Sign of the Times

I miss screaming and fighting and kissing... -Taylor Swift

(A/N TAYLOR SWIFT TITLE!!! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

It was still dark out and none of us knew what to do. Bianca was gone.

Zoe kept looking for her for over an hour throughout the trails of the Talos. Thalia and Grover helped her out of solidarity.

But I knew.

I felt it when she died.

The pit in my stomach grew as deep as Tartarus. I've felt the feeling only once before when my mother died.

I didn't even get the chance to tell her the truth about who her parent was. I wanted to keep her out of danger from the dark world of being a child of Hades. I thought her being in the dark would keep her safe, but now she is dead.

Just when I was thinking things couldn't get worse, the pit in my stomach deepened and the vile in the back of my throat came up.

To add to throwing up and coughing, the tears just had to come because I knew why the feeling grew stronger: Annabeth was dying.

"Shit, are you okay?" Percy's voice rang behind me. A pair of hands grabbed my hair and pulled it back as I was still hunched over on my hands and knees and coughing violently.

"I'm fine," I choked out.

"You don't look fine," he said.

I wiped my mouth on an old bloodied shirt from my bag and rinsed my mouth out with some water.

"I'm fine."

I shoved the shirt and water back into my bag and then put my backpack on. I pulled the straps on it as tight as possible. Hey, if my life can't be secure, might as well make sure my backpack is.

"She's dead, you know," I told him, not turning toward him where he was behind me. My hair fell out of his hands. "I felt it right away."

I continued looking in the distance where the sun was rising, where Annabeth was dying.

"I'm sorry," he said.

I stood up and looked around for a shadow that wasn't in the junkyard. No amount of money, promise of happiness, or anything could make me go back in there.

"Don't be, it's just part of being a child of Hades." I heard him stand up from behind me.

"That doesn't mean it is fair," he said.

"Well, that's life for you. Nothing is fair. Bianca being dead isn't fair, having to constantly be looking over our shoulders to look out for the next threat isn't fair. This quest isn't fair." Dying in the next two days isn't fair.

"Trust me, I know."

I finally spotted an old car in the distance, giving some shade from the rising sun. I began walking toward the car, Percy's footsteps following close behind.

"Where are you going?" he asked, his voice much closer than I thought.

"To help Annabeth. She isn't going to make it another hour," I stopped in my tracks. Maybe I was too blunt, but I can't bring myself to care enough right now. "She is dying and I can help her."

"Emelia, it wasn't your fault." His voice was barely a whisper. "Bianca made her own choice, that's not on you. You don't have to go and sacrifice yourself because you feel guilty."

Ouch.

"I'm not doing it because of Bianca." Lie. "I'm doing this for Annabeth, for Thalia, for Grover . . . for you."

"But you don't have to, you know. You actually probably shouldn't."

"I know, but don't you get it, Percy? None of us get our happy ending." 'Us' being children of Hades. I guess we all just to hang out with Dad in the underworld.  I began walking again.