A/N: This right here, is pt 1 of my favourite two chapters in this entire story. Thank you so much to the guest who reviewed, it really made my week to hear your kind words. I really hope this chapter leaves you even more shook than the last 3. See you all next week ~ Isabelle

The wooden heels of Emma boots clipped against the marble floor, as she paced in front of the large oak doors. She hated the sound, each step echoing down the corridor marking her presence in the large house. She often wondered if that was the real reason her mother insisted she wore them instead of her rubber soled combat boots. She claimed that Emma's combat boots were 'too scruffy' for the house, but Emma firmly disagreed. Not that her opinion mattered much. The only opinion that truly mattered in the house was Toms and in his opinion, Emma had nothing better to do than wait around for him to call her in at his leisure. She couldn't even remember how long she'd been waiting.

She leaned up against the wall, tilting her head back and bumping it repeatedly against the cool surface. Her fingers tugged at a loose thread at the hem of her skirt. She preferred wearing shorts, but Tom would inevitably call them unseemly. If she could just explain why she had to dress sensibly, maybe then he'd understand, but her mother forbade it. Instead, she begrudgingly accepted the impracticality for the short periods of English heat they received each summer.

She closed her eyes, holding on to the knowledge she would soon start junior year and if she could just get through two more summers of this hell, she could move out, go to uni and never return. She could study what she wanted, where she wanted and try to find more people like her. Two more years.

The door swung open without a word and Emma knew her cue well enough. She rolled her eyes before slipping into the study, a mask of indifference plastered over her face. She settled down into a small chair that sat across from his desk, watching his back as he straightened the frame of his Cambridge degree that sat in pride place.

Tom tilted his chin over his shoulder, though he did not look at her. "You've been keeping quite the secret."

She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat as she tried to discern what he meant.

"It's disgusting, really, to think you've been living under this roof, bringing all that danger to the house in which we live." He turned, leaning up against the wooden counter behind him. His eyes narrowed as he observed her with the look of a man surveying a street urchin. The lump in her throat must have been a stone, as it now sat heavy in her gut. "Oh don't pretend to look confused, you know exactly what I'm talking about."

He dismissed her with a wave of his hand as she remained silent, her heart thrumming in her chest.

"Your mother confessed it all to me. I thought she was mad at first, but then I began to see it. You, sneaking around, hiding torn clothes, covering up scrapes and scratches with tales of incongruous clumsiness and yet no reports of skirmishes from school." He chuckled, shaking his head but it did not reach his eyes. "You may think it's your past that concerns me, but your father is of no consequence. What I find incomprehensible, is that I am paying, out of my own pocket, for an ungrateful child and an untimely expiration date. Do you see my dilemma?"

She knew better than to respond. She could only look away and try to suppress the sick feeling that was spreading through her body like a disease. Sweat began to build on her brow, but not from the heat.

"You would be nothing without all I have given you so far and you will be nothing when I take it all away. I won't spend another penny on such a lost cause. What would be the point in sending such a wayward child to an institution as prestigious as a university. You'll only squander the change when your pathetic world of petty fights distracts you at every turn. What is the purpose in educating a half-bread who is no use to either the immortal or mortal world." His voice became thick with venom that burnt her with every hiss from his mouth. She felt her chest caving in, unable to accept what he was saying. Not even her highest walls could keep out his attack. "You think you're clever and strong and capable, but you're nothing more than a parasite."

"Then cut me off." Her lip quivered as the words came out, but she kept her eyes firmly on the ground. She picked at the skin on her fingers in an attempt to keep herself calm. "Once I finish at school, sign the papers and you'll never hear from me again."

She dared to glance up but when she did, she couldn't look away. His gaze had an iron grip as he started her down, a sneer on his lips. "And watch you get the life you've always wanted, far from your mother and I? I don't think so."

Emma blinked at him in confusion. "But if you don't-"

"You won't be able to go to university at all. Exactly." This time his smile did reach his eyes and they glittered with the light from her last candle of hope that he had now snatched away.

The room tilted as the realisation sunk in. She could handle spending summer in the living hell that was Tom's house. She couldn't live with him a moment longer, lest she risk losing her mind completely. She could handle isolating herself from the world. She could handle waking up every day and wishing she'd never opened her eyes. But only if she could repeat to herself, over and over until the words inflated the raft that stopped her from slipping under. Two Years. Two Years. Two Years. That raft was her way out, the only thing that would save her. With that gone, what was the point? How could she make it to the next day, next week, next month? What was there to hold on for?

"Why?" She breathed, curling her fingers around the arm of the chair and gripping it until her knuckles became white. "What's the point?"

"Why should you waste an opportunity that someone else will live long enough to make use of." Tom's words sounded as though they echoed down a tunnel. "You are a strain on this world and you serve no purpose. You'll stay here and do no more than what you are told to. You deserve this suffering. You are nothing."

Emma lurched out of her chair, striding toward the doors. If she stayed in there another second she might break under the weight of his judgement. She was sick of it. Sick of letting him control her, letting him make her feel so inadequate and feeling powerless to stop it. She wanted to scream, but her mouth was dry. She wanted to run, but she didn't know where. She wanted to slam her fist into the wall and failed to think of a reason to stop herself in time. Her hand collided with the plaster and the force should have bruised her, but she felt no pain nor heard the sound she expected. She did it again, harder, but she only heard the sound of metal with each hit, like clashing swords. She looked down at her hands, confirming that she was not, in fact, turning into an automaton. She screamed at the sunny yellow wallpaper, wishing to tear it down when she felt a light hand on her shoulder.

She spun to see her mother, standing on her own feet and walking around as if nothing were wrong and yet it seemed normal. Emma couldn't remember why it should be strange.

"Darling, don't cause such a scene." Her mother gave her a tight smile. "I have guests."

Emma looked over her mother's shoulder, through the sitting room door to where a man stood watching her with a look of boredom in his sea green eyes. She didn't have to take note of the brown hair that matched her own. She knew who he was. Her father.

"What do you want?" Emma jerked her chin at him, pushing past her mother. Rage was burning hot through her veins, making consequence seem irrelevant. "It's been too many years for you to feign interest now."

Poseidon didn't answer, only surveyed her with a cold, detached stare.

"Emma, please calm down," Her mother scolded, but Emma was beyond caring.

"Why should I?" Emma took a step closer to her father in a reckless challenge. "Why show up here when you won't even claim your own child?"

"It's hardly like I need another one. Being the father of the great hero of Olympus works well in my favour. Being the father of reclusive, hysterical, nobody would not." Poseidon looked her up and down, raising an eyebrow at her as if what he saw only affirmed his belief. "You would taint your brother's reputation. He always had the makings of greatness in him, but you are far more suited to your chosen lifestyle and if that gets you killed?" Her father shrugged. "My dear, you are as you have always been in my eyes. Disposable."

The rage should have softened the blow of his words, but it didn't. Each one littered her heart with holes, like the bow of a ship under cannon fire. She already hated him for leaving her mother with a child he would never care for, this was nothing more than she expected from him, yet it hurt more than she could ever have imagined.

Emma let her nails sink into her palms. "Why am I even trying to stop Bahram when all he wants to do is get rid of monsters like you."

She didn't wait to see her father's reaction for fear that he would not react at all. She ran from the room and out of the house, hearing a metal clang each time her foot hit the floor. She was beyond questioning it. Dark clouds covered the sky and a biting cold wind pricked her cheeks, but not her bare arms or legs.

Because they were no longer bare.

She stopped to catch her breath, looking down at black cargo trousers and leather jacket she wore with her familiar combat boots. She wondered why they felt strange; it's what she always wore. They were the only clothes she had since Bahram had risen.

Harpies scratched overhead and Emma ducked at the sound. She eyed a nearby cave and dove into it for cover. She reached for Sugraphe only to be reminded that her sword was gone. Without a weapon, her only option was to wander deeper into the cave.

As she walked further down she felt a cold breeze that carried a damp, salty smell. The tunnel opened up into a familiar cavern that she couldn't quite place. Waves crashed on the shoreline, but in the shadows she could just make out a figure.

"Percy?" Emma took a wary step toward him.

Her brother was hunched over a table sprawled with maps and lists that were covered in red pen. He looked thinner than usual and his black hair was so long it hung in his sunken eyes. There was a frayed aura about him, as if he were on the brink of insanity.

"I told you to stay away from me." There was no tenderness in Percy's voice, only a tightness in his jaw. He raggedly scooped his papers together as if her seeing them was a risk he was not willing to take.

"Why?" Her voice wavered as her stomach clenched. She reached out a hand to him but he flinched away. The sight felt like a dagger being drawn across her heart.

"How many chances do you expect me to give you?" He slammed the pile of papers onto the wooden desk so hard that it shook. "You push everyone away and then draw us all back in so that you can push us so far we all fall off a fucking cliff."

"What are you talking about?" Emma didn't move another inch. The sandy ground suddenly felt like a minefield. One misstep and her brother would bring the whole place down.

She had never been scared of Percy before, but there was darkness in his eyes that reminded her of just how powerful he could be. "Annabeth is dead."

Emma's felt as if someone had taken a baseball bat to her gut.

"So you can add her to the list of people your selfish, reckless behaviour has killed." Percy rose from his hunched position, drawing his shoulder back like an animal ready to attack. "Rory, Lou, Kit, Rachel, Sherman, you want me to go on?"

Her lip quivered. She didn't know what to say. She wanted to say he was lying but somehow she knew he wasn't. They were all dead.

"You just had to go to that stupid dance. You had to put us all at risk." He pushed the papers off the desk as his voice rose. "You let him rise and then you couldn't even swallow your damned pride and follow him once it was done. Not even to save them. You could have saved them."

Percy took shaking breaths as he walked around the table, grabbing a fistful of her jacket. Her own breaths turned shallow as she was forced to look into his eyes that raged with a wildfire fuelled by pain. Pain she'd caused him.

"We gave you a family. We gave you a home. We gave you everything and you threw it all away." He pushed hard against her chest, sending her staggering back. "You're the reason she's dead. The reason they're all dead." Another hard shove and she tripped over her feet, falling back into the sand as he stood over her. "You're the reason the whole worlds a mess."

She scrambled away from him until her back struck the rocky wall. There was nowhere left to go. She cured her body into a tight ball with her arms over her head, as familiar self loathing filled her lungs. Her head felt light and Percy's words became dampened by a ringing in her ears. The only noise that cut through it was that awful metallic clanging that she thought might break her fracturing mind.

Emma rocked back and forth, trying to get her breaths to slow. It couldn't be true. None of it was true. They couldn't be dead. They couldn't be dead and Percy wouldn't-

"There you are. I've been looking all over for you."