▬▬▬▬▬ CHAPTER TWO ▬▬▬▬▬

ESMERELDA WAS HAVING A WEIRD dream. She was being carried by someone—a man probably, since his hands felt big—and she was pretty sure that she was a baby. She was wailing and she could feel a slight pain in her stomach. She wanted food. She was hungry. She opened her mouth to cry out again. Maybe he could understand her?

"Shh, shh, shh, little Essie," said the muffled voice of a man. He sounded like he was miles away from her and she was underwater. But there were still some things she could notice from it. He sounded... young. And there was an accent in his voice. Or maybe she was just hearing things. It upset her that she didn't know what his voice really sounded like. She really really wanted to know.

She cried again.

"Oh my poor darling..." The voice crooned. "Are you hungry, dear? Don't cry, my love. Daddy's here."

Daddy? This was her dad? He didn't sound very godlike. He sounded kind, gentle... human.

He was cradling her against his chest and her face was looking up, but much to her dismay, she couldn't see what he looked like. His face blurred out. It was just a swirl of color. She couldn't even tell what the color of his hair was, or his eyes.

She let out a wail, and finally he seemed to understand.

"Ah, are you hungry then? Is that it? Here, drink this." A bottle was placed over her lips and she began drinking the milk eagerly. Once she was done, the bottle was set aside and he was back to lightly bouncing her against his chest.

"Better now?" He asked.

She burped in response.

He chuckled and peered down at her. It made her sad that she couldn't see his face clearly.

"I wish for you to live prosperously, my sweet Essie." He whispered, and his voice was laced heavily in sadness. "I fear you might not, especially with me as your father. I hope that you don't make the same mistakes like I foolishly did." He said bitterly.

She made a cooing noise and tried to reach out for him. A hand grasped hers entirely, and he leaned down to peck her her knuckles affectionately. "But don't worry my love." He murmured, sounding much sadder. "I am going to make this world a better place for you, I swear it. One day, I'll be a father you could be proud of."

He sounded farther away now...

And suddenly, the dream was over.

She woke up to Connor shaking her. "Wh-what is it?" She asked groggily, lifting her arms over her head to stretch only to be reminded of the car's roof.

"Basil sniffed out a monster nearby while he and Trav were out stealing breakfast." He informed her and she was wide awake now. It had only been a little over a day since she'd been on the run with them and so far, they managed to get attacked by seventeen monsters.

"It didn't smell that close thankfully," Basil muttered as he started driving out of the Denny's parking lot. "But just in case, get your Molotov cocktails out."

Travis was already handing out the bottles.

For some odd reason, the Stoll brothers knew how to make Molotov cocktails. They taught her to make one too and it was surprisingly easy. Just grab a bunch of beer bottles, keep the alcohol in—though kerosene worked better—stuff a rag in it to work as a wick, then set it on fire. After that, you just had to throw it at your target and bam, instantly explosion. They used it as makeshift bombs and it made pretty good defensive weapons so far.

According to Basil, monsters could only be killed by celestial bronze, a special type of metal that worked on magical creatures only. It didn't harm mortals. Unfortunately, Basil didn't have any celestial bronze weapons in hand so they had to make do with Molotov cocktails or his reed pipes—which he could control nature with whenever he played some tunes.

She was so nervous about encountering their eighteenth monster that she already had her lighter—Connor stole it for her from this gift shop while also grabbing her a warm jacket, gloves, and a beanie—inches away from the rag, ready to light it up. Her uneaten breakfast sandwich laid on her lap.

"Uh oh," Basil moaned.

That really didn't help her feel better.

"What is it?" She asked warily.

"We're running low on gas. And money."

"Don't worry," Travis chimed, smirking mischievously. He held out a worn leather wallet that she was sure he never had before. "Nabbed this from some random dude after we stole his food. It's full of twenty dollar bills and he even has gift cards from Starbucks!"

"Ooooh, I could use some Starbucks!" Connor said giddily.

"Me too. Can we stop by there, please?" Esmerelda asked Basil hopefully.

He bit his lip, looking unsure about another unnecessary stop. They were currently in Fairfax, Virginia now and were driving over to New Jersey. They still had about two more states to go through before making it to the Long Island Sound.

"Oh fine!" He finally relented, causing them to erupt in cheers. "But since we don't have a GPS, you guys have to keep on the look out for it, okay?"

"You got it, boss!" Travis saluted.

"I really want a salted caramel hot coco right now," Esmerelda said, a dreamy smile taking over her face. Her Molotov cocktail and lighter were forgotten now. She set the bottles on the floor and pocketed her lighter so she could finally eat.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

It took them two days to make it to New Jersey for several reasons.

One, their car had a flat tire so Basil and Esmerelda had to wait as the Stolls hot-wired a Nissan sedan. It was a lot better than their previous mini van. It didn't have any dents, scratches, or burns on it, plus the heater worked better and whoever owned it had a pretty nice collection of CDs. They were currently listening to Eminem's River from his album Revival.

The second reason was that they encountered a few more monsters at the same time. A group of empousai, to be specific. Basil managed to escape them by speeding away, but that only earned them the attention of highway patrol officers. Not feeling up to dealing with cops, Basil tried to lose them, which he succeeded in. It also succeeded in getting them lost.

But now they were back on track.

They were in Englewood Cliffs in New Jersey, driving through Henry Hudson Drive. They overheard some tourists talking about a restaurant called the Snack Shack that was near the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and the prospect of cheesy fries and burgers were too much for the demigods to resist. As for the satyr, he was just hoping to find some tin cans to chew on.

"This place is nice," Basil beamed as he drove through the snowy forest. "You see all this nature? It's so well kept, I would've thought it was never touched by mortals!"

"I can see why it was considered 'scenic'." Esmerelda said, peering out her window. They were driving beside a cliff and down below it was the vast Hudson River. "Look at the water, it's so clean and glittery!" She marveled.

Basil nodded in approval. "Lord Poseidon would be pleased with it."

"Yeah, okay, that's cool, but how far away are we from the Snack Shack?" Travis asked impatiently.

Basil gave him a look from the rear view mirror. "We're getting there."

"I'm hungry." Connor whined.

She looked away from the mirror and sighed at him, "Eat the Doritos then."

"Trav and I finished them off."

"What? You were supposed to save some for me!" She cried out.

Travis, who was sitting on the farther right side, raised his arms up in defense. "Sorry."

"We'll steal you your own bag." Connor promised.

"DOG!" Basil suddenly shouted and instinctively swerved the car away from the terrier that was randomly standing in front of the road.

Just their luck though. Basil swerved left which was were the edge of the cliff was. He managed to jam his foot against the brakes, but over half the car was already dangling off the edge.

"Oh no. Oh no, oh no, no, no, no!" Basil paled rapidly as the car started to fall forward.

They all screamed as the car finally lost balance.

"NO GO BACK, GO BACK!" Esmerelda screamed as terror seized her veins. She grabbed the edges of her seat as Connor squeezed both her's and Travis' arm in his vice grip. Travis was too busy screaming bloody murder to complain.

Suddenly, there was an intense pressure in her head. Like a flex. Her head pulled back as if someone had punched her in the face and a sense of weightlessness overcame her.

"What the...?!" Travis gaped, staring out the window. The car was moving, but not forward. It was moving back. Basil and the Stolls watched with jaws dropped as the car returned back to the road, as if it had never been hanging over the cliff.

The weightless feeling left Esmerelda, but the pain in her head didn't disappear. Her vision went white. She felt something trickle down from her nose and eyes.

Then she saw black.

What felt like ten seconds later, she began to regain consciousness. She made a sound of annoyance when she felt someone shove something up her nose. She opened her eyes. It was a tissue.

"What are you doing...?" She asked, reaching out to yank it out.

"Don't!" Connor warned. "Your nose is still bleeding."

"It was bleeding?" She said, sitting up a little stranger. "Wait a second... It's night time now... How long was I passed out?"

"A couple of hours." Travis replied. "We saved you a burger and cheesy fries but they're probably cold now. Oh, but we got you a bag of Doritos though."

"Thanks," she said gratefully. "And why was my nose bleeding? And weren't we dangling off a cliff a while ago?"

"You don't remember?" Basil said worryingly, shooting her a concerned glance from the rear view mirror.

"Not really," she replied, taking the tissue out from her nose only to shove it back when she saw the blood staining it. How long had her nose been bleeding? "All I remember was freaking out because we were all about to die. Guess I was wrong."

"We almost died, but..." The satyr trailed off.

"But what?"

"Well—er—do remember the car moving back?"

She furrowed her brows in concentration. "No... Just us about to fall. Is that what saved us? The car moving back? How did it move back?"

"I'm pretty sure it was because of you." Travis said certainly.

"Yeah!" Connor exclaimed, looking excited about something. "Don't you remember? You were all like 'move back, move back!' and then the car did! It was so cool!"

Her brows furrowed even further. "I did that?"

"You definitely did," Basil confirmed. "You somehow levitated the car back to the road. Your eyes were glowing and so was the car, but you passed out right after though. Your eyes and nose were bleeding too. Though your eyes stopped bleeding after a couple of hours. Your nose though..." He checked the time. "It's been bleeding for at least three hours now. We were worried you were going to die from the blood loss."

"Yeah, you were getting seriously pale." Travis added, frowning at her.

She checked her appearance on the rear view mirror. Travis was right. She was as white as a sheet of paper.

"Oh." She said lamely. "I could use some food then. Hand me something?"

While eating her dinner—which consisted of Doritos and a slightly cold burger and cheese fries—she asked Basil about their location. They were in New York now and weren't too far from camp. It was a relief for everyone to hear since their 'fun road trip' wasn't exactly all that fun.

After eating, Basil suggested that she eat some ambrosia since her nose just wouldn't stop bleeding. She wished that he could've told her about it before she started eating her dinner because it wasn't easy eating while trying to keep the blood at bay. It also didn't taste that great on the cheesy fries.

Ambrosia was the food of the gods. They healed injuries so they were pretty useful but Basil warned her that too much of it could cause her to feel feverish. For mortals, their blood would turn to fire and their bones would become sand. So basically, they'd spontaneously combust.

Nectar also helped heal injuries and it was the drink of the god's too. Too much of it would incinerate a demigod and just a sip of it would incinerate a mortal.

The ambrosia tasted like her favorite food, a perfectly baked blueberry pie. Basil said that it took the flavor of the eater's favorite food.

"Hate country music," Travis muttered as the radio blared another Jason Aldean song. "Can you change it?"

"Sure," Basil said and switched the radio channel.

"—Hope you all enjoy your Christmas Eve—" The radio talker said before playing a remixed version of Here Comes Santa Claus.

Esmerelda gasped. "It's Christmas Eve!"

"It's 11: 44," Connor said, growing giddy. "Only sixteen more minutes 'till midnight!"

The Stoll brothers cheered.

Basil smiled widely. "Hopefully we're still alive by Christmas!"

It was as if the Fates hated them.

Their joy was quickly cut short by the sound of a roar. A roar that Esmerelda knew very well.

Her blood ran cold. "Oh no... Don't tell me..."

"Probably just the wind..." Basil said, but he was speeding up now. "Just the wind... Just the wind."

"It's not the wind! LOOK!" Travis shouted, his head turning back.

Esmerelda whirled around and saw something even worse than what she was expecting.

"Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Clause, right down Santa Claus lane," the radio sang.

"That's definitely not Santa Claus!" Connor whimpered, stiff with fear.

Chasing after them—only meters away—was the bloodthirsty Chimera. But it wasn't alone. There were four hellhounds running along with it.

"Oh di immortales," Esmerelda cursed, her voice tiny. She faced forward and gave Basil a wide-eyed look. "Drive faster! There's four hellhounds and a Chimera after us!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" He squeaked. "But the car can't go any faster!" He was already at the maximum speed which was dangerous since the roads were a little icy, but they were too desperate to get away to care. A car crash or be eaten alive? They'd rather have the car crash. It'd be more merciful compared to what those monsters would do to them.

"Oh my gods, we're all gonna die!" Connor screamed as the five monsters got closer.

"We're not gonna die!" Basil uncharacteristically snapped. "We can't die! Not now! We're almost there... We're almost there...!"

"They're almost here too!" Travis yelled.

Esmerelda turned around and saw that he was right. The distance between them was getting closer and closer now. The Chimera was especially gaining speed.

And then the worst thing happened: it jumped.

"AHHHHHHHHH!" The four of them shrieked as the roof caved in from it's heavy weight. A pair of claws sunk through the metal, visible enough for them to see.

Connor turned to her. "CAN'T YOU THROW IT OFF?!"

"I DON'T KNOW HOW!" She screamed back, then screamed again as the Chimera's tail—which was a diamond backed, snake headed tail—pierced the roof. It saw her first and lunged out, fangs barred. She managed to grab it around the neck—did snakes even have necks?—just before it could bite her.

"Oh my gods, oh my gods," Connor hyperventilated, staring at the scene with bulging eyes. "It's tail is a snake?!"

"What do I do?!" Esmerelda panicked.

"B-beat it against the window!" Travis said hastily.

As harshly as she could, Esmerelda smacked the snake against the window. It was hissing madly at her and only seemed to grow angrier the violent her hits became. "It's—not—dying!"

BAM! The Chimera smacked it's paws against the front car window. A spider web of cracks appeared on the glass. BAM! It did it again. More cracks.

"Oh shit," Basil cursed, then retrieved something from his back pocket. His reeds pipes. "Connor, get over here and take over the wheel! There's a bunch of trees around us so I'm gonna try and beat the Chimera off with them!"

"What about the hellhounds?" Connor asked as he crawled to the passenger seat.

Basil winced. "One monster at a time."

Connor took over the wheel and Basil began playing his reed pipes. Esmerelda—who was still trying to kill the snake and was currently attempting to pry it's jaws wide open to split it apart—wasn't sure if all the greenery would be able to hear the music since they were inside the car.

Turns out they could hear the music.

Outside, she could see nearby trees violently whack the Chimera with thick branches. Some even dumped snow on it, making it swipe at his face and mane with it's paws. Since it was too busy with the snow and trying to shield itself from the branches, it stopped trying to break through the window.

And then one tree—with a particularly long and thick branch—finally knocked the Chimera off the car. It's tail ended up severed from the rest of it's body, leaving a limp snake in Esmerelda's hands.

"It worked!" Travis beamed.

"Yeah, but what about the hellhounds...?" Connor asked again, though more fearfully. He was no longer staring at the road and was instead staring at the side view mirror.

The hellhounds were surrounding the car now.

"Uh oh," Basil just managed to say before one hellhound slammed into the car's right side. The hellhound on their left slammed it back. It went on several more times. It felt like Esmerelda were in one of those bumper car rides where you slammed your car into another, except this time they were the bumper cars.

"Ow!" She cried as her head collided with Travis.

Through all the slamming mayhem, she managed to catch a glimpse past the hellhound on the right. Behind it she saw a snow covered sign that said PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES. What was weird was that she could read it perfectly.

Because it was in Ancient Greek. Did that mean they were getting closer?

Basil was playing his reed pipes again, but most of the tree branches were too high up to reach the hellhounds and all the grass and tree roots were buried under a foot tall layer of snow and ice.

A couple more body slams was all it took for the four side windows to shatter. Esmerelda instinctively closer her eyes to protect them from the little bits of glass and raised her arms to cover her face, but that turned out to be a mistake. She felt sharp teeth rip open the skin on her forearm. Judging from Connor's scream, the same thing must've happened to him.

She opened her eyes. The hellhounds had their faces shoved through the window, trying to bite at them.

"The Molotov cocktails! Quick!" Travis shouted.

Without removing her eyes from the hellhound that had bitten her, Esmerelda bent down and grabbed a Molotov cocktail from the floor. She took her lighter and flicked it on.

She waited for the hellhound to open it's jaws wide enough...

Now! She quickly threw the Molotov cocktail in it's mouth. She saw a bunch of flames spew from it's throat before the hellhound pulled back and stopped running. Connor followed her idea and ended up with the same result.

Two hellhounds down, two more to go.

But they only had one more Molotov cocktail.

The two remaining hellhounds were directly behind the car.

In front of them, was an approaching hill.

"Almost there, almost there..." Basil muttered under his breath, looking back and forth between the mirror and the hill.

"We only got one left," Travis said grimly. He was bleeding profusely from the shoulder. She could see his wound through his tattered shirt and jacket and winced. It looked like the hellhound managed to bite a small chunk off him. "I would throw it, but my throwing arm is..." He trailed off, looking at his injury. He shook his head. "Connor, can you do it?"

"Yeah," his younger brother said. Avoiding looking at Travis' wound, he took the Molotov cocktail from him and readied his lighter. He stuck the upper half of his body out of the window and locked eyes with one of the hellhounds. There were two of them. He didn't know where to throw...

"Wait for them to get close!" Travis instructed through the chilly winds. "So the fire would transfer to the other!"

Connor nodded.

"You can do this!" Esmerelda shouted encouragingly.

Connor looked a little better after that.

There were several seconds of tense silence. Even Basil stopped muttering about how close they were as to not break Connor's concentration.

He waited until the hellhounds were only inches apart and finally lobbed the flaming bottle at them.

Both hellhounds were surrounded in flames.

"YES!" They all cheered.

But then the car started slowing down.

"What are you doing?! Go faster!" Connor snapped.

"I-I can't!" Basil fretted. "Oh gods, the gas! We're running out of gas!"

"WHAT?!" Esmerelda shrieked. You've gotta be kidding me, she thought. Were they doomed to die before reaching the camp?

Basil was already removing his seatbelt. "Come on, we'll have to run!"

Without another word, she and the Stoll brothers undid their seatbelts and dashed out the car. As they chased after Basil, they heard the mighty roar of the Chimera followed by several growls from the hellhounds.

"They caught up to us!" Travis announced, though it was very obvious to them.

"Up that hill!" Basil ordered, pointing to a tall hill. On top of it was a large pine tree. "Once we get passed that tree we'll be in the borders and we'll be safe!"

They ran up that hill like their lives depended on it—which it did. The Stoll brothers have always been swift and fast, so they were in the lead with Basil closely behind them. Esmerelda was at the back, not too far, but not entirely safe either. It didn't help that her leg was still injured from the Chimera attacked her. She nibbled on some ambrosia to heal it but the most it did was get rid of the infection she had. It didn't completely seal up the wound so as she bolted up the hill, she felt a constant burning sensation running up her leg.

"HEY!" Basil shouted at nobody in particular. "HELP US!"

Esmerelda squinted. Up at the hill, close to the tree, were several shadowy figures.

An arrow whizzed past her head, followed by a pain whimper from behind her. Then she heard the sound of something being reduced to dust. She didn't turn around to check what it was.

Travis and Connor made it passed the barrier. Then Basil. Esmerelda was still a few feet away but before she could get any closer she felt something tackle her from behind.

She twisted her body around and screamed as powerful jaws prepared to bite her head off.

But then a bronze blade went through it's head and the hellhound disappeared in a cloud of golden dust that showered over her. She felt a pair of hands grab her from under the arms and pull her towards the barrier.

Breathing heavily, she looked up and saw her savior.

An Asian boy at least one year older than her stared back at her. He was holding a sword.

"You okay?" He asked her curtly.

"What—who—are you?" She sputtered, trying to catch her breath.

He rose a brow at her. "Ethan Nakamura. You're in Camp Half Blood. You're safe now."

Basil collapsed on the ground next to her. He checked his watch. It was precisely midnight. "We made it... It's a Christmas miracle..." And then he passed out.

Esmerelda stared numbly at the dark sky. It was a Christmas miracle indeed.

— author's note —

I gave a few hints on who Essie's parents are so have fun trying to figure it out!