ᴾʰᵒᵇᵒᵖʰᵒᵇⁱᵃ [ᴶᵃˢᵒⁿ ᴳʳᵃᶜᵉ]

vii.

Hazel hesitated, "And... it isn't?"

Aza rolled her eyes, "That's Leo."

Hazel's brows furrowed, and she leaned forward, rubbing a hand against her chin, "You don't have a twin brother or... is your family from New Orleans?" Leo shook his head, "Nah. Houston. Why? Is Sammy a guy you used to know?"

"I - it's nothing. You just look like him." Aza smiled lightly at Hazel, trying to ease the girl's embarrassment. She continued dumping sand in the bag, and the two followed her lead. The tense silence was insufferable - all she wanted to do was escape back to the Argo II and hope she was never alone with the two again.

When they filled the bag, Leo stuffed it in his toolbelt. He held out his arms and looked at the daughter of Phobos. In a lilting voice he asked, "Hey Aza," and the girl rolled her eyes. Aza stood and grasped his hands, pulling the boy to his feet. Leo scanned the island, "Festus said there was Celestial bronze close by, but I'm not sure where-"

"That way," Aza frowned as Hazel pointed up the beach, "About five hundred yards." When she saw the two Greek's confused look, the short girl shrugged, "Precious metals. It's a Pluto thing."

Leo nodded, "Handy talent. Lead the way, Miss Metal Detector." Aza snickered under her breath, and even a small smile graced Hazel's lips, though something about the permanent stink of fear from her, like a sulfurous perfume that exuded whenever Leo was in her eyeline, made her feel slightly nauseous.

They trekked down the beach, and eventually turned inland - that was when Aza held out her arm and halted the two slightly-younger demigods. They shot her questioning looks, but she held her hand to her lips and pointed - a woman sat on a boulder in the middle o a grassy field, a black motorcycle parked nearby - she was hunched over what looked like broken shells, pulling new ones out of a sack and cracking them open.

Aza would have recognized that particular shade of platinum anywhere, the way her hair rested just underneath her shoulder blades so neatly. Leo stepped forward, "What are you doing?" And the woman turned around.

Aza immediately caught herself on Leo, grabbing his shoulder to steady herself. The woman chuckled as she did so, those familiar, hideously bright blue eyes peering at her so intensely, like the woman knew every aspect of Aza-Everett, and she despised each one.

"Aunt Rosa?" Leo asked, and Aza frowned - she would recognize that pale, ruddy skin anywhere, the smattering of freckles that looked uncannily identical to hers. The pearly teeth, slightly crooked on the bottom but gratefully hidden by her straight top teeth. The woman stepped forward and tilted her head, "Is that what you see? Interesting. And you, Hazel, dear?"

"How did you-" Hazel stepped back, "You - you look like Mrs. Leer. My third grade teacher. I hated you."

The woman laughed clearly - the same clear, ringing laugh that Aza so desperately wished to hear as a kid, though she barely even managed to get the woman to acknowledge her attention, "Excellent. You resented her, eh? She judged you unfairly?"

"You - she - taped my hands to the desk for misbehaving. She called my mother a witch. She blamed me for everything I didn't do and - No. She has to be dead. Who are you?"

Nemesis walked even in the same way her mother did, and as she took a step forward, Aza immediately stepped backwards, pulling Leo and Hazel with her. The woman's voice came out in a far softer purr, "Aza-Everett Malin, would you like to say? You tried to bury your pretty little sword in my eye."

Leo and Hazel looked up at the taller girl, and she gulped heavily. The goddess appeared to her the same way she did in the second Titanomachy, and it had caused Aza to freeze on the battlefield, almost getting decapitated by a drakon. She gulped, "To be fair, you tried to send me to Hades the hard way. This is Nemesis, the goddess of revenge," the words rolled off her tongue before she could stop herself, "Ethan's mother."