"awoo!" wally stands on hands and knees, trying to get wolf to howl with him.
"wally, stop torturing him," conner says as m'gann wraps the tp around his head.
"hold still, please," she says, giggling as the zeta tubes to announce artemis and zatanna.
zee is going as a witch. fitting. arty's a vampire. annabeth comes out of her cave room dressed as a greek goddess: from the looks of it, artemis. she's wearing a hunting dress, gladiator sandals, and a bow and quiver on her back. she even raised her hair back the way zoë used to. the thought of that makes me smile.
captain marvel flies to the tubes. "i'm going trick-or-treating. and i'm not sharing my candy." i shrug and join my team.
"where did you get that costume?" annabeth asks.
"i've had this thing for ages. don't ask."
artemis storms off after zee asks if m'gann and conner are a couple. before arty can leave, zatanna suggests a girl's night out
"count us in!" i say, dragging annabeth behind me. i unzip and step out of my spiderman costume, revealing my black long sleeve shirt and black leggings.
we hop on our bikes and race to manhattan. we follow the police alerts to the museum.
"whatever happened here is over," artemis observes. she speeds away. we pass some people trying to get robbed. i shoot water in the guy's eyes and artemis pins him to the wall with arrows. we knock out some guys robbing a grocery store. annabeth and zatanna take down four dudes cornering a girl.
we walk back towards our bikes when they explode. i see a guy walking out of the smoke.
"no, indeed. harm is not done." he walk towards us with a familiar glint in his eyes. the same look kronos had.
we fight him off until zee spots a girl in the alley near us. she tells us to run, and i chase after my friends. we climb onto the building and hop onto the roof. artemis tries asking questions, but all the girl says is "secret." harm climbs onto the roof. artemis shoots the water tower. i will the water to engulf him, and zee freezes it. his red-hot sword melts the ice. we run to the next roof, where secret is frantically waving to us.
we keep fighting him until secret leads us to a roof; harm demands to know how we found his house.
harm strikes the ground with his sword, electrocuting us. the last thing i see before blacking out is secret standing behind harm.
when i wake up, my first thought is trapped. i'm tied to a chair with my mouth taped. there's a loaded crossbow in front of me, annabeth, and zatanna. i realize we're in a girl's room. i spot a picture of harm and secret, but they're younger. then, secret un-tapes zee and annabeth's mouths. when she moves to me, i let her take it off. annabeth unties me, and we follow the girl.
zatanna sets up a mistform version of herself, and when harm goes to kill the mist, we free artemis and follow secret outside. there's a little grave inscribed beloved. when harm comes out and snarls, the other three girls engage him, but as i put together what happened, my stomach sours.
"she was your sister," i realize. "you murdered your sister and have the gall to call her beloved?"
"harm's heart had to be pure."
just then, harm spots secret and tries to play it off as one of zatanna's tricks, but she points out that she didn't speak. secret walks up and pulls the evil from his heart.
artemis knocks him out. The girl, whose headstone names her greta, lays down for the last time.
"i still can't believe anyone would do that to his own sister. i mean, if my—" her eyes go wide.
"artemis, you can talk to us. secrets don't stay buried, obviously," zee says soothingly.
"i don't have any secrets." annabeth and i exchange glances, but we hear police sirens in the distance. i glance through an opening in the bushes and see the store across the street. that must've been the last thing she saw; the word secret.
with that, we walk to the nearest tube and head to the cave.
m'gann makes us some food. while the girls talk amongst themselves, i carry my plate to the lounge and sit down across from conner. he glances at me, but doesn't say anything. while eating, i stare at the static in silence.
after eating, i leave conner to his silence and get to work in the gym. batman had installed similar dummies to those at camp half-blood, per my request, so i can practice swordsmanship without decimating every practice dummy. about halfway through my impromptu session, robin comes in and does his own thing. we finish our respective workouts around the same time, and meet up with the others for another movie night. my life finally seems to be falling into a normal routine.
at least, as normal as this life gets.
