I loved storms. The endless, dark shades of grey the clouds turned with each minute that passed by, the anticipation of waiting for the first boom of thunder or the first strike of lighting. I was hypnotized by the sound of rain hitting the windows and fighting against the sound of the ocean.

    But as much as I enjoyed a good storm, I loved the aftermath even more. The lingering smell of the sea breeze mixed in with the smell of earth, the way cool wet sand felt against my warm bare feet and how the morning humidity and dew would wrap around my skin like a blanket; those were without a single doubt the best feelings on earth. Nothing could compare.

    Most people thought storms were scary, or even depressing but I had always been comforted by them; they were a symbol of power and change. Storms were wild cards in nature, kind of like I was.

    All I could hear was the sound of branches crunching underneath my sneakers as I ran further and further into the forest of Camp-Half Blood, ignoring the pouring rain that had soaked me head to toe. I couldn't see past the blinding droplets of rain in my way, but I didn't care. I didn't even pay attention to the furious, relentless winds that came with the storm; the wind seemed to shove me two steps back every time I'd try to move one step forward, but it didn't stop me from going deeper and deeper into the unknown.

    I decided to stop at the edge of a winding creek that was hidden behind rows of sky high pine trees. The rain had let up a little by now, and the mid morning sun was beginning to peek out a little from behind the grey clouds above.

    There seemed to be no signs of life in sight, except for me. In fact, the forest was completely empty. No campers, no birds, no insects; it was just me and a ten foot stack of boulders in the middle of the forest. My fingers curled around each rock as my exhausted legs pushed my body weight to the very top, where I was now overlooking the creek and parts of the forest. The view would have been breathtaking any other day.

My father would have loved it too. He would have killed to come fishing here. Just thinking of my dad sent a pang through my chest and I could feel tears stinging the edges of my eyes. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them in a sort of fetal, protective position.

    Then, for the first time since I had arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I began to cry.

     Maybe it was because John wasn't my real father, or because I was being hunted by monsters that weren't even supposed to be real, or because my real father had abandoned my mother before I even had a chance to know him. 

Then I began to feel a deep pulling sensation in the pit of my gut. I hated my father. I hated the gods. They were cowards, sitting up on their thrones on Mount Olympus while I was sitting on a boulder in some strange camp for freaks paying the price. The least he could do was talk to me, let me know he was looking out for me, and that he had my back. But I knew deep down he didn't care, and my father had probably forgotten all about me. 

After all, don't gods have more important things to do than to worry about their mortal children?

    As I cried harder, it began to pour again. The rain began to pick up intensity until it was a full blown storm, raging on above me, only getting worse with each minute that passed by. Tiny shards of glass disguised as rain pelted the only exposed part of my head, driving it deeper into the hole my body had built between my knees. It was swallowing me whole, washing away every shred of humanity I had left. At one point I even thought the storm was talking to me...chanting my name over and over.

  "Orion! Orion! Orion, where are you?"

   No, it wasn't the storm. It was an actual voice.

  "Orion, please come out! There's a hurricane coming straight for camp!"

   "Who's there?" I shouted over the roar of the storm's winds. I tried to look around and see who was hiding in the darkness but it was no use; the forest was almost completely pitch black by now and the rain's intensity was completely blurring my vision.

  "What in Zeus's name are you doing out here? Didn't you hear me when I said there's a hurricane coming!"

   The voice belonged to the boy I had met only hours ago. My new trainer, Percy Jackson. I peered over the edge of the rock out of curiously. He was standing at the bottom of the boulder wearing only a grey hoodie to shield himself from the storm. One hand was holding a bulky, heavy duty flashlight, while the other was extended to help me down.

 No way. I wasn't coming down. He'd have to drag my dead body down the rock before I would ever go back to camp.

 "I'm fine, just go! You're wasting your time," I yelled over the storm.

 "We can do this the easy way, or my way," Percy shouted back, his sea green eyes were burning with stubbornness.

  I rolled my eyes and turned my head away from Percy. I wasn't in the mood for more threats.

  "Come on, you're a smart girl! Think this through. You're next to a creek and I'm the son of Poseidon. Just climb down and save yourself the trouble, alright?"

  I weighed my options. The thought of being in water against my will shook me to my very core; memories of my recurring dream flashed through my mind.

    Fine. I would live to fight another day.

    I slowly made my way to the sodden grass below me and took Percy's hand to steady myself. He was completely dry, unlike me.

   "Why do you not get wet in the rain?"

  "Perks of controlling water, I guess." He smirked and flicked his hand. All of a sudden we were in an air bubble, shielded from the rain. My clothes were completely dry.

   Whoa.

   "Any chance I'm the daughter of Poseidon, or something? Thats pretty awesome," I laughed nervously, half hoping I was right but Percy shook his head solemnly as we made our way out of the forest.

  "No, you're probably a child of a minor god, or maybe someone like Ares, Hermes or Apollo. We get a lot of their children usually. The Big Three stopped having kids eighteen years ago."

   "The Big Three?"

   Percy nodded. "The Olympian brothers. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades."

  "Why'd they stop having kids? Did they get tired of having to pay child support or something?" I tried my best to make a lighthearted joke.

  "After World War II there was this big prophecy that said a child spawned from Zeus, Poseidon or Hades would either be Olympus's salvation or doom by the time the child turned sixteen. So, just to be safe, they promised not to have any kids."

  "But...if you-"

 "Me, Thalia Grace, Jason Grace, Nico Di Angelo, Bianca Di Angelo and Hazel Levesque are all...exceptions to the rules, and we've all paid the price for it."

  "Wow. Are they all children of Poseidon too?"

  Percy's stifled a laugh. "No way! Gods, no. Thalia and Jason are children of Zeus. Well, technically Jason is a child of the Roman version of Zeus - Jupiter. It's complicated."

  I nodded to assure Percy I was following.

  "Nico and Bianca are children of Hades, the God of-"

   I recognized the name immediately. "Death. Hell. All that fun stuff, right?"

   Hades. The first God to try to kill me. I distinctly remembered Hades from Latin class. Call me crazy, but I felt bad for the guy, even though he did send a giant half-bull to kill me for no good reason. Hades always seemed to get the short end of the stick. His brothers basically tricked him into getting the underworld and the souls of a bunch of dead people as his domain forever while they got the ocean and the sky. It all seemed a little unfair to me, but I shook it off and continued to listen to Percy's crash course on the big three.

  "Right," Percy cocked an eyebrow at my reference to death and the underworld as 'fun'. "Anyway, that means Hazel is the only child of Pluto, the Roman version of Hades."

  "Which leaves you as the only child of Poseidon slash Neptune," I turned to look at my trainer's concentrated expression.

  "Not exactly. I'm kind of related to every cyclops. They were created by Poseidon, so it technically makes us all half brothers, but yeah. I'm the only demigod son of Poseidon and, or Neptune."

   I scoffed. "So, what you're telling me is my chances of having the sunshine god or the mail god being my dad are pretty high, huh? How lame is that," Thunder boomed from above and I flinched. "Just kidding! Sorry!"

   Percy's grim expression didn't change. "You don't want to be a child of the big three, believe me. Children of the big three attract twice the monsters, Gods, Titans...you name it. We tend to be more powerful than the average Hermes or Aphrodite kid - and that calls attention to yourself. You let off a stronger scent than the others. Let me ask you something - did you ever have weird stuff happen to you growing up? Creepy people following you and your mom to grocery stores or playgrounds? Snakes in your crib? Psycho, blood-thirsty teachers?"

   I'd never given it much thought, but looking back, yeah weird stuff did happen to me all the time.

   In the sixth grade, I had this beautiful choir teacher. Miss Serena looked like a super-model straight out of a Vogue magazine, but I could have sworn she was part fish or mermaid or something. She always wore these long skirts, and if you got close enough you could almost hear sloshing, wet sounds coming from underneath them. One day, I couldn't help myself, so I lifted it, just to peek at her legs - sure enough, they weren't just average legs. They were scaly, slimy and smelled like month old fish sticks.

   I loved the sound of her voice, though. I could never get enough; but I could also never remember her singing either. Usually when I came back to my senses I would be on the school's roof or about to walk into moving traffic. Whenever I'd try to tell Danny of my half human choir teacher, he'd say I was probably inhaling way too much paint thinner in art class.

   My mom finally transferred me out of that school when she finally found me trying to cut off my own tongue in our kitchen at three in the morning. I never saw my choir teacher ever again.

   Before that, when I was only three years old, an old lady with wrinkly, leathery skin had followed us to a park in central Santa Barbara. My mom had left me in my stroller for one second while she payed a parking meter, and I guess the woman tried to shove me down a flight of stairs. I still remembered her wings fluttering over to my stroller and cackling at the sound of my cries. By some freak miracle my stroller stopped dead at the end of the stairs and not a hair on my head was harmed.

   They were memories I had managed to block out until right now.

   "Uh yeah, now that I think about it. Weird stuff has happened," I shuddered and we didn't talk for the rest of our walk back into camp.