The night continued without conversation. Chloe and Henry were the only ones who remained eventually. The room was mostly dark, with a small lantern glowing in the center where Chloe and Henry spoke in low voices over a large paper spread over a table. Occasionally, Chloe would scratch something on the paper with a pen as they continued to talk about it. The other prisoners were soon asleep, just random people, like Elizabeth had said. Some were mythical creatures; centaurs, snake men and even a troll. These ‘people’ all fell asleep, but the demigods just couldn’t find it in themselves to sleep. They sat in a row, against the cell door, watching Chloe and Henry.

“Something…something’s wrong.” Kate said suddenly. It was around midnight and no one had spoken in nearly two hours. Chloe looked up at her sharply, scowling at the sound of her voice. Kate looked around the room, her ears perked and her eyes flashing. She scrambled to her feet, “I’m serious!” She cried, “Something’s really wrong. I can feel it!”

“Yeah, well. Don’t get yourself worked up about it.” Henry said, “We’ll know if something’s wrong.”

Kate recoiled slightly, clutching Rachel’s arm as she took a few steps back. Rachel blinked at her, “What are you doing?” She whispered.

But Kate shook her head, her eyes wide in terror, “I can feel it.” She whispered, “I’m not kidding. Something’s coming. Something big. It feels like…the sewers…”

“It feels like the sewers? How does that…” Then Rachel’s voice cut out. When they had entered the sewers to find Chloe, they had all felt the same thing; a deep, sinking feeling. They had smelled that smell of rotten flesh and fish.

Now they were all looking around the room fearfully. Henry ignored them, but Chloe kept glancing in their direction. Finally, she sighed, dropped the pen and stood to her feet. She frowned in their direction then moved towards the door. She opened the door and looked out, then she walked along the row of cells, glancing in at every prisoner. Then, after inspecting the entire room she turned to Kate, “There’s nothing here.”

“It feels like the sewers.” Kate repeated, this time directed at Chloe.

Chloe instantly knew what she meant, but her face showed no sign of panic. Instead she turned back to Henry momentarily before heading to the door and vanishing out of it.

When she was gone, Henry tilted his head towards them and scowled darkly.

“You’re more trouble than most prisoners.” His scowl faded and he grinned, “I kind of like it. Brings some excitement to this whole operation.”

Suddenly the door opened again, and Chloe strode in. She didn’t even glance at them as she made her way towards Henry. She muttered something to him, leaning against the table that stood next to Henry. Her voice was low and they couldn’t hear anything that she was saying.

“Do you know what happened with Blue?” Chloe breathed to Henry. He nodded as he turned back to the table, beginning to roll up the map.

“I think Cedrick told her to do that. Big Blue wasn’t mistaken, she never is.”

Henry peered at her, “You’re saying Cedrick deliberately tried to kill you?”

Chloe shrugged, “That’s not what I’m saying necessarily. But it is a little suspicious. And now, this room feels and smells like Blue.”

Henry straightened sharply, “You think Cedrick sent her to get us?”

Chloe nodded, “He knows that we know about what he does. He wants to get rid of us.”

“We need to get out of here.” Henry breathed.

Chloe swallowed, “I was outside. He has every single door guarded. We can only go through to the store.”

“I’ll get the others.” Henry muttered as he scrambled towards the door.

Chloe turned to the demigods and she walked towards them. She glowered at Amber, “I’ll let you out.”

Leo whooped from the back but Chloe silenced him with a glare, “But under one condition…”

“There’s always a catch, huh?” Amber asked.

“Quiet, Amber.” William hissed.

“If I let you out, then you’re not leaving us.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Amber frowned at this, confused.

Chloe reached in through the bars and grabbed her collar, pulling her close against the bars, “You help us if you have too. You listen to what we say. No more tricks.”

“Tricks?” Amber demanded, “You’re the one who put us in here.”

William grabbed her and shoved her backwards, “We agree!”

Amber glared at him but he shrugged, “We’ll rot in here.”

The door opened and Henry dragged in a sleepy Tanner and Elizabeth. Behind Tanner walked a new girl. She was only around sixteen years old, and was clutching Tanner’s shirt as she glanced around the room.

“I was dreaming about ice cream!” Elizabeth protested.

“We’ll get ice cream when we get out.” Henry mumbled as he pulled them towards the demigods’ cell. Chloe knelt beside the lock on the door, pulled a hairpin from her braid and began to pick the lock. She soon had the door open, and the demigods slowly stepped out, each one stepping warily past her, as if waiting for her to attack them. The young girl bound towards them, a surprising grin on her face. She walked straight up to Kate and began to speak, but a sound interrupted her. It was a hissing roar. Chloe recognized the sound as Big Blue’s call.

Elizabeth straightened sharply from her dazed state, “Was that…?” She never finished the thought. Chloe lunged into the open cell silently. She drummed her fingers against the stone wall, then pushed against a few of the stones. The stones entered the wall and a crack started to form.

Another shrill scream pierced the air. The others rushed in behind her, “Hurry!” Elizabeth whimpered.

The crack in the wall grew bigger and small pebbles began to crumble from the opening. Finally the wall completely opened to a door that looked like the bathroom door in the General store. Chloe grabbed the handle and tried to turn it, but a moment later she turned to Tanner, “It’s locked.” She breathed.

“You just picked a freaking prison cell lock, can’t you do a bathroom door?” Leo demanded.

“The cell locks aren’t very secure because there are guards everywhere, but outside of this door there aren’t any guards except Drew, and she sucks at combat. So they had to make the lock complex.”

Tanner pushed himself towards the door and knelt in front of it.

“Close the cell door.” Chloe hissed.

Still trusting, Amber grabbed the door and pulled it shut, just as the wall at the entrance door exploded. A large creature, about the size of an elephant scrambled through the opening. It was a large bright blue snake-like creature. It almost looked like a wingless dragon. Amber screamed as they all fell to the back of the cell. Big Blue slithered towards them, breathing heavily. Her Navy blue eyes strangely matched Chloe’s. Her eyes steadily passed over them, stopping on Tanner and watching as he picked open the door. He threw it open instantly. On the other side was the general store, Drew stood at the counter lazily flipping through a magazine, she didn’t notice them until Chloe shoved them all through the door and Tanner slammed the door shut. Drew turned around slowly and faced them, “What are you doing Chamberlain…?” She asked, her hand slowly reaching behind her back.

Elizabeth lunged towards her, slamming her into the cashier desk and pinning her arms to her sides. Drew started to protest but Elizabeth dragged her towards a closet door, pushed her inside and locked the door. Drew slammed on the door, yelling to be let out, “I’ll tell Cedrick about this!” She screamed.

“Don’t worry. He already knows.” Elizabeth replied.

Henry coolly walked past Elizabeth towards the fridge area, “Want some ice cream?” He asked.

Leo blinked at him, “Won’t Cedrick be coming?”

But Henry shook his head as he opened a fridge and pulled out a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, “It’ll take him a while to get through the portal. Like in, a week or two because he doesn’t know the code.”

But they declined his offer, even as Elizabeth and Tanner joined him in raiding the fridge. The younger girl now turned to Kate again, “Hello! I’m Lydia. So y’all are the prisoners that Chloe brought in? Huh. Cool!”

Kate shook her hand gently, “You seemed like the friendliest one in the group.” Lydia added sheepishly as she glanced towards Amber, who was scowling at her.

“Lydia is Tanner’s younger sister.” Chloe said as she pulled open the wrapper of a candy bar and began to eat it.

“Okay.” Philip said, “Will someone please tell us what’s going on?”

Henry peered at him, “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you speak.” He muttered.

“There’s not much to know.” Elizabeth said, “We work for Cedrick-“

“Worked.” Chloe corrected.

“Worked for Cedrick. But now we’re here, saving your butts.”

“So…the whole foster thing was a joke?” Amber asked Chloe.

Chloe shrugged, “I mean to them it wasn’t. But now they won’t remember a thing. They won’t remember they ever had a ‘foster’ child.”

“So what? You’re just a wandering teenager who happens to be dangerous?” Leo asked.

Chloe choked on the candy bar and Tanner snickered from behind the counter, where he was eating his ice cream, “We’re not teenagers.” He said simply.

Amber frowned at him, “What…do you mean?”

“I’m twenty-one. Elizabeth’s nineteen. Henry and Tanner are both twenty-three. And well yeah, Lydia is sixteen. So she’s technically still a teenager.” Chloe explained.

Amber gawked at her, “What!? But you look so….young.”

“Twenty-one is young.” Elizabeth muttered.

“On the good side, when I’m sixty I’ll look forty.” Chloe shrugged, “Why? How old are you?”

Amber hesitated, “19.” She said sheepishly.

“So you’re only two years younger than me.” Chloe said simply, pulling a soda from a fridge and beginning to chug. She threw the empty can into the small trash can under the cashier desk, then proceeded to pull three cheeseburgers from the warming drawer. She unwrapped all three and basically engulfed them.

Amber stared at her aghast, but Chloe’s friends didn’t seem bothered, maybe this was normal?

“It’s been three days.” Chloe said, taking another bite of the cheeseburger, “You should really eat something.”

“Three days?” William demanded, “I thought we were only in there for a few hours!”

“Yeah, no.” Elizabeth said, “Cedrick’s lair does that to you, gets you confused on time and so on and so forth. You’ve been in there for a bit.”

Amber sighed, “All this time we thought we were helping you. But it’s been a trap this whole time.”