Did you like the last chapter?  I hope so!  I’ve been wanting to write that chapter for so long!

Chapter Quote:

“Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”

~Clockwork Prince

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Chapter 6: I Get Caught

When the trio arrived at the place where Hallie’s place was supposed to be, nothing remained but debris.  Police cars followed behind them, but the demigods soon figured out the cops just wanted to make sure no one had been in the house.  Naturally, they found no trace of either Hallie or her “father”.  Derek, Luke, and Silena begrudgingly headed back to the hotel where the Jackson twins had booked a night’s stay.

“We need to find that Scott kid.  Any ideas on where he would be?” Luke remarked, opening the door to their room.

“No, but I’m sure his name is in the phone book.  I mean, how many people have the last name Posey?” Derek pointed out.

“You know his name too?  When were you going to tell us this?” Silena said.

“When it became of importance.  I had other things on my mind.  I forgot about him,” he defended.

“You make the call then since you seem to know so much about him.” She turned away and went to the bathroom.  Derek and Luke shared a look.  Apparently Luke didn’t know what to make of his sister’s behavior either.  Instead, the son of Apollo grabbed the phone book and scanned for the last name “Posey”.  Within a few minutes, he found the only people in the town with that specific last name and dialed the number.  A woman picked up two rings later and said, “Hello?”

“Hello, ma’am, my name is Derek Michaels.  I was wondering if I could speak to Scott Posey?”

“He’s not here.  He went off with some people.  Recruiters.  Sorry.”

“Recruiters?!”

“Yes, now, I’m very sorry, but I have some errands to run.  If you have any more questions, you’ll have to call another time.  Bye!”

The woman hung up, leaving Derek angry and confused.  What recruiters?  Why were he and his friends always one step behind?  What was happening?  Why did Bryn want Hallie and Scott so badly?

“We should head back to camp in the morning,” Luke suggested. “I don’t think there’s anything here anymore.  If you want to know, I think we should focus on something more vital.”

“What would that be?” Silena queried, sitting down on the couch.

“Finding Bryn’s mom.  Bryn told me on our first quest that her mom had died, according to the Cyclops that kidnapped her.  Obviously that isn’t true since Bradley and Brady exist.  I don’t know if Mrs. Winchester knows that Bryn is alive, but… if Bryn is alive, it’s not the one we know… she wouldn’t hide from us.  So if we find Mrs. Winchester and she asks about her daughter, we’ll just say she died, okay?  No need to cause her more pain.  She probably already thinks her daughter is dead.”

“Where do we start searching?”

“White pages, I guess.”

“There has to be well over a hundred people with the last name ‘Winchester’ in London though.  I doubt she moved from there despite what happened,” Derek commented. “And we can’t call every Winchester there is.  That’d take forever, be expensive, and get us nowhere any time soon.”

“Do we know her first name?” Silena questioned.

“No.  Bryn never said,” Luke answered.

“You don’t think Chiron would know, do you?”

“Most likely not.  Zeus does, but I doubt he’d tell us.  He didn’t want Bryn knowing about her mother or else he would’ve told her, therefore he probably doesn’t want Mrs. Winchester to know about Bryn.”

“Even if she’s not here?”

“Even then.  I guess we’ll have to do good, old-fashioned detective work.”

“If I have any psychic visions telling me who she is, I’ll let you know,” Derek joked lightly.  The trio decided to get some rest.  After all, they had a long journey back to New York tomorrow.

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Two days later…

Once back at Camp Half-Blood, and after explaining to Chiron and their parents what happened, Derek retreated to his cabin.  He still hadn’t told Silena and Luke about his newly discovered powers.  He didn’t know what to make of the find yet.  He wanted to learn how to control it first.  There was only one person he could go to about this: Olive Poplar.

The only daughter of Hades.  She was in her mid-twenties.  Hades had met a woman pretty soon after the Second Titan War.  Olive was pleasant but reclusive.  She didn’t talk much to others though.

Making sure no one saw him going to talk to her, Derek knocked on the door of the Hades cabin, hoping she was there.  Olive worked but lived at Camp Half-Blood.  Hopefully she was home already.  Luck was on his side when she opened the door.  She smiled at him, but appeared confused.

“Hey, Derek, what’s up?”

“This is going to sound really strange but can I talk to you?  Privately?” he asked quickly.

Olive shrugged and moved aside.  He stepped inside hastily.  She shut the door and said, “So?”

“I need to show you something.” Derek extended his hand and closed his eyes.  He concentrated on raising a skeleton from the ground.  A few seconds later, from the auditory gasp he received, he figured it’d worked.  Sure enough, upon opening his eyes, a skeleton dressed in revolutionary war attire stood at attention, waiting for his orders.  Derek turned to Olive and said, “I think I might be a child of Hades.”

She raised her eyebrows and went, “You think?  How in Hades’ name did you not know this sooner?!”

“I don’t know!  I never really felt the urge to raise an army from the dead.  I mean, I’ve always been good figuring out where to go underground but I thought it was just Apollo giving me wickedly good intuition.  Then a while back, I was fighting some Cyclops and I got angry.  They’d hurt my friends.  I’d felt this tug in my gut and when I released the arrow I was firing at them, the feeling disappeared and it was just this huge gaping hole in the beach.  I never mentioned to anyone that it was me who did that because I didn’t know what was happening.  And then when I was out in California a few days ago, I got angry and long story short, I somehow raised a skeleton from the earth and I can’t have that happen every time I get angry,” Derek rambled.  He took a deep breath afterwards.

“I don’t know what caused that hole but I can teach you how to control the anger causing skeletons to rise.  I’m not that good at raising the dead.  My ability is the jewels and riches of the earth but I can muster a skeleton or two once in a while.  You’ll have to practice on your own too, but I can give you some guidelines.”

“I’ll take anything you can give me.”

“Then let’s get started.”

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Silena

The ride back to Camp Half-Blood had been awkward for Silena.  Derek and Luke chatted most of the way (mostly to help them stay up while they drove).  She was the odd one out.  Her anger at Derek hadn’t subsided, but she had her reasons.  Sure the lying had ticked her off, sure the secrecy about Hallie had hurt because it made Silena feel like Derek didn’t trust her.  But neither of those things were the ultimate reason why she was upset with him.  For some reason, she felt like Bryn had known she was going to be the one not to come back from the quest.  Bryn had kept it a secret to protect her friends for getting hurt by the truth.  What if Derek was doing the same thing?  Silena held her tongue though, kept silent, lest her boyfriend and brother begin to think she’d lost her marbles.   Instead, she acted as if the only thing that bothered her was the lying.

It’d been five days since she got back from Oklahoma.  In that time period, she had hardly spoken to her boyfriend.  Luke was even wary around her but he’d changed anyway, so it didn’t bother her too much, knowing that it wasn’t just her that was affecting the change in her brother’s personality.

Speaking of her brother, Silena saw Luke heading into the forest.  She decided to catch up with him.

“Hey,” she greeted, falling into step beside him.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Mind if I join you in your walk?”

“Not at all, but I’m looking for Derek, and considering you two haven’t exactly been on the best of terms lately, I don’t know if you want to see him,” Luke pointed out.

“I don’t care.  I’m not the one searching for him.  But why are you going into the forest to look for him?”

“Someone said they’d seen him enter it a little while ago.  I don’t know what he’s doing in here either, but I’m still checking.”

“What do you need to ask him?”

“I want to see if there were ever any names Bryn mentioned that he didn’t know who they were.  Maybe she said her mother’s name and none of us realized it.”

“That makes sense.  And at least it’s a place to start.”

“It’s all I could think of.”

“Your Athena is showing,” Silena joked.

“Oh shut it,” Luke laughed, shoving his sister lightly.

“I think I saw movement over there.   Maybe it’s Derek,” she said, changing the subject.  The siblings made a left toward an area surrounded by rocks.  Silena jumped over a fallen tree and stopped dead in her tracks.  Derek was in the center of the rocky enclosure, his hand outstretched.  From the ground, a skeleton was rising.  It stood fully formed within two more seconds.  The face of bone turned its hollow eyes on Silena, and she could’ve sworn it was smiling at her.  Instinctively, she took a step back.  At that moment, Derek whirled around.  His mouth opened but nothing came out.

“Don’t say anything,” she said. “I’m done with the secrecy and the lies Derek.  It’s over.”

Silena turned on her heels and stormed off.

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Luke 

With a wave of his hand, Derek made the skeleton disappear back into the earth.  However, he still stared after Silena.  Luke knew his friend wasn’t going to handle the breakup well.  He walked up to Derek and said as casually as he could, “When were you going to tell us about your badass powers?”

“Once I figured out how to control them.  I was going to tell you as soon as I could…”

“Show me what you can do so far,” Luke urged in an attempt to distract his friend.  He was also genuinely curious as to what his friend could do.  Derek hesitated before turning around.

“I can’t do much yet.  Olive gave me pointers to get me started but she told me she wasn’t all that great at raising skeleton armies.  Her affinity is for the riches of the earth.  I’ve been practicing hours and hours every day.  I’ve also been working on shadow-traveling but so far, I’ve been unsuccessful in that territory.  Who knows, maybe I can’t even do it.”

“I don’t know much about Underworld powers but if you ever need any help, let me know.”

“Thanks Luke.  So how did you find me?”

“I needed to ask you something and asked around to find where you are.  Someone saw you come in the forest.”

“Damn, and I thought I was being stealthy… What did you need to ask me?”

“Did Bryn ever mention any names that you didn’t know who she was talking about?  Like maybe she was telling you a story about a girl named Mary and you didn’t know who this Mary person was or she didn’t explain who Mary was?”

Derek paused before: “What?”

“My hunch is that Bryn has said her mother’s name before and none of have realized it.  So my earlier explanation, if Bryn for some reason mentioned a girl named Mary, I was going to do searches for a Mary Winchester.  Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does.  That’s a really good idea, to be honest.  You have any names?”

“Uh, no.  That’s why I came to you.  I haven’t asked Silena though.  I figured since you and Bryn were so close, she would’ve mentioned something to you.”

“I can’t think of anything, but if I do, you’ll be the first to know.  Let’s head back.  Oh, and Luke?  Don’t tell anyone about what I can do.  People are already treating me differently since Bryn’s death.  I don’t want to give them any more reasons.”

“I’ve you got your back, Derek.  I’ll tell Silena for you.”

“Thank you.  I’m sorry for keeping it a secret from you two, but with everything going on, I wanted to feel like I could control one of the surprises in my life.  Guess that backfired.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself Derek.  You had your reasons, and I know you wouldn’t keep things from us unless you felt you needed to.  Let’s hurry back though, it’s almost time for dinner.”

The two boys trudged silently through the forest back to camp.  Once there, they went with their respective cabins to head to dinner.  Luke and Silena were the only ones who occupied the Poseidon table.  Silena, after Bryn’s death, had switched from the Athena cabin.  Luke didn’t know if it was because she didn’t want him to be alone or if she didn’t want to be surrounded by people anymore.  Either way, he enjoyed her company, albeit that night being awkwardly quiet.  After dinner, the campers headed to the big bonfire.

Suddenly, one of the wood nymphs came sprinting up to Chiron, breathlessly explaining something Luke couldn’t understand.  The centaur galloped off.  The campers who saw the conversation, interest sparked, followed him, including Luke and Silena and Derek.  When they came to a stop, Chiron was kneeling next to a girl that couldn’t be older than nine years old.  Her face was cut up and bruised.  She had a wild look in her eyes as if she’d just gotten out of a fight.

“What’s your name sweetheart?” Chiron asked gently.

“Th- Thera.  Thera Espion,” she whispered, looking at the gathering crowd.  Her eyes met Luke’s for a brief second.  She smiled at him.

“How’d you get here?”

“My friend.  They brought me here.  They were a demigod too but we were attacked and they forced me to come here.  I don’t know what happened to them…” Thera’s eyes were tearing up.  Chiron ordered some demigods to go search for her friend.  His expression was grim though.

“Let’s get you to the infirmary so we can fix those wounds.” He lifted the girl up into his arms and carried her off.  The campers, realizing there was nothing more to be seen, went back to the campfire.

“Think she’ll be okay?” Silena asked.

“She seems pretty durable.  I think she’ll be okay.  We’ll introduce ourselves tomorrow.  We’re pretty familiar to being the new kids on the scene so we maybe help her assimilate into life here,” Luke remarked.

“Assimilate?  That’s a big word for you brother,” Silena teased.

“Oh shut-”

“Ned Drew,” Derek interrupted, stopping in his tracks.

“What?”

“Ned Drew.  Bryn mentioned a person named Ned Drew before.  I know it’s not her mother’s name but maybe he’s somehow connected to her mother and maybe we can track that guy to lead us to Mrs. Winchester!”

“That’s brilliant Derek!” Luke praised excitedly. “Let’s go check it out!”

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Do you think the name will lead anywhere?  Were you surprised by Silena’s reaction?  Let me know in a review :)