Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Prologue – The Girl I Used to Be

My name was Nina Vale. Or at least, that’s what the ID said when they found my body. Twenty-two years old. Brown hair, brown eyes—average in that forgettable kind of way. Grew up in a quiet neighborhood with neat lawns, peeling fences, and secrets that screamed behind closed doors.

I was middle-class. Not rich enough to be above the noise, not poor enough to be invisible. My dad was... around. Sort of. When he wasn’t off on “business trips” or cheating on my mom with women named things like Stacey or Brooke, he was home reminding us just how lucky we were to have a roof over our heads. He never hit us. He didn’t have to. His voice, sharp as broken glass, did the trick just fine. His silence was worse. I learned early how to shrink myself. Smile when he walked in. Be agreeable. Don’t make noise. Don’t cry.

My mom tried. Sweet, anxious, too thin for someone who cooked like it was therapy. She was the kind of woman who apologized for taking up space. She loved me fiercely, but even love gets diluted when you’re treading water every day. She’d hold me at night and whisper, “You’re strong like your name.” I never felt it. All I ever felt was tired. And scared.

Books saved me. They always did. I devoured stories like lifelines. Percy Jackson and the Olympians was the first that made me believe in something bigger—gods, monsters, prophecy. A world that made my skin buzz just reading about it. I was obsessed with mythology, the old stories where gods could be cruel and beautiful, and mortals could rise or fall on a single choice.

I had other obsessions too. Vampires. Witches. Anything dark and twisted. I watched The Vampire Diaries at seven—way too young—but I was hooked. Damon and Elena. Danger and longing. That kind of love made my chest ache. I wanted to be like Katherine, though. Unapologetic. Dangerous. Wild. Not the scared little girl always waiting for the next slammed door.

Star Wars came later. I started it on a whim at twenty-one. Fell hard for Anakin Skywalker—flawed, powerful, tragic. Maybe I saw myself in him, teetering between who he was and who he could be.

I never really fit in. Too blunt. Too dreamy. Too much, or not enough. I tried to be normal, but normal didn’t stick to me. My head was always somewhere else—writing stories, imagining other lives, wondering if I was meant for more than just existing and enduring.

And then, I died.

There wasn’t any poetry in it. No heroic blaze of glory. One second I was alive—maybe going to get coffee, maybe texting someone back—and then: nothing. A scream of metal. The scent of burnt rubber. Pain like a punch to the ribs and then...

Silence.

I remember my last thought with startling clarity: I don’t want to die like this.
Not like this.
Please, I thought, like a child praying to something she didn’t believe in. Let there be something after. Let me have another chance. Let me be the person I dreamed of being. The brave one. The wild one. The girl who didn’t flinch.

Light.

Chapter Text

The first thing I felt in my new life was pain.
The second thing was rage.

There was light—blinding, cold, sterile. Hands. Voices. The slippery, wet pull of my body being dragged out into the world like a curse half-formed and furious. I screamed, not just because I was a newborn and that’s what newborns do, but because I knew.

I had died.
And somehow, I was back.

My lungs burned with my first breath as I was placed in the arms of a woman too beautiful to be real. Honey-gold hair framed a face that belonged on statues, in paintings, or maybe just behind glass—meant to be worshipped, never touched. She looked down at me with eyes that shimmered like the sea on a warm day. There was no softness in them. Just something cold and eternal, like she’d already forgotten what she was holding.

She didn't coo. She didn’t cry. Instead, she sighed and said softly, “I wish things could be different, little love. But there are ancient laws. And the gods… the gods don’t forgive weakness.”

And just like that, I knew.
Aphrodite.
Not like the goddess. The goddess.

She bundled me up in designer silk and placed me in the back of a sleek, black car, kissed my forehead once like it meant something, and then vanished. Literally. One moment she was there, smelling like roses and heartbreak, the next—gone, like a dream dissolving at dawn.

I was left with a man who looked at me like I was a puzzle piece he couldn’t remember asking for.

“Name’s Nina,” he told the driver, already lighting a cigar as if the birth of his daughter was a minor inconvenience. “Nina Moretti. Birth certificate’s ready. Don’t let the press find out who the mother was.”

Of course. The great Lorenzo Moretti. Media tycoon. Mobster in a suit. The kind of man who could have your life story erased by dinner. Apparently, Aphrodite had given him a fake name—Stacy, seriously?—and a night he probably barely remembered.

Lucky me.

He held me once. One time. Not to look at me or cradle me like a proud father, but to pose for a photograph. A glossy moment for the press. “Modern man raises child alone,” or whatever. Then he handed me off to a nanny whose name I wouldn’t learn until much later.

From the beginning, he saw me as a trophy. A little golden plaque that screamed Powerful Enough to Raise a Daughter. His friends would clap him on the back and call him brave. Meanwhile, I sat in silk onesies in a gold-trimmed nursery, ignored and alone.

My stepmother didn’t even pretend to like me.

She was Barbie-doll blonde, with glassy eyes and a permanent vodka mist floating around her. Her name was Madison, but I think her soul was sponsored by Chanel No. 5 and old grudges. She hated me on sight. Not because I was loud or fussy—I wasn’t—but because I existed. Proof that her husband had strayed. Proof that someone else had his attention, however briefly.

She cheated, too. I saw it—well, heard it. Her whispers on the phone, giggles in the dark, perfume lingering in the halls when she came home late.
Hypocrisy in heels.

And me? I pretended to be a normal baby.
I cooed. I cried. I napped.
But inside, I was thinking. Planning.

At three months old, I had my first vision. One second I was lying in a silk crib staring at an animatronic mobile of lions and lambs, the next I was inside someone else. My body was too small to understand it, but my mind reeled with clarity.

There was a baby being born. In another hospital. In two years.
His name was Percy Jackson.

And just like that, it all snapped into place. The gods. Aphrodite. My name. My life.
I had been reborn into the Percy Jackson universe.

I wanted to laugh and scream and cry and throw a bottle all at once. The Fates—or someone—had given me another shot, and not just at life, but in a world I knew like the back of my hand. This time, I wouldn’t just survive.

I would win.

No more shrinking. No more quiet. I would become what I always dreamed of: powerful, untouchable, someone who writes the rules instead of surviving them.

Of course, for now, I was stuck in a crib, being neglected by a nanny who was overworked and underpaid, while my father paraded me in front of journalists and politicians like a cute accessory.

But I had time.
I had knowledge.
And I had plans.

Let the gods play their games.
I was Nina Moretti now.
And I was going to rewrite the story.

Chapter Text

I don’t remember my first steps.
But I remember the blood.

Between the ages of one and four, I mastered the art of pretending.

The trick was in the eyes. Keep them wide. Curious. Innocent. Let your mouth fall open just a little when you looked up at someone—childlike wonder, the mask of prey. Giggle when spoken to. Cry only when appropriate. And never, ever flinch.
That was the most important part.

Flinching made him angry.

My father, Lorenzo Moretti, believed in power. Not love. Not kindness. Not softness. Power. And pain. He believed in breaking people down until they were no longer people. Just objects. Stories to tell at parties with too much whiskey and not enough soul.

And I? I was his legacy.
Which meant I had to learn early.

When I was two, I watched him beat a man to death with a golf club in our private garage. The man was begging. Something about money. Something about betrayal. I don’t remember the details.

What I do remember was the blood—how it splattered onto my pale yellow dress. I remember the crunching sound. My ears rang for hours afterward.

I didn’t cry.
I didn’t blink.

He glanced at me afterward, slick with sweat, and muttered, “This is what happens to cowards, Nina. You don’t want to be weak, do you?”

I shook my head like a good girl.
He smiled.

It was worse when he got personal.

He never left marks. His favorite method was pressure—fists to the stomach, slaps to the back of the head, twisting my wrist just to the edge of breaking. If I screamed? If I made the mistake of showing pain?

He’d make sure I knew how small I really was.

Sometimes that meant locking me in the dark. Sometimes it meant letting his friends linger too long—smiling, commenting, looking at me like I was something fragile and fascinating.

I hated the way they looked at me.
I hated that he let them.

I learned fast. Don’t cry. Don’t fight. Don’t scream.
Smile.

My stepmother didn’t care. She’d glance at me over her wine glass, mutter something about how I looked too much like “that other woman,” and disappear back into her perfume haze. Once, I heard her laughing while I was curled on the bathroom floor after one of his punishments.
I never forgot the sound.

But don’t worry.
I didn’t forget anything.

I smiled through it all. I was so good at smiling. My tiny teeth. My big eyes. My sweet little voice. I sang nursery rhymes with bruises under my shirt. I blew kisses at the men who hurt me, then threw up behind the drapes when no one was looking.

I was the perfect daughter.
The pretty doll he could parade around in public.

But inside?

Inside, I was molten steel poured into porcelain—cracking slowly, but still holding shape. I kept every memory, every slight, every blow. I strung them like pearls on a noose.
One day, I’d pull tight.

And the visions? Those were getting worse. Or better. Depending on your point of view.

Sometimes, they were harmless. Like knowing the cook would burn the chicken on Wednesday night. Or that Madison was going to knock over a vase during her fourth martini and scream at the staff for it.

But other times...
Other times, they were hell.

I saw through dying eyes—a man in an alley, blood gurgling in his throat. A woman in a car, trapped upside down, glass in her face as she whispered her son’s name. I felt their fear. Their pain. Their final thoughts like claws in my mind.

Worse were the heartbreaks. A father holding his child’s hand in a hospital bed, knowing she wouldn’t wake up. A teenager sobbing in a bathroom after reading a text that ended everything.

Every time it happened, I came back shaking.

And I still had to smile.

Still had to go sit on Daddy’s lap while he bragged to his business partners about how precocious I was, how “advanced” I seemed for my age.

If only he knew the half of it. If only he knew the running commentary in my head.

Oh yes, Daddy, please tell me again how you built your empire from nothing while I pretend not to know you stabbed your best friend in the back and dumped him in a river. Very inspiring.

By the time I was four, I could tie a bow on a dress, recite the alphabet backward, and lie with the best of them.

I had already made peace with the fact that I would never have a real childhood.

But I wasn’t broken.
No.
I was just getting started.

Chapter Text

There are certain things you get used to when you grow up in the Moretti house.

The taste of blood in your mouth. The smell of cheap cologne mixed with something metallic. The knowledge that locked doors don’t mean safety—they just mean you get a few extra seconds to brace yourself.

But the basement?
The basement was always worse.

It creaked. It echoed. It had that damp, coppery smell that no one ever mentioned out loud, but everyone knew. My feet made little tapping sounds on the stairs as my father led me down by the hand, and I did what I always did: put on the mask.

Big eyes. Quiet mouth. Careful posture. Don’t show emotion. Don’t ask questions.

The woman was already tied to the chair when we got there. Middle-aged. Hair matted with sweat. Face beaten to the point of swelling. I didn’t recognize her, but I didn’t need to. They came and went. Faces changed. Pain stayed the same.

“She stole from me,” my father said, his voice smooth, like this was a business presentation instead of torture. “She lied. And lies have consequences, don’t they, princess?”

I nodded. I always nodded.

He didn’t wait for her to explain. He didn’t care if she did. The first blow came quick—a slap across her face that echoed. Then another. Then something sharper. Metal caught the light, and I knew he was holding a knife. I watched it flash.

I felt sick.

My stomach twisted, not from the violence—I’d seen worse—but because I knew how thin the line was. How fast his attention could turn. I watched the woman squirm, listened to her sob, and I kept my hands folded in my lap like I was watching a puppet show.

Until I made the mistake of breathing too loud.

It wasn’t even a sound, really. Just a whimper. A little inhale caught between fear and disgust.

His head snapped toward me.

I froze.

For a moment, he just stared. Then came the smile—the cold one. The kind that said, You broke the rules.

“You think this is funny?” he said, slowly. “You think I brought you down here to play the critic?”

I didn’t answer. I knew better.

The next second, he was on me.

Pain flared fast. A boot to the ribs. A backhand to the face. His ring cut my cheek open. I bit down on my tongue so hard I tasted blood. He didn’t stop. He never did when he got going. The hits blurred together, pain crawling up through my bones and buzzing in my ears.

I hit the floor, and stayed there.

I couldn’t cry. Not now. Crying made it worse. Crying made him invite his friends over.

So I lay still, blood dripping into my hair, and I watched the ceiling swirl.

Eventually, he stopped. Not out of mercy—just boredom. He wiped his hands on a cloth, muttered something to the woman still bound in the chair, and walked out of the room like nothing had happened.

He didn’t look back.
He didn’t take me with him.
He just left me there. Broken. Bleeding. Alone.

And then, as if my body couldn’t take one more thing, the vision hit.
Hard.

No warning. No time to brace. One second I was broken on the concrete, the next—I was someone else. Somewhere else.

A woman. Her body was on fire with pain. Her thoughts were disjointed, splintered by fear. She was begging—calling out into the dark.

“Apollo,” she choked. “Please, please, help me. I need you. I need the light—”

Her desperation clawed into me. Her pain became mine. Her voice echoed down into my very bones. And when the vision dropped me back into my own body, I was still speaking her words.

“Apollo…”

It was a whisper, hoarse and trembling. “Please… help me…”

And then—light.

It exploded into the room, ripping through shadow like it was nothing. Warm, golden light. Not soft or subtle. It was radiant, holy, and angry. The kind of light that didn’t ask permission to exist—it just was.

The air shifted. The cold, bloody basement seemed to recoil from it. I blinked up, dazed, bleeding, my vision swimming.

And he was there.

Tall. Bright. Alive in a way nothing else had ever been.

Golden hair, like sunlight spun into silk. A white button-up shirt, collar open at the neck, sleeves rolled lazily to the elbows. Faded designer jeans. Ray-Bans hooked casually at the top of his shirt, like this was a pit stop between photo shoots. He looked like someone who didn’t belong in the real world, let alone this one.

His eyes—gold, molten, sharp—swept over the scene.

He took it in silently. The chair. The woman. The blood.
Then me.

His expression flickered. Not recognition. Just—shock. Disgust. And something that might’ve been anger, but not at me.

He stepped forward.

And my body gave up.

Darkness rushed in like a tide, warm and painless. For once, I didn’t fight it. I let it take me.
Because for the first time in four years, someone else was here.
Someone who wasn’t afraid of the dark.

Chapter Text

Apollo’s POV

It was just another night.

Another bar. Another mortal city. Another drink in my hand and another woman with long lashes and a hollow laugh, leaning in too close. She smelled like vanilla and desperation and called me babe like she thought that would keep me.

Mortals. So fragile. So eager to forget.
I wasn’t above using that eagerness.

I’d been in this particular rut for a few decades now—mortal pleasures, temporary distractions, anything to keep the weight of Olympus from settling too heavily on my shoulders. And tonight? I didn’t want to think. Not about the Council. Not about the things I couldn’t change. Not about the things I had changed.

I just wanted to disappear.

Then I heard her.

Not the woman at the bar—the girl. A child.

“Apollo… please… help me…”

The sound cracked through me. Not like lightning. Lightning is loud, violent, demanding.

This was quiet.
A whisper full of desperation and surrender. A last-breath prayer spoken not with hope, but with nothing left to lose.

My blood went cold.

“Excuse me,” I said, standing abruptly.

The woman blinked. “Wait—what?”

“Emergency,” I muttered, already walking. I ducked into the alley behind the bar, and with one burst of golden light, I vanished from the mortal world.

The moment I reappeared, I knew I was in the right place—and that I was far too late to stop whatever had already happened.

The basement reeked. Blood, sweat, mold, and that metallic sting that never quite fades.

There was a woman tied to a chair, beaten and limp, but breathing. Just barely. I’d seen enough human cruelty to know she wasn’t the reason I was here.

It was the girl.

She lay crumpled on the concrete floor, all dark curls and torn skin, a child-sized mess of bruises and blood and silence.

Something in me snapped.

I stepped forward, dropped to my knees, and pressed a hand gently to her back. Her heartbeat was faint. Her breaths came shallow. Too slow. She was close to fading out.

No.

I let my power hum beneath my fingers, warming her ribs, knitting broken bones, soothing torn flesh. I didn’t take all the pain away—just enough to keep her stable. Enough to let her stay.

She stirred.

Her eyes blinked open—hazel and dazed—and locked onto mine.

“Apollo…” she breathed.

Her voice was raw, but she said my name like she’d always known it. Like it lived in her bones.

I frowned. “How do you know who I am?”

“I saw you,” she whispered. “In a vision. A woman was crying, and she called your name, and I saw it in my head. And then I said it out loud. And you came.”

I didn’t answer. Mortals weren’t supposed to have visions like that. Not unclaimed ones. Not ones this strong. But there were too many questions and not enough answers.

She stared up at me. “Are you… are you an angel?”

There it was—small and trembling, a child’s attempt to understand something too big for her world.

I gave her a half-smile. “Not exactly. I’m a Greek god. Apollo.”

Her eyes widened. “A real one?”

“The one and only.”

She didn’t flinch. She didn’t recoil. She nodded, like that explained something she’d already been wondering about for a while.

Then she said it. Softly. Carefully.

“My dad did this.”

I didn’t move.

“He gets angry sometimes. When I talk. When I cry. When I don’t do what he says fast enough. And sometimes his friends come over. That’s worse.”

A cold rage coiled in my chest.

“I could kill him,” I said, voice low. “Right now. You wouldn’t even have to watch.”

Her head jerked up. “No.”

I blinked. “No?”

“You can’t.” Her lip trembled. “I saw something. If he dies now, worse things happen. Something really bad. I don’t know what, but I know I’m not supposed to stop it yet.”

That same voice. So small and so sure.

“I think… I’m supposed to live through this. I don’t know why. But I know it matters.”

She yawned then, and the shift was jarring. One second she was telling me the universe had a plan. The next she was just a four-year-old, exhausted.

“Where’s your room?” I asked gently.

She pointed weakly upstairs.

I lifted her into my arms. She was so small it hurt. Like the world hadn’t let her grow right.

The mansion above was everything I hated—cold marble, soulless art, too much money and not enough love. Her room was spotless. Overly curated. Expensive furniture, untouched stuffed animals, sterile as a museum.

I laid her in bed, pulled the covers up around her.

“What’s your name?”

“Nina.”

I nodded. “How old are you?”

“Four.”

I stared at her, heart burning behind my ribs. Four years old. Covered in blood. Already whispering about fate and sacrifice and visions.

“Would you like a story?” I asked.

She nodded.

So I gave her one.

Not a myth. Not a prophecy. Just something gentle. A made-up tale about a girl made of starlight who outran the dark.

Her eyes fluttered shut.

I stood quietly, turned to leave.

“Will you come back?” she mumbled, already half-asleep.

That stopped me cold.

I hadn’t planned to. I didn’t do attachments. I didn’t do children. I didn’t do this.

But the smell of blood was still in the walls.
And she was still here.

I looked back.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll come back.”

And I vanished into the night, not yet knowing how much that promise would cost me.

Chapter Text

Nina’s POV

It started like every other dinner party.

Too much perfume in the air. Too much wine in the glasses. Men in suits laughing too loud, women with frozen smiles on their painted faces. I sat on the stairs in my pink dress like I always did—quiet, good, invisible.

That was the rule. Be forgettable. Stay still. Don’t draw attention.

Except tonight, attention found me.

It started with a glance. Then a joke. Then a shove that wasn’t meant to be playful.

Later, after the clinking glasses had stopped and the adults were too drunk to pretend anymore, my father opened my bedroom door.

And he let them laugh.

They were drunk. Loud. Rough in the way men are when they think no one will remember what they do. One grabbed my arm. Another called me a brat. I tried not to cry. That made it worse. That always made it worse.

One of them hit me hard enough to make my ears ring. Another shoved me into the dresser. They laughed when I fell.

I think one of them wanted to prove something to my father. That he could make me scream.

I didn’t.

They left eventually. Left me bruised and curled up on the floor with my dress torn and my breath shallow.

I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t even move. I just stared at the wall, the bruises blooming fast, my body aching in a hundred places.

I was shaking. And I hated it.

Because I’d lived another life before this one. A full one. I remembered that life in flashes—books, loneliness, dreams bigger than my world could hold. In that life, I had wanted magic. Wanted gods.

Now I had them. And pain.

“Apollo…” My voice cracked, barely more than a whisper. “I know I have to be strong. I know I have to get through this. But I’m so scared.”

I didn’t expect him to answer.

But he did.

The air shifted—warm and sharp, like sunlight forcing its way into a locked room.

Light filled the space, golden and fierce. And then he was there.
Apollo.

He looked like he’d just left somewhere too shiny—his shirt half-unbuttoned, the scent of wine and something expensive clinging to him, like the world hadn’t quite rubbed off yet.

But the second he saw me, it did.

He froze.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. He saw.

The bruises. The torn fabric. The way I couldn’t even sit up.

His face didn’t move, but his eyes—
His eyes burned.

He knelt beside my bed and said, “Nina. Can I help you sit up?”

I nodded.

His hands were careful, like he thought I might splinter. I winced when he touched my ribs. He noticed, of course he did, but didn’t say anything. He just moved slower, like someone folding something fragile and sacred.

He didn’t ask what happened.
He already knew.

A bowl of warm water appeared beside us, conjured from somewhere that wasn’t here. He dipped a cloth in it and cleaned my hands first. Then my face. My temple stung where the blood had dried, but I didn’t pull away.

Then he gave me a dress. Simple. Soft. Not made to impress—made to comfort.

“I’ll give you a moment,” he said gently, standing and turning his back. “You can call me when you’re ready.”

He didn’t leave the room. He didn’t look. Just stood still, quiet, as I changed into the new clothes with shaky fingers and a lump in my throat.

When I whispered, “Okay,” he turned back around.

He tucked the blanket around me and sat on the floor next to my bed, like he wasn’t a god at all.

After a minute, he said, “Want to hear a story?”

I nodded.

He told me about a girl named Atalanta. A princess left to die because she wasn’t a boy. But Artemis sent a bear to raise her. She grew up fast and wild. She outran every man who tried to catch her. She became something fierce.

“Did she win?” I asked.

He smiled, just a little. “She won everything that mattered.”

That line curled around something inside me and held on.

I wasn’t Atalanta. Not yet. But maybe someday.

Maybe I’d stop being the one who got hurt and become the one who outran it.

I yawned. My body was still sore, but it didn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.

Apollo stood to leave.

“Will you stay?” I mumbled.

He paused.

Then I felt the bed dip again as he sat on the edge. His hand brushed through my hair—soft, steady.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll stay.”

And for one night—just one night—I wasn’t alone.

Chapter Text

Apollo’s POV

She was asleep.

Tucked into soft blankets that did nothing to hide the bruises underneath. Her breathing had steadied. Her face had gone slack with exhaustion. But my thoughts kept burning.

Nina.

A child.
A child who had been hurt—beaten until her voice cracked and her hands trembled, left shaking in a torn dress and afraid to cry.

My fingers curled into fists at my sides.

I hadn’t felt this kind of rage in centuries. Not the flashy anger of battle. Not the wounded pride of divine insult. This was older. Slower. The kind of fury that settles in your bones and simmers until it becomes unbearable.

I sat beside her until I was sure she wouldn’t wake. Until the rhythm of her breath had settled into something calm and even.

Then I stood.

And vanished before the fury could consume me whole.

I didn’t go far.
Didn’t have to.

He was still in the city.

The man.
The one who grabbed her. Shoved her. Left bruises on her skin and laughter in her ears. The one who made her call out for help like it was her last defense.

He was laughing when I found him.

Some dim hotel bar. Shirt unbuttoned, wedding ring on the table. Leaning in close to another woman with a cheap smile and the kind of charm that only works if no one’s looking too closely.

He didn’t see me right away.

But he would.

I followed him out into the night—let him stumble into an alleyway to smoke or gloat or pretend he was still the one in control.

Then I stepped forward.

He looked up, confused. “Who the hell—”

I didn’t speak.

The shadows peeled away from me. Light crept through the cracks like it was midday, though the stars were still out. The alley glowed golden, sharp at the edges.

He squinted, tried to cover his face.

It was too late.

“Do you know what you did?” I asked. My voice was calm. Too calm.

“I—I don’t know what you think—”

“I don’t think,” I said quietly. “I see.”

And I let him feel it.

Not pain. Not at first.

Memory.

I pulled it from him—the weight of what he’d done. I twisted it into light. Not the warmth of the sun, but the heat of justice. Searing, holy, exact.

He collapsed under it.

He begged. I stayed silent.
He cried. I stayed still.

I didn’t end him. That would’ve been too easy.

I marked him. Branded the truth into his bones where no one else could see, but he’d never forget. I made sure every laugh echoed with guilt. Every mirror showed him what he was. Every moment of rest trembled under what he’d done.

And when I left him, he was on the ground. Broken. Terrified.
Alive.

But not unchanged.

The light faded. I stood alone in the alley, hands still shaking, jaw clenched.

And it still wasn’t enough.

I left before Olympus could catch the scent of it. Before my sister could ask me why I looked like I’d seen war.

Before I could admit that I had.

I didn’t want to go back yet. Not to her. Not with this fire still under my skin.

So I found someone else.

One of the women who always said yes. Who liked the heat in my eyes and the danger in my voice. She answered the door in silk and nothing else. Her smile was easy. Familiar.

I didn’t speak. Didn’t joke.

I kissed her like I could burn the fury out of my body. I let her pull me inside. Let her drag me into heat and shadow and pretend for a while that I wasn’t a god unraveling at the edges.

For a few hours, I let myself believe it was enough.

That I hadn’t been called.
That I hadn’t answered.
That I wasn’t tangled in something far deeper than I understood.

But afterward, in the quiet, her hand on my chest and the smell of incense in the air, the truth still rang through me.

She called for me.

And I would hear her again.

Chapter Text

I turned five last week.

There was a cake. Store-bought. Pink frosting that tasted like plastic and bitterness. My stepmother didn’t bake it—she doesn’t cook unless you count pouring vodka over ice. She said “happy birthday” through clenched teeth, one hand resting on her swollen stomach like the baby inside her was something golden and untouched by the rot that clings to the rest of this house.

She’s seven months pregnant now.
I guess I’m supposed to care.

My father didn’t show for the candles. Too busy with a “business call.” Probably reorganizing someone’s spinal alignment over unpaid debts. Later that night, he remembered I existed—just long enough to grab my arm too hard and whisper something cruel in a voice that makes the walls hold their breath.

I didn’t cry.
I haven’t cried in a long time.

Kindergarten started a few weeks ago. It’s exactly as dull and suffocating as I remember. Primary colors everywhere. Teachers talking to us like we’re concussed. Glitter glue and soft voices and everyone pretending this is the start of something beautiful. I color inside the lines. I say my ABCs. I pretend I’m normal.

The other kids think I’m quiet. A little weird.
Good. Let them keep their distance.

The visions haven’t stopped.

Some are small. Like seeing Mrs. Carr’s coffee mug shatter before she even picks it up. Others hit harder. I saw a man in blue drown in a river I didn’t recognize. Felt his lungs flood. Heard the final slip of thought before silence swallowed him.

And a few nights ago—I saw him.

Percy Jackson.

He’s just a toddler now. Maybe three. In the vision, he was sitting on a kitchen floor surrounded by pots and pans, banging them like he thought he was a drummer. His hair was messy. His fists were red from excitement. His mother—Sally—was laughing beside him like nothing had ever hurt her.

That moment stuck with me.

Not because anything important happened. Not yet.

But because it was real.
He exists. He’s alive. He’s here.

And my second chance has officially started ticking.

Apollo still visits.

Every few weeks, he just shows up. Sometimes in my room. Sometimes outside on the swing set, pretending he’s always been there. He never knocks. He doesn’t have to. I feel him before I see him—like a brush of sunlight across the back of my neck. Warm. Watchful.

I think he’s trying to keep his distance.

He’s failing.

He’s the only person I feel safe with. Not because he could incinerate the house with a thought—though let’s be honest, that’s a plus—but because he listens. Because he doesn’t flinch when I don’t smile. Because he doesn’t expect anything from me except truth.

Last time, I didn’t say much. Just stared out the window until he sat beside me.

“You’re quiet,” he said.

I shrugged. “Quiet’s easier.”

He nodded like that made perfect sense.

Before he left, he handed me something.

A small leather book. Black. Unmarked. Gold stitching. I opened it and blinked at the blank pages.

“A diary?” I asked.

“A gift,” he said. “Only you can see what’s written inside. To everyone else, it’s blank.”

I stared at him. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “You need somewhere to put the things you can’t say out loud.”

That night, I started writing.

Not just feelings—though there’s plenty of that. Rage. Grief. That constant ache behind my ribs that doesn’t seem to have a name.

But more importantly, information.

Everything I remember from the books. The plotlines. The deaths. The betrayals. The monsters. Who lives. Who almost dies. Which gods play what roles. Every prophecy. Every fatal flaw. Every Achilles’ heel.

I write until my hand cramps. And the diary never runs out of pages.

To everyone else, it’s just a blank book hidden under my mattress. Wrapped in an old T-shirt. Forgotten. Unimportant.

To me, it’s survival. It’s proof. It’s war prep.

My own divine hard drive.

The abuse hasn’t stopped.

It never really does. It just changes speed. Some days are worse. Some days I can avoid the worst of it with the right flinch, the right silence, the right lie.

I go to school in long sleeves. I keep my posture perfect. I smile just enough.

At night, I write.
I plan.
I survive.

Because the world is shifting.
The players are waking up.

And this time…
I’m not just going to survive the war.

I’m going to win it.

Chapter Text

She was born in August. Diana Moretti.

The name was elegant, polished—clearly market-tested for maximum press appeal. It belonged on a perfume bottle or a penthouse door, not a baby. But when I saw her—soft and pink, blinking at the world like she hadn’t decided if it was worth trusting yet—I didn’t care what the headlines said. To me, she was Anna.

Tiny. Perfect. Blonde hair like spun gold. Big blue eyes that blinked too slowly, like her soul hadn’t fully caught up to her body yet. Everyone in the hospital cooed. Flashbulbs popped. My father wore his best smile—the one reserved for campaign trail photo-ops and discreet threats. My stepmother wept on cue. The media devoured it.

“Media Mogul Lorenzo Moretti Welcomes Baby Daughter. A Family Man at Last.”

A month later, my stepmother was back in heels and lipstick, draped in designer silk and drinking champagne like the whole thing had been a limited-edition PR event. And Anna? Anna became mine.

The nanny was technically present, but mostly preoccupied with her phone and whatever Kardashian-inspired lifestyle she was chasing. Bottles were left too cold. Diapers were ignored too long. Anna would cry until her face turned blotchy and purple, and no one would even blink.

Except me.

I picked her up. I fed her. I changed her. I sang to her—off-key lullabies I only half-remembered from some other life. She liked when I wrinkled my nose at her. She’d squeal and kick like the joy was too much for her tiny body to contain, and for a second, I could almost forget where we were. Who we belonged to. What kind of house this really was.

She didn’t know yet. Didn’t know the masks. The threats behind closed doors. The way smiles cut sharper than knives. And I planned to keep it that way.

They didn’t hurt her. Not like they did me. Not yet. She was still new. Precious. Untouched. A miracle headline in a custom crib. Her nursery was featured in some glossy magazine like it was the room of a fairy tale princess, all cream tones and curated lies. But once the interviews ended, so did the interest. Diana wasn’t a daughter to them. She was a hashtag. A photo op. Another carefully arranged puzzle piece in the Moretti brand.

But to me?

She was real.

Warm and soft and small in ways that made something ancient flicker in my chest. I’d lie next to her crib at night, listening to her breathe, watching her sleep like it was something sacred. She’d smile sometimes in her dreams, and I’d feel it like a punch to the heart.

If anyone ever laid a finger on her—I would burn this house to the ground.

Apollo hasn’t come back since he gave me the diary. I try not to take it personally. He’s a god. He has other lives to light, other storms to ignore. But part of me wishes he’d return. Not just for me—but for her. I want him to see her. To see how soft she is. How bright. How she makes the world feel less like a punishment.

Anna is mine now. Not legally. Not biologically. But in all the ways that matter. She didn’t ask to be born into this dynasty of polished smiles and weaponized affection. But she’s here. And I will protect her. Even if it means hiding every sharp, dangerous part of myself just to keep her world soft.

She is hope in a onesie. And for the first time in a long time, I have something worth surviving for.

Chapter Text

Nina’s POV

I hadn’t slept in two days.

Okay—more like four. But who’s counting when your entire world is bottles, diapers, spit-up, and trying not to have a breakdown in front of a four-month-old?

Anna was in what I now called her Baby Apocalypse Phase. She cried if I put her down. She cried if I picked her up. She cried because she was a baby and that’s apparently just what they do.

Martha—the nanny—was technically here, but unless the crib was on fire, she preferred to “supervise from a distance.” That meant checking in twice a day, warming a bottle like it was beneath her, and vanishing with the speed of divine punishment the second Anna so much as hiccupped.

My father and stepmother were gone. A week-long “business and spa retreat,” because nothing says parental investment like leaving your five-year-old to raise a baby while you get your chakras realigned in the Alps.

So here I was. Five years old. In a crayon-stained T-shirt. Living off cupcake frosting and the vague memory of sleep. I hadn’t eaten a full meal in days. My arms ached. My brain felt like a used napkin. I was seconds from crying because the bottle warmer blinked at me the wrong way.

I looked at Anna—screaming, again. I was doing everything wrong and nothing right and I wasn’t even sure what the difference was anymore.

And the worst part?

In my past life, I avoided babies.

I wasn’t a baby person. I didn’t babysit. I didn’t dream of motherhood. I avoided every screaming toddler in Target like they were a cursed object. I had no idea how to soothe a baby, much less raise one.

And yet here I was. Holding the line. Holding her.

Barely.

That’s when the nursery filled with golden light.

Because of course. What better time for a god to drop in than right as I was about to have a very public breakdown in front of a bottle and a burp rag?

Apollo stepped into the light like he always did—perfect shirt, designer jeans, sunglasses still hooked to his collar like this was Coachella and not a battlefield. He looked at me and froze.

“Nina,” he said quietly. “What happened?”

I wiped my face with my sleeve. “They left. A week ago. It’s just been me. And her. And Martha, the motivational poster for passive neglect.”

Anna let out a shriek. I picked her up. She quieted slightly. My arms were shaking.

“You’ve been alone this whole time?”

“Mostly. Martha stops in when she remembers we exist.”

“You’re five.”

“Very observant.”

“You’re five,” he said again, but softer now. “And they left you to care for a baby.”

I didn’t answer.

“You shouldn’t have to,” he murmured. “This isn’t what childhood is supposed to look like.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Welcome to the Moretti house.”

He looked like he wanted to shatter something. Maybe the windows. Maybe Martha.

Then, gentler: “Do you want help?”

I blinked at him. “From you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a literal god.”

“I’ve held babies before.”

I stared at him.

“…Most of them survived,” he added.

“You’re very reassuring.”

“I’m offering,” he said, hands out. “That’s all.”

I hesitated. Then passed Anna into his arms.

She blinked up at him, hiccupped, and latched onto his shirt collar like she was ready to claim him as property.

Apollo looked mildly terrified.

“Okay,” he said. “This is fine. I’ve battled monsters. I can hold one baby.”

Anna sneezed directly on his chest.

His eye twitched.

I laughed.

Loud. Sudden. Real. The kind of laugh that escapes before you can fake a smile. It hurt. I didn’t care.

“You’re laughing,” Apollo said, stunned.

“She sneezed on your soul,” I wheezed.

He smiled. “I’ve survived prophecies. I’ll recover.”

And for the first time in a very long time, the nursery didn’t feel like a prison.

It felt… warm.
Like maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t doing all of this alone.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Apollo’s POV

By the time I looked back at her, Nina was asleep.

Curled on the floor. Arms tucked under her head. Wrapped in a blanket like a kid pretending she was brave and not completely falling apart.

She looked small. Too small.

Then Anna squawked like I’d committed war crimes by ignoring her for five seconds.

Right. The baby.

I bounced her gently. That was what people did, wasn’t it?

“Okay,” I murmured. “It’s just you and me now. Two entities of immense power. What could go wrong?”

She stared at me.

Then spit up.

“…Awesome.”

I spotted a pre-filled bottle near a futuristic warming machine. Nina had probably set it up before she passed out. I offered it to Anna. She refused. Loudly.

“No. No no. You’re supposed to eat. This is the plan. I’m doing the thing.”

She cried.

I panicked.

Eventually, after some fumbling, a desperate search history I’ll be deleting immediately, and one very long minute where I thought she might combust, she accepted the bottle.

Victory.

“Teamwork,” I whispered. “You and me against the forces of chaos.”

She farted. Loudly.

“…Incredible.”

Once she was fed, a new horror revealed itself.

The diaper.

I’d watched civilizations crumble. I’d battled monsters and guided empires. I had never—until this moment—understood the true terror of modern parenting.

Diapers were evil. Sticky. Confusing. There were flaps and snaps and one very cursed onesie.

But I did it.

Eventually.

Anna looked pleased. Or smug. Hard to tell.

I held her again, and she curled into my chest with a content little sigh. Her fingers tangled in my shirt.

And suddenly, I got it.

I looked at Nina—curled up, half buried in blankets, breathing steady.

Two girls. Alone in this massive house. Abandoned.

And somehow, they’d pulled me into their orbit.

I rocked Anna gently until she slept.

And for the first time in a very, very long time…

I didn’t feel like a god.
I just felt like someone who showed up late.
But maybe not too late.

Chapter Text

Anna was finally asleep.

Her tiny chest rose and fell in slow, even breaths. One arm was flopped above her head, her stuffed bunny mashed into her side like a sidekick. Her face was soft. Trusting. Completely unaware of what house she’d been born into.

I reached into the crib and adjusted her blanket. Checked her cheeks. Her arms. Just to be sure. Just to see. I’d already done it three times in the past hour, but my brain wouldn’t believe it unless I saw her again.

She was untouched.
She was safe.
She was still mine.

But I didn’t relax.

The house was too quiet. The kind of quiet that only comes after.
After the laughter fades. After the guests leave. After the damage is done.

There was a new bruise blooming on my shoulder. Oval, ring-shaped. My ribs ached. My lip stung where it had split. But none of that mattered. Not really.

All that mattered was that she hadn’t cried.

I sat by her crib and stayed still, listening for ghosts.

In my past life, I avoided babies. I never held them. Never babysat. I didn’t even like seeing them in grocery stores. I was the girl who said “not for me” whenever someone posted baby pictures.

Now I was the one standing guard.

The nursery lights dimmed.
The air warmed.

And then he was there.

Apollo.

He looked disheveled—shirt wrinkled, sleeves rolled, hair tied back with loose strands clinging to his cheek. Tired in a way that went deeper than sleep.

His eyes landed on my face and tightened.

“Hey,” he said gently. “She asleep?”

“Barely.”

He crossed the room and stood beside me, one hand resting on the crib rail. His gaze dropped to my shoulder. My lip. He didn’t speak, but the light in the room seemed to shift with his mood—brighter, hotter, angrier.

“I want to protect her,” I said.

“You are,” he said.

“Not enough.”

He didn’t argue.

“I want to be strong enough that no one ever scares her,” I said. “Not even for a second. I want to fight.”

He paused. “You sure?”

I nodded. “Teach me.”

Apollo studied me. When he spoke, his voice was calm.

“The first step isn’t strength.”

“Then what is it?”

“Getting what you want,” he said. “By any means necessary.”

“You mean... manipulation?”

“I mean survival,” he said. “You’re small. You’re pretty. You’re a child. People underestimate you. Use it.”

“That feels dirty.”

“It’s effective,” he said. “The point isn’t to be noble. It’s to win. You know that.”

I did.
I’d seen Katherine Pierce live centuries longer than she should have.
And I’d watched the Jedi fall because they followed rules meant for a world that no longer existed.

I looked down at my hands.
Small. Steady.
Use what you have.

“You’re saying I should act like a little girl so no one sees me coming.”

“I’m saying,” he said quietly, “that if they ever try to hurt Anna—”

“I make sure they regret it.”

He nodded.

We stood in silence, the soft hum of Anna’s white noise machine lulling the room. I didn’t thank him. He didn’t ask for one.

Then Anna stirred.

She blinked sleepily, her face puffy with sleep, and looked between us with a vaguely confused expression. Then she pointed one chubby finger right at Apollo and said—clear as babbling could manage:

“Dada.”

Apollo blinked.

“Wait—what?!”

Anna giggled.

“Well,” I said, “that’s new.”

“No. No no no—she’s not saying that. That’s just a syllable. Just—sounds! Like ‘baba’ or ‘nana’ or—”

“She looked you dead in the face.”

“She’s a baby!”

“She chose violence.”

“She’s going to say that in front of other people,” he muttered, spiraling. “I cannot have this. I am a literal deity. I do not pay mortal child support.”

I wheezed. A full laugh ripped through my chest and left my ribs aching.

Anna squealed like she’d just delivered a punchline.

Apollo looked between us—panicked, resigned, and maybe just a little bit enchanted.

He let out a breath and muttered, “I’m going to need a better cover story.”

Chapter Text

He said it would only be a few days.

Then a few weeks.

Then a year passed, and Diana stopped asking.

I was in the kitchen when he appeared.

No glowing entrance. No dramatic warmth. Just a quiet shift in the air, like the house took a breath—and there he was. Hair a little longer, shirt rumpled, sunglasses hooked into the collar like nothing had changed.

“You’re taller,” he said.

“You’re later,” I replied.

Diana came around the corner, dragging her bunny by the ear. She looked at him.

Then at me.

Then back at him.

“Who dat?” she asked, blinking.

Apollo didn’t say anything. Just… froze.

And in that second, I saw it.

He thought she would remember.

She didn’t.

That night, she sat curled in my lap on the couch, thumb in her mouth, eyelids heavy.

Apollo stayed on the other end, unusually quiet.

“She used to light up when she saw you,” I said softly.

He looked at her like she was already gone.

“I want her to feel safe again,” he said. “Even if she never remembers why.”

The next morning, he handed me a sword.

Not a toy. Not training foam. Real steel.

“You came back for sword practice?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “I came back for you.”

“Sure,” I muttered. “That’s what they all say.”

Sword training with a god is not glamorous.

It’s bruises and blisters and dust in your teeth. It’s your arms screaming and your ribs throbbing and your pride trying to crawl off somewhere and die.

“Get up,” he said for the fourth time.

I spit blood onto the sand. “No motivational quote? No training montage music?”

“You’re not here to feel strong. You’re here to be dangerous.”

The blade hovered an inch from my neck. Not touching. Just reminding.

I got up.

Again.

And again.

And again.

When we stopped, I couldn’t feel my hands.

I collapsed into the dirt, sword dropping beside me, lungs heaving.

Apollo sat next to me and handed me a bottle of water without a word.

We drank in silence while the cicadas sang and the sky burned orange.

“I pushed too hard,” he said eventually.

“No,” I croaked. “You didn’t push hard enough.”

He glanced at me. Not pity.

Something heavier.

“I’m not trying to break you,” he said. “I’m trying to make sure no one else does.”

“I know.”

His gaze shifted toward the house.

Upstairs, Diana’s face was pressed against the windowpane, watching us with wide eyes.

“She’s gotten bigger,” he murmured.

“She’s two and a half,” I said. “Not a baby anymore.”

“She’s… different,” he said. “More guarded.”

“She gets nervous around people she doesn’t recognize,” I said.

“She used to smile when she saw me.”

“She used to know who you were.”

That silenced him.

After dinner, Diana was in the living room stacking blocks in bizarre architectural defiance of gravity.

Apollo sat on the floor near her, cross-legged, careful not to crowd.

She didn’t look at him.

But when one block tower toppled and she frowned, he reached over and helped her start again—wordless, quiet.

She let him.

That was something.

That night, I stood in front of the mirror, inspecting the bruises down my arms.

They’d fade.

The strength wouldn’t.

From down the hall, I could hear Diana’s voice—soft, half-laughing, speaking in her half-English, half-toddler dialect. Apollo’s voice followed, quieter, matching her tone.

He was reading her something.

She wasn’t protesting.

That was new.

Later, I stood in the doorway and watched them.

She was curled on the edge of her bed, bunny tucked under one arm. Apollo sat on the floor, book open in his lap.

She wasn’t touching him.

But she was listening.

He glanced up when he saw me.

“She likes stories about animals,” he said.

“She likes being told things are going to be okay.”

Pause.

“I want her to trust me again,” he said.

“She doesn’t need you to be a god,” I replied. “She needs you to show up.”

He nodded.

“I will.”

I didn’t answer.

I wasn’t ready to believe it.

Not yet.

But Diana didn’t flinch when he closed the book.

Didn’t pull away when he smoothed the blanket over her.

Didn’t speak when he whispered, “Goodnight, little star.”

But she smiled.

And that was enough for today.

Chapter Text

I woke up because something was wrong.

Not because of a nightmare. Not because of a vision. Because the world was too still. Like the house had gone silent in the wrong direction.

The air felt heavy. Stretched thin.

Diana was asleep beside me, one arm tucked under her bunny, her breathing slow and steady. She looked soft. Safe.

I didn’t want to wake her.

I moved carefully, easing off the mattress and reaching behind the dresser for the sword Apollo gave me. Celestial bronze, short blade, perfectly balanced for a kid-sized grip.

It felt like purpose in my hand.

The hallway was darker than it should’ve been. No moonlight. No hum from the street outside. Just thick, unnatural quiet.

Downstairs, something moved.

I crept through the shadows, every step deliberate, every breath tight in my throat.

Then I saw it.

Near the fireplace. Tall. Still. Almost human—until it turned.

Its face was blank skin stretched too tight, and where the mouth should’ve ended, more teeth began.

“Half-blood,” it rasped, voice like rocks grinding under water. “Did you really think you could stay hidden forever?”

I didn’t answer.

It smiled wider. “I smell the other one. Small. Soft. I wonder how she screams.”

I moved without thinking.

The first hit caught its leg, shallow but real. It snarled and lunged. I blocked one strike, dodged the next, and tripped over the rug. I hit the floor hard. My sword skidded across the tile.

It grabbed my arm.

Pain lanced up through my shoulder.

I screamed.

And then I headbutted it.

The grip loosened.

I dove, grabbed the blade, and drove it up with both hands—straight into the thing’s chest.

It convulsed. Shuddered.

And dissolved into dust.

I stayed on my knees, breathing hard, arms trembling. My hands stung. My side throbbed where it hit me.

But I was still here.

Behind me, the room warmed.

I didn’t turn. I didn’t have to.

Apollo stepped into the doorway, quiet, unreadable. He crossed the room and knelt beside me.

His gaze swept over the floor, the fading dust, the sword still in my hand.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Just bruises.”

“Is she—?”

“She’s fine. Still asleep.”

He reached for my face. I flinched instinctively, but didn’t stop him. His fingers glowed faintly as they brushed over a shallow cut along my jaw.

The pain faded. Mostly.

He picked up the sword, cleaned the dust from the hilt, and held it out again.

I took it.

He didn’t smile, but the look in his eyes was close to proud.

“Clean kill,” he said. “You kept your head.”

“I cried.”

“And you still won.”

I looked away.

Later, I sat on the couch with Diana tucked into my lap. She had shifted once, murmured something in her sleep, then settled again. Her fist still clutched her bunny.

I hadn’t let go of the sword.

Apollo leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. Watching. Quiet.

“She’ll never know,” I said.

“No,” he agreed.

“That’s the point, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer.

I looked down at the faint scrape on my palm. The only thing left of the fight.

“One down,” I murmured.

“What?”

I met his eyes and shrugged. “Just keeping score.”

I didn’t sleep again.

My body remembered the fight, even after it ended. The way the monster smelled. The weight of its grip. The sound it made when it dissolved.

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

I got up before dawn and walked to the training field behind the house. The air was cold and still.

I drew the sword.

Swung once.

The pain was instant—bright and blooming from my shoulder to my spine. I dropped the blade. Hit the dirt.

It wasn’t even a clean fall. Just a crumple. Like a marionette with the strings cut.

Stupid. Too soon.

I sat there, hands on my knees, trying to breathe past the lump in my throat. The panic clawed at my ribs, small and sharp and familiar.

Then I heard the back door creak open.

Tiny feet on the porch.

Diana padded toward me in one of Apollo’s oversized shirts and mismatched socks. Her bunny dragged behind her, one ear already dirty.

She sat beside me without a word.

I didn’t speak.

She didn’t ask questions.

Just leaned into my side, all warm limbs and sleepy silence.

Her little hand wrapped around my wrist.

And somehow, everything stilled.

Not healed. Not fixed.

But bearable.

When Apollo found us, we were still sitting there. Diana half-asleep, her head against my shoulder. My sword forgotten in the grass.

He didn’t say anything. Just stood there for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

Eventually, Diana looked up and blinked at him.

“Hi,” she said.

His smile was soft. “Hi, little one.”

He crouched near me.

“She knew something happened,” I said. “Even without knowing what.”

“She always knows,” he murmured.

“She didn’t ask.”

“She doesn’t need to.”

Later, after she’d gone back inside—probably in search of juice or pancakes—I stayed on the steps. Apollo lingered nearby, his hands in his pockets.

“You don’t have to be steel every day,” he said.

I stared at the grass.

“She sat next to me,” I said. “That’s all.”

“Sometimes that’s enough.”

He nodded toward the trees. The place where the monster had stood. Where I’d stood after.

“Rest today,” he said quietly. “The war will still be there tomorrow.”

I didn’t argue.

I was too tired to.

Chapter Text

Two years changed everything.

My sword didn’t shake in my hands anymore. My stance was steady. My breath stayed even.

The training dummy across from me—scarred, dented, and half-decapitated from months of abuse—wasn’t a symbol of fear anymore. It was just a target. One I took apart, piece by piece.

Apollo hadn’t gone easy on me. He didn’t soften his critiques. He didn’t let me win. He corrected my footwork, forced me to hold my blade higher, struck when I dropped my guard. And I kept coming back.

Not because I liked it.

Because I needed to be good enough to survive.

And now, finally, I was starting to believe I might.

I turned nine last week.

Diana’s still three, but she’s counting down the months until her birthday like the world depends on it. “I’m big soon,” she tells everyone. “I’m almost four.”

She still calls Apollo “Sunny.”

He tried to tell her his real name once, very gently. She said, “Okay,” and went right back to calling him Sunny like the matter was settled by royal decree. It stuck.

She doesn’t understand the full family tree. But she knows enough.

Diana is my father’s daughter. Same man, same bloodline. But her life started differently. By the time she was born, he had already turned me into something silent and smiling. Madison was never warm, but she knew how to pose for cameras. Diana was a PR move with chubby cheeks. A headline dressed in tulle.

And then everyone got bored.

The difference was, I didn’t.

This morning, Diana and I drew pictures with sidewalk chalk on the back patio. She made a wonky house with four stick figures. One had long hair like hers. One had a sword. One was “Sunny” with long yellow scribbles for hair.

“He brings snacks,” she said. “And he says bugs are disgusting.”

I blinked. “He says that?”

She nodded solemnly. “One time he stepped on a crunchy one and said a bad word.”

Apollo chose that moment to walk outside.

“I did not say a bad word,” he said immediately.

“You did,” Diana replied without looking up. “You said ‘ugh.’ That counts.”

I kept a straight face. “Perjury from the god of truth. Tragic.”

“I’m going back inside.”

That evening, once Diana had passed out halfway through a very serious story involving a unicorn car chase and a cake heist, Apollo met me near the edge of the property.

He handed me a box. No speech. Just handed it over.

Inside was a necklace—thin gold chain, small sun-shaped charm, delicate but weighty.

It was warm. Not magic-warm. Just… constant.

I looked at him.

“It’s linked to me,” he said. “If you’re ever in danger, it’ll help me find you.”

My fingers closed over it.

“There’s more,” he added. “If you pull the charm, it’ll shift.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Into what?”

“A blade. Yours. Lightweight. Enchanted, but subtle.”

I stared at him. “So you’re giving me a transformer necklace for my ninth birthday?”

He sighed. “It’s a divine contingency tool.”

“That’s what I said.”

He didn’t laugh, but I saw the twitch of it in his jaw. “I figured you deserved something more than cake.”

I ran my thumb over the charm’s edges.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

“You’ve earned it.”

Back inside, Diana was sprawled across the couch like a starfish, one leg flung over Apollo’s lap. She stirred as he tried to shift.

“Sunny,” she mumbled, eyes still closed, “can you make pancakes tomorrow?”

He let out a very soft, very exhausted sigh. “She’s persistent.”

“She’s got your number,” I said, watching him try and fail to peel her off his arm.

“She knows I’m not—”

“She knows,” I cut in. “She just doesn’t care.”

Apollo looked down at her tiny hand curled in his sleeve. His expression didn’t change, but his shoulders relaxed slightly.

“I’m not built for this,” he said.

“Yeah, well. She thinks you are.”

He glanced at me. “Should I be worried?”

“Very,” I said. “You’re being emotionally mugged by a glitter-obsessed toddler who thinks pancakes are a love language.”

“Terrifying.”

“You’re doomed.”

That night, they both fell asleep on the couch—Diana curled into his side like she belonged there, Apollo too tired to argue.

I stood in the hallway, the new necklace clutched between my fingers.

It didn’t make me feel untouchable.

But it made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Like maybe I wasn’t alone anymore.

And that? That was enough.

Chapter Text

The moment the sky cracked gold and something godly landed in our backyard, I knew it wasn’t Apollo.

Too fast. Too flashy. Too smug.

I stood from where I’d been sitting on a picnic blanket under the trees, brushing dirt from my knees. Diana was napping next to me, curled up around a stuffed rabbit, her mouth open in that toddler-sleep kind of way.

The newcomer landed with wind, glittering air, and a leather jacket that screamed “look at me.” Diana stirred but didn’t wake.

I tightened my grip on the dagger in my boot and said, “Wrong address?”

The man grinned like I’d just offered him a drink. “Now that’s an opening line. Very ‘don’t kill me, I’m cool’ energy.”

Aviators. Pilot jacket. Vibes like a raccoon who knew he was charming. I didn’t need a name tag.

“Hermes.”

He tapped his temple. “Knew you were sharp.”

“And you must be the reason Apollo’s been acting weird.”

He chuckled, strolling closer. “Weird? My brother disappears from Olympus for days at a time, comes back humming mortal lullabies, and smells like lavender shampoo. So yeah, weird.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You thought you were going to catch him sneaking off to see some forbidden lover.”

“Didn’t expect it to be a teenager in sweatpants and war crimes in her eyes,” he said, squinting. “I was prepared for sultry, not stabby.”

“Disappointed?”

“Honestly? A little afraid.”

He scanned the backyard—garden hose, chalk drawings, Diana’s forgotten coloring book flopped open in the grass. Then his eyes settled on her.

“You’ve got a guest,” he murmured.

“My sister.”

He tilted his head. “Half?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t say anything for a second. Just looked.

“Cute kid.”

“Terrifying,” I said.

“She looks like she runs the house.”

“She does.”

“Wait,” he added, watching her roll slightly in her sleep, her little hand flopping against the blanket. “Is she the one who calls Apollo… what was it? Sunny?”

I blinked.

“…Who told you that?”

He held up both hands. “Relax. He complained about it last time I saw him. Grumbled something about rainbows and being emotionally hijacked by a toddler. I thought he was exaggerating.”

I sighed. “He wasn’t.”

Hermes let out a low whistle. “She really calls him that?”

“She renamed him. He didn’t get a say.”

He crouched slightly, still not close to her, just watching with a furrowed brow.

“She’s mortal?”

“Yes.”

“Just… regular mortal?”

“Yes.”

He glanced up at me. “And yet she’s wrapped Apollo around her glitter-stained finger.”

I shrugged. “She has that effect.”

Hermes stood again, brushing invisible dust from his sleeves.

“I’m not here to cause problems,” he said. “Just wanted to meet the girl who’s been rewriting Apollo’s schedule.”

“He’s not rewriting anything,” I said. “He shows up. Sometimes.”

“More than he does for most of his kids,” Hermes pointed out.

“I’m not his kid.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

I didn’t respond.

He stepped back, sliding his hands into his jacket pockets like he was bored already.

“She calls him Sunny, huh?” he said again, more amused than anything.

“Yeah.”

“She’s going to break someone’s heart someday.”

“She already has.”

Hermes chuckled softly. “Want me to pass along a message?”

I shook my head. “He knows.”

Hermes nodded. “Yeah. I figured.”

And then he was gone.

Apollo arrived three hours later in a streak of warm light and full-body panic.

“Please tell me Diana hasn’t drawn me riding a unicorn again.”

“She upgraded you to a flying waffle,” I said. “With sunglasses and a cape.”

He groaned. “I can never leave.”

“You almost got caught.”

His head snapped toward me. “What?”

“Hermes was here.”

He froze.

“What did he say?”

I listed it off. The arrival. The questions. The muttered godly gossip. His confusion. His actual concern.

“He didn’t say anything to Diana,” I added. “Didn’t get close.”

Apollo exhaled. “Thank the Fates.”

“He figured out she calls you Sunny, though.”

He closed his eyes. “Of course he did.”

“She’s consistent.”

“She’s relentless.”

We sat on the back patio while Diana napped again indoors, the chalk drawings from earlier scattered across the bricks like a myth told by someone on a sugar high. Apollo leaned back in his chair, hand shading his eyes from the late sun.

After a while, he said, “He thought she was mine, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. For a second.”

“And you told him?”

“That she’s my half-sister. That she’s mortal. That she renamed you out of pure toddler chaos and you surrendered.”

He grunted. “Accurate.”

Then, after a long pause, he asked something he hadn’t asked before.

“Why do you think she picked me?”

I looked at him. Really looked.

Because he was steady, when nothing else had been. Because he listened. Because he stayed, even when he left. Because he gave space without leaving silence behind.

“She saw you,” I said. “That’s all it takes.”

Diana burst outside fifteen minutes later in a tutu, rain boots, and a cape made from a pillowcase. She sprinted toward Apollo at full speed.

“Sunny! The dragon came back!”

He stood instantly. “Then I must put on my socks of valor.”

“Bring your sword!”

“I have three.”

I watched her drag him across the lawn by one hand, squealing as he pretended to trip and shouted dramatic nonsense about fireproof breakfast foods.

My hand drifted to the charm at my neck. The one he gave me. The one that still pulsed faintly warm, even when he was standing right there.

And for just a minute, I believed that maybe—just maybe—this was how it could be.

Not forever. But enough.

Chapter Text

The men who worked for my father never looked at me the way they should’ve.

They saw a quiet girl. A bruised girl. A doll in a pink dress who curtsied on command and never spoke unless spoken to. They assumed the silence meant I was afraid.

They were wrong.

Silence is safer than knives.
And infinitely sharper.

Because silence lets you stay in the room.
And I needed to be in the room.

— ❖ —

It started with whispers.

Carlo was the first. Loud. Sloppy. His voice always too close. His gaze lingered where it shouldn’t.

He once bragged to a guard, half-drunk on expensive whiskey, that my father had “let him have a turn.” That I’d been “quiet like a good girl.”

I was seven.
He called me sweet.

I smiled at him.
Then I planted a rumor.

A simple line, whispered to the bookkeeper with tired eyes and a nervous smile. I said I thought Carlo was hiding money. That he always seemed to have more cash than anyone else.

She passed it along.

Carlo vanished three days later.

No one explained. No one asked.

But two days after that, I found blood on the back stairs.

And I didn’t flinch.

— ❖ —

That was the moment I understood.
If I couldn’t stop them all with a sword—I could turn them against each other.

And they’d never see it coming.

I started mapping the house in my mind. Who spoke to who. Who flinched when my father yelled. Who stayed quiet when Diana was mentioned.

The guards didn’t trust each other.
The drivers were underpaid.
The staff were tired and overworked.

They talked. I listened.
And I started feeding them exactly what they needed.

The guard who never hit me too hard? I left his favorite pastries where he’d find them. He started calling me “kiddo” instead of “girl.”

The housekeeper who always looked away when Diana ran by? I asked her what “cooking the books” meant. She laughed. But she told me.

And then she started warning me which men were “not safe.”
Which ones “wouldn’t be missed.”

I was still smiling.
Still curtsying.
Still letting them think I was helpless.

But I was shifting weight behind the scenes.
Like moving sand under a fortress.

— ❖ —

Diana doesn’t know.

She sings lullabies to her stuffed animals. She stacks rocks in rainbow order and kisses my hands when I burn them on the stove. She thinks the world is kind.

And I’m building a wall made of blood and lies and quiet manipulation to keep her from ever knowing otherwise.

My father still owns the house.
But I’ve started carving out my empire inside his.

One whisper at a time.

— ❖ —

Apollo doesn’t see it yet.

He thinks I’m training with blades and breath—learning to survive the way heroes do.

But I’m not trying to be a hero.

I’m trying to be untouchable.

And this part?

This is mine.

Built in silence.
Forged from shame.
And soaked in names only I remember.

Chapter Text

By eleven, I’d gotten used to the rhythm of fear.

I could walk into a room and feel the temperature before the air conditioning kicked in. I could hear silence and tell whether it was the calm before violence or the kind that meant I had a moment to breathe.

I’d learned how to look harmless and be anything but.

How to stay two steps ahead of men with power and zero moral restraint.

How to smile like I wasn’t planning their downfall.

I was not safe. But I was steady.

And then, one ordinary morning, my body reminded me that girls are never safe for long.

The cramp hit like a low punch to the gut.

Not sharp. Not enough to drop me. Just enough to say: something's changed.

I knew. Before I looked, before I confirmed what I already felt in my spine—I knew.

I’d lived this in my last life. I’d cried in a Target bathroom stall with a pair of spare leggings in my backpack. It had been embarrassing and weird.

This time, it wasn’t embarrassing.

It was horrifying.

Because here, in this life, blood wasn’t a rite of passage.

It was a warning.

It meant they’d look at me differently. That if my father found out—if the wrong man found out—I’d no longer be too young.

And I didn’t know if I had enough weapons yet.

“Apollo.”

It left my mouth without thought. Just breath and desperation.

He arrived not in a flash—but a burst.

Light cracked through the floor tiles. The mirror buzzed with static. The air shifted, charged like the moment before lightning splits the sky.

Then he was there.

Wrinkled shirt. No shoes. Gold around the edges. Panic in his eyes.

“What happened? Where’s Diana? Are you hurt—?”

I didn’t answer.

Just pointed.

He followed my gaze.

And stopped cold.

“…Oh,” he breathed. Then again, lower, “Oh.”

The glow around him dimmed. His shoulders fell an inch.

He looked like he’d just realized he’d brought a spear to a battlefield made entirely of glass.

We ended up on the bathroom floor. Me in a ball near the linen cabinet. Apollo against the tub, arms over his knees like he was trying to fold down into something smaller.

“You’re not doing great,” I said.

He blew out a breath. “This is deeply outside my contract.”

“You’re a healer.”

“Of wounds,” he replied. “Not… this.”

“You shoot monsters in the face with golden arrows.”

“Yes. That, I understand.”

“But you’re scared of a period.”

He gestured helplessly. “It’s not the period, Nina. It’s what it means.”

“Exactly.”

I hugged my knees tighter.

There was a pause.

“I’m not scared of the blood,” I whispered. “I’m scared of what it lets them do.”

His head turned. Slowly.

“To men like my father,” I said, “blood is permission.”

His jaw tightened.

“If they knew—if he knew—I wouldn’t be safe. Not in the way I’ve managed to be. Not anymore.”

Apollo didn’t speak. But his hands—trembling slightly—moved toward me.

He offered one.

Open. Unshaking.

Sacred.

I took it.

I fell asleep sometime after that, curled in the corner of my king-sized bed under five layers of overpriced bedding.

Diana slept soundly down the hall in her own room, surrounded by too many plush toys and a nightlight shaped like a star. She still had no idea that the world we lived in could devour girls whole.

I planned to keep it that way.

I woke to morning light slicing through the blackout curtains.

And something on my nightstand.

Three objects, arranged with divine precision:

A slender blade, wrapped in embroidered silk.

A sealed vial, filled with something that shimmered dark red.

A plain white box. Birth control. No explanation needed.

And beside them: a note.

One line. No flourish. Just truth.

“Three ways to say no.
Use whichever makes you feel strongest.
—A.”

I stared at it for a long time.

Then folded it once, carefully, and tucked it into the drawer beside my bed.

Not because I needed it yet.

But because one day, I might.

And when that day came—

I would not flinch.
I would not ask.
I would not beg.

I would choose.
And I would end it.

Chapter Text

The house had gone still. Not just quiet, but wrong—the kind of silence that sank beneath the floorboards and waited. I stayed in bed, covers pulled to my chest, eyes fixed on the ceiling, and listened.

The door creaked.

I didn’t need to look.

I knew.

He stepped in like he owned the air in the room, slow and careful, his cologne mixing with the scent of old wine and rot. My father didn’t slam doors. He didn’t yell.

He didn’t have to.

"You’re growing up," he said softly, voice thick. "Just like your mother. Pretty little thing."

I didn’t speak. My hand found the knife Apollo gave me, hidden beneath my pillow, fingers closing around it like instinct.

He stepped closer.

"Take off your nightgown."

My heart didn’t pound. It roared.

Then he said the words that lit the match:

"Maybe I should try the little one next. See if she’s as sweet as you."

Time fractured.

I moved before thought could catch up. The blade came free, and I drove it up into the soft place under his jaw. Not elegant. Not clean. Just raw, panicked strength.

Blood hit the floor before he did.

He gurgled, clawing at his throat, eyes wide. I watched the light drain out of them like a sink emptying.

Then I dropped to the floor.

My hands trembled. My chest hurt. But I didn’t cry.

"Apollo," I choked out. "Please."

Golden light cracked open the world.

He appeared at the foot of the bed like he’d fallen out of the sun—barefoot, disheveled, eyes scanning and locking on me.

The blood. The body. The blade in my hand.

He was beside me in a second.

I tried to speak. Failed. My voice came out strangled.

"He said her name. Diana. He said—I couldn’t let him. I couldn’t let him touch her."

Apollo’s hand found mine, gently pulling the knife from my grip.

"You protected her," he said. "You protected yourself. You did what needed to be done."

My eyes burned. My throat locked.

"I don’t regret it."

"You shouldn’t."

He moved quickly after that. Covered the body. Checked the hall. Locked the door. Efficient. Like he’d done this before. He had.

I stood on unsteady legs as he guided me to Diana’s room.

She was still asleep.

Her cheek was smushed into her pillow, one hand curled around her bunny, a little drool at the corner of her mouth. She looked like peace incarnate.

I climbed in beside her. She shifted, sighed, and settled back in.

Apollo draped the blanket over us both. Then he sat in the corner of the room, spine straight, elbows on knees, watching like he could hold the shadows back with just his presence.

I closed my eyes.

For the first time in years, I fell asleep without fear of footsteps.

The monster was dead.

And I had killed him.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

No one cried when they took the body away.

There was no funeral. No wreath of white roses. No long speeches about legacy or grief. Just a quiet disappearance and the sound of something final slipping into the cracks of the old house.

My father was gone.

And a few days later, so was Madison.

Apollo didn’t tell me what he did to her. I didn’t ask. Monsters that disappear without a trace don’t get eulogies. They get silence.

And that was enough for me.

The official report said the Moretti children had been found alone in the house after a “domestic incident.” There were whispered words like safety concerns, inheritance, custodial proceedings. Diana and I were transferred into the care of a foster agency that couldn’t pronounce our last name.

The first house they put us in was clean. Too clean. Beige walls. No pictures. The kind of place designed to hold kids temporarily, like a waiting room for the unwanted.

Diana clung to me for three days straight. Her nails left little half-moons in my wrist. She kept asking for her bunny, her bed, her nightlight—the one that projected stars onto the ceiling. The one that wasn’t packed.

I didn’t have the energy to lie.

So I held her. Told her she was safe. And for the first time, I meant it.

It was a social worker with a tired smile and stained coffee mug who brought up Sage Vaughn.

“She’s listed as your paternal aunt,” she said, flipping through a file that smelled like cigarette smoke and old paper. “She left home before you were born. Changed her name. Married. But… she’s blood.”

They tracked her down through an old adoption file, a marriage license, a property title in Queens.

They called.

And she said yes.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When Sage walked into the courtroom, she didn’t look like someone who belonged in a room full of polished attorneys and expensive perfume. She wore boots scuffed at the toe, jeans faded at the knees, and a fraying green jacket covered in enamel pins and ink smudges. Her purple hair was tied up in a knot like she’d done it on the subway.

Rowan, her wife, looked like the opposite: pressed blouse, thick glasses, clipboard in hand. She radiated competence. Every part of her said trust me.

I didn’t trust anyone.

But I looked at Sage and… I didn’t brace.

We sat on opposite ends of the room while people decided where we would go.

Diana was curled in my lap, head on my shoulder, sucking gently on the end of her braid. She didn’t say anything until the judge asked if there were any objections.

Then, in a voice too small to matter but too sharp to ignore, she looked at Sage and said:

“You look like someone who reads stories out loud.”

Sage blinked. Then she laughed. Not mockery. Just a sound full of surprise and warmth.

“I do,” she said. “Even the voices.”

Diana nodded. “Okay.”

That was all.

But it felt like something cracking open.

The judge ruled in their favor. Temporary guardianship. A trial period. Psychological evaluations pending. But it was done.

Sage Vaughn—my father’s only sibling, the one who ran away at sixteen and never looked back—was coming back for the daughters he left behind.

Outside the courthouse, Sage knelt to Diana’s level. “Hey, kiddo. I know this is weird. But we’ve got a room with stars on the ceiling and a cat named Steve. He’s an asshole, but he’s soft.”

Diana blinked. “Is Steve grey?”

Sage grinned. “He’s got a white patch that looks like the state of Texas.”

Diana turned to me. “Can we go?”

I looked up at Sage, then over at Rowan.

They weren’t strangers anymore.

Not entirely.

I nodded.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

It wasn’t the first time something had tried to kill me at school.
But it was the first time it happened during algebra.

The fire alarms had barely finished screaming before the lockdown ended. The teachers were confused. The janitor was furious. Everyone else chalked it up to a faulty water heater and some freak electrical malfunction near the gym.

But I knew what sulfur smelled like.

The Mist did its job—blanketing the scene in illusion, wiping the monster’s footprints clean, twisting the memories of every human in the building.

Except mine.

Because the rot behind my eyes wasn’t from faulty wiring. It was from the knowledge I’d had since I was born. Since before that, even.

I smelled monster.
I heard claws.
And I didn’t even have to lift a finger.

Which meant someone else did.

The boy showed up the next day.

Tan hoodie, scuffed sneakers, curls that looked like they hadn’t met a brush in three weeks. He leaned against the gates after school like he was waiting for someone—or trying very hard not to look like he was.

Diana was beside me, talking about glitter glue and something called “banana drama” (I didn’t ask), her backpack bouncing as she skipped ahead. I clocked him the moment we stepped out. He wasn’t looking at her.

He was looking at me.

Not in a creepy way.

In a recognition way.

Which meant one of two things:
He was either sent.
Or he was very unlucky.

I let him follow us.

All the way down two blocks. Past three turns. Across a busy intersection. Diana didn’t notice a thing—too busy pointing out dogs and naming pigeons. He kept his distance, but not well enough to go unnoticed.

His left leg had a limp. He was trying to hide it.

A smart girl might’ve said something then.

But I’m not just smart.

I’m calculated.

So I let him think he was being clever.

By the time we reached the porch, Diana was mid-sprint to the front door, trying to see if Bunny had somehow walked himself back from her room and into the mailbox (spoiler: he hadn’t).

I turned around.

Arched a brow.

“You know,” I said, voice sharp as a pin, “for someone trying to be sneaky, you’re bad at it.”

He froze like I’d turned him to stone.

“I—uh—hi?” he tried.

I didn’t smile. “You’ve been tailing us since the corner deli.”

He scratched the back of his neck, and I caught the glint of nerves. “I wasn’t following you, I was just—okay, yes, I was following you, but it’s not like—bad—following. It’s a protection thing. I’m supposed to be here.”

“Right,” I said. “And who, exactly, deputized you for guard duty?”

He hesitated. “I’m Liam. I’m a satyr.”

There it was.

I blinked slowly. Let the silence drag.

Diana stuck her head around the door and frowned. “Why’re you yelling at the new neighbor?”

“He’s not a neighbor,” I said dryly.

Liam tried a smile. “I’m not dangerous.”

“I’m sure every suspicious boy standing on my porch says that.”

Diana lit up. “Does he have cookies?”

“No,” I said. “Just hooves.”

She blinked. “Like a deer?”

Liam lifted the edge of his jeans, showing one hoof quickly before tugging it back down.

“Oh!” Diana squealed. “You’re a cosplay guy!”

“No,” Liam said.

“He is,” I said.

She gasped. “Do you do birthday parties?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Sage! Rowan! There’s a cosplay satyr on the porch and Diana’s already hired him for her birthday!”

Ten minutes later, we were in the kitchen.

Diana was feeding Liam marshmallows. Sage was sitting on the counter with a sage bundle and too much curiosity. Rowan looked like she was actively restraining herself from calling a lawyer.

“I’m here because there was a monster near her school,” Liam said, nodding toward me. “That usually means a demigod’s close.”

Rowan raised an eyebrow. “And your first instinct was to follow two minors home?”

“She’s not a minor!” Liam said quickly. “I mean—well—she’s not normal.”

“That’s not better,” Rowan muttered.

Liam turned to me, desperate now. “You’ve seen them, haven’t you? Monsters. Strange things. Stuff you can’t explain?”

I let the words hang between us.

Let the silence deepen.

Then I said, voice calm and measured: “Yeah. I’ve seen things.”

His eyes widened with relief.

“But,” I added, “I thought I was crazy. That’s what they all say, right? The ones who see too much. I figured it was a brain thing. A trauma thing. I didn’t think it meant I was a demigod.”

His face fell. “Oh. That makes sense. That’s… yeah. We hear that a lot.”

I tilted my head. “And you’re here to what—take me to monster-fighting summer camp?”

“Camp Half-Blood,” he said. “You’d be safe there. Trained. Protected.”

I didn’t speak.

Not right away.

Because I wasn’t deciding.
I was pretending to decide.

Letting him think I was shocked. Confused. Human.

Because calculated girls don’t just say yes.

They weigh the cost of leaving behind everything they've rebuilt. They pretend not to know the words already carved into the bones of this world. They look at the door behind them—where their six-year-old sister is still humming and happy and safe—and think about what it will cost to keep her that way.

I smiled faintly.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

And let the lie settle like sugar in tea.

Chapter Text

The sky stretched wide and heavy above us—cloud-thick and colorless, like the world itself was holding its breath.

Rowan pulled the car to a stop at the end of the gravel road. No signs. No gates. Just a tree line ahead and the quiet certainty that once I stepped into it, I wouldn’t be coming back the same.

Diana kicked her shoes against the back of the seat, stuffed sun plushie tucked under one arm like it was joining us on a field mission. She was six now—loud, soft, mortal—and still untouched by everything I’d spent the last life trying to survive.

“Is this the rainbow school?” she asked, craning her neck to peer out the window.

Sage turned around with a gentle smile. “No, love. This one’s just for Nina.”

Diana pouted. “Why can’t I come?”

“Because someone needs to stay behind and make sure Kevin the Plant doesn’t get lonely,” I said, squeezing her hand. “And you’re the only one qualified for that job.”

She blinked, unconvinced. “But what if the monsters come?”

“Then I’ll eat them,” I said, deadpan. “With extra glitter.”

That got a snort-laugh. She lunged forward and wrapped her arms around my neck.

“You better come back.”

“Promise.”

I stepped out into the humid summer air, gravel crunching under my boots. The woods ahead were quiet. But not empty.

Sage handed me a soft drawstring pouch. “Stones. Herbs. Stuff to keep you grounded.”

Rowan adjusted the collar of my shirt like she was prepping me for a school picture. “Trust your gut. Don’t trust glowing people. Especially if they say they’re wise.”

I nodded once.

Diana jumped out of the car and ran to me one last time, launching herself into my arms. I caught her with a soft grunt, burying my face in her hair for one final breath of comfort.

“Don’t let the monsters get you,” she whispered fiercely.

“Only if you don’t let Sage feed you kale smoothies,” I whispered back.

She giggled. I breathed.

And then I walked toward the trees.

Camp Half-Blood didn’t hit like a revelation. It didn’t shimmer or glow or burst into color. It felt old. Expectant. Like something had been waiting for me to arrive for a very long time.

The first thing I saw was the hill. Strawberries glinting in the sun. Then came the noise: laughter, clanging metal, the not-so-distant chaos of teenagers with too much power and too few boundaries.

I slowed, just enough. Just enough to make it look like awe.

Chiron met me halfway down the slope, smile polite and eyes sharp beneath his weathered brows.

“You must be Nina.”

I blinked up at him. “You’re a… centaur.”

His smile twitched. “Indeed.”

Behind him, Liam skidded into view like an excited puppy who’d barely survived gym class.

“Told you I found her!” he said proudly.

“You did well,” Chiron said.

I kept my face blank. “So, um… where am I exactly?”

He launched into the speech. I let him. Gods. Monsters. Camp. Legacy. Mist. A whole tangled myth that I already knew like the lyrics to a childhood song. I nodded at the right moments, asked a few unsure-sounding questions. Just curious enough. Just wide-eyed enough.

He led me to the Hermes cabin. Liam trailed behind us like a hopeful bodyguard. A tired-looking camper pointed me to a bunk without bothering to ask my name.

Perfect.

That night, around the fire, no one claimed me. Someone muttered that I looked too sharp to be unclaimed. Another whispered that maybe I was Athena. Or Aphrodite. Or worse—Ares.

But no glowing sigil appeared in the sky. No divine revelation. Just smoke, sparks, and a warily watched girl with a blade callus and a blank stare.

Good.

Let them guess.

After lights out, I lay on the stiff mattress and stared at the ceiling while someone snored unevenly in the bunk beside mine.

I was twelve now. The same age Percy Jackson was when his story started.

And I’d always said I wouldn’t walk his path. That I didn’t need camp, didn’t need swords or counselors or godly validation. That I’d build my empire in the shadows.

But the truth was—if I wanted to change the story, I needed to understand it first.

Camp Half-Blood was a resource.

A weapon.

A place to sharpen my mask.

And maybe, if I was honest, I wanted to know what it would feel like to exist somewhere without pretending not to see monsters in the dark.

Aphrodite didn’t claim me.

Not tonight. Not ever.

And wasn’t that fitting?

The goddess of love couldn’t love her own daughter enough to show up.

In my first life, I thought I was above that kind of wound. I thought rebirth would burn it out of me. That I’d be stronger. Braver. Sharper. That I’d never crave a mother’s touch again.

But it turns out, no matter how many lives you’ve lived, girls still grow up wondering why their mothers never looked back.

Aphrodite represented everything I wasn’t allowed to be—soft, wanted, adored.

And she’d left me behind like I was a stain on her portfolio.

So I didn’t cry for her.

But I felt the hollow.

I touched the sun pendant at my collar. A gift from someone who never needed to claim me to show up.

Apollo didn’t say I had to come here.

But he hadn’t stopped me either.

And he would be watching.

I closed my eyes.

Diana was safe.

The gods were shifting.

And I was ready to rewrite the rules.

Chapter Text

Camp Half-Blood looked different in the morning.

Quieter. Still enough to lie to you.

There was birdsong in the trees, a soft breeze cutting through the warmth, and the faint clang of steel from the training fields. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was just a summer camp with a weird fencing obsession and too many strawberries.

But I knew better.

I knew the way places like this breathed. I knew how to listen for the threat under the silence.

This wasn’t just a camp.

This was a battlefield disguised as a sanctuary.

And I was walking straight into the myth.

I made rounds after breakfast—quiet ones. No one noticed me. That was the point.

A few younger campers darted around the Athena cabin. One of them dropped a dagger. It hit the dirt and bounced once. They barely paused before chasing each other again.

They hadn’t seen real blood yet.

The Hermes cabin had been a blur of noise and limbs this morning—ten bunk beds, double that in personalities. My bed was in the back, wedged between a kid who drooled in his sleep and another who said the word “yeet” without irony.

I didn’t complain. It was a safe place to disappear.

Unclaimed meant invisible. For now, that suited me just fine.

I rounded the bend near the Big House and spotted him.

Mr. D sat in a folding chair like he was allergic to giving a damn. Leopard-print shirt. Purple Crocs. Sunglasses too expensive to be that ugly. He sipped a Diet Coke like it was the last thing tethering him to this plane of existence.

As I passed, he gave me a slow once-over.

“You smell like trouble,” he said, not looking up from his cards.

“I get that a lot,” I said, polite.

“Don’t burn anything,” he added, still not looking at me. “Unless it deserves it.”

That gave me pause.

But he was already flipping the next card in his deck.

I found the archery range empty, which was the perfect excuse to map the terrain. I counted the targets. Tracked sight lines. Checked how the wind moved between the trees.

That’s when she found me.

“You the new camper?”

I turned.

She was around my age, maybe older by a few months. Red-dyed hair in a low ponytail, grey eyes like stormclouds in a bottle. She wore a camp shirt half-tucked into combat pants that had definitely seen paint, mud, and probably divine retribution.

“I’m in the Hermes cabin,” I said. “New arrival, not new to life.”

She snorted. “Gods, finally. Someone here with sarcasm in their bloodstream.”

She stuck out a hand. “Vicky. Apollo cabin. Before you ask: no, I don’t glow. Yes, I do aim for the eyes.”

I shook her hand. “Nina. Just Nina.”

“Well, Just Nina, let me save you from the overly chipper campers and self-important sons of Zeus.” She tilted her head toward the path. “Want the real tour?”

“Lead the way.”

Vicky didn’t waste time.

She walked fast, talked faster, and pointed out everything worth knowing in between sarcastic commentary.

“That cabin? Total ego cult.”
“That statue? Don’t ask. It screams sometimes.”
“These trails? Great for sneaking out after curfew, assuming you’re not terrified of hellhounds.”
“Do not touch anything labeled ‘Dionysus’ unless you want to forget your own name for a week.”

She wasn’t soft, but she was honest. And honest was rare.

“I paint when I’m not training,” she said as we passed the arts and crafts shed. “It keeps me from punching people.”

“Respect.”

“And anime marathons. That helps too.”

“You’re officially my favorite person here.”

“You say that now,” she said with a grin. “Wait until you see my sketchbook. I’ve drawn Chiron as a Mario Kart character. Twice.”

That night, after dinner, I sat on the edge of my bunk with my journal open and a pencil in my hand.

Hermes cabin – overcapacity. No privacy. Ideal cover.
Mr. D – sharper than he acts. Watch that.
Chiron – diplomatic. Knows more than he says.
Vicky (Apollo) – fast. Blunt. Possibly trustworthy. Also possibly chaotic. Investigate further.
Camp layout – noted weak points in border, forge perimeter, and southeast trail exit.

I hesitated.

Diana is safe.
Sage and Rowan are still clueless.
I haven’t heard from Apollo. He’ll check in eventually. He always does.

I tapped the pencil against the paper.

Still no claim.

Honestly, I don’t care.

I came here to learn. To get stronger.
To stop being the girl waiting to be chosen.

I know who I am.
I don’t need a glowing symbol over my head to confirm it.

But I wonder.

If she ever thinks about me.

Aphrodite.

Maybe it’s pathetic—wanting something maternal from a goddess who represents love like a mirror reflects smoke.
Maybe I should be above it.

But even in a second life, girls look for their mothers.

And I’m tired of pretending that ache isn’t real.

I closed the journal. Tucked it back under the mattress.

Outside, campers were still laughing around the fire. Someone played a reed pipe off-key. A harpy screeched somewhere near the mess hall.

I lay back and stared at the ceiling.

This place wasn’t safe. But it was something.

And I wasn’t here to follow the story.

I was here to outwrite it.

Chapter Text

The dream didn’t pull me under.
It swallowed me whole.

One moment, I was lying in my bunk at Camp Half-Blood, listening to someone snore like a broken motor two beds over. The next, I was somewhere else. Somewhere ancient. Somewhere sharp.

Sandals on stone. Wind off the sea. Heat rising in waves off the ground.

And a body that wasn’t mine.

Cassandra.

I knew her name before I looked down at her hands.

The scent of crushed myrtle and smoke clung to the air like a curse already cast. We stood in a city of towers and bronze, and across from us—him.

Apollo.

Not the version I knew. Not the tired god who showed up in jeans and worn-out Ray-Bans to help with sword drills or make Diana laugh. This was younger. Sharper. More sun than man.

But he didn’t shine.

He burned.

His anger didn’t rage. It simmered.

“You asked for this,” he said, voice low and steady. “You begged to hear my voice. You swore you’d love me.”

Cassandra didn’t speak.
She couldn’t.

I could feel the pounding of her heart. The knowledge already tearing through her. She knew what was coming.

He reached forward. Not to strike. Not to comfort. Just one fingertip brushing her cheek.

A brand.

A curse.

The world exploded behind her eyes.

I felt her collapse inward. Not her body—her mind. The weight of knowing too much, too soon. Cities burning. Corpses stacking. Her own death, again and again, unanswered. Unheeded.

He’d given her prophecy.

And made sure no one would ever believe her.

That was the cruelty. The twist.

He had given her truth—and stolen her voice.

“I gave you everything,” he said, almost gentle now. “You wanted to see. So see.”

Then he turned and walked away.

Left her there.

Doomed to carry what no one else would believe.

I woke with a start.

Sweat clung to the back of my neck. My breath came in short, hot bursts. The Hermes cabin was quiet, save for the creak of the floorboards and the distant sound of harpies screeching at someone sneaking snacks after lights out.

I pressed a hand to my chest.

Not my memory. Not my body.

But the echo of it stuck. Heavy.

Apollo had cursed her.

And he hadn’t looked evil when he did it.

That was what rattled me.
Not the power.

The heartbreak.

Morning found me hollow-eyed at breakfast, poking at oatmeal like it had personally wronged me. Vicky slid into the seat beside me, shoving a slice of toast my way.

“You look like death.”

“Dream,” I said.

“God dream or memory dream?”

“Both.”

She didn’t press.

Just nudged the toast closer. “Eat. Sugar helps.”

I bit into it.

The sweetness grounded me. Kind of.

“I think I saw Cassandra,” I said eventually.

Vicky froze mid-sip of her juice. “The Cassandra?”

“Yeah.”

She whistled low. “That’s a brutal one.”

I nodded. “It felt… too close.”

She didn’t say anything after that. Just bumped her shoulder against mine.

And I was grateful.

Later, alone, I wrote it all down.

Cassandra saw the fall of everything and couldn’t stop it. Not because she wasn’t brave. Not because she wasn’t smart. But because a god loved her wrong.

He gave her power and used it to hurt her.

He walked away while she burned.

I stared at the page for a long time.

Then wrote, slowly:

I trust Apollo.
But I don’t worship him.
And I won’t ever beg.

Because I knew now—more than ever—what happened to girls who reached out to gods expecting love.

Chapter Text

Camp smelled like pine needles and scorched pride.

Vicky and I had just finished lunch, walking back from the pavilion with no intention of going to our next scheduled activity. She was ranting about her siblings again—something about them choreographing an interpretive dance dedicated to the sun.

“I’m going to smother them with their own glitter glue,” she muttered. “I swear on my sketchbook, Nina, if one more person compares my aura to a sunrise, I will scream.”

“You say that like it’s a threat,” I said, watching the path ahead. “But I think half of them would find that romantic.”

We turned a corner—and stopped.

A tall Ares camper was standing with his back to the armory, looming over a younger Hermes kid like he was considering rearranging their bones for fun. The kid looked furious, not scared, which was probably why the Ares boy was doubling down.

“You think anyone here actually gives a damn about you?” he sneered. “You’re nothing. A stray. No name. No cabin. Just a mistake waiting to get stepped on.”

Vicky rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Testosterone and daddy issues. You want this one or should I?”

“I’ve got it,” I said. “But stay close in case I decide to start a war.”

I stepped into the courtyard and walked straight up to the Ares boy like I wasn’t half his size.

He looked me over and snorted. “Oh, what’s this? Another unclaimed wannabe here to cry about friendship and feelings?”

I smiled—sharp and sweet. “You talk like you think anyone’s actually afraid of you.”

He straightened, puffing up like a bullfrog in gym shorts. “You wanna repeat that, new girl?”

I tilted my head, voice still calm. “Sure. You’re all bark, no bite. You throw your weight around because it’s the only thing about you that isn’t forgettable. And you think bullying unclaimed kids makes you look strong, when really it just makes you look bored. And desperate.”

He stepped forward, clearly expecting me to back down.

I didn’t.

“You should walk away,” I said. “While you still can.”

He scoffed. “You gonna make me, princess?”

I leaned in, so only he could hear.

“If you ever touch someone smaller than you again, I will make sure the entire camp finds out what you did during last week’s sparring match. Including how you begged that Apollo kid not to heal your ego.”

His face paled.

Then he swung.

I ducked. Fast. Caught his arm and twisted hard. My foot swept his out from under him and he slammed into the dirt with a grunt that sent the crowd—because of course there was a crowd—into shocked silence.

I stepped back, calm as ever, as he groaned.

The Hermes kid blinked up at me like I’d just descended from Olympus with a vengeance playlist and steel-toed sandals.

“You good?” I asked.

They nodded. Wordless. Starstruck.

That’s when it happened.

The air shifted.

A breeze picked up—warm and sweet like roses and wildfire. The sky above us shimmered. And then the petals came. Soft, pink, falling slow and deliberate like the universe had just exhaled glitter.

Gasps rang out.

Someone whispered, “She’s being claimed.”

And above us, glowing bright against the sky, the symbol of Aphrodite bloomed in blinding rose-gold.

I didn’t react.

Internally? I was already ten steps ahead.

Outwardly?

I blinked up at the petals and let my voice tremble. “Wh-what does that mean?”

Vicky, beside me, was trying very hard not to laugh. “It means the universe just added ‘terrifying and pretty’ to your resume.”

The Ares boy sat up, dazed and bruised. He looked at me like he’d just been punked by a perfume ad with knives.

And then Mr. D appeared with the worst timing imaginable.

Same purple socks. Same Hawaiian shirt. Same look of divine boredom as he glanced from the petals to me.

“Oh joy,” he muttered. “The love goddess claims another one. Was the floral arrangement necessary?”

I met his eyes without flinching. “Would thunder and screaming have been more dignified?”

His brow rose. “You know, I liked you better before you spoke.”

“That seems to be a common problem,” I said sweetly.

He took a slow sip of Diet Coke. “You’ll be trouble.”

“I plan to be,” I replied.

He muttered something about “gods-damned glitter demons” and walked away.

Vicky turned to me, eyes wide. “Nina. You just trash-talked a god.”

“I was polite.”

“You backhanded him with words!”

I shrugged. “He started it.”

She grinned, hands on her hips. “Okay, Aphrodite.”

I looked at the petals still clinging to my hair. “Guess so.”

“Welcome to the cabin of lip gloss and sabotage.”

We walked away from the crowd together, the bruised Ares camper still coughing in the dirt.

And for the first time since I’d arrived, I wasn’t just surviving.

I was making a name.

One whispered threat at a time.

Chapter Text

They moved me just after dinner, once the whispers had reached critical mass and enough campers had dared a second look. Being claimed was one thing. Being claimed by Aphrodite in a divine display of floating petals and glittering light? That was camp-wide gossip with legs.

I walked between the cabins with Vicky at my side. She carried herself like a girl who knew the sun personally and thought it a little overrated. I carried myself like I knew everyone was watching.

“You ready to be dipped in glitter and passive aggression?” she asked.

I gave her a sideways glance. “I grew up among millionaires and monsters. I can handle a little perfume and a smile that means war.”

“Gods, you’re terrifying,” she muttered, sounding impressed.

I didn’t answer.

Because she wasn’t wrong.

The Aphrodite cabin glowed at sunset.

Blush-pink walls, roses curling up trellises, string lights that sparkled like fallen stars. It looked like a daydream. Or a trap.

Inside, it smelled of warm sugar, citrus, and something floral that might’ve been charm magic. Silena Beauregard stood by the vanity, a brush in one hand, her hair half-done in loose curls. She looked up as I stepped in.

Silena. Thirteen, if I remembered right. Still soft around the edges, but there was something steely in her eyes—something that had already learned how to wield power gently.

“You’re the new sister,” she said with a smile that was pleasant, not empty.

I nodded once. “Looks like it.”

There was a pause as the rest of the cabin fell silent around us. I could feel them studying me. Measuring me. Testing the fit of my skin.

I didn’t flinch.

“I’m Silena,” she said. “Cabin counselor—for now.”

“Understood.”

The smile curved slightly. “You can take the bed near the window. It catches the morning sun.”

“Perfect,” I said. “I like to start my day warm.”

The bed was draped in sheer pink fabric, silk sheets tucked with impossible precision. A vanity stood nearby, stocked with products that sparkled and shimmered. This was no simple bunk. This was a throne room. And I was expected to play the part.

I did.

I unpacked slowly. Folded my clothes with precision. Pulled out my makeup bag—my real one, the one I didn’t show at Hermes. Foundation, liner, matte lipstick like dried rose petals. Each item a weapon, a statement, a mirror.

The other girls watched me. Waiting to see what I’d do. Who I’d be.

I didn’t smile.

I painted my lips like armor.

And then I turned.

“I don’t care about ruling,” I said softly, letting my voice carry just enough. “But I care about strength. I care about making it out of here alive. And I know that doesn’t always come with a sword.”

They didn’t answer.

But they listened.

The rest of the summer moved like a fever dream stitched together with sun, sweat, and strategy.

I fought in capture the flag and walked away with a twisted ankle and three Ares kids muttering about how they hadn’t expected me to use mud as a weapon. I sweet-talked a Hephaestus camper into crafting me a collapsible blade disguised as a hair stick. I hosted a “skincare and strategy” night in the cabin, which ended with one girl crying over a crush and another learning how to throw a dagger without smudging her mascara.

Silena watched me carefully.

She never stopped smiling, but I could tell.

She saw what I was doing.

And she didn’t stop me.

One day during sparring drills, I faced off against an Athena camper with a reputation for flawless technique and zero personality.

She underestimated me.

I smiled sweetly, flicked a stray hair behind my ear, and dropped into a stance I’d honed with Apollo’s guidance. She aimed high. I ducked low. Tripped her. Pinned her.

The camp collectively blinked.

I stood, offered her a hand, and said, “Great footwork. Just don’t assume a pretty face means a slow hand.”

The Aphrodite girls cheered louder than anyone else.

Even the Ares campers started giving me space after that.

Later that night, Silena and I sat in front of the vanity, cleaning our weapons together. Hers was a gold-tinted dagger. Mine was the blade from my hair stick.

“You’re not like the others,” she said without looking at me.

“Neither are you.”

She smiled faintly. “You’re not trying to lead.”

“No.”

“But you are.”

I met her gaze in the mirror.

“If someone needs to,” I said, “I won’t hesitate.”

By the end of summer, the cabin had changed.

The roses bloomed fuller. The perfume was sharper. And the girls stood straighter when they walked into battle.

I wasn’t the new girl anymore.

I was the one they looked to when someone sneered.

I was the one who painted her lips red and smiled with teeth.

And no one dared call that weak.

Chapter Text

Early October

The water pressure behind the gym was pathetic, but if you angled the sprinkler just right, it still made a rainbow.

Queens wasn’t magical, not in the flashy way people liked to imagine. But it had cracks. And light always found its way through cracks.

I dropped the drachma into the mist and murmured, “Iris, show me Vicky.”

The rainbow bent. Flickered. And then she was there — her face grainy and damp-edged, hovering just above the glimmering puddle.

“Odd stanza?” I offered.

She smirked. “Even rhyme.”

Her hair was half-up, fraying into chaos. A smear of charcoal on her cheekbone. She looked like she’d just thrown something — or wanted to. The background behind her was all warm yellows and bookshelves, a flash of a Dutch oven on the stove. The kind of house where it always smells like soup and somebody loves you.

“I have been officially ignored for the third consecutive day,” she announced. “Jason built a solar tracker that activates the espresso machine. Mom cried. Stepdad called it ‘life-altering.’ I designed a myth-based tarot spread with Latin inscriptions and everyone assumed it was for art class.”

“Did you correct them?”

“I stapled the instructions to Jason’s science fair board and walked away.”

I grinned. “That’s violent.”

“I was feeling merciful.”

The rainbow wobbled slightly, catching light as a delivery truck passed behind me. I was crouched behind a Dumpster, the sprinkler hissing just enough mist to hold the connection. My knees hurt. My heart didn’t.

Not yet.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I’m spectacular,” she said flatly. “Did I mention they gave Jason his own study nook?”

“You have an entire corner of the living room.”

“That’s where the piano is. Which I’m not allowed to touch unless Jason’s composing.”

I didn’t push further. Vicky didn’t cry, not even when she wanted to. Especially not when she wanted to.

She picked at her cuff. “I got a fencing pin in the mail. No note. No context. Just gold and laurels and an uncomfortable implication.”

My chest tightened. “From…?”

She didn’t finish the thought. Just gave a half shrug, half laugh. “Could’ve been anyone. Could’ve been nothing.”

We both knew better.

But she didn’t expect anything. That was the part that gutted me the most — not the ache. The acceptance of it.

“Still training?” she asked, like we hadn’t changed the subject.

“Always.”

“Don’t get rusty. I’m the only one allowed to stab things prettier than me.”

“Promise.”

“Good. Stay dangerous.”

“Stay strange.”

The rainbow shimmered once, then vanished. I let the silence sit for a minute.

Then I stood, stretched my legs, and headed toward the alley.

The alley behind our building was only six feet wide and smelled like rust and banana peels, but it had just enough room to fight shadows.

I twisted my hair up, tucked a hair stick into the knot, and pulled the training staff from behind the recycling bins. It wasn’t a weapon, not really — just sanded oak salvaged from a broken closet rod. But it moved clean in my hands.

I trained in rhythm. Not to feel better. Not even to feel stronger. Just to feel real. There was something about movement that reminded me where my skin stopped and the rest of the world began.

Step. Slide. Feint. Lunge.

I imagined a dracaenae leaping from the left. A hellhound growling from the dark.

I imagined Vicky’s voice: Left arm’s drifting. Shoulder down. You’re opening your ribs.

I corrected. Reset. Spun.

When the light shifted — too gold, too soft — I didn’t flinch.

“You’re late,” I said.

Apollo stood at the edge of the alley, golden as dawn. His jacket caught the lamplight like silk, but his expression was unreadable.

“I’m not here,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow. “Clearly.”

“You shouldn’t be out alone.”

“Then maybe your monsters shouldn’t keep sneaking onto school property.”

He leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets. He looked more like a tired commuter than a god, except for the way the shadows bowed around him. Like the night didn’t dare touch him fully.

“Vicky got the pin,” I said, more accusation than observation.

“I thought she’d like it.”

“She did. She just doesn’t let herself.”

“She doesn’t need me.”

“She shouldn’t have to.”

He didn’t answer. He rarely did.

“You know she won’t expect anything,” I said, quieter now. “You show up for five seconds at Camp and disappear for months. She doesn’t even resent it anymore. She just… absorbs it.”

“She’s not yours to defend,” he said softly.

“She’s not yours to forget,” I snapped.

The silence after that was louder than any fight.

I didn’t look at him. I just started again. Step. Slide. Strike.

“Your shoulder still lifts on the back swing,” he said after a while.

“Don’t coach me,” I said.

He didn’t apologize.

When I turned around, he was gone.

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
December
The Vaughns’ apartment smelled like cumin, lemon zest, and something slow-cooked. A smell that soaked into your hair and hoodie and followed you through your homework.

Sage liked to say it was a “household of nourishment.” But the truth was simpler than that.

They cooked because they believed warm things healed.

I didn’t disagree. I just didn’t trust it.

Anna was singing something tuneless and furious to herself as she hunted for stickers in the hallway linen closet. She wore three different socks, a tutu, and a bright blue hoodie that used to be mine. Her curls bounced with each step. There was marker on her cheek.

“Bunny wants to wear pants,” she announced when she found me on the couch. “But I said tutus are non-negotiable.”

“Bunny’s entitled to express herself.”

“She’s a rabbit of tradition.”

“Let me know how arbitration goes.”

Anna climbed onto the couch with all the grace of a drunk goblin and handed me a page of heart stickers with little sunbursts around the edges.

“I saved the best ones for your sword notebook,” she whispered.

“It’s not a sword notebook.”

“It has sword drawings and war poems and maps and blood.”

“…Fair.”

She leaned her head against my shoulder. “I like this couch. It smells like soup and you.”

“High praise.”

Later, after the dishes had been rinsed and Anna had been wrestled into pajamas and Sage had declared bedtime with the solemnity of an ancient priestess, I stood at the kitchen sink and watched the city lights flicker against the fogged-up window.

Behind me, Rowan was grading papers and muttering about grammar crimes.

Sage wiped the counter with her usual soothing precision. “She’s been humming more lately,” she said softly.

“Anna?”

“She sleeps better when you’re home.”

I didn’t respond.

She turned to me. “And you?”

“I don’t hum.”

“I meant sleep.”

“Same answer.”

She didn’t push. I loved that about Sage. She made space without carving questions into it.

Still, I heard her voice later, whispering to Rowan in the living room, when she thought I couldn’t hear.

“She still flinches when the oven clicks.”

Rowan’s voice, lower: “She never lets Anna out of her line of sight.”

I curled tighter under the blanket and shut my eyes.

I woke before dawn. Old habit. Sometimes visions woke me. Sometimes instinct. Sometimes nothing but a heartbeat echoing wrong.

Anna was still asleep, curled into a fortress of glittery pillows.

I wrapped a hoodie around myself and climbed to the roof.

The city was still. Silver and cold. A train groaned in the distance.

And then I felt it — that old shift in the air. The one that made even pigeons hush.

“You’re up early,” I said.

Apollo stepped out of the shadows by the chimney.

“You’re not surprised.”

“You make shadows act weird. It’s not subtle.”

He didn’t argue.

He looked tired. Not mortal-tired, just... stretched. Like someone who’d been divided across too many timelines at once.

I sat on the low wall that edged the roof. My legs dangled over the side. I didn’t invite him closer.

He came anyway. Slow. Careful. He never tried to touch me. I liked that about him. Or maybe I just needed it to stay that way.

“She’s doing better,” I said, nodding toward the window where Anna slept.

“She is,” he agreed.

“You helped with that.”

“No. You did.”

There was something about the way he said it that made me want to throw the blanket off the roof. Or cry. Or both.

Instead, I looked at him and said, “She dreamed about ravens again.”

He frowned.

“She said they whisper under the floorboards. That they make triangles on the windows.”

“Children notice what others dismiss.”

“She’s not magical.”

“She’s observant.”

I waited.

He didn’t add anything.

So I did. “Do you think she’s picking it up from me?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed.

“You’re bleeding magic,” he said gently. “It’s not your fault. It’s the cost of holding too much.”

“Then take it back.”

“I can’t.”

“Won’t.”

“Can’t,” he said again, and for once, he sounded honest.

Before he left, he handed me something wrapped in brown wax paper.

“I didn’t ask for anything.”

“I know.”

I unwrapped it. Inside was a small, round loaf of olive bread — the kind Anna always pointed at in bakery windows but we never bought because they were “too pretty to eat.”

“It’s still warm,” I muttered.

“I know,” he said again.

And then he was gone.

I went back downstairs, sliced the bread in half, toasted it, and left half on Anna’s breakfast plate with a sticker stuck to the crust.

She called it the happiest morning in the history of mornings.

I didn’t tell her why.

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
February 16 - Vicky's 13th Birthday

Birthdays weren’t sacred. Not after monsters, not after prophecies. Not after watching wishes burn out before the candle smoke cleared.

But Vicky’s still mattered.

Maybe because she didn’t expect them to.

She Iris-messaged me at 9:37 p.m. from what looked like her upstairs bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub with a smudge of frosting on her wrist and tear-glass in her eyes.

“Odd stanza,” I said gently.

She exhaled. “Even rhyme.”

Behind her, I saw the golden kitchen glow. A “Happy Birthday Jason!” banner still half-up from last week. The good plates. The blurry outline of a violin case on the counter — her stepdad’s. Warm, soft chaos. The kind of house people envied.

Except no one had remembered to celebrate her.

“They sang happy birthday,” she said flatly, “to both of us. Because it was efficient.”

I said nothing.

She held up a wrapped book — leather-bound, ancient, sun-stamped spine. “Found this on my pillow. No note. No card. Not even a celestial pun. Just... dropped from Mount Emotional Neglect.”

I recognized the seal. Old, Delphi-style. The kind of thing Apollo left behind like crumbs in a mythic trail.

Vicky didn’t expect better. That made it worse.

“You’re not invisible,” I said.

“I’m not loud enough to register,” she countered, voice wobbling but sharp. “Which is the same thing. Just politer.”

She didn’t cry. Not then. But I saw it pulling at her face like storm pressure.

I knew that ache. The kind of pain that didn’t make a scene — just quietly erased your reflection when no one was looking.

I waited until the connection flickered out.

Then I grabbed my wallet and called a cab.

The ride to Cambridge took ninety-four minutes and cost more than I had the right to spend. I watched the city blur by through fogged-up windows, backpack hugged tight against my chest.

The driver didn’t ask questions. I didn’t offer any.

I arrived just before midnight.

Vicky’s house looked like something out of a university brochure — white-painted porch, sleepy lights in the windows, ivy clinging to the brick like it was trying to whisper poetry into the walls.

I tapped once on the back window. She opened it without blinking.

“You’re insane,” she hissed.

“You’re birthdaying alone.”

“You took a cab from Queens.”

“You were sad.”

She stared at me for a long second. Then stepped aside.

“You are so grounded,” she said. “Do your aunts know?”

“Nope.”

“Do you care?”

“Not even a little.”

We sat in her attic studio — an unfinished little haven under slanted beams and fairy lights. There were sketchbooks everywhere, layered in towers like spellbooks.

Vicky handed me a rolled sheet of parchment. “Your gift.”

I unrolled it carefully.

It was a drawing — me, on a rooftop, Anna asleep against my shoulder, a constellation blooming behind us like a halo. Around the edges, she’d written in Ancient Greek: not full sentences, just protection charms, warmth sigils, bits of lyric from Orphic hymns she probably thought were just cool phrases.

I stared at it for a long time.

“I don’t know why I drew the sky like that,” she mumbled. “It just felt right.”

“Because it is,” I said.

Then I gave her a small wrapped box — inside, a fountain pen with violet-gold ink and a tiny laurel pressed into the barrel.

She stared.

“You can’t keep buying me metaphors.”

“Yes I can.”

“Stop weaponizing stationery.”

“Never.”

She laughed — truly laughed — then wiped at her eyes like it didn’t count if she caught the tears first.

I stayed for forty-five minutes.

When her stepdad peeked upstairs and saw me, he didn’t scold or send me packing. He just blinked, offered a polite nod, and handed me a muffin wrapped in foil for the ride home.

Back in the cab, I unrolled the sketch again.

The sky behind me glowed.

The stars were in the wrong order.

I knew them.

Apollo’s constellation. Drawn without knowing.

She’d inked it from instinct.

I closed my eyes, heart heavy with something too old to name.

She didn’t know.

And for now, she didn’t have to.

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Early June

The Vaughns packed me like I was going to the moon.

Rowan folded maps into the side pocket of my backpack, muttering about alternate routes and emergency contact trees. Sage packed protein bars, waterproof bandages, and a tin of honey cookies laced with ginger and clove. Anna insisted I take Bunny, which I declined, so she settled for shoving a glitter bracelet into my jacket pocket.

“I enchanted it with bravery,” she said solemnly.

“How?”

“I yelled ‘bravery!’ into it three times.”

“Powerful spell.”

She nodded with all the seriousness a seven-year-old could muster. “I’m saving my firecracker scream for next week.”

That night, the apartment smelled like saffron and cardamom. Sage had made biryani, Rowan had set the table, and Anna insisted on putting out three forks per person because, in her words, “camp might not have extras.”

We ate under the soft halo of kitchen light, and I told stories I could get away with: campers arguing over who got last marshmallow, Will Solace getting into a pun duel with a satyr, the Aphrodite cabin organizing a self-care coup.

Anna laughed so hard milk came out her nose. Rowan offered a napkin and called it a war injury.

For a little while, everything felt untouchable. Safe.

That made me nervous.

I found Apollo waiting on the rooftop after midnight.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just stood near the edge, hands in his pockets, face tilted toward the stars. Like he was listening for something ancient and disappointed.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” I said after a while.

He nodded once.

“I’ll be gone all summer. Anna’ll miss me.”

“She’ll be safe.”

I hesitated. “Will you watch her?”

His eyes flicked toward mine. “Yes.”

“I mean it,” I said. “Not from Olympus. Not through sunbeams or riddles or metaphors. Really watch. Be near.”

“I will.”

I studied his face for any sign of a lie. If it was there, it hid well.

“Why did you visit her?” I asked suddenly. “Last summer. When I was at camp.”

He didn’t move.

“She was drawing suns in chalk,” he said after a beat. “She left one at the curb. It had a smile.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“I know.”

“You don’t even visit your own kids.”

He blinked at me, slow. “I’ve visited you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He knew it.

I turned away before my chest could twist tighter. “Vicky doesn’t expect anything from you. Not anymore. You gave her a book with no note and a pin with no explanation.”

“She saw them.”

“But not you.”

He didn’t try to defend himself. Maybe he’d given up trying. Or maybe he knew I wouldn’t accept it.

“You make mortals fall in love with the sun,” I said, voice quiet now. “Then leave them to burn in its absence.”

“I never meant to—”

“I don’t care.”

It came out sharper than I’d planned.

“I don’t care what you meant. I care what you do.”

His jaw tensed, but he said nothing.

I stepped past him to the edge of the roof. Below, the city flickered like a circuit board — alive, pulsing, unaware of anything bigger than itself.

“I don’t need you to be perfect,” I said. “But I need you to try.”

A long pause.

“I’m here now,” he said.

“For how long?”

That question hung in the air. He didn’t answer it.

He never did.

Back inside, I knelt by Anna’s bed and touched the stone pendant she wore.

She slept soundly, arms splayed, Bunny tucked under her ribs.

I whispered a quick charm — nothing fancy, just a soft reinforcement, like braiding thread into thread. Not power. Not prophecy.

Just love.

Chapter Text

There was blood in my mouth when I woke.

Not real — just memory. A taste like pennies and rusted wire, thick on the back of my tongue as if I’d chewed through something sacred and wrong. I didn’t sit up right away. Just lay still in the low amber glow of the Aphrodite cabin, listening to the enchanted perfume bottles murmur softly on the vanity shelf.

The scent was rose and fire. The kind of sweetness that cut.

Silena was still asleep across the room, curled like a painting, her sheets barely disturbed. Someone else had draped a silk wrap over their shoulders in the night. The lace curtain around my bunk rippled faintly, stirred by a breeze that didn’t touch anyone else.

Vision.

I knew the shape of it now. The way it hung in the air like something unburied.

I rolled over, reached beneath the floorboard I’d long since pried loose, and retrieved the journal Apollo gave me — leather-bound, gold-stitched, veined with something divine and quietly watching. Only I could read it. Only I could write in it.

The page was blank until I touched it.

Ink bloomed across the parchment like spilled oil:

Luke. West border. Civilian. Coin in hand.

The words didn’t smear when I ran my thumb across them. But they pulsed.

I added one more line: Not yet. But soon.

Then I shut it. Tucked it back under the floor with the kind of care I usually reserved for Anna or live wires.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood, bones quiet, feet bare on cool wood. The Aphrodite cabin was still sleeping — all soft exhale and curated beauty. It would stay that way for at least another hour, until makeup brushes began fluttering to life and love letters started writing themselves.

I slipped into my hoodie — the black one with stitched runes around the cuffs, Vicky’s enchantment half-faded but still warm — and shoved a knife into the side pocket. My hair went up fast: twist, tuck, hair stick slid into place. Not for show. For control.

Outside, Camp Half-Blood was still wrapped in silver. Mist clung to the strawberry fields like breath. The woods whispered at the edges. Somewhere in the distance, a satyr played something soft on a reed flute, and a nymph laughed like a secret.

I didn’t smile. Didn’t relax.

The border loomed in my chest like a bruise.

I knew the geography of Camp better than most — not just the battle maps or enchanted landmarks, but the quiet in-between places. The weak spots. The gaps. The way Luke liked to wander near the west side, just past the armory, where the protective barrier shimmered thinner for exactly seven feet before thickening again. Not broken — just soft. Just enough for conversation, if you knew where to stand.

I started walking. Slow. Deliberate.

To anyone else, I might’ve looked like a kid up early for a run, or maybe a grief-strained Aphrodite girl out for dawn prayers. But my fists were tight in my sleeves, and my eyes were already cataloguing shadows.

Because the man in the vision hadn’t worn armor.
He hadn’t shimmered with magic or growled like a monster.

He’d looked… ordinary. Jeans. A jacket. Pale hands. A coin in his palm and Luke’s voice saying something I couldn’t quite remember. Not yet. But soon.

Not a monster. Not a god.

Worse.

A human working with one.

The border came into view just as the sun began to scrape over the trees. I stopped near the wild roses that marked the edge of camp and let my breath fog in the cold. Just watching. Just waiting. I didn’t know if I was early, or if he’d already been there and gone.

But the weight in my stomach — low, electric — said the dream wasn’t just warning.
It was a promise.

And promises don’t fade quietly.

Luke appeared twelve minutes later.

Not from the woods, like I expected. From the forge side. Hoodie on, sleeves pushed up, hands tucked in his pockets like it was just another walk to the archery range. He didn’t look tense. Didn’t look cautious. Just… practiced.

Like he’d done this before.

I stepped behind a thicket of goldenseal and shifted my weight onto the balls of my feet. No sound. No breathing he could trace. If he turned around, he wouldn’t see me. I’d spent years learning how to fold myself into corners smaller than this.

Luke paused at the border — exactly where I’d seen him in the vision. Not quite touching the shimmer, but close enough that the air thinned.

And then — like clockwork — a man stepped from the other side.

Plain jacket. Light beard. Tallish. Forgettable.

That was the danger. He didn’t feel like anything. Not mortal. Not divine. Not scent-marked like monsters. Just… someone.

My fingers curled around the blade in my hoodie pocket.

They didn’t shake hands. No, Luke gave him a nod — like they’d already done this before — and handed something small and gold across the invisible threshold.

The man pocketed it without looking. Said something I couldn’t hear. Luke responded with a shrug. Then he pointed back toward Camp. Said something again — louder. The man laughed.

They stood like that for another thirty seconds. Just two people on opposite sides of a boundary meant to keep us safe.

Then Luke stepped back and turned around.

I ducked low and moved with the trees, shadowing his exit until I was sure he wasn’t coming back.

He didn’t look over his shoulder once.

Not once.

And that told me more than anything.

This wasn’t new.

This wasn’t fear.

This was routine.

By the time he disappeared behind the dining pavilion, the man was already gone — slipped into the world beyond the border like he’d never been there at all.

But I had seen him.
And I never forgot faces.

I stayed until the sun finished rising, letting the heat burn the chill off my arms. Then I stepped out of the trees and into the morning with a steady breath and my hand still in my pocket.

I didn’t go to Chiron.

I didn’t go to Silena.

I went to my bunk, packed my civilian hoodie and a burner flip-phone, left a note under my pillow that said “sword drills before breakfast — don’t wait”, and walked out of camp before the campers even poured their orange juice.

There are rules, sure.

But sometimes, the story requires breaking them first.

The man wasn’t hard to track.

People like him never are — not because they leave trails, but because they’re too confident to cover them. He smelled like sweat and industrial soap. He walked like a guy who hadn’t been hunted in years. Like the world would keep folding out in front of him no matter where he stepped.

By the time I caught him, he was three towns over.

I found him in a strip mall parking lot outside a laundromat with flickering lights and a soda machine that coughed more than it vended. Early enough that no one had claimed the plastic chairs. Quiet enough that nobody would notice one more kid walking in after the bell had stopped working.

I let the door swing shut behind me.

He was folding something — cheap flannel, maybe — and barely looked up when I stepped into the corner of his vision.

“You followed me,” he said.

His voice was dry. Not surprised. Just annoyed.

“That wasn’t very smart.”

I tilted my head. “Neither was meeting a demigod at a border protected by centuries of divine law, but here we are.”

He squinted, tried to place me.

I let him look.

Just a girl, standing with her hands tucked into her hoodie. Sneakers scuffed. Hair loose. No aura. No shield. No weapon visible.

But predators know the shape of danger, even if they don’t admit it right away.

He cleared his throat. “You want money?”

I didn’t answer.

He sighed. “Okay. You want a warning? I’ll give you one. Go back to your little training camp. Play hero. Keep out of things that are bigger than you.”

I took a step closer. The lights above us buzzed faintly.

“Who sent you?” I asked.

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Who gave you the order?” I said, voice flat. “Was it a demigod? A monster? Or someone even Luke’s afraid of?”

His mouth opened, but I cut him off.

“You’re not a monster,” I said, stepping forward again. “You’re not stupid. That makes you dangerous. But you’re not divine. So the only way you get through our border is if someone on the inside gives you directions.”

His jaw tensed.

I smiled — the small one. The one that didn’t reach my eyes. “Do you think Luke’s going to protect you?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” I said. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like he handed you a drachma — golden, probably marked — and told you exactly when and where to meet him. Which makes you either his errand boy or his insurance policy.”

He laughed. “You’re a child.”

I stepped close enough to smell his breath.

“I killed a man before I knew how to do my nails,” I said. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

That shut him up.

“Now,” I said, soft as silk. “You’re going to tell me what he gave you. And who you were supposed to pass it to.”

He moved fast.

Not smart, but fast.

He reached for his back pocket — a knife, probably — but I was already there. I’d braced for it. Anticipated the weight shift in his hips. Learned the way fear made mortals reckless.

I grabbed his wrist and twisted.

The knife clattered to the floor. I kicked it behind the dryers.

“Don’t,” I said quietly. “You’re not built for what happens next.”

He panted, one hand gripping his elbow.

I pulled a thin blade from the hem of my sleeve. Not celestial bronze. Just steel. Clean. Honest.

“This isn’t a god’s fight,” I said. “This is mine.”

He looked at me again then. Really looked. And I watched the moment it landed.

That I wasn’t posturing.

That I wasn’t bluffing.

That this wasn’t about justice or fear.

It was about knowing.

Knowing that Luke was betraying Camp.
Knowing that someone needed to stop it.
And knowing, bone-deep, that nobody else was going to.

I lowered the knife. Just a little. Enough to let him believe he had a choice.

He started talking.

Names. Locations. Some guy called Soren. A woman in Nevada who paid in gold teeth. Routines. Weak points. The kind of intel someone could only get from inside Camp Half-Blood. The kind that could get demigods killed.

And Luke was feeding it to them like candy.

When he finished, I nodded once.

Then I moved.

It wasn’t rage. It wasn’t panic.

It was instinct.

I brought the knife up fast and clean, slicing across the edge of his throat before he could finish his last breath. His eyes went wide. His hand fluttered. Then he dropped.

Not screaming. Not cursing.

Just… gone.

I stared at the body.

No drama. No thunder. Just one more man who thought girls didn’t know how to aim.

He hit the ground with a sound like wet laundry. Just weight and gravity.

I didn’t flinch.

I waited fifteen seconds — counted them. Listened for breath, twitch, sound. Nothing.

Then I stepped back, wiped the blade against his jacket, and scanned the room.

Still empty. Still quiet. Fluorescent lights flickering overhead, a dryer spinning someone’s sheets like it had no idea anything had changed.

I knelt beside him and searched his pockets.

Wallet. Driver’s license — probably fake. A few folded bills. A burner phone with no lock screen and three numbers labeled in Greek letters. I took it. Slipped the SIM into a piece of gum foil and bent it in half until it sparked.

The knife he dropped was nothing special — stainless steel, store-bought, barely sharpened. I kicked it into the vent behind the dryer. No one would find it unless they were trying.

There was a janitor’s closet at the back of the laundromat. Locked, but the hinges were old and rusted. One good shove, and it creaked open with a groan that made me wince.

Bleach. Gloves. Mop. Bucket. Trash bags.

The kind of closet that smelled like someone else’s sins.

I rolled up my sleeves.

It took twelve minutes.

I cleaned what needed cleaning. Dragged the body behind the dryers where the cameras couldn’t see — not that they worked. Snapped one of the legs of the folding table to wedge under the back door, bracing it open just enough to haul the weight down the alley when no one was watching.

A delivery van passed.

I crouched until it was gone.

Then I dragged him toward the dumpster.

There was a grate in the alley with a runoff pipe that led into a forgotten sewer line — one of those ancient ones not marked on maps. I remembered it because I’d once had a vision of something crawling out of it.

This time, I sent something in.

He wouldn’t be found. Not unless a god wanted him to be. And if they did, that would be my problem later.

Right now? He was gone.

I washed my hands in a puddle flecked with motor oil. Scrubbed beneath my nails with the bristles from a broken broom. Wiped down the handles I touched. Then I walked three blocks to a grocery store and bought a bottle of apple juice so the cameras could catch me doing something normal.

Normal. Right.

I slipped into a bathroom stall, changed my hoodie, stuffed the old one into a trash bag, and dropped it into a construction bin on the way back to the main road.

By the time I called a cab, the sun was high and the city was loud again. Everything around me had moved on.

And so had I.

I didn’t speak for the entire ride back to Camp.

Didn’t look at the driver. Didn’t check my pockets. Just sat with the window cracked open and the air smearing across my face like static.

When I got to the border, I stepped over the threshold like nothing had happened.

Because it hadn’t.

Not here. Not in this safe little world with its orange shirts and star charts and prophecy scrolls. Nothing had happened in the woods. Nothing had crawled into the lungs of Camp and made a nest.

Except it had.

And I was the only one who’d seen it.

I showered before lunch. Put the knife back in its false-bottom drawer. Changed into my cleanest cabin shirt and brushed my hair so it looked like I cared.

Silena glanced up when I returned.

“Long drills?” she asked.

I nodded.

She didn’t ask more.

I loved her for that.

That night, I sat on my bunk while everyone else slept, journal in my lap, thumb against the spine.

I wrote it down.

Not in detail — just enough.

Luke. Confirmed. Man: neutralized. Pattern: repeating.

When I closed the book, the ink vanished.

But the silence didn’t.

I slid the journal back into its hiding place and reached into the drawer for the knife I’d used.

It was gone.

In its place: a pair of leather gloves. Black. Clean. Not mine.

And tucked beneath them — a pressed olive branch.

No note.

No voice.

Just a message.

I stared at it for a long time.

Then closed the drawer.