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memory

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Annabeth Chase had passed the point of exhaustion. She could no longer remember how long they had been running for; it felt like an eternity. Her legs felt like they were on fire as she stumbled to keep up with Drew, Clarisse, and Chris as they ran through the woods, leaving Cameron behind to fend off whatever monsters had come for her.

My fault.

That was the mantra that played inside her head, repeating louder and louder whenever Annabeth felt as if she were about to collapse. The blame was solid, something that she could feel. And as long as she could feel, Annabeth knew she had the strength to continue.

"We have to stop soon," said Clarisse, eying the panting Drew beside her.

"I'm fine," Drew insisted, shoving a large tree branch aside as if to prove her point. "I'm all healed up, remember?"

But even Annabeth noticed the way the girl kept a hand pressed against her stomach and winced with every breath. Clarisse rolled her eyes at Drew, who promptly ignored her.

"We have to create distance, but not too much," Chris said, glancing over his shoulder as he spoke, "we don't want to leave Cameron too far behind."

"Will he be alright?" Annabeth asked without even registering that she opened her mouth to speak.

"Cam's fought off monsters before," Drew said confidently, giving Annabeth a jaunty wink that didn't match the grave expression resting in her eyes. "It's nothing he can't handle."

Clarisse and Chris exchanged a glance, one that gave Annabeth a sick feeling in her stomach. There was a sense of something missing deep within her bones.

But there was also something familiar about this feeling of running, of escaping. As if old-Annabeth had spent her life running from something, somewhere, or someone.

She stumbled over a tree branch, catching herself at the last second. Muttering a curse that she didn't remember learning, Annabeth wiped the droplets of sweat from her brow.

"We should stop," said Clarisse decisively.

"We should stop."

And suddenly, Annabeth was no longer limping through the woods with three friendly strangers. She was somewhere else, somewhere that only existed in her mind.

"We should stop. Annabeth's tired."

The words were said by a young girl with sharp blue eyes and short black hair. She walked with a severe limp, her leg a bleeding mess. A boy with golden hair was supporting her as she leaned on him, her every breath an aching rasp.

"Annabeth could run another twenty miles, couldn't you?" the boy said, smirking over his shoulder.

Trailing a few steps behind was a much younger girl, no more than eight years old. Her blonde hair was a terrific mess of tangled knots and dirt, and her clothes were far too big for her. But there was a beaming smile on her face as she looked up at the boy.

"Yep!" she said cheerfully, pulling something from her back pocket. The girl was carrying a dagger. She stared at it, almost gaping at it, as if she couldn't believe she was really holding a blade.

"Don't worry," the boy said to the dark-haired girl. "I know a safe place. They burned down our nearest safe house, but that place wouldn't have what you need, anyways. Where we're going, there's food and medicine and air conditioning. We're almost there."

"Air conditioning?" asked the youngest girl, visibly perking up at the prospect of it.

The boy smiled. "Yep. So much air conditioning."

The boy cast another look over his shoulder, but it wasn't the young girl he was looking at; he looked worried, as if he were searching for something that he did not want to find.

"This is a terrible idea, Luke," the dark-haired girl murmured softly.

He gave her a sad grin. "We can't afford any good ideas. We're stuck with what we got. It's just a little farther, I promise."

"Annabeth? Annabeth, are you alright?"

Annabeth's eyes snapped open, though she couldn't remember closing them. Chris, Drew, and Clarisse were all staring at her, something like concern written in their eyes. Somehow, Annabeth was laying on the ground. She didn't remember falling.

"Are you alright?" Chris repeated softly, extended out a hand.

Annabeth accepted it, and he helped pull her into a sitting position. "What happened?" she asked, blinking specks of dirt from her eyes.

"You just collapsed," said Drew, her eyes wide.

"I think. . .I think I just remembered something," Annabeth said hesitantly. "There was a boy and a girl with me. I was young, and so were they."

Clarisse winced, and quickly averted her gaze from Annabeth.

Annabeth frowned. "Who were they?" she asked Clarisse.

Clarisse slowly met Annabeth's eyes. "The girl was Thalia Grace. Daughter of Zeus, now a Hunter of Artemis. All around badass and pain in the ass."

"Clarisse," Chris said warningly.

"What?" asked the girl defiantly, glaring at Chris. "She disappeared after Percy did, promising to find him and Annabeth. She never bothered to keep in touch with anyone; she just disappeared because it was easiest."

"She's on our side," argued Drew.

"Right, if our side is —"

"Why do you always fight whenever I'm trying to tell you something?" interrupted Annabeth, a surge of anger bringing her to her feet. She no longer felt tired; only angry and confused. "I remembered something! That's good, isn't it? That means I can remember more, that I can remember all the things I'm supposed to so I can help you find 'Percy', whoever the hell that is!"

Silence greeted her outburst. Annabeth took in a deep breath. Then another.

"Just a little father, I promise."

"Who was the boy?" Annabeth demanded. No one answered. They all refused to look her in the eye, with the exception of Drew, who merely shook her head at Annabeth. "Who was he?"

"Luke Castellan," Clarisse said finally. "He betrayed Olympus and joined Kronos years ago."

"The knife," Annabeth murmured softly. "Dalos wanted to know where the knife Luke Castellan gave me was. But I didn't know who Luke was. That was him?"

Clarisse nodded. "He and Thalia found you, and brought you to camp. After Thalia died, something inside him changed."

Annabeth frowned. "I thought you said Thalia was alive."

"She is," Clarisse said, rolling her eyes. "She's technically immortal now, but she died before she could get to Camp Half-Blood. Her dad made her into a tree and it turned out she was still alive."

If possible, Charisse's explanation left Annabeth more confused than before. "I'm sorry, what?" she sputtered.

"We don't have time for this," Clarisse said gruffly, "and we can't afford to wait here much longer. Cameron will find us, but right now, we have to go -"

Her sentence ended abruptly. Clarisse looked around at the trees, as if she had seen something. Annabeth followed her gaze, but saw nothing.

"What is it?" whispered Drew, her words barely audible.

Spear in hand, Clarisse took a step towards an overgrown bush. "If there's anyone out there, I will not hesitate to gut you," she called out loudly, a predatory gleam in her eyes.

"That's subtle," Chris whispered sarcastically.

"I don't hear or see anything," Drew whispered back. "Do you, Annabeth?"

Startled to be included, Annabeth shook her head. A frown on her perfectly sculpted lips, Drew unsheathed a long knife and stepped in front of Annabeth, brandishing her blade at the dark forest around them.

Annabeth scanned the woods, but there was no sign of the disturbance Clarisse had heard. There was nothing but trees and —

Movement.

"There," hissed Annabeth, pointing at a large shrub several trees away from them. "I saw something move near there."

"I saw it, too," growled Clarisse, already stalking towards it. "Whatever you are, human, monster, animal, or something else, you're already dead."

"I'm glad to see you haven't changed in the least, Clarisse," said a voice from the bush.

Clarisse stopped in her tracks, spear still aimed at the location of the voice. Someone stepped out from behind the shrub, looking almost embarrassed to be caught hiding. It was a man —no, that was wrong. The top half of his body was human, but his legs were something else entirely. They were covered with hair, bent at the wrong place, and his feet were hooves.

"I'm surprised to find you here," the thing that was not human said. "You were never one to enjoy nature, Clarisse."

"Grover?" Clarisse said incredulously. "What in Hades' Helm are you doing here? How are you still alive?"

"Were you following us?" asked Chris.

"No, I wasn't following you. I'm making my way to the coast to find Olympus, but that's hard to do when —"

His eyes landed on Annabeth and his face changed. It was a mixture of horror and surprise and relief, all at the same time.

"Annabeth?" he asked, squinting as if he couldn't be sure. Then, his expression morphed into pure joy. "Annabeth!"

He launched himself towards Annabeth, but Drew blocked his path.

"The thing is," Drew drawled, "Annabeth doesn't remember you."

Grover, as Clarisse called him, stopped immediately. "What do you mean?"

"I don't remember anything or anyone before recently," said Annabeth. There was something unsettling about the abrupt end of joy that left Annabeth feeling guilty. "Don't take it personally," she added after seeing the forlorn expression on Grover's face.

"But. . .but how?" Grover asked. "Where have you been? Where's Percy?"

Before anyone could response, a distant howl sounded. Clarisse immediately pointed her spear in its direction.

"Hellhounds," Chris muttered distastefully.

"As if this day couldn't get any better," Drew murmured in agreement, flicking a strand of red hair over her shoulder.

Grover stared at Drew, as if it were the first time he noticed her. "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

Drew gave him a smile. "Right, I guess I don't look much like myself. It's just a new look I'm trying out. But I don't think I can pull off being a redhead, do you?"

Annabeth could have laughed; the girl looked flawless, as usual. Her pale skin was luminous in the fading light, and not a single red curl was out of place. As if she could read Annabeth's thoughts, Drew gave her a wicked grin, her impossibly bright green eyes glowing.

"That doesn't answer my question," mumbled Grover.

"Enough," Clarisse interrupted snappishly. "Cameron could be in trouble."

"Who's Cameron?" asked Grover, looking very confused.

Clarisse only rolled her eyes in response. "You all continue. I'm going back to find him."

"Clarisse, Cam will be fine," Chris said softly. "He's fought off worse than this before."

"She's right," Annabeth said, proud to have found her voice. "One of us should go help him. At the very least, we need to communicate with him where we'll be."

"You all are idiots," Drew said, somewhat cheerfully. She pulled out a necklace from under her shirt and wrapped her hand around it. "Did you seriously forget about these?"

Chris laughed while Clarisse glowered. But they both pulled out identical necklaces, holding the small amulet in their fists. The three of them closed their eyes, leaving Annabeth and Grover to stand in a very confused silence.

Drew was the first to open her eyes. "I don't hear anything," she said anxiously, "it's like a weird buzzing silence."

"I don't think —wait, I heard something!" exclaimed Chris. But his excitement evaporated into confusion. "But that wasn't Cameron's voice."

"No," Clarisse agreed, a mixture of a frown and a scowl on her face, "but I know who it belongs to."

"Is anyone going to tell me what is going on?" Grover asked, his voice slightly shaking.

At the same time, the three released their necklaces and turned to face Annabeth. It was almost eerie, how in synch they moved. Annabeth's skin crawled as three stares pinned her down. Clarisse's was steely determination, while Chris' was a mix of regret and sadness. Drew's was something in between.

"Congratulations, Grover," said Clarisse, tearing her gaze away from Annabeth. "You get to travel with us now."

"And where are we going?" he asked wearily.

Clarisse slipped her spear into place in its holder that she carried on her back. "Olympus."

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