug. She smelled like mothballs and antiseptic. I did not know how that played into my metaphor.

"Hi, Mrs. Thompson," I said, as she pulled away. "It's so good to finally meet you!"

"Oh, it is." She shook her head. "Alec never wants to let us meet his friends."

I did not glance at Alec, but I could feel his eye roll.

"You're very pretty," she said, squeezing my hands. "Would you like something to eat?"

I mean, kind of, but also I would've rather waited to eat until we got to camp. I told her as such, and after a few minutes of back and forth, she finally conceded and let us go to her car.

"Oh, hold on," she said. "Let me just go get my glasses."

Together, Alec and I walked to the car, but when we got to get in it, I was surprised to see him sit in the back with me. With our two backpacks, my violin case, and the random junk Mrs. Thompson had in there, it kind of felt like a safety hazard. And Alec had randomly gotten tall over the school year; his head was almost touching the ceiling when he sat up straight.

"Are you sitting back here with me for my sake, or because you want to avoid her?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

I saw a shadow pass through his eyes, and I thought, Shoot, that was mean. Then he chuckled, and said, "I did it so you wouldn't ask me to control the radio."

I frowned. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I know dang well that if I was in control but you were the backseat DJ, we'd never decide on anything," Then his face suddenly went pale. "Oh, wait."

I realized what he was saying half way through saying it. He was implying I would constantly bug him to change the station, which I definitely would, but there was no reason for him to think that. Except for that that had been a moment on my quest last summer that I'd told him about. I'd only been picky with music then to save my friends and I's lives from my grandmother's abuser, but still.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "I'm so sorry."

Grams was returning now, bustling with her white hair and perfectly pressed sweater and skirt down the walk. Before she could get in the car, I quickly said, "Don't be sorry. Don't be weird about it. It sucked, but it'll only suck more if we don't talk about it."

His brown eyes softened, and I thought for a moment that maybe I'd just healed every issue ever just like that!

Then Grams got in the car.

"All right!" she said.

She started to flip through her key ring, and I swear it took 20 minutes just for her to find the car key. I started to get annoyed, and that's how I knew I hadn't fixed anything. Because I was still me, and I could have the whole world in my hands and still feel hurt.

-

The drive out to Camp Half-Blood was a long one, because we were all the way up by Montauk. I figured out early on when I asked Grams a question and she didn't immediately respond that she could barely hear me, especially once she turned on the radio and the dulcet tones of Johnny Mathis drowned me out. That left Alec and I in an awkward, angsty cocoon of our own.

Finally, when we'd passed out of Brooklyn and officially hit Long Island, I swear I felt something change in the air. There was something about suburbia that just made you want to have long, deep talks.

I turned towards Alec, who was looking out the window, the sunshine of morning slanting across his face.

"So..." I said.

"So..." he repeated, turning to face me. "How was your school year?"

I rolled my eyes. "Alec, we text all the time. I have nothing more to say to you on that regard."

He sighed. "Right."

"How are you?" I asked, waving my hand awkwardly. "You know, with... the whole High. Peer. E. In. Thing."

I didn't want to say his name all at once. They said names had power, and while my friends and I were apparently not super afraid of the normal gods, because we said their names all the time, I feared the titans. Deeply. Especially because of that woman who haunted my dreams, who I think was a titaness herself. I hadn't seen her since I'd pushed her off of a bridge in the dreamscape last summer, and I was kinda hoping it'd worked permanently.

As I fancied myself a titan slayer in my mind, Alec thought about what I'd asked. Then he shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "I mean, obviously, I haven't told anyone, but I know people know. We weren't exactly alone in the woods when it happened."

"Maybe they've all forgotten," I said, shrugging. "I mean, we all left the next morning, after all."

"I highly doubt that," said Alec. He tapped his tan fingers on his knee. "I hate it, anyway."

"Really?"

"Yeah. More than anything."

This was the most he'd said on the topic, ever. When he'd first been claimed, Apollo had left shortly afterwards, and Chiron had taken Alec away to have a conversation while the rest of us tried to continue our end-of-summer CTF game. Riley and I, of course, were worried beyond belief, but when Alec finally came out he'd just told us Chiron had told him he shouldn't worry.

"You still have a place at Camp Half-Blood," he'd quoted the centaur.

Thank Gods for Chiron; even though I didn't like his forced therapy sessions, at least he had a heart. Unlike Mr. D. And like, everyone else who was supposed to look out for us.

"I feel like..." Alec started again, then he sighed. "I don't know, I guess I just feel like now there's this expectation. Like, what if the Titan army found out, and they're gonna track me down and try to get me to join them?"

"If they haven't yet, I doubt they will. I feel like Luke would know something like that already with his crazy you-know-who powers."

Alec chuckled. "Yeah. But that's the thing, AJ... I've been having these dreams for years. There's always this woman in them, and she's always trying to convince me, in very obscure terms, to join the Titan Army. I didn't realize it before, but I think she might be a titaness. And it might be because of my... parentage."

I felt like I'd just had the breath ripped out of my throat. Alec noticed, because his mouth parted in surprise. "What?"

"Alexander Thompson," I said, leaning forward and grabbing his hands. "I've dreamt of her too."

His eyes went wide. "You're kidding."

"I am not!" I shook my head, flustered beyond belief. That made so much sense, that that's why I'd dreamt of her - because she knew, with my friendship with Alec, I might be more willing to join. I'd be willing to bet Riley dreamt of her, too. "She's all silvery, and she looks like she's made out of stars, and she says all this fake positive sappy crap."

Alec looked like he might cry. He nodded. "Yep. Like, 'Shoot for the stars.'"

"'Be true to yourself.'"

And then, together, we both said, "Make good choices!"

I was so flabbergasted I couldn't help but let go of his hands and lean back to laugh. He laughed, too, which made me feel better about the whole being indoctrinated in our sleep to join a child army thing.

"Holy crap," said Alec, once we'd finished. He shook his head. "This is literally insane. Why didn't you ever say anything?"

I scoffed. "You didn't either!"

Alec shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't think... I don't know. It scared me."

"Me too," I said. "Plus, they only happen when I'm questing. Once the quests were over, the dreams were too, and I liked it that way."

Alec shook his head. "That's weird. For me, they happen consistently. A few times a month for the whole summer." He sighed. "I guess I'm the first round draft pick."

This was also depressing, but I raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry? Did you just use a sports metaphor?"

Now, Alec leaned back against the window, grinning. "Do you like it? I'm trying to be more normal."

I rolled my eyes, almost hitting him with my backpack. "Don't you dare. You're perfect as you are."

This sounded like it could be one of two things: way too sappy, or way too patronizing. Like Lucas was talking to me on his deathbed again, or I was the starry woman myself.

I immediately sat up straight, feeling uncomfortable once again. Alec did too, and I felt stupid.

It wasn't like it was this direct reaction, like woah, that was weird, we're not gonna talk anymore now. It was more like the tone had shifted, and now we couldn't find the words.

We just sat there and watched Long Island pass by outside the window. As it did, I thought of Camp - of food in the dining hall, s'mores around the campfire, and swinging Liakada until my wrist hurt. The only thing that made me feel better, same as during the school year, was Camp. At Camp, it would be different - it always was.

~ ☼ ~

A/N: I genuinely cannot believe I'm writing this <3 as I've said a million times before, I've been working on this series for 10,000 years, and to finally reach the final book is so cathartic!!

Please keep reading :') also if you don't know, this is the third book in the series, PLS read the first book (Apollo, Summer and the Camp for Greeks) and second book (Lucas, Mythology, and the Quest for Silver) first!