New Place to Begin

New York

Chaewon could only watch in horror as a cloud of smoke consumed the girl beside her.

She rushed forward, if only to try and help , but before she could get within a foot of where Yunjin had been, the smoke had faded and Yunjin was gone.

Hades' sword clattered to the ground, the only indication that she'd been there at all.

There was a beat of paralyzing silence.

"What have you done?" Eunbi asked breathlessly, and Chaewon distantly registered the rage simmering beneath her voice.

Chaewon could only stare at the area where Yunjin had been standing beside her only moments ago.

"She belongs with her father." Hades said simply, his deep voice thrumming with indifference towards them. Chaewon whipped her head around to face him, a sudden primal rage gripping her heart.

These gods, they were all the same. The thoughts and feelings of mortals meant nothing to them; they were less than bugs to this man. This man, who saw Yunjin as nothing but means to an end, as a way to stop a war that shouldn't have been waged to begin with.

Hades may have been Yunjin's father, but he did not love her as a father might. He did not see her as a person, only a weapon.

"Bring her back." Chaewon spat, uncaring that she faced such a powerful being. "Bring her back right now."

Hades simply stared at her, his face unchanging.

"Chaewon..." came Sakura's hesitant voice from behind her.

Perhaps she could see the anger brewing beneath Chaewon's surface. Chaewon barely cared. The grip on her sword became tight enough to make her knuckles turn white.

As Chaewon glared at the man before her, his eyes suddenly softened, glinting with something like sympathy. "Let her go, child." he said, his voice softer. "She was never yours to begin with."

Though these words may have been an attempt at comfort, Chaewon's rage only grew.

She raised her sword and charged. "She doesn't belong to anyone!" she cried, wildly swinging her sword at the god who stood before them.

But Chaewon's sword only cut through a cloud of black smoke.

As soon as he'd appeared, Hades had vanished, and he'd taken the sword with him.

Chaewon fell to her knees, her sword falling limp in her hand. He was gone.

And so was Yunjin.

" We need to get back to New York. "

They'd never rushed to the airport faster.

It didn't matter - the risk of flying, the possibility of Zeus striking them down - none of it. All that mattered was getting back to New York as fast as possible.

Hades meant to strike against Olympus, and it was only a matter of time before his forces were completely assembled.

They needed to warn everyone.

While they waited on Sakura to finesse them the best tickets they could find on short notice (once again, they were all thankful for her charmspeaking abilities), Yeji and Eunbi worked on trying to contact camp through Iris Message.

Chaewon and the others waited anxiously in the lobby of the airport, glancing between Sakura at the front desk and the bathroom where they knew Yeji and Eunbi were struggling to create a rainbow strong enough to establish a stable connection.

It was fortunate that Eunchae had been able to fish a drachma out of her bag at the last moment, since Yeji had run out back in Denver.

Chaewon paced around the lobby, nearly running a hole through the carpeted floors. Kazuha and Eunchae sat on a bench next to her, looking as anxious as she felt. Ryujin and Jimin, meanwhile, were making sure everyone had the proper supplies for the journey ahead. Thankfully, the mist would disguise their weapons from TSA well enough.