Fingers flit over the keys of her flute, seeking the comfort of the familiar soft clacking as Zoe drove like a maniac over highway and bridge.

They were being followed by a helicopter, a group of mercenaries employed by a titan that was of the mind to hunt down Percy, apparently, though she imagined it was more than just him now that they were trying to prevent them from freeing the chained goddess and Annabeth by extension.

Her breathing came even as she focused on the sound of the approaching helicopter trying to judge the distance.

She tried to harness the sound, to focus it hard and volatile, destructive, around the copter to force it apart, to shatter it to bits and let it crumble unto nothing -- a big explosive wave flying off the sound of whirring blades cutting through the air letting those poor, foolish humans fall to their deaths.

(There was no thought of mercy in her mind as she considered freeing the world from the likes of guns for hire willing to work for anyone that had the right price. A fight the level of gods and titans would toss the world into ruin and destruction and endless death and she was selfish enough to wish to avoid that over the lives of a few mortals.)

At the thought, she felt the tension in the air, the ripple of electric power building, a sound like a zap forming.

Her eyes snap open, focusing on Thalia as she sits with eyes clenched, fist tight. Her brows were furrowed, sweat starting to form on her temple. She was trying to strike the helicopter out of the sky but it felt more like she was frying the air, pulling it away as she was prone to do from time to time.

"Hey, Dad. A lightning bolt would be nice about now. Please?" the girl prayed, forcing a little more.

Kassandra focused a little more on the buzzing, hoping to magnify the sound to do something but it was like getting feedback as it recoiled back towards her, snapping in her ears enough to give her an instant headache.

She slumped forward with a groan, fingers massaging her temples.

The sky stayed light and snowy with no sign of an exploding helicopter in sound.

"You okay?" Percy asks.

"I'll be alright," she answers. "No hope of me blowing it up like last time."

"Hey, don't worry about it. Your dad said it was dangerous, remember?"

"He said it was dangerous to scream. I thought this might be a little different, but I guess not."

He pats her shoulder as stares out the front window, looking for an exit that they might be able to ditch the van with.

"There!" Bianca shouts. "The parking lot!'

"We'll be trapped there," Zoe says.

"We won't. Trust me."

They pull off, parking the van in the lot. They all climb out quickly, grabbing their things and following Bianca as she leads.

"I've been here before with Nico last year," she explains. "It looked very different then. It was cleaner."

They went into the subway entrance quickly, hoping to get out of sight of the helicopter that was still following them.

"Subway entrance," Bianca says. "Let's go south. Alexandria."

"Anything," Thalia agrees.

They bought tickets and got through the turnstiles, looking behind them for any signs of pursuit. After a few minutes, they were safe aboard a southbound train, riding away from D.C. As the train came above ground, they could see the helicopter circling the parking lot, but it didn't come after the train.

Grover let out a sigh. "Nice job, Bianca, thinking of the subway."

Bianca looked pleased. "Yeah, well. I saw that station when Nico and I came through last summer. I remember being really surprised to see it, because it wasn't here when we used to live in D.C."

Grover frowns. "New? But that station looked really old."

"I guess," Bianca says. "But trust me, when we lived here as little kids, there was no subway."

Her stomach twists, dropping. There was something about this line of questioning that she just really, really hated, like she knew it wasn't a good idea to be saying about it at all.

Thalia sat forward. "Wait a minute. No subway at all?"

Bianca nods.

Zoe shakes her head. "Bianca, how long ago..." Her voice falters.

"We'll have to switch quite a few trains in a hurry if we want to be at least heading in the right direction," she notes looking over a pamphlet she had grabbed on their way in. Speaking quickly because she just knew that now wasn't the time to figure out whatever this was. It really wasn't. "I think we can time it right if--" She pauses, listening carefully to a sound closing in on them. "They're still following us."

"We'll have to change trains to confuse them," Percy says.

Nodding, she quickly reaches into her bag and pulls out two plain black hats and a honey yellow one. "Put these on. It's not much, but it's a bit of a distraction.

She gave one to Zoe, Thalia and Percy -- smiling at the sight of him in golden tones the colour of summer and love and family, her clenching and stomach fluttering at how strikingly radiant he was.

(It wasn't the first time that she had been attracted to a boy, obviously, she was a fifteen-year-old girl and was more than capable of seeing the beauty in the world around her, able to see it in an ocean boy with sea-green eyes and reckless smirk.

There was poetry in people, art in the emerging sculpting of their faces and bodies alike, perfection in imperfections of cuts and knicks and plum bruised skin and silvery scars.

Percy was a sight. Handsome with boyish charm and divine beauty.)

(But in yellow, he was an image enchanting and warm, like the sun on the sea casting its reflective shine and sparkling glow. Percy was going to keep that hat or so help her, she would stitch it to his head and she doubted Poseidon would ever forgive her for that.)

Over the next half hour, they jumped between trains until they finally lost track of the helicopter that sought them out riding in a pattern that was very much not going to put them in the right direction.

Unfortunately that meant that by the time they all felt it safe to get off the train, they found themselves at the end of the line, in an industrial area with nothing but warehouses and railway tracks. And snow. Lots of snow. It seemed much colder here and she had never been more grateful for the internal sun that bloomed beneath her skin in between the spaces of her ribs that kept her warm, cozy and light as the others shivered and shook from the cold.

They wandered through the railway yard, thinking there might be another passenger train somewhere, but there were just rows and rows of freight cars, most of which were covered in snow, like they hadn't moved in years.

She felt bad, really, sorta, at least, and she cursed Apollo on their behalf as the sun was long gone and hidden from their sights blocked away by heavy clouds that threatened to bring down even more snow at any moment

"How isn't your jacket even zipped?" Thalia demands, fingers stuck under her armpits with her arms crossed over her chest to keep warm.

"Sorry, I don't get cold easy," She apologized. "You want my jacket?"

"Don't be stupid," Percy tells her. "Just because you don't get cold easy doesn't mean you won't get cold."

She shrugs. "It's not like I can get sick or anything. I don't think I've ever been cold."

"Lucky you," Grover gurmbles. "I almost can't feel my hooves."

She eyes the satyr. "Lee should have packed me way too many socks. You want an extra pair to put on?" She offers.

"Really?" he asks, eyes lighting with joy.

"Yeah, lets just find a way out of here and I'll get them for you."

A homeless guy was standing at a trash-can fire. She figured they must've looked pretty pathetic, because he gave them a toothless grin and said, "Y'all need to get warmed up? Come on over!"

The others rush over to crowd around the heat, reaching out to the flame, but Kassandra stayed back, every instinct in her half-mortal, half-god mind screamed that she shouldn't go near him, that she didn't want to go near him.

He was scruffy around the edges, his clothes filthy with tears. His face was grimy with a tangled beard, but his smily was inviting, expression open.

And he was familiar, eyes so familiar, that she just knew it was him. Kassandra would know those eyes anywhere, would know that expression anywhere, when she could recognize it in each of her siblings.

"Aren't you going to come and get warm, dear?" he says, voice harsher than when she had first heard him speak, but it suited him all the same.

"No, thank you. I'm warm enough already," she refuses, opening her jacket just a little more to make her point clear. "Don't mind me."

Percy looks up from where he was warming his hands speaking with the others. He frowns at her, brows furrowing, but doesn't say anything else on the matter.

"You know," her father says, "you're never completely without friends. You kids need a train going west?"

"Yes, sir," Percy says. "You know of any?"

He pointed one greasy hand.

But she didn't turn as the others did, keeping her gaze on him. Apollo watched her as well, those same blue eyes as always suddenly looked much older than they did the last time that she saw them. She grits her teeth, hating how tired and sad he looked and how it was starting to make her feel bad for him. She didn't want to care about him like that in the slightest, but he never would have turned up like this if he had any other option.

"Thanks, Apollo," she mutters silently.

His gaze warms, blue eyes twinkling, and then in a flash of the fire he's gone.

"That's... convenient," Thalia says. "Thanks, uh..."

An hour later they were on a train called SUN WEST LINE rumbling west surrounded by cars that were being transported across country.

They had any pick of any car that they wanted and as such Kassandra sought out the one with the most comfortable back seat. She climbed into the back of a sleek white Rolls Royce after picking the lock to get in and advancing the seats enough that she was comfortable laid out.

She had taken off her bag and weapons, even removing her jacket to use as a pillow and had changed shirts for a clean one.

Zoe and Bianca were crashed out in a Lexus on the top deck. Grover was playing race car driver behind the wheel of a Lamborghini. And Thalia had hot-wired the radio in a black Mercedes SLK so she could pick up the alt-rock stations from D.C., the music carrying over to her a few cars over enough for her to be comfortable as she laid back with the setting sun and soft tunes.

The White Stripes were almost enough to block out the sound of the train beneath them as she closed her eyes and ignored how alone she felt sitting without anyone for company, but she wasn't going to hop into a car with Grover while he fooled around playing race car (she still gave him a pair of socks) or with Thalia and Percy to interrupt whatever was going on there.

(When she was eight years old, Kassandra had gotten off the school bus on the last day of school happy to run into her home and talk to her parents about summer break and all the amazing things that they were going to do.

She had run right up to the front door, ready to burst in, when she heard their voices clear as day as they spoke to her therapist, quiet and scared and tearful. Her father, Peter, had cried, sobbing as he tried to make other suggestions. Queenie, her wonderfully loving mother, had cried much more softly, had reassured her husband.

They spoke of sending her away, of putting her into a hospital that was a pretend school for children like her, children that were sick in the head, who say things that weren't there even with all the medicine that they took.

And Kassandra, a scared little girl that just knew that she wasn't crazy, that just knew that if she went to this place then she would die, had run away, dropping her school bag on the front lawn as she went.

The first night she sobbed and cried and shivered in fear behind a building in the downtown area. There was so much light, so much noise, that she couldn't stop from digging her nails into her palms and clapping her hands over her ears to drown it all out.

Kassandra had spent a month running away, going anywhere that she could so long as it wasn't to home, so long as she kept moving.

And she had learnt what it meant to be alone.)

(In her mind, that was the first true time that her father had let her down monumentally. Kassandra had been eight, all alone, and struggling to survive. He hadn't been there to guide her to anyone. Hadn't been there to give her a hint as other gods did to their demigod children.)

(Kassandra had spent the first eight years of her life with people telling her that she was sick or special or crazy until she met Oriana. Apollo hadn't been there for any of it.)

(And maybe that was why her parents, her true ones that raised her, the adoptive ones that had no more idea of anything than she did, let her do just about anything she wanted within reason. They allowed her to disappear for days, weeks, at a time without so much as a protest other than for her safety. Maybe they just felt terrible for making her feel like she lived in her head among fantasy and delusions.)

"You should try to sleep."

She doesn't open her eyes to acknowledge her. "It's a bit difficult, honestly," she says softly. "I just keep thinking of everything and everything else."

"It may be difficult, but thee must try," Zoe says, climbing into the front seat of her car.

Kassandra sits up slowly, leaning forward so that she could look at the girl properly. "You too. I know that you must be nervous about what Percy told you. The General being her..."

"I cannot believe it to be true. It would surely be too dangerous. The gods will have known by now if it was true."

She sighs. "Percy didn't lie. Luck has never been on our side so it will be him. Why are you so afraid of that?"

The girl sighs. "Because I did not tell thee everything about who I was when we had first met, Kassandra," she says.

"I've always figured as much. I was only just turned nine when we met," she says. "And I was only with you for about a week."

"You had been such a happy child."

"Am I not happy now?"

"Not the same way. No one ever is after," Zoe says softly, as if speaking the words too loudly will break the world around them. "I have told you of my age, then, of how long I have served the lady Artemis, but I had not wanted to burden thee more."

"You don't have to tell me anything."

"But it will make my burden lighter in the end," Zoe says. "I had once resided on what thee would call the Mountain of Despair among my sisters."

Kassandra draws in a sharp breath between her teeth. "The Hesperides," she says, shaking her head as she takes in Zoe with a new light. The girl had always been beautiful, but now she can see where the depth of that artful attraction came from. "Your father... the General."

She closes her eyes tightly. "I'm sorry I had not told you sooner."

"Zoe, you didn't have to tell me now," she says honestly. "I would have stood by you no matter the consequences. I went on this quest knowing who I was to face. Your parentage makes no difference other than, well, the prophecy..."

The hunter sighs. "I know. I do not fear what is to come if I am to save my goddess."

Kassandra reaches out, pressing her hand to the girl's shoulder. "I care, Zoe. I hope that whatever the prophecy said, it's not what we think."

Zoe leans into her touch, seeking comfort for a moment, before pulling away. "I should return to Bianca. Do not think too hard of the prophecy for now. We are not yet near that point."

"I'll continue to think of it no matter what."

"Get some rest, Kassandra."

She forces a smile, a sad little thing. "You too, Zoe."

Watching her go, she follows her until she could no longer see her go and finally lays back down. The prophecy, And one shall perish by a parent's hand, sounds through her mind, and she whines softly, covering her face with her hands as tears burn her eyes.

She didn't want anyone to die, but she knew that it would happen eventually, that it would happen because her stupid father's stupid oracle declared it so and she hated it more than anything.

It was like losing Ariel all over again, except she knew it was going to happen. It was like learning Luke was a traitor or having Chris look her in the eyes and tell her that he wouldn't come back. It was like seeing Annabeth fall and Percy's furious gaze pinned to her.

And Kassandra could only blame her father for knowing it was coming and feeling so helpless to do anything at all about it.

☼ ☼ ☼

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soo anyways,,, if anyone wants to make me stuff for kass i plan to make a chapter where i put all art/edits/graphics for her

unedited

written: 2021-02-13

posted: 2021-04-13