CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
FINLEY               BRIGGS

Finn was running for her life through her mother's old house in Colorado, where she'd died killing herself when Finn was six.

She wasn't sure what was chasing her, but she sensed it closing in fast—something large and dark and full of hate.

She stumbled into the couch, knocked over kitchen supplies, and tripped on the carpet rug. She spotted the front door and sprinted toward it, but a figure loomed in front of her—a woman in robes of dry swirling earth, her face covered in a veil of dust.

Where are you going, crazy hero? Gaea asked. Stay, and meet my favorite son.

Finn darted to the left, but the Earth Goddess's laughter followed her.

That night your mother died, I warned you. I said the Fates would not allow me to kill you then. But now you have chosen your path. Your death is near, Finley Briggs.

She ran into the kitchen island—her mother's favorite spot in the house. The fridge behind it was decorated with Finn's crayon drawings. She sobbed in desperation and turned, but the thing pursuing her now stood in her path—a colossal being wrapped in shadows, its shape vaguely humanoid, its head almost scraping the ceiling twenty feet above.

Insanity coursed through Finn's veins. She sent a wave of it towards the giant, but the darkness consumed her madness. Finn reached for her thigh holster. The gun was stuck inside. She tried to speak—to say anything that would save her life—but she couldn't make a sound, as if the air had been stolen from her lungs.

My son will not allow any insanity tonight, Gaea said from the depths of the house. He is the void that consumes all magic, the silence that consumes all speech.

Finn wanted to shout: Fuck that, I'm out of here!

Her voice didn't work, so she used her feet. She dashed to the right, ducking under the shadowy giant's grasping hands, and burst through the nearest doorway.

Suddenly, she found herself at Camp Half-Blood. Now, Finn had never been to nor seen Camp Half-Blood before, but she still knew what it looked like. That was because of Leo's invention in the dining hall. She knew this wasn't right. The camp was in ruins. The cabins were charred husks. Burned fields smoldered in the moonlight. The dining pavilion was a pile of white rubble, and there was a big house on fire, its windows glowing like demon eyes.

Finn kept running, sure the shadow giant was still behind her.

She wove around the bodies of Greek and Roman demigods. She should probably check if they were alive, or help them, but she was running out of time.

She jogged toward the only living people she saw—a group of Romans standing at a volleyball pit. The centurions of the Second Cohort leaned casually on their javelins, chatting with a tall skinny blond guy in a purple toga. Finn stumbled. It was Octavian, the augur from Camp Jupiter, who was always screaming for war.

Octavian turned to face her, but he seemed to be in a trance. His features were slack, his eyes closed. When spoke, it was in Gaea's voice: This cannot be prevented. The Romans move easily from New York. Your people advance on the Greek camp, and nothing can slow them down.

Finn was tempted to punch Octavian in the face. Instead, she kept running.

She climbed the largest hill. At the summit, lightning had splintered a giant pine tree.

She faltered to a stop. The back of the hill was shorn away. Beyond it, the entire world was gone. Finn saw nothing but clouds far below—a rolling silver carpet under the dark sky.

A sharp voice said, "Well?"

Finn flinched.

At the shattered pine tree, a woman knelt at a cave entrance that had cracked open between the tree's roots.

The woman wasn't Gaea. She had golden robs and bare ivory arms. When she rose, Finn almost stumbled off the edge of the world.

Her face was regally beautiful, with high cheekbones, large dark eyes, and braided licorice-colored hair piled in a fancy Greek hairdo, set with a spiral of emeralds and diamonds. Her expression radiated pure hatred. Her lip curled. Her nose wrinkled.

"The wine god's child," she sneered. "You are no threat, but I suppose my vengeance must start somewhere. Make your choice."

Finn tried to speak, but she was about to crawl out of her skin with panic. Between this hate queen and the giant chasing her, she had no idea what to do.

"He'll be here soon," the woman warned. "My dark friend will not give you the luxury of a choice. It's the cliff or the cave, girl!"

Suddenly Finn understood what she meant. Finn was cornered. She could jump off the cliff, but that was suicide. Even if there was land under those clouds, she would die in the fall, or maybe she would just keep falling forever.

But the cave... She stared at the dark opening between the tree roots. It smelled of rot and death. She heard bodies shuffling inside, voices whispering in the shadows.

The cave was the home of the dead. If she went back down there, she would never come back.

"Yes," the woman said. Around her neck hung a strange bronze-and-emerald pendant, like a circular labyrinth. Her eyes were so angry, Finn finally understood why mad was a word for crazy. This lady had been driven nuts by hatred. "The House of Hades awaits. You will be the first puny rodent to die in my maze. You have only one chance to escape, Finley Briggs. Take it."

She gestured toward the cliff.

"You're insane," Finn managed.

That was the wrong thing to say. The lady seized her wrists. "That's rich coming from you, girl. You are the epitome of insanity. Perhaps I should kill you now, before my dark friend arrives?"

Steps shook the hillside. The giant was coming, wrapped in shadows, huge and heavy and bent on murder.

"Have you heard of dying in a dream, girl?" the woman asked. "It is possible, at the hands of a sorceress!"

Finn's arms started to smoke. The woman's touch was acid. She tried to free herself, but the woman's grip was like steel.

Finn opened her mouth to scream. The massive shape of the giant loomed over her, obscured by layers of black smoke.

The giant raised his fist, and a voice cut through the dream.

"Briggs!" Leo was shaking her shoulder. "Come on, loca, get up!"

Finn flinched awake with a gasp. Her sheets were on the floor. She must have been thrashing in her sleep. She had been clinging to a pillow in her nightmare like a child, which was a seriously embarrassing factor right now.

She let go of the pillow and sat up, rubbing her face. Then she slapped Leo.

"You're so annoying," she grumbled. "Don't do that."

Leo didn't seem phased by this in the slightest. He grinned at her, like he had a death wish. Then, he held up two items in either hand.

"Sure, whatever. Jason told me to bring this to you," he said.

Finn narrowed her eyes. Leo was holding up a light blue sports drink and two pieces of whole-wheat toast. She scowled instinctively.

"Tell him I said to fuck off."

"He also told me you'd say that," Leo shrugged. Annoyingly, he sat down on the side of her bed. "So, come on, Briggs. This in-my-opinion-disgusting-looking-meal isn't going to eat itself!"

Finn rolled her eyes. She felt a tight emotion clenching in her stomach as she eyed the food.

To summarize, Finn had been trying to get sober for the past four days. The—well—recent events that hurt too much to describe really opened up her eyes as to how serious life was becoming. Finn had only just made new friends, and now... Well, now they were gone. She couldn't afford to be drunk when she was fighting for her life. She couldn't afford to be drunk when Percy and Sylvie were fighting for theirs.

If Finn was going to die, she was going to do it sober. And she had a feeling like that time was coming soon. She had to stop drinking now, and she would do it for her fallen friends.

Unfortunately, Jason was the only one who knew the full extent of how seriously Finn had been drinking before July 1st. Trust Finn, this wasn't according to her own will. It was the asshole's fault for being so nosy and accidentally finding out. And even after, he didn't cease to be nosy. He discovered the full extent of Finn's attempt at getting sober as well.

Similar to Finn's quest for Alaska, she was experiencing alcoholic withdrawals. Jason, the annoying perfect fuck ass hero that he was, was trying to take it upon himself and help Finn out. The only problem, Finn hated him and shoved away his every attempt.

Now it seemed like he was trying to get Leo to do his bidding.

"If you tell Grace I consumed any of this, I will kill you slowly and painfully." Finn grabbed the electrolyte drink and the toast. "And before that, I will drive you so insane that you're gonna wish you were dead already. Is that clear?"

Leo gulped. Warily, he stood up and backed away from Finn's bed. He nodded stiffly. "I ate it before I even got to your cabin," he supplied.

Finn nodded. "Exactly. Now what's going on?"

"We made it through the mountains," he said, eager to change the conversation. "We're almost to Bologna. You should join us in the mess hall. Apparently, Nico has new information."

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Leo had designed the mess hall's walls to show real-time scenes from Camp Half-Blood. Even from the beginning, Finn wasn't a fan of this. Every time she looked, she was filled with a sense of longing and a reminder that she would never belong anywhere. Now, after her nightmare, she was sure she hated it.

She remembered the images she'd seen—the camp in ruins, littered with bodies; Octavian standing at the volleyball pit, casually talking in Gaea's voice.

She stared down at her eggs and avocado toast. She was shaking and sweating and her head throbbed, three prominent side effects of her withdrawal. The flashing images in her mind weren't helping. She wished she could turn off the wall videos.

"So," Jason said, "now that we're here..."

He sat at the head of the table, kind of by default. Since they'd lost Sylvie, Jason had done his best to act as the group's leader. Finn could tell he was stressed—As much as she tried pretending she didn't notice him, his blond hair was a mess and his eyes were more sunken than usual.

Finn glanced around the table. Everyone looked more or less the same, except for Annabeth and Piper. The two demigods were absent, because they were taking their turn at the helm with Coach Hedge, their satyr chaperone.

Finn wished Annabeth were here. Not that Finn would admit it, but she was growing to be one of Finn's favorites amongst the Nine. A little oddly, Finn found Annabeth's brutal honesty and dry humor calming. Piper was able to calm things down too with that Aphrodite charm of hers. After Finn's dream last night, she could use some calm.

(Then again, she wished Percy and Sylvie were here too. But she didn't know if that would ever happen again.)

It was probably good Annabeth and Piper were above deck chaperoning their chaperone. Now that they were in the ancient lands, they had to be constantly on guard. Finn hated Coach Hedge, and she didn't trust him. She wouldn't be surprised if he made all the Italian villages below them go BOOM!

Finn had zoned out so she didn't realize Jason was still talking—not that she would've been listening to him in the first place.

"—the House of Hades," he was saying. "Nico?"

Nico sat forward. "I communed with the dead last night."

He just tossed that line out there, like he was saying he got a text from a buddy.

"I was able to learn more about what we'll face," Nico continued. "In ancient times, the House of Hades was a major site for Greek pilgrims. They would come to speak with the dead and honor their ancestors."

Leo frowned. "Sounds like Día de los Muertos. My Tía Rosa took that stuff seriously."

Frank grunted. "Chinese have that too—ancestor worship, sweeping the graces in the springtime." He glanced at Leo. "Your Tía Rosa would've gotten along with my grandmother."

"Yeah," Leo said. "I'm sure they would've been best buds."

Nico cleared his throat. "A lot of cultures have seasonal traditions to honor the dead, but the House of Hades was open year-round. Pilgrims could actually speak to the ghosts. In Greek, the place was called the Necromanteion, the Oracle of Death. You'd work your way through different levels of tunnels, leaving offerings and drinking special potions—"

"Special potions, you say?" Finn raised an eyebrow.

Jason flashed her a look like, Not funny. "Nico, go on."

"The pilgrims believed that each level of the temple brought you closer to the Underworld, until the dead would appear before you. If they were pleased with your offerings, they would answer your questions, maybe even tell you the future."

Frank tapped his mug of hot chocolate. "And if the spirits weren't pleased?"

"Some pilgrims found nothing," Nico said. "Some went insane, or died after leaving the temple. Others lost their way in the tunnels and were never seen again."

"The point is," Jason said quickly, "Nico found some information that might help us."

"Yeah." Nico didn't sound very enthusiastic. "The ghost I spoke to last night... he was a former priest of Hecate. He confirmed what the goddess told Hazel yesterday at the crossroads. In the first war with the giants, Hecate fought for the gods. She slew one of the giants—one who'd been designed as the anti-Hecate. A guy named Clytius."

"Dark dude," Finn guessed. "Wrapped in shadows."

Hazel turned toward her, her gold eyes narrowing. "Finley, how did you know that?"

"Kind of had a dream."

No one looked surprised. Since dying and coming back to life, Finn had been experiencing vivid dreams, all pertaining to moments where she was near death again.

Her friends (and Jason) paid close attention as Finn explained. She tried not to look at the wall images of Camp Half-Blood as she described the place in ruins. She told them about the dark giant, and the strange woman on the big hill, offering her a multiple-choice death.

Jason pushed away his plate of pancakes. "So the giant is Clytius. I suppose he'll be waiting for us, guarding the Doors of Death."

Frank rolled up one of the pancakes and started munching—not a guy to let impending death stand in the way of a hearty breakfast. "And the woman in Finley's dream?"

"She's my problem." Hazel passed a diamond between her fingers in a sleight of hand. "Hecate mentioned a formidable enemy in the House of Hades—a witch who couldn't be defeated except by me, using magic."

"Do you know magic?" Finn asked.

"Not yet."

"Oh, sure," she deadpanned. "Any idea who she is?"

Hazel shook her head. "Only that..." She glanced at Nico, and some sort of silent argument happened between them. They weren't sharing all the details. "Only that she won't be easy to defeat."

"But there is some good news," Nico said. "The ghost I talked to explained how Hecate defeated Clytius in the first war. She used her torches to set his hair on fire. He burned to death. In other words, fire is his weakness."

Everybody looked at Leo.

"Oh," he said. "Okay."

"It's a good lead," Jason insisted, nodding encouragingly. "At least we know how to kill the giant. And this sorceress... well, if Hecate believes Hazel can defeat her, then so do I."

Finn sighed in heavy annoyance at his grotesque optimism. Jason's features hardened, a little agitatedly.

"Something to say, Briggs?" he asked.

She leaned over the table, propped up on crossed arms. "Yeah, I just love how easy you make this sound, Grace. All we have to do is reach the House of Hades, battle our way through Gaea's forces—"

"Plus a bunch of ghosts," Nico added grimly. "The spirits in that temple may not be friendly."

"Yeah, thanks." Finn gestured to Nico. "And find the Doors of Death. Assuming we can somehow arrive at the same time as Percy and Sylvie and rescue them."

"Well, if you want us to fail," Jason said grumpily.

Frank swallowed a bite of pancake. "We can do it. We have to."

Finn admired the big buy's optimism. She wished she shared it.

"So, with this detour," Leo said, "I'm estimating four or five days to arrive at Epirus, assuming no delays for, you know, monster attacks and stuff."

Finn smiled sourly. "Yeah. Those never happen."

"You are just a beacon of light today," Jason snarked.

"Bite me."

So, yeah. Finn's withdrawal gave her a bit of irritable mood swings. Her preexisting annoyance with Jason certainly didn't help.

Leo looked at Hazel. "Hecate told you that Gaea was planning her big Wake Up party on August 1st, right? The Feast of Whatever?"

"Spes," Hazel said. "The goddess of hope."

Jason turned his fork. "Theoretically, that leaves us enough time. It's only July 5th. We should be able to close the Doors of Death, then find the giants' HQ and stop them from waking Gaea before August 1st."

"Theoretically," Hazel agreed. "But I'd still like to know how we make our way through the House of Hades without going insane or dying."

Finn pointed at Hazel appreciatively. "She gets it."

Frank set down his pancake roll like it suddenly didn't taste so good. "It's July 5th. Oh, jeez, I hadn't even thought of that..."

"Hey, man, it's cool," Leo said. "You're Canadian, right? I didn't expect you to get me an Independence Day present or anything... unless you wanted to."

"It's not that. My grandmother... she always told me that seven was an unlucky number. It was a ghost number. With Percy and Sylvie, well, gone, there's seven of us now. And July is the seventh month."

"Yeah, but..." Leo tapped his fingers nervously on the table. He looked embarrassed and stopped. "But that's just coincidence, right?"

Frank's expression didn't reassure them.

"Back in China," Frank said, "in the old days, people called the seventh month the ghost month. That's when the spirit world and the human world were closest. The living and the dead could go back and forth. Tell me it's a coincidence we're searching for the Doors of Death during the ghost month."

Finn nodded. "He gets it too. My best friends."

Jason rolled his eyes.

"Let's focus on the things we can deal with," he said, pressing his hands against the arms of his chair. "We're getting close to Bologna. And when we land in Venice, we'll return the stolen book to that guy Hecate mentioned. Then he can help us."

"If he doesn't kill us," Finn muttered.

"Would you shut up?"

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BAILEY YAPS...

Guys I couldn't even begin to imagine what Annabeth is like right now. She lost the two people closest to her than anything. She's been Percy's best friend for five years and Sylvie's best friend for four years and she lost them BOTH. IN ONE DAY. TO TARTARUS. AFTER LOSING LUKE AND SORT OF LOSING THALIA. AND GROVER IS GONE. ANNABETH CHASE LET ME LIFT YOU UP IN MY ARMS.

A piece of my soul is split from my body like Voldemort every time I remember Finn was a little six year old that got tormented by Gaea so bad she lost control of her powers and made her mother go insane and kill herself :((

SHE'S TRYING TO GET SOBER FOR PERCY AND SYLVIE

Jinley save me. We are in a new Jinley era and I really don't know what this means for the economy. Stay tuned.

Please, universe. Take all of Finley Briggs's pain, quadruple it, and give it to wattpad user KJ leoslcve :///