A few days later I was eating lunch with Matt and Gopher, like always, when I remembered my promise about Drew four days earlier. "Hey guys, I'll be back in a minute okay? I just need to go talk to someone."

I walked up to where Drew was sitting with some of her Aphrodite siblings. "What do you want, weirdo?" I cringed inwardly at the malice in her voice. The malice that I had put there.

"Well, um, Drew, I'd actually like to...apologize...about what I said the other day." 'Oh good gods this is not how to make a good apology, Abigail.' "I realize that what I said was uncalled for and I want to take it back. I-If that's okay with you, I mean," I stuttered, holding my breath for her answer.

She gave me a calculated glare and ignored the gaping faces that everyone was sporting, aimed specifically at me it seemed. "Alright then, weirdo. Just don't pull anything on me. For all I know you could actually be a daughter of Nemesis in disguise," she replied, holding out her hand. Even with the threatening words, her tone was one of joking. I shook her hand and returned to the Athena table where everyone started talking at once. Again.

After we were done, Gopher and I went outside to talk some. Despite knowing each other for only a few days, we were already close friends. We talked almost nonstop about anything and everything, saying whatever appears in our minds.

This time we were talking about my response to Drew, but before long were interrupted by Rachel, who called an extra training lesson. I said goodbye to Gopher a couple minutes later and was jogging towards the cave when a group of dark-looking kids stopped me. Most of them had dark hair and eyes, although some were fair-haired, but all wearing black or dark grey with intimidating looks on their faces.
"You, mortal."

"Yes?"

"We're the children of Nemesis and we would like to instruct you on a little thing we like to call proper revenge. You see, while most of our fellow campmates were impressed by your little show earlier, we realized that you might not fully comprehend to how to properly enact revenge."

"Oh, but I don't want—"

"Nonsense. Revenge is a necessary part of life. What you should do now is go and hurt her, just like you did the other day. She already trusts you, the fool, trust is for those who are weak, and so your betrayal will hurt her even more." I thought they were finished and started to turn away but one called out, "Oh, and stay away from Gopher. He's a bad influence on everyone. He's such a wimp."

I nodded distractedly and ran off. He? 'Well I have been mistakenly called that too.' I laughed, then turned more sober. 'But why would the Nemesis kids have a problem with Gopher? Everyone else seems to like her.'

I walked into the cave where Rachel was sitting there, waiting with the crystal balls. "Sorry I'm late," I apologized, "I ran into some Nemesis kids."

"What for?" She looked worried. "I would be careful if I were you. Those kids can be a nasty bunch. Well, except for—Anyways, I forgot to ask you earlier, have you given any thought towards what your possible Mindset might be?"

I had actually been thinking of little else since she explained them to me. Distracted from what she almost said, I began to talk. "I have, yeah. I know it's unusual, but I feel that I am already headed towards a Gullible-Logical-Modern mix. Is that even possible? Being a mix of three? I mean I'm already pretty gullible and would hope that I'm open to most things, but I feel that if we were able to interpret visions and prophecies in multiple ways, one of those being reason along with gut instinct, maybe we could come closer to finding the truth?"

She frowned, thinking hard. My thought-sharing, which had taken a backseat for a couple weeks, started running again, and rapidly. I not only could hear Rachel's thoughts ('Hm, interesting. I'll have to consult Chiron on his, and possibly Liz, Annabeth, and Piper as well.'), but also another's, one with a faint familiarity attached to it.

'Rachel. I must ask Rachel. Abigail too, if she's there. Oh gods oh gods this is bad.'

"What's bad?"
"What?"

"Oh, it's just, Liz is running over here, and something is really wrong."

"What? How do you—"

"Later. Just go let her in."

She got up and stuck her head out the purple velvet curtains that serves as our entryway and said, "Well, are you going to stand there marveling at a cave all day or do you have actual business to attend to?" Liz laughed and followed Rachel in, taking a seat on the arm of the couch while Rachel plopped down next to me. "So, what brings you here? Don't worry, we weren't in the middle of anything important," she continued. Liar. "You're not intruding." True, I'm always happy to hear from one of my best friends.

Liz was really more off than on the arm of the couch, which would have been quite funny had I not sensed her worry a moment before. "Well, I was thinking, say a demigod had seen their godly parent in a dream, but they did not know who the god/goddess was. It turns out this god/goddess was never supposed to have children with mortals or...anyone, really. While the child doesn't know the name, they know the face, and while they don't know why they are forbidden to exist, they still have grown to hate the godly parent. Do you follow thus far?"

Rachel and I nodded, my thoughts flying a million miles a minute. 'There's only a few deities like that,' I thought. 'And all of them, that I know of, are goddesses. Artemis, Hestia, Hera, and maybe a couple others?' Out loud, however, I said, "Something tells me this isn't as hypothetical a situation as you're making it out to be."

"Anyways..." she replied, not answering my question. "Then, say, their parent has decided to come to see them, not to claim them, but to ask them to follow them as one of their many followers? And the demigods recognizes hem? Do you think they'd call out their parent (who they still probably hate) on being cowardly not to claim them and then causing something...bad to happen?" At this point Liz was far passed vaguely masked nervousness. Oh no, now she was full on scared.

"Who's Alexis's mother, Liz?" Rachel pressed.

"My Lady Artemis," Liz muttered quietly.

"Is that even possible?" I had guessed as much, but hearing Liz say it made it even worse.

"From what I have heard, Alexis's father was very young when her mother left him with the baby. It makes sense. The only one who have a chance for her to fall in love with him was a teenage boy. And after a certain amount of faithful persistence, and resemblance to Orion, how could she refuse him? When I was younger, she used to tell me about 'the only other man who was decent enough to be her companion,' and now I understand."

"Well," Rachel began, "this could indeed be quite the catastrophe, to be completely honest. Um, I think it may be necessary for the maiden goddess' little secret to be outed though..."

"Oh no. No no no. I know that you think it is for the overall good, but as a dear friend of my Lady, I must decline the proposition. There is no way that can happen. Imagine the trouble she'd get into!"

'See, but, Liz,' I thought, 'imagine the scandal it would cause if it was spilled in 10 or 20 years and you'd known about it the whole time.'

I could almost hear her respond, 'Shut up that's a good point.'

"If she didn't want to get in trouble, then maybe she shouldn't have gotten involved with a man!" That was Rachel. "If she didn't want to face the inevitable consequences, then maybe she shouldn't have made that choice. Gibing up men means even giving up the ones you love, doesn't it?"

"I presume you refer to my brother?" Oh boy this was getting heated. I really do hate it when people fight. "Rachel, could you resist it, if there was no Annabeth? Because Artemis had no Annabeth to stop her. Could you have resisted it?"

"I still would take my punishment, as she should."

"Liz, I know you want to defend Artemis, being her friend and all, but I think Rachel might be right on this one. I have no Annabeth either, but I'd have to refuse Andrew," I said, realizing at last that if I absolutely had to, I would make that choice. The good of many is greater than the good of one, even if that one is yourself.

"Oh yeah. Da sevie. Ha. Funny, the little inside jokes and small things one forgets when one becomes responsible for the entire world..." Liz trailed off. "I think I need to go. There's something I have to take care of."

'Yes, there is,' I thought, watching her retreating back.

"Well then. I think we've done enough today, don't you think? Why don't you go do your activities with Gopher and Matt, and I'm going to go talk to Chiron about something." Funny, how people, already, have begun to lump me in with those two, even though I was friends with a great portion of their cabin.

I ran off to meet up with my friends at archery, which I was thoroughly terrible at.

"Abigail! I swear, if you don't stop hitting me..."

"Sorry! I'm trying, it just keeps swerving." I tried to explain it to her, but Gopher never really believed me, considering she always stood right next to me or even behind me, yet was constantly getting hit by my wayward arrows.

After that was Ancient Greek, taught by Annabeth, which everyone excelled at. I found it surprisingly easy to pick up, and enjoyed those lessons immensely. Next was dinner (I had missed Arts and Crafts hen talking with Rachel and Liz—another thing I was awful at. The Athenians—can I call them that?—were brilliant of course), where I stayed quiet, thinking about Alexis and her troubling situation.

"Abigail? Yoohoo! Anybody home?" I blinked. Gopher was waving her hand in front of my face.

"Ouch! Gopher!" Now she was hitting me on the head.

"Gopher, stop harassing her. Abigail, really, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm—"

"I bet she just needs to talk to an older, wiser, girl about feelings."

"What? No it's not about—"

"Older? Sure, but not really, Gopher. You're only a few months older than her! But wiser? Everyone knows I'm definitely the wisest one here. And since when have you ever been good with feelings? This is Athena, not Aphrodite, remember?"

"Oh hush, Matt. C'mon, Abigail." She yanked me by the arm and dragged me over to the beach, where we sat in the cool sand. "Okay, now you can spill. No pesky boys around here to bother us."

"Come one, Matt isn't that bad. And besides, I'm really not supposed to talk about it..."

"Ooh, secret relationship?"

"What? No! I've only been here five days!" I could feel my face heat up at the thought of dating anyone, especially not so soon after Alex. "Well, actually, I just remembered something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Go on."

"Well this afternoon, I ran in to some Nemesis kids and they told me to stay away from you, that you were a bad influence. Why would they say that about you? You're awesome!"

She took a deep breath and sighed. "Have you ever wondered why I'm the only one at the Athena table without some shade of blonde hair? Even those who should have black or brown or red hair have a somewhat blonde-covered head."

"Well, I guess. I mean I never gave it much thought."

"Well it's because my mother isn't Athena. It's Nemesis, but I've never been able to stomach what her other children consider 'revenge'. None of them understand that there are multiple kinds of revenge: there is the emotional, rage-driven revenge where you set out to hurt them; but there is also the justifying revenge, which is used when you believe justice could and should be enacted. Most people don't realize that justice is a form of revenge, and all of her other children don't see it either.

"I didn't realize this when I first came here, but eventually I did, and explained everything to Matt. He agreed with me, and suggested I ask Chiron if I could switch cabins. He wouldn't allow me to sleep there, although he did say that I could eat and do my activities with them. In reality I feel more of Athena's daughter than Nemesis's. I just can't accept someone that believes that revenge is all about hurting others. I just can't do it. They've tormented me since then, calling me a traitor to their mother. My mother."

"How long?"

"Five years."

"Five years?? Gopher, you let them bully you for nearly a third of your life!"

"Matt did force me to talk to Chiron a couple years back and so he's talked to them, but he can't keep all of them chained all the time. So they tend to do it anyways."

"Oh. Well that explains why they called you a wimp which I thought was odd since you're always so brave. How did the Athena kids take it?"

"Oh they're always happy to have more brains on board and any who weren't' were soon dealt with."

"That's good! If any of those idiots say anything again, I'll make sure they never do another time."

"Really? You? No offense, but you're a little short, newbie."

I punched her in the arm. "Still? With the newbie thing? And don't worry, I did karate for a few years."

"You? No way. And OW. That hurt."

I laughed. "Told you so."

She laughed with me. "Okay, fine, you did." Then she looked up at the sky and startled. It was dark and the stars were shining so brightly they hurt your eyes. "We better get back to our cabins! Wouldn't want the harpies to get to us." She helped me up and we ran back, laughing the whole time.

Later, however, I wasn't laughing. I was extremely worried about tomorrow, which I had gathered was when Lady Artemis and her Hunters would show up. This was getting tremendously sticky. I could feel it clinging to me, like a layer of jam all over my skin. I slept fitfully, not being able to relax about what awaited us the next day.