Bright white flashes across Kai's closed eyelids. Her dreams are a twisted version of the reality she knew. But now she sees things a little clearer. It feels as though Kai is trapped, being forced to watch memory after memory blur together.
Her little walks to and from her house to the cave. Slight rustling in the bushes or shadows that Kai didn't notice before, now haunt her. This scene then morphs into her childhood nightmare, you know, the one you always recognize the instant it begins. The tall pale man with shiny greasy black hair and clothes, with even darker eyes. He sits in his thorny stone throne with his son on his left and his wife on his right, who is almost different in every way. She has warm brown skin with curly brown hair and a green dress speckled with blossoms.
The tall man stands and walks towards Kai, who kneels before him, her hands bound behind her back. He raises his arm as though to slap her, then his form shifts into her mother, then to the Terror Twins. Kai's cheek stings as she sits huddled in the dark corner of her small room, sobbing, surrounded with torn apart pencil sharpeners covered in blood. Her step-father pulls the blanket off of her head and comforts her, stroking her back in small circles. Then the memory that haunts her to this day. The day that that one guy cornered her after school . . . .
Kai sits up sharply, immediately thwacking her head on the familiar stone roof. The pain throbs in her temples as she realizes that its not just from hitting her head. Exhaustion seeps through her muscles sinking into her every bone, mostly centering in her leg.
Her teddy bear, Chocolate, tumbles from her arms. How did I get back here? Kai looks around her little alcove that branched off her cave's main area.
She only recognizes it because of all the pillows and worn blankets that she had spent months gathering, were cushioning her body.
Tenderly, Kai lifts her left leg.
The blankets fall off revealing her jeans torn off at the knee and angry red scratches with a couple swollen areas. Looking closer, she can see, on the swollen lumps, tiny even stitches. Who did this? Kai wonders. She doesn't have to wait for long.
Nico peeks into the small area, his black hair hanging in his eyes. Which looked even more weary than she remembered.
"Hey, I heard you stirring, do you need anything?" He asks.
Kai shakes her head.
"Wait! Yes, I need answers." She waves Nico over and moves her leg to the side to make room in front of her. He settles himself down and takes a deep breath.
"What exactly do you want to know?"
Kai wracks her brain for what she thinks is the thing that is bothering her the most.
"How did you find this place. I never told anyone it's exact location, my step-father still only knows cause he followed me here."
"Oh," Nico looks relieved "Noah and I read your dreams to find a safe, and close, location to hide you."
"How much exactly did you two see?" Kai asks, suddenly nervous.
"Once Noah got the exact directions, he left your mind."
"And you?"
"I stayed connected to watch your dreams." His voice trailed off.
"You had no right!" Kai shouts. "How much did you see!?"
"I was only trying to make sure you would wake up. I saw enough."
"Hey, I heard yelling, is everyone okay?" Lucas, ugh, pops his head in.
"It's fine." Kai grumbles glaring at Nico. She felt as though he had breached a very well protected secret. Forcefully. He now knew more about her than any other living person other than her step-father. And she hated him for it. Because she feared that it may drive him away, like so many others.
Lucas steps between the pillows and crouches down to her.
"Do you need help getting up?" He asks Kai, holding out his arm.
"No." Kai said stubbornly.
"Suit yourself." He smirks, straightening up again.
Kai pushes herself wobbly off the ground onto her feet. Well, one foot. Putting any pressure on the other one sent a lick of fire up her leg. Carefully, Kai hobbled one step, and fell. She would have hit the floor if Nico and Lucas hadn't caught her.
"Not a word." She warned Lucas, who just grinned to himself.
The trio slowly made their way into the main section of the cave. Pushing past the old curtains, Kai sees Evan and Noah playing a card game with her old cards.
"Hope you don't mind," Noah said "we got a little bored."
"Nah, I never used them much. Never had anyone to play with." Nico and Lucas lowered Kai down with the other boys.
"Aren't you supposed to be on lookout?" Nico asked Noah.
"Trust me, nobody is finding this place."
"Then I suppose that y'all know who that is." Kai said.
"Who?" The four boys whirl around, each tensing up.
"You can come out now, I saw you." Kai looks at the boulders near the entrance. Its shadow flinches, but slowly begins to move towards them. Out steps a small boy with long red hair and emerald green eyes. His oversized, worn, dirty hoodie faintly resembles the color purple. And his jeans have muti-color splotches of paint on them.
"Who are you?" Noah stands between the rest of the group and the little boy.
"I'm Loki sir." He grins.
"Really? Right, and I'm Hera, who are you?" Lucas said.
"Seriously, I go by Loki, my full name is Levan Loki Tatuam. But I go by Loki." He insists.
"Who would call you that? Your "gang"?" Lucas makes air quotations.
"Cut it out Lucas, don't be a jerk." Kai interjects. She faces the boy, Loki, "did you follow us here?"
"That would be highly unlikely, seeing as how we got here almost a week ago." Nico noted.
"A week!?! I was unconcious for a week!?!? . . That's not the point, Loki, how'd you find us?" Kai protested loudly before remembering to stay on topic.
"I smelled you." The boy simply said.
On que, Noah and Nico both unsheath deadly looking weapons. Nico a black sword that sends chills down Kai's spine, and Noah a glowing purple double sided axe. The little boy quivers.
"Stop! What are you doing!?!" Kai yells at Nico and Noah.
"There is only one way he could have found us by scent." Noah glared at the boy, his cold brown eyes narrowing.
"And how is that?"
"To monsters, all demigods smell like their parents, or something like that, and this boy said he found us by scent!"
"That doesn't mean he's a monster! Tell me this Loki, who are your parents?" He shrugs.
"I never knew them."
"See! If he doesn't know who they are it is positive that he is a monster!" Noah insisted.
"What is it with you tossing all these words around like we all know what they mean? Like, demigod, or the monsters, or smell like their parents what does any of it mean? Not to mention how reading dreams is somehow normal now." Kai exclaimed in an outburst of confusion.
Nico looks down guiltily.
"You don't know who your real father is do you?" Noah asks.
Kai shakes her head.
"Didn't think so, seeing as how I found this." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a shimmery chain. He walks over to Kai, and puts it in her hand. Laying in her open palm, is a necklace. Not just any necklace, the one she had kept hidden behind a rock in the wall. The one her biological father had left her. It was the trident pendant necklace that smelled of the ocean and beaches and palm trees.
"What does this have to do with the words I just asked about?"
"You see, the rest of us here have one mysterious parent-"
"Umm, hate to break it to ya, but I have both parents alive." Lucas interjected.
"And I hate to break this to you," Nico opens up his satchel that had been slouched against the wall. He pulled out an orange folder and showed him some charts from what Kai could see.
"These are your DNA test results. And as you can tell, your dad is not blood-related to you." Lucas gapes staring at the charts in disbelief.
"Now as I was saying, we all have one mysterious parent. Some of us know who they are though. Like Nico. Like me. And hopefully like the rest of you at somepoint in the near future. Kai, we believe to have figured yours out, which isn't that hard to guess, but is extremely odd." Noah paused, watching the water lap into the cave gently from the lake outside.
"Wait, are you saying you know who my dad is?"
"Yup."
"Now listen closely, once you figure it out, or once we tell you, it will be hard, but you have to remain as calm as you can, can you so that?" Noah tells her.
Kai nods.
"Why is this such a big deal? And I still have no clue what any of this has to do with demigods."
"You see Kai, your biological father is Poseidon, god of the sea."
A bright blue light flashes in her palm where the necklace was, as it fades, in her hands now lays a full sized trident.
-Agent Emily