The Fourth Inheritor (A Percy Jackson/Chaos Fanfic) [Complete]

Chapter Fourteen: Revelation

Chaos watched in the stream as Ariadne, his little sister, ran in Central Park. She was twenty now, and he had watched her grow up from an adorable girl into a beautiful young woman. Honestly, she looked a lot like their mother. He missed her. She had gotten into a car accident a year prior, dying in the hospital two days later. It took everything for Chaos not to intervene. He couldn't.

Ariadne slowed to a walk as she passed a bench, the girl sitting on it joining her in walking. Ebony hair and dark, almost purple eyes. Naudia. The one who had caught Chaos' attention when she was a child. Now he knew why. Although five years older, she and Ariadne were friends. Chaos chuckled under his breath. Now they were more than friends, actually.

He couldn't help thinking there was something more to Naudia, though. She was important for more than just her significance to his sister. Chaos set the thought aside as the two walked to a small cafe. As they sat down to order, he turned his attention and the image elsewhere. He might be her older brother, but he wasn't going to spy on her date.

He had stopped communicating with Annabeth ten years ago, as much as it killed him, and he only checked in on her occasionally. Enough to know she was ok. Any more than that, and he was afraid he'd only hurt the both of them more. It was bad enough that every time he did look in on her she was still the same. Still waiting. Sure, she ran a successful architecture business, and she seemed to have everything together. It was the times that she was alone, though, that he saw the truth. The picture she kept on her desk, the beads in her top drawer, the leather-bound journals on their own shelf in her apartment.

When he looked in on her that day, though, he didn't see her office. He didn't see her apartment or the bookstore or one of the coffee shops she frequented. He saw two places. The Underworld... and Haven. How had it happened? How had he not known? Annabeth wasn't... She couldn't be... Why was she dead?

Chaos inhaled sharply, despite the lack of necessity. "Annabeth, what happened?"