DUSK UNTIL DAWN, j.grace **DISCONTINUED**

ii. AURORA

SITTING NEXT TO LEO ON THE BUS WAS NOT THE GREATEST IDEA. He wouldn't stop fidgeting, and poking Aurora, and talking to Piper and her every two seconds. Don't get her wrong, Leo was one of her good friends, but she just wanted to sleep after the night she had. It took her ages to get to sleep, but she finally did after Leo decided he would be nice. Aurora dreamt of the conversation she had with Annabeth last night.

"Aura, thank the gods. I didn't know if I'd ever catch you alone," Annabeth said through the Iris message.

"Me neither. The bathroom here is the only place I could be sure I was alone, I just had to kick some freshmen out. But I'm afraid we won't have much time to talk. Curfew's in ten minutes," Aurora said, glancing around her.

"I'll be quick," Annabeth said nervously. "Olympus has been closed for a month. We can't contact the gods at all, I can't even contact my mom."

"I suspected something was wrong," Aurora said, sighing, "I've tried to contact my dad, but he hasn't been responding."

"We don't know why, but it's definitely not good. They even called back Mr. D," Annabeth grumbled.

"There's something else though?" Aurora questioned further.

Annabeth hesitated. She looked like she was about to cry. "Aura... Percy went missing two days ago."

The news hit Aurora like a truck. She couldn't move. Percy, missing? Her best friend, gone?

"W-what do you mean he's missing?" she stuttered, praying to the gods that it wasn't true.

"I saw him the night before, then he went to his cabin, and then the next morning he was gone. We can't contact him," Annabeth said, holding back tears.

Aurora felt like she needed to sit down. Where had Percy gone to? Did one of the gods do this? If so, why?

"He wouldn't have disappeared on his own accord. Something must have happened," she said, trying to gather her wits.

"That's what I thought too," Annabeth sighed. "We've been sending teams everywhere-- Tyson, Grover, Sage, the Hunters of Artemis. Just last night, I had a vision from Her Most Annoying Majesty telling me to find a person with one shoe at the-"

Aurora heard a sound outside the bathroom. She looked at her watch, it had been ten minutes. The teachers were doing dorm checks. She had to get out of there.

"Annabeth, I have to go," she said, glancing nervously around her.

"I'll try and contact you some other time. I wish you were at camp," Annabeth wistfully said.

"I have a feeling I'll be there soon," Aurora said, swiping her hand through the message and bolting out of the bathroom.

Aurora woke with a start, head pounding. She still couldn't believe Percy was missing. She sighed and looked over at Leo. He was talking to Piper, who was behind them, who was holding hands with the sleeping blond boy next to her.

Wait. Boy next to her?

Aurora turned around so quickly she almost got whiplash. She stared at the boy, who she had never seen before in her life. He wasn't next to Piper at the beginning of the ride, and now he was there, holding her hand. Where did he come from?

She immediately grew suspicious. What if he was a monster? But her thoughts were interrupted when the mysterious boy woke up, revealing startling electric blue eyes, looking confused as he glanced around him. She glared at him, still wondering who in the Hades he was.