~ ☼ ~

The emotional moment was all well and good, but it didn't solve our questions of where exactly Riley had been for the whole day. When the emotions were too much (and I became too aware of a boy hugging me) I turned away to look for Chiron, like Annabeth had suggested. There he was, on the other side of the lobby, talking in his centaur form to Malcolm Pace. I had a feeling the managers of the Plaza Hotel would not appreciate the amount of horses in their grand lobby.

Alec saw where my eyes went. "Chi-" He began to call out.

However, before he could finish, there was suddenly a loud noise from one of the sets of main doors. The last legion of the Hunters of Artemis came charging in, Artemis at their forefront, looking angry. I had to give it to her, that she stayed with them even when she could be with her peers. Aria immediately stood straighter.

We all watched as Artemis went straight over to Chiron, explaining something to him tersely. When she was done, Chiron nodded, then called out through the din of the lobby, "Attention, campers!"

He would looove Chris McLean.

All the campers in the main room of the lobby turned towards him. He cleared his throat, then said, "Lady Artemis has informed us that there are some rogue half-bloods from the Titan Army approaching the hotel, who she'd like you all to take care of."

Artemis' terse face balanced into a more serious one. "I said I'm not allowed to take care of them."

"Yes," Chiron said. "You don't want to lower your power, so you'd like the Campers to take care of them."

Artemis' nostrils flared. I got the sense that that's not what she said, but she was steeling herself so she didn't get mad at a centaur half her power.

"We'll help," Jake Mason said, stepping forward with a few of his siblings. "Will the Hunters help?"

"The Hunters will help," Artemis said. "As for me, I have to return to my siblings. I have obligations to address." She caught Thalia's eye, who nodded without saying anything.

Then she said something to one of the hunters who'd come into the hotel with her. A moment later, she was gone, a sliver of moonlight on the breeze. I couldn't blame her, not giving us more information. The Hunters were sometimes seen as too hardcore by campers (especially campers of a certain gender...) and it'd be pointless to lower herself. But I felt bad for her hunters, who seemed to dim without their matron there.

I felt Aria tense beside me.

Chiron's voice lowered slightly as he went to addressing the half-bloods directly near him. Most of the Hunters were returning to their group now, except for Aria, who was frozen. Her hand was on her bow, but something held her back.

"Do you have to join them?" I asked her.

"I don't know," Aria said. "Looks like there's enough campers joining them."

Sure enough, the entire remains of the Hephaestus cabin was joining the cabin. I thought this was a very bizarre combination, and had to wonder what the Hephaestus kids would contribute to the frontline of a battle - what, would they throw wrenches at the enemies' heads? - but didn't say anything. Aria came closer to me, Hemmings still standing just so that, without being a full wall, he was protecting us.

"Yeah," said Aria, decisively. "I think I'll stay with you."

All three of us looked at her suspiciously.

"Maybe we can find another daughter of Britomartis," she added. "And combine our powers together. Hemmings will be able to talk then!"

I smiled softly. There was the Aria I knew. I patted her on the shoulder. "Maybe."

Riley frowned. "Maybe."

It was clear Riley was affected by what had happened to her. I couldn't blame her. It had to be violating to not know where you'd been. I shivered at the thought, while Alec moved forward to hug her again. "Do you need rest?"

"The last thing I need right now is rest," Riley said. "I need to make sure I didn't accidentally give somebody vital information."

"Well, let's think about this," I said. "It's someone who had to physically get to you to get information out of you. So it can't be someone like... Alec and I's titaness, because she already knew information about us she shouldn't have been able to know unless she read our minds."

As I said it, I felt a stone drop in my stomach. What a horrifying thought. Alec caught my eye, but I didn't move any closer to him like he had Riley. Though I really wanted to hug her and apologize for what she'd gone through.

My stomach hurt more.

"Maybe it was a god, then," Aria said. "Or... or some head monster."

I felt a little sick. Wait, what am I saying? I felt very sick. Like I might throw up.

"I have a feeling it was neither," I said. "For better or for worse."

Mow, everyone looked at me, especially Hemmings, who seemed to smile in his stupid (I still love him though) chaotic neutral way. That just confirmed it. I had nothing to prove it, but it was my only lead.

"I spent a couple hours last night with a dryad in Central Park," I reminded them. Aria didn't know the story, but she'd figure it out from context clues. "She was desperate to get someone to listen to her. Maybe - maybe she'd come and taken you, too."

"But why wipe my memory?" Riley asked. "If she wants people on her side, why not send me back with a message?"

"Wait, wait," Aria said. "What dryad? What are you talking about?"

Briefly, I described to her what had happened. By the end of it, she looked deathly pale, so pale I though she might faint. But before she could tell me why, exactly, she was so pale, there was another noise. The Hephaestus Cabin and Hunters had already left, and were assumedly off fighting the rogue half-bloods, so it wasn't them.

The noise happened again, catching a few other lobby goers' eyes. Without the Hephaestus Cabin, and with several campers going to rest or retreating to volunteer at the infirmary, there were only 3 other people left in the main lobby room.

"What the Hades is that?" Alec asked.

"I-" I started to reach for Liakada, immediately heading for the danger, but then I remembered. I'd left Liakada behind. My hand felt itchy without it.

"Frick," I said. "I don't have a weapon."

"I got you," Alec said, handing me the knife he'd kept with him. "Can you do close-range melee?"

I looked at him, flabbergasted both by the sudden knife in my hand and how warm it was, and Alec and I having a casual exchange about combat. Usually our casual exchanges were much less practical and much more based in sarcasm

I looked down at the knife as the noise happened again, and again, making Aria and Riley both draw their bows.

"Is this magic?" I asked. "It's making me feel warm the same way Liakada did."

Alec stared at me. "No. It's just a normal knife from the weapon shed at Camp."

That's weird. For a moment, Alec and I both just stared at the knife, before suddenly the noise became much, much worse. There was a huge thud against the doors of the Plaza. Perhaps a crash would be better.

I spun just as Hemmings stomped his feet and crawled backwards, while Aria and Riley ran forward like twin comrades. There, in the center of the lobby, was a giant boulder; behind it was the most muscular looking guy I'd ever seen. Unlike most variations on the gods and monsters I saw, who adapted to civilization as time went by, this guy looked like he hadn't seen the light of day since the Ancient Times. Aria shot an arrow, but it bounced right off of him. 

"What the Hades?" she exclaimed.

"Sisyphus," I heard Riley, who'd stopped a few feet ahead of me, murmur. Of course.

I knew nothing about Sisyphus, other than he was screwed to push a boulder up a hill over and over again. I didn't know what he had done to deserve that punishment, but given that Zeus was guilty of pretty much every sex crime ever, I had to wonder if, at the very least, it was fair.

Sisyphus ignored Aria's shout; he was 7 feet tall and his boulder was much bigger. Big enough that when he picked it up and threw it, it knocked the chandelier right off of the ceiling. We all screamed as it fell, crashing into the plants at the center of the lobby and sending debris flying everywhere.

"Where is the daughter of Zeus?" he roared, through the dust.

"She's not here!" somebody exclaimed.

Alec held on to me as we tried our hardest to not draw attention to ourselves, though it was hard when a pegasus was cowering behind us. Our intruder looked around as the dust settled, searching for Thalia. Then, Will came running out of the second lobby room, the infirmary, holding his shirt up over his mouth. The moment he saw our intruder, he froze, but it was too late. He'd already seen Will.

"A child of Apollo. That's close enough."

I took a sharp breath.

As the man stormed back over to his boulder, Alec snapped out of his daze.

"Get him outside!" Alec exclaimed.

And, like this was a reasonable order for our tiny legion to follow - us and those poor three kids of Hermes and Demeter who had just been hanging out in the lobby - Alec charged forward and showed us what he meant. Just as Sisyphus heard the shout, spinning to face us, Alec tossed a massive ball of light towards the man.

It was the first thing to knock him off his feet.

Riley and I both gasped. But before I knew it, Alec was running forward, indicating Hemmings should follow him. Reluctantly, the horse did, and the two started to push the boulder, which made both of them look small.

I realized what he was doing. As Sisyphus lay writhing on the ground like a guy that had been kicked in the nuts, I ran to catch up with my little nuclear family, Will right there with us - and Aria, Riley, and the other three. Together we all tried to heave the boulder towards the door, and with all of us, it worked; it found a little slope in the floor and rolled back the way it'd come, passing out the hole in the front door just as Sisyphus came to his feet.

He swore. "You little monster!"

Though he was stumbling, like something made it happen - like he was a puppet on forward facing strings - he ran after the boulder. Alec spun towards Will.

"Go back to the infirmary," he said. "You guys stay here to tell anyone if they come down and ask what happened. AJ and I will take care of it."

"Wha-!"

But it was too late; Alec was already grabbing my hand and racing me out the door, after Sisyphus, who was standing at the bottom of the iconic outside steps, trying to catch his breath. The boulder had rolled to the other side of the street, leaning up against the wall to Central Park.

"You disgusting little thing!" Sisyphus exclaimed, spinning, as Alec and I ran down towards him. It made us both pause. "That should be a - a war crime!"

"What?" I asked, both genuinely confused and bewildered by the fact that he knew what a war crime was. But Alec's brow furrowed. He just stepped even closer.

"You get even a step close to my cabin," he said. "You touch them in any freaking way, and I will take you from the hill you live on in the Underworld and make sure you're pushing the boulder in Tartarus instead."

He stopped just in front of Sisyphus. And though Sisyphus was 7 feet, and Alec was not even 6 feet, he did not seem scared. His fists were clenched. He was holding himself back - giving the prisoner a chance.

But Sisyphus' nose just wrinkled, and he said, "You should be in Tartarus; that'll protect your beloved camp even more."

Fury exploded in my chest, but not as much as it exploded from Alec's hands. He let out a shout, then pushed Sisyphus. Instantly, his light made the man fly backwards, back in the air. His body hit the boulder with a sickening crunch; then they both dissipated into golden dust. It felt like the perfect catharsis, so immediately my fury was gone. All I saw was Alec, standing there with light all around him, so far away from the boy-next-door everyone saw him as. Not just because of the power, but because of the anger. It was the anger he'd shown me in bits and pieces over the years. I'd never seen him own it.

I'd thought he'd left behind medicine and thrown himself into training to make up for the fact that he was a demi-titan. Like, out of misplaced insecurity. Now I was wondering if he hadn't been doing it because... because finding out he was the son of Hyperion forced him to finally face his demons. To not run away from them.

Slowly, the light began to fade.

I sensed people behind me, further up on the steps, but I was focused on Alec. I watched him until the light was gone, expecting him to crumple to his knees with the energy the power had taken from him, but instead, he turned. His face was just as hard as it had to have been a few moments ago.

When he met my eyes, I felt like I was probably the only one who could've not been scared. Because I just saw Alec, the Alec I'd always known. I stared back at him with equal intensity, feeling the twin emotion of how I'd felt on the bridge. Love. Angry, vengeful, love.

~ ☼ ~

A/N: Oh I just know 12 year old me would be kicking her legs and giggling right now