KITTY HAD NEVER GOTTEN TO PLAY Russian Roulette. Even Mr. D wasn't crazy enough to hand a seventeen year old a loaded gun. But that was fine. Her life was one whole game of Russian Roulette.

Any demigod could learn to swing a sword or shoot an arrow or throw a spear. The Apollo kids had some creative songs and poems, but lyre strings could be cut. Hephaestus's kids could build cool contraptions. Great. Except it didn't help that much in the middle of a heated battle. And looking down, flat on her stomach, from the walking path above the road on the Brooklyn Bridge, they certainly were in a heated battle.

Two hellhounds howled just before Travis Stoll sent them evaporating back to the Underworld. His dark hair plastered against his reddened cheeks as sweat poured down his brow. They'd made it to midnight. Fortunately, no one had more than a twisted ankle.

Kitty smirked. In her right palm she ran her thumb over the celestial bronze coin her mother had given her years ago. On one side, a cornucopia. On the other, a blindfolded skull. Russian Roulette.

She grabbed the coin. It began heating up against her skin. The world went grey around her, as if the Mist was becoming visible. In the haze, color radiated out from dead and undead alike.

Travis shined a brilliant gold. It didn't surprise her. That boy had always been luckier than most. The only way to explain the Stoll brothers' ability to pull pranks and rob every building in Camp Half-Blood despite their inability to sneak was an uncanny amount of good luck.

Most of the children of Hermes had that gift. Her mother was Hermes' child, after all. Tyche embodied and strengthened that piece of her father's nature. Maybe that was why they called her a minor god.

Minor god. Kitty's grip on the coin tightened. Even though Alex's return to Camp Half-Blood proved she'd made the right decision not to join Kronos's army, she didn't wonder if the true right decision would've been to leave Camp Half-Blood and not come back.

Travis's golden aura flickered. Kitty forced herself to focus. One of the cyclops down the bridge had a javelin in hand. Where once had been grey mist, it seemed to leach the gold from Travis. Kitty grimaced.

Pain like needle stabs filled her mind as she reached out to cut the connection. She willed it to reverse. Warmth filled her chest as a thread of golden light visible only to her formed between herself and the cyclops.

He threw the javelin. Travis's aura returned to its natural golden state. He turned in time to see it coming, side stepping it. With a crash, the javelin embedded itself in a yellow taxi beyond him. He gave a tiny laugh, wiping his brow.

Minor god. If only they knew. If only they understood that she gambled with the Fates themselves.

Her headache increased the more she played with the strings of luck on the battlefield. She didn't care about the gods. But she did care about Travis, as much of an idiot as he was. She cared about Dennis, the unclaimed fifteen year old who had just joined that summer. And Lauren, an unclaimed Cabin 11 member of four years, since she'd arrived alongside a couple Half-Bloods of Athena's house.

They battled back to back to back on the street, unaware of her manipulation up above them. Skeleton, hellhound, and Telkhine fell to celestial bronze swords, the bows of her cabinmates, and their own bad luck.

By the time enemies stopped coming, Kitty almost couldn't breathe through the pain. It gathered at the back of her skull, her neck feeling so weak she worried about keeping her head up. Rolling onto her back, Kitty took a moment to breathe.

She stared up at the blackness. No stars. Never any stars. She'd grown up in cities surrounded by neon lights and flashing signs. Those were the stars of her youth. But after years of living full time at Camp... she missed constellations. New York City's sky just held blackness of varying shades.

Travis started talking to the kids on street level. Kitty forced herself to sit up, ignoring the flashes of light across her vision. Brushing a few strands of her blue hair back behind her ears, Kitty swung down to join them.

"We've got to hold out until sunrise," Travis said.

As her boots hit shattered glass and rubble, they all turned to face her. A couple of them nodded. Travis flashed a tight smile. No one in the Reject Cabin particularly disliked her. But beyond her legendary skills at gambling and the way she never seemed to get hurt in Capture the Flag, no one interacted with her much either.

Of all the members of Camp Half-Blood, she interacted with three people most, and two weren't even in Cabin Eleven. As year-rounders, she and Clarisse La Rue saw more of each other than probably either girl liked. Clarisse just made it too easy to prank. She may know how to swing a sword but subtlety had never been her strong point. To be fair, the girl had dealt with a grey cloud of bad luck since the day golden boy Percy Jackson had shown up.

And of course, there was the big man himself, Mr. D. Wine and gambling mixed well together. Kitty knew that intimately. Her father had met her mother in Vegas after he gambled all his savings away. Felt sorry for him, maybe. Or maybe the gift of an especially lucky demigod child balanced out the horrific luck of the man himself.

Turned out, even unwillingly sober gods can lose poker to a daughter of Tyche.

"You listening, Katerina?"

She glanced over at Travis, not dignifying his use of her birth name. "Sorry. Headache. What insane plan do you have for us now?"

"Easy. Fight. Pillage. Don't die," he said.

Kitty snorted. "Right, Easy. Well you all go enjoy rifling through people's pockets. I'm going to-"

An arrow whistled past her face, barely missing her nose. Kitty ducked, another arrow shooting through where her torso should've been. Well there went any luck she'd stolen from the cyclops.

Travis barked orders to their half of Cabin 11. Samantha, one of the actual children of Hermes, a sixteen year old with dirty blonde hair now much darker between the dirt and blood, stumbled back with an arrow in her shoulder. Tears streamed down her face.

Chaos erupted. Another arrow embedded itself in Lauren's thigh. The younger children screamed. Travis dragged Samantha into hiding. Another kid followed with Lauren.

Tumbling away across shattered glass and bits of torn metal, Kitty focused on her breathing. She saw a sword about ten feet away. Lauren must've dropped it. Scrambling up, Kitty dashed for it.

Never hesitate. Kitty had learned that lesson many years ago. Other Half-Bloods prayed to their godly parents before trying something insane. But not Kitty. The difference between scaling to the tippy top the climbing wall in pouring rain successfully or falling and breaking every bone in her arm could be that moment of hesitation.

Kitty rolled. An arrow soared overhead. Three more followed. Only one made contact, skimming her leg as she wrenched the sword up off the ground and sprinted towards Travis behind some cars.

Fortune favors the bold.

He looked at her, wide eyed as she skidded into him. Muttering an apology, Kitty made sure to keep the blade point away from him and from Samantha on the ground.

"Gods only know how you survive half the crap you do," he said, raising his voice to be heard above an explosion further down the bridge. "We have to hold this bridge!"

Samantha passed out. Whether from pain or blood loss, Kitty didn't know. Glancing back up at Travis, he met her gaze. They were thinking the same thing. Those shots were too well placed, too coordinated.

"Half-Bloods?" she muttered.

Travis nodded. "We've only got a couple more hours till dawn. If they're ever going to withdraw, it'll be then."

If. That had gone unspoken between every member of Cabin 11 between the start of the battle up till now. Always "when" they withdraw. Not if.

But they all knew it was an if.

"We have to hold it. We have to give Percy and Annabeth a shot," Travis repeated.

Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. Luck swirled around those two in ways Kitty couldn't even begin to unravel. Most mortals, human or demigod, gave off auras of a singular shade. The shade could change, based on the world around them. No one's luck stayed the same all the time. But Percy, from the moment Kitty had seen him stumble down to the Big House with Grover in his arms and disrupt her game of Liar's Dice with Mr. D, he looked like something altogether different.

Brilliant, blinding gold and the darkest black constantly fought for control of his aura. One minute he could pull off impossible stunts that even left her shocked. The next minute, he would find himself without a weapon at the worst possible moment. And Annabeth's luck became more and more like his by the day. They were somehow simultaneously the luckiest and most unlucky people in the world.

But Kitty kept that knowledge to herself. "What's the plan?"

Travis glanced around. One of the unclaimed younger kids had started force feeding Samantha some Ambrosia. He grabbed Kitty's arm and together they pulled back a bit. Focusing on the battle around her again, she allowed the colors to fade and the auras to become visible. All looked normal on their end except for Lauren, who's aura had almost faded completely. Kitty focused on Travis.

"Unless we all want to be pincushions, we need to draw them to us here, out of the open." He glanced around, looking for something, anything to even the playing field.

Kitty thought that maybe now would've been a great time for a Hephaestus kid. Still, Hermes was a god of inventions. There must be something his children could jerry-rig. All she saw was rubble, even more monotone than usual beyond the luck-auras.

Martin Henry, the fastest runner in the cabin of already pretty fast kids, hurried over. He had a small smile on his youthful face despite the carnage around them. Travis didn't see him, just kept talking to her. But she didn't hear him. Where the aura emanating from Martin had been golden like an evening sun, it drained almost instantly to a charcoal grey. Time seemed to slow. Her hand gripped her coin again.

Fortune favored the bold.

His aura glowed brilliant gold, brighter than ever before. Travis turned to talk to Martin, celestial bronze sword still out, just as a massive, shadowy hellhound appeared between them. As Kitty felt freezing chills running across her body, Travis dispatched the hellhound with ease.

"I hate those things," Travis muttered. "Any news from Connor?"

Kitty knew Martin was speaking. His lips moved and Travis shuffled his feet and arms in response. But she couldn't focus.

Luck didn't come from nowhere. She couldn't just sever the threads of fate like one of the three sisters. It had to come from somewhere.

Kitty could give herself good luck without issue. She just took it from an opponent, an enemy. Leaching it away into her own fortune.

But giving someone else good luck... Kitty shivered, her body temperature feeling several degrees too low.

Russian Roulette.

"Alright. We make our stand back here. Far enough that the enemy would have to swim the river to reach the side, but close enough we can run to shore if needed," Travis said. "Martin, spread the word."

The redheaded boy sped off. Travis watched him go before turning towards her again. "Let's go. I need you on the other flank."

Kitty found her voice. "Right." Brandishing her found celestial bronze blade, she got ready to dash back across to the other side. She stood on the edge of cover.

Don't hesitate.

Do not hesitate.

Don't.

Hesitate.

As her boots kicked up debris, Kitty dove across the gap, praying none of the Half-Bloods on the other side of the bridge were Apollo's kids. She heard whistling in the air. Kitty braced herself for pain.

But none came. She slid behind a car, uninjured. Four arrows had embedded themselves in cars she'd just run past. Kitty laughed.

It cut through the thick air. Getting back on one knee, Kitty spun her short sword in a little circle.

Tyche's favorite daughter strikes again!

Kitty didn't have time to process the smell of dripping gasoline or singular flaming arrow. Thrown back in a brilliant display of ash, rubble, torn metal, and fire, agonizing pain filled every inch of Kitty's body.

Russian Roulette stikes again!

Muffled screams couldn't quite cut through the ringing in her ears. Tiny stars fell to earth around her. Except New York City didn't have any stars. Kitty tried to push past the pain clouding her mind. Not stars, embers. Little flecks of burning embers fell around her.

Then a shadow darker than the starless sky above materialized over her. Shadow-travel. Tyche had a sense of humor at least. Save a kid from death by black dog, die from death by black dog.

Except it wasn't a dog. It was an angel stepping through the blackness darker than night. Blonde hair fell about the beautiful girl's White Stripes band tee-shirt, framing her like a piece of artwork. Her familiar blue eyes flecked with copper twinkled at whatever Kitty had been attempting to say in her concussed daze.

"I'm flattered, Kit, but you know I don't swing your way." The girl grabbed her under arms, dragging her a few feet back. "Come on, I'm almost outta time."

Inky blackness seeped out from Ophelia, light bending around them. Kitty struggled to stay conscious. The world stretched as Hecate's favorite-former favorite- took her to safety. So, not an angel. But close.