iii. powerless

*    *    *

THEY HAVE BEEN TRAVELLING FOR TWO DAYS, BOTH OF WHICH THEA ISN'T SURE HOW TO FEEL ABOUT. It's nice to have company, but at the same time, it irks her. It's been so long since she's spent time with people for longer than an hour or two. She's found out she isn't too great at holding a conversation. Or comforting people after nightmares. Or accepting comfort after nightmares.

She has dreams every night, though she guesses they might be nightmares, too. Each time, it's something she hasn't dreamed of before. A man with his back turned to her, frail and hunched over, his spine poking out like a landmine in the darkness. He never says anything, but somehow, that's more terrifying than if he did. It's as if horror movie music is playing in her brain, building and building, a great sense of power and evil seeping into her bones, right up until he says two words: "Free me." His voice always wakes her up with her still reeling from his voice. It's unbearably callous, like a car driving over a gravel road.

Thea's glad she isn't the only one having cryptic nightmares, because Percy jolts softly awake and mumbles a small 'I won't help you.' She wonders if he has the same dream as her, but she doubts it. Or maybe he does, but she'll never ask.

"So," Annabeth says. "Who wants your help?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said 'I won't help you' in your sleep, idiot," Thea says, her ball cap laid over her face. They let out a small gasp. Apparently, they had thought she was sleeping like Grover.

Percy huffs, but explains anyway. He had a dream about a pit—which makes both her and Annabeth tense in horror—and a chilling voice inside telling him to help him rise, that they laughed so sinisterly it always woke him, and that they said they would trade his mother if he did. Thea doesn't want to think about what it means, but she knows.

"That doesn't sound like Hades," Annabeth says. "He always appears on a black throne, and he never laughs."

Thea nods in agreement and sits up from her slouched position. "Yeah. I've had my fair share of dreams with him. He's always on a throne, always."

"He offered my mother in trade. Who else would do that?"

"I guess . . . if he meant 'help me rise from the Underworld,'" Annabeth says. "If he wants war with the Olympians. But why ask you to bring the masterbolt if he already has it?"

Because he doesn't, Thea thinks sarcastically. Hades wouldn't steal the masterbolt, that's not important enough. And what would he even do with it, anyway?

They're silent. Grover turns in his sleep, which moves his hat to show the tip of his small horn. Thea tugs it back down.

"Percy, you can't barter with Hades," Annabeth says. "You know that, right? He's deceitful, heartless, and greedy. I don't care if the Kindly Ones weren't as aggressive this time--"

"Dude," Thea hisses, "watch it. Just because your mom is an Olympian doesn't mean you're untouchable."

The girl scoffs, and Thea suspects she has a reason to hate the Lord of the Dead. "You can't be tempted to make a deal for your mom, Percy."

"What would you do if it was your dad?"

"That's easy," she says. "I'd leave him to rot."

Thea's eyes widen.

"You can't be serious?" Percy asks.

Annabeth fixes her eyes on him as if he's a monster she needs to kill. "My dad's resented me since the day I was born," she says. "He never wanted a baby. When he got me, he asked Athena to take me back and raise me on Olympus because he was too busy with his work. She wasn't happy about that. She told him heroes had to be raised by their mortal parent."

Ouch. Thea's mother didn't want a child, especially not with her father, but she grew to love her. She can't imagine what she'd do if her mother hated her.

"But how . . ." Percy frowns. "I mean, I guess you weren't born in a hospital . . ."

"I appeared on my father's doorstep, in a golden cradle, carried down from Olympus by Zephyr the West Wind. You'd think my dad would remember that as a miracle, right? Like maybe he'd take some digital photo or something. But he always talked about my arrival as if it were the most inconvenient thing that ever happened to him. When I was five he got married to a 'regular' mortal wife, and had two 'regular' mortal kids, and tried to pretend I didn't exist."

Thea doesn't know how to comfort her. Saying that her mother was all she had up until she died and left her all alone didn't seem like it would be the best choice. Annabeth might not be an orphan like her, but she has her own special form of hurt.

"My mom married a really awful guy," Percy tells her. "Grover said she did it to protect me, to hide me in the scent of a human family. Maybe that's what your dad was thinking."

Annabeth keeps toying with the college ring on her necklace. Thea guesses it must be her father's ring.

"He doesn't care about me," Annabeth says. "His wife—my stepmom—treated me like a freak. She wouldn't let me play with her children. My dad went along with her. Whenever something dangerous happened—you know, something with monsters—they would both look at me resentfully, like 'how dare you put our family at risk.' Finally, I took the hint. I ran away."

It's silent until Percy asks something. "How old were you?"

"Same age as when I started camp. Seven."

"But . . . you can't have gotten all the way to Half-Blood Hill by yourself."

"Not alone, no," she says. "Athena watched over me, guided me toward help. I made a few of unexpected friends who took care of me, for a short time, anyway."

When Annabeth seems like she isn't going to say anything else, Thea speaks. She feels like she has to say something, just so she doesn't feel like an intruder. "Every day when I was on my own trying to make it to Camp Half-Blood, I prayed to my father. I'd look at the stars and know he was somewhere up there. I know he's helped me, I couldn't have stayed alive those three years without him."

"Do you know who your dad is?" Annabeth asks. "Did your mom remember?"

"He never told her," Thea says, looking towards her hands. "I'm not saying my father was a bad man, but my mother said she knew from the moment she met him he was godly, and that he was powerful. He didn't love my mother, so he never told her his real name, or who he was. He only said his name was David, and that's all I have."

It isn't true. But it feels wrong to say the truth out loud. They don't need to know that her father was abusive, or that he reminded her mother of a monster. She doesn't need them knowing that her mother was scared of the day Thea would finally meet him.

"You'll find him," Percy assures her, "almost everyone does at camp."

Thea has been waiting her entire life to find her father. But when it's this close, the idea terrifies her.

*    *    *

THEA JOLTS AWAKE, her dream cut short by a voice on the intercom blaring about their stop. They're stopping somewhere, she didn't quite catch the name, for a three-hour layover before departing again for Denver, which is as far as they were going.

Her dream was a memory. It was the night her mother died, and she could see it replaying, unable to stop any of the events. They were sitting peacefully on the couch watching a comedy movie when she was woken up. She's thankful that she didn't get to finish it, she's spent too many times reliving it.

She stretches, yawns, and rubs tiredly at her eyes as she gets up from her seat. Her sword is tucked underneath her seat and Thea promptly grabs it and straps it to her back. It's an invention that her cousin—a half-blood of Hephaestus—made for her when they were kids. Her sword can easily slide into the sheath and easily be pulled out, but still not bulky enough to get in the way. It even fits under her hiking bag, though it makes it slightly more difficult to pull out.

"Where are you going?" Thea asks, directing it towards the three leaving the aisle.

"The Gateway Arch," Annabeth answers. "While you were napping, you missed the whole explanation. Now come on, we don't have much time to waste."

Thea frowns, but nonetheless shoulders her bag and follows them off of the train. This is stupid, but she has nothing better to do. She might as well look at some boring architecture because some bossy girl tells her to.

"Do you bring that bag everywhere?" Grover asks, eyeing it suspiciously.

"Yeah," she says, thumbing the strap of the bag. "Everything important is in here, everything I need to survive." Her eyes narrow at the satyr. "Don't get any ideas, goat boy, I could skewer you."

He nods quickly, as if he's a very nervous bobblehead. "O-Of course! I'd never take anything!"

When they reach the short line to get in, Grover looks slightly less skittish. Thea thinks about pulling him aside and threatening an explanation out of him, which she knows will work, but she won't. Not because it isn't morally right, but because she feels too tired to do it. Being practically dead for three years has sapped the energy out of her, apparently.

Annabeth keeps rambling on about different things, like the methods they used to build it, or the history of the city. Thea ignores her while Grover and Percy eat a bag of jelly beans they bought on the train. For what must have been the sixth time since they've arrived, she yawns and stretches, a small, soft disgruntled noise leaving her mouth in the process. Percy and Grover snicker to themselves, but with one quick glare, they stop.

A cold chill passes through her bones, and instinctively, she goes to grab her sword before she realizes she can't whip it out in front of mortals, that they see things like spiked baseball bats and shotguns. Stupid mortals.

"You smell anything?" Percy asks Grover, seeming to get the same feeling she did.

Grover takes his nose out of the jelly bean bag long enough to sniff. "Underground," he says distastefully. "Underground always smells like monsters. Probably doesn't mean anything."

"Guys," Percy says, seeming to not buy it, "you know the gods' symbols of power?"

Annabeth looks up from her pamphlet about the construction equipment used to build the arch. "Yeah?"

"Well, Hade—"

Thea gives him a swift kick to the ankle and purposely ignores his dirty look. "We're in public, idiot. Don't use his name."

"Sure, whatever," he says. "Doesn't he have a hat like Annabeth's?"

Thea has seen Annabeth's New York Yankee's cap, one that she said Athena gave to her that turns her invisible. It's cool, but not nearly as powerful as Hades' helm.

"You mean the Helm of Darkness," Annabeth corrects. "Yeah, that's his symbol of power. I saw it next to his seat during the winter solstice council meeting."

Thea wants to ask how she had been allowed to Olympus, but Percy beats her with his own question. "He was there?"

"It's the only time he's allowed to visit Olympus," she answers. "The darkest day of the year. But his helm is a lot more powerful than my invisibility hat, if what I've heard is true . . ."

"It allows him to become darkness," Grover confirms. "He can melt into any shadow or pass through walls. He can't be touched, seen, or head. And he can radiate fear so intense it can drive you insane or stop your heart. Why do you think all rational creatures fear the dark?"

Thea doesn't. Well, not just the dark itself. More so what hides in it.

"But then . . . how do we know he's not here right now, watching us?"

With an exchanged look between herself and Grover, Annabeth answers. "We don't."

"Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better," Percy says. "Got any blue jelly beans left?"

Thea sighs to herself as she rocks on her heels. She's antsy. Usually, it's because she can't stand to wait in lines for even three minutes, but now it's something different. It feels like she's reached something important and just doesn't know it yet. But it still feels like there's so much more to go, like she's missing a piece of the puzzle. Thea isn't sure if this means she's close to finding out who her father is—if somehow Hades and the masterbolt are the answer—or if it's something else. She tries not to dwell on it.

When they finally reach the elevator, she isn't thrilled. It's small, and they're stuck with a middle-aged woman who takes up a third of the elevator, as well as her chihuahua, which Thea guesses has to be some form of emotional support dog. As they start to go up, Thea's stomach churns. She doesn't particularly mind heights, the altitude never scared her. It's the feeling that she shouldn't be up there. Like something awful will happen if she stays up there. Thea never tries her luck in Zeus' domain, so even elevators are off-limits for her if they go more than twenty floors.

"No parents?" the woman abruptly asks. She has beady eyes. She reminds Thea of the big cock roaches that hide under rocks.

"They're below," Annabeth tells her. "Scared of heights."

"Oh, the poor darlings."

Thea doesn't like this woman. She irks her. Something about the way she says 'darlings' is disgusting. It's as if she's mocking their imaginary parents, which is weird, because who mocks random children's parents? She just hopes the woman is a creep and not a monster. One is more manageable than the other.

The Chihuahua growls and the woman looks towards it with a certain look that Thea can't describe. The dog has beady eyes, too, ones that she has to make herself look away from. "Now now, sonny. Behave."

"Sonny," Percy says, "is that its name?"

"No," the lady says, smiling as if that clears everything up.

Thea's the first off the elevator, and she has a split-second thought of jumping right back in, but she doesn't because the woman is taking nearly an entire minute to exit. The view doesn't bother her, it's rather nice seeing the river. What bothers her is the height. She feels sick, like the way she did when she got a stomach virus, right before she officially got sick.

Whoever her father is, he clearly has a bone to pick with Zeus.

Annabeth keeps talking about structural supports and how she would have made the windows bigger, or how she would have designed a see-through floor. Thea finds it interesting, mostly because she has never seen someone so passionate about something in her entire life. It's . . . nice. She wonders what it feels like to love something so much that you can talk about it for hours on end.

A park ranger announces that the observation deck will be closing in a few minutes, and while Annabeth looks disappointed, Percy quickly steers them over to the elevator. Thea doesn't need to be told twice, she's the first one in.

There isn't enough room for Percy since there are already five people in the elevator.

"Next car, sir," the park ranger says.

"We'll get out," Annabeth says, moving to step out. "We'll wait with you."

"Nah, it's okay. I'll see you guys at the bottom."

When the doors start to close, Thea gives him a thumbs up. "Be careful, stupid."

Percy scowls and gives her a rather obscene gesture that makes her gasp softly in mock hurt.

"This is going to go terribly," Thea states confidently. "I am one hundred percent sure Percy is going to blow this."

"I know you were stone for three years," Annabeth says, "but do you have to have the emotions of one?"

Thea clenches her fist and casts a quick look toward the two other guests in the car. "Look, princess—"

Grover kicks them both in the ankles, which hurts several times more due to the goat hooves behind the thin rubber tennis shoes. "Stop it. Percy doesn't need you two arguing all the time."

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever."

When the elevator comes to a stop, they're quick to exit and wait by a trashcan a few yards from where the elevator stops. When Percy comes down, they'll be the first to see him. To pass the time, Thea counts how many people have stupid-looking hats, but then that turns boring because people have too many bad hats, so she starts to guess who isn't a mortal out of the crowd, like a wild game of Guess Who?

"This is taking a while," Annabeth says worriedly. "It's been three minutes already."

"Ooh," Thea muses, "you got a chip in him or something?"

"Listen, this is dangerous!" she whispers, angry. "Do you not understand what kind of danger he's in—what kind we're all in? Already, we've had to fight the Kindly Ones and Medusa. Percy has more of a chance than any of us of drawing out monsters—he could be fighting one up there right now!"

"Maybe," Thea shrugs. "Or maybe he's just admiring the oh-so-excellent tiny windows."

Annabeth almost argues with her before she starts to smirk. "Wait. You were listening to me, weren't you? You actually listened to what I said."

Thea's face burns as she huffs. "No, I didn't! Half of it wasn't even understandable, I couldn't listen if I wanted to. Which I didn't."

"Sure," she says, "sure."

"Oh my god!" someone yells shrilly. "Someone's going to jump!"

With wide eyes, they all sprint to look at the Gateway Arch, and unfortunately, it's exactly what Thea expects. They look up just in time to see Percy—clothes flaming, arms flailing—fall through the air from six hundred feet and land with a huge splash in the river. He disappears, and Thea curses loudly, an assortment of colorful language that makes several heads turn.

"Someone help them!" a man yells. "Someone help!"

"Fuck this," Thea huffs. She links her fingers together and with a few carefully thought-out words, she feels a powerful warmth flow out of her and through the crowd. Annabeth and Grover shiver, both of them blinking in confusion as the mortals stumble, look around, and go back to their average things as if a twelve-year-old hadn't just fallen out of the sky.

"What—what did you do?" Grover asks, eyes wide. "What was that?"

"A spell," she says. "Duh."

"How did you do it?" he asks. "I thought you said you didn't know who your father was?"

"I don't." She sighs and looks at the water where Percy once was. "My mother was a grandchild of Hecate and the magical abilities passed down to me. With the right practice, I can use it, as long as it's not too powerful since the connection is a bit distant. That one was easy, that's why I didn't really have to think about it."

"So they just forgot?" Annabeth asks. "About whatever happened up there, too?"

"Oh, no." Thea cringes. "Shit. Nope, those mortals up there definitely remember what happened. And since we have no idea what happened, I can't erase it from their memories."

"No," Grover groans, "this is bad, this is so, so bad! Percy's gone, and mortals witnessed something, and—"

"Keep it together, goat boy." She shakes his shoulders with a bit more force than is necessary. "Percy's probably fine. He's the son of Poseidon, remember? Water's a second home to him, he can hit it from that altitude like it's nothing."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I studied everything there was to know about the godly world since I was an infant," she says. "Obviously. How do you think I survived this long?"

"Spite," Annabeth suggests.

"So do we just . . . wait?" Grover asks, looking worriedly towards the water.

"Yep." Thea cracks her knuckles with disinterest. "I'll be back in five, I gotta use the restroom." She points her finger at the two. "If you leave me, I'll tell your counselor guy."

"Chiron," Annabeth corrects. "And Grover would never let me. Unfortunately."

*    *    *

WHEN THEA COMES out of the bathroom, she's immediately on edge. Somehow, a giant crowd has gathered along with news vans—even emergency vehicles and a police helicopter. It makes sense, since Percy did blow a hole in the side of the arch, but Thea didn't expect them so soon.

She hurries over to Annabeth and Grover and sees Percy making his way toward them, perfectly dry. She hadn't been completely sure Percy would survive the fall. Only about seventy percent sure. Distantly, she realizes his possible death should have frightened her more, but oh well. It doesn't frighten her anymore.

"Dickhead," Thea greets with an easy smile. "Glad to know you're not dead."

Percy blinks. "Uh, thanks?"

Annabeth stomps up to him and does her best attempt to look angry, which fails. "We can't leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?"

"I sort of fell."

"Percy! Six hundred and thirty feet?"

A cop shouts "Gangway!" and Thea flinches, immediately hurrying to the side so they can get by with a woman on a stretcher. Thea hates monsters more than anything in the world, but cops are a close second. They aren't fond of someone who looks like her and is clearly homeless hanging around anywhere.

"And then this huge dog," the lady gasps, "this huge, fire-breathing Chihuahua--"

"Okay, ma'am," a paramedic says. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."

"I'm not crazy! This boy jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." She spots Percy through the crowd and her eyes go wide. "There he is! That's the boy!"

Thea curses and tugs them further into the crowd. "Let's go," she hisses. "It's time to go, right now."

"What's going on?" Annabeth demands, completely ignoring her request as they keep walking. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?"

Percy cringes. "Well, yeah. The lady—the one with the dog—as soon as you guys left she smiled at me and her tongue was like a snake's. With the forked thing and all. She started talking about how her son was going to kill me, and that she's Echidna, and the Chihuahua was her son the Chimera. I tried to fight them off but--but I don't know, I couldn't, so I jumped into the river."

Thea waits a moment, tries to take everything, immediately fails, and tries again. "Okay, so what then? Because there's no way you were under there that long just swimming around. Did you have a concussion or something? Meet a mermaid?"

"Kinda." Well, that was unexpected. "There was this woman, she could breathe underwater like me . . . I thought she was my mom, but she wasn't. She said I had to go to Santa Monica. That it was my 'father's will.' She said he believed in me. That my mother's fate wasn't as hopeless as I believed. I don't know, it was weird, but I think she was telling the truth."

"Nereids," Thea says. "She was telling the truth, they would never lie to Poseidon's son." She shakes her head when Percy looks at her questioningly. "It's complicated, but basically, your father is very, very important to them. All of them."

They pass through another bulk of people and Thea shoulders through them and steps on someone's flip-flop.

"We've got to get to Santa Monica," Grover says. "You can't ignore summons from your dad!"

Before any of them can respond, they pass by a reporter and Thea's eyes widen at what she hears. "Percy Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young man wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the boy is believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson."

Thea ducks them behind a news van and they slink into an alley, like the cats she saw in big cities. Her heart seems to stop racing once they're away from all the commotion.

"First things first," Percy says, catching her attention. "We've got to get out of town!"

"Definitely," Thea agrees. "Alright, who's up for some greasy dining hall food back on the train? I think Denver's calling my name."