Chapter Text
I navigated the marshes of southern Louisiana as quickly as possible, swimming for Camp Half-Blood. It looks like Belle Reve will have to change its escape record from zero to one. Though hopefully they won’t notice I’m gone. As the water shifts from fresh to salt, I mentally thank whichever architect had the grand idea to build the prison in a swamp with water on all sides, even below. Hades, the prison was even slowly sinking into the marsh, it’s a miracle it hasn’t sprung a leak yet.
Well, now it has.
Every day in ‘gym class’ I had slowly worn a hole in the floor straight to the sewer system. A system that dumped into the swamp outside. They need to rethink their environmental policies too. I’m pretty sure they should be the ones locked up for illegal fecal dumping.
I was almost sucked into my memories multiple times, but focusing on how my family needs me helped. And maybe Strange’s sessions were helpful too.
My escape hadn’t been glamourous, but it had been successful, something I couldn’t say for Killer Frost and her buddies. I do feel a little bad agreeing to help, only to leave them in the lurch, but they would do the same to me. It’s not like we’re friends. Besides, I have to get to Camp before… before.
The icing on the cake of my escape was actually a certain empousa.
I was about to crack the gym floor and was wondering why the other female inmates weren’t trying to get to the men’s side through the divided gym (surely glass would be easier to break than solid cement) when I heard the clank of a metal leg.
Turning, I’m just in time to catch the empousa charging at me. “Kelli?” I asked incredulously, “What are you doing here?”
She smiled, an insane light in her eyes. Surveying her, she seemed less well-kept than usual. Her cheerleader costume was reduced to a few threads and she seemed almost feral as she snarled at me. “I am here to end you Perseus! This is all your fault! My benefactors have spoken and you are to die!” drool dribbled down her chin with her words. Taking a closer look, I noticed she actually had festering wounds decorating her entire body. As I watched, I saw a maggot wriggle in the side of her neck. The smell of rotting meat perfumed the whole room. Her fire seemed weaker than normal, almost out, and her donkey leg trembled beneath her.
“What happened to you?” I asked as she swiped wildly at me. Gone was her cheer and precision, she almost seemed to be more wild beast than girl. At least she can still talk, maybe I can get some information from her.
“I have been selected to end you, Perseus.” She cackled. “He was given the responsibility of taking care of his mistake and I have been chosen as his emissary. I’ll admit, I took some convincing, but I am going to enjoy this! The Renewal has begun and I will have the honor of ending it!”
“What’s the Renewal?” I ask.
Kelli’s smile widens and blood starts to drip from one of her tear ducts. “Everyone swore on The River not to say. Well, almost everyone. No one cares about a single empousa.”
“So you can tell me?” I ask.
Kelli’s bottom lip rips and a maggot crawls out of her flesh as her smile widens to proportions not supportable by her skeletal structure. “All you need to know is that you’re too powerful and now you all die.” Kelli giggled.
A shiver travels up my spine. “All?”
“Five, six, seven, eight! Soon our bloodlust shall be sate! This little piggy gets slaughtered, and that little piggy gets its head on a pike! Each and every little tike!” Kelli sang quietly to herself, switching tunes half way through, while I processed my reality. Someone’s going to kill all the Half-Bloods because of me. No, Camp is too prepared. They’ll never be taken.
“Who.” I ask with an icy calm I’m not known for. “Who is after the Half-Bloods.”
Kelli clucked as she waggled a finger in my face. “That would be telling! Though it really shouldn’t be hard to figure out.”
Something on my face must have been amusing to Kelli, as she threw her head back, shrieking with laughter. Suddenly the icy dread and anger in my veins flared into a fiery rage. My vision goes black and when I return to reality Kelli is dead at my feet with not a single mark on her. Did I do that? I didn’t mean… I’ve got to go.
I concentrate hard on Kelli, weaving as much mist as quickly as possible around her body. Once I’m fairly sure the mist is thick enough to fool Batman ~not that it’s hard, man’s as stubborn and closed-minded as coral~ I dive into my newly created escape hole.
A small shock from my collar lets me know Waller has the prison back under her control. I rip the device to pieces with a strong riptide. The current kind, not my sword. The chances of it having a tracker are too great to leave it on now that it’s reactivated.
Taking a deep breath of water, I focus back on getting to Camp. It’s not too late, I can still save them. I can still make sure they live.