DAY FIVE HERE WE ARE. (For those who don't understand, this is the fifth day of my twelve day updating spree.) AND JUST LOOK AT THAT PICTURE. THANK YOU TO WHOEVER IS SPREADING AROUND ETHAN PICTURES. I LOVE THEM.

Bianca, Ethan thought. Instantly he fluttered open his eyes. He wasn't sure where the though came from but it was urgent. A deep feeling in his gut rolled over, darkly sinking into the depths of his pain.

Awareness was a cruel enforcer. Ethan swam in a world of blurry pain. His fingers and his toes were frozen, too cold to even think about moving. His neck was stiff hanging forward, his bangs plastered to his forehead with cool sweat. His clothes seemed to tear into his own skin spreading discomfort in his body.

And then there was the knife wounds. Ethan couldn't even think about them without a bubble of pain forming over his thoughts.

He must have blacked out again. How pathetic. Ethan, despite his growing urge to throw up the emptiness in his stomach, merely hung his head forward. He could feel the stiffness in his clothes, the scabbing pain when his chest moved of the dried blood ripping up.

He hated being mortal. He hated that being a mortal left him feeling weak and vulnerable. So many years of his pathetic life spent living on edge, fighting day by day as to not die anymore horribly than the next guy over. All for what? He died in the end.

And then he thought maybe, just maybe things might have gotten better. Demigods weren't going to die before they were ten, the gods promised. There was a cabin at camp HalfBlood for his siblings now. Ethan had paid for it with his eye and his life and his future.

Next time someone gave him a second life, Ethan was going to read the fine print. How could he just leave his past of balancing scales behind? He didn't know if he could do a normal life, an sedentary life. He barely knew the definition of Ordinary; much less accomplish such a thing with the Shit that he'd seen.

Ethan wheezed out a breath, trying to cheat his head from anything and everything. The pain made it tempting to sink back into that comforting blackness. It reminded him of Bianca again, and the soft silk of her hair.

Matt had left him tired to the chair, stuck in that brutally awkward position. Most of the wounds had stopped bleeding, but Ethan considered the fact he didn't know how many he had to be a bigger concern.

He'd probably fainted somewhere after the seventh slice. He remembered the feel of the metal blade tracing down his arm, the cool feeling mixed with the burn of agony. The quick flashes of light gathered on the edge right before he brought it down again and again and again. Ethan had flinched at every movement, even the ones where Matt had barely touched him. It gave the Son of a Hydra way too much of a thrill.

"Where's that spine, Nakamura?" Matt had brought the blade right up to Ethan's chin, the to dotted with scarlet color.

Ethan screamed into his gag as the jagged edge flew across his torso.

Ethan couldn't make himself stop.

He couldn't make Matt Sloan stop.

But he swore he'd get revenge. He'd get so much revenge his mother wouldn't know what to do with it.

The noise was what woke him up again. He hadn't realized he'd drifted off. He'd perfected his breathing to a moment where he only slightly felt his own death every time he inhaled.

Footsteps, Ethan realized. Someone was walking. Towards him. His shoulders tensed ready for the ugly bite of Matt's blade. But it didn't come.

There was a movement a touch. It was light and gentle of Ethan's body reeled away. His snarl cut off when he finally saw who was with him.

For a second his heart stopped. She was Bianca. Dear gods, it was her. The light touch, the concerned look in her eyes, the fall of her hair--

No it wasn't Bianca. Ethan glared past his pain. The woman was older, at least a couple years. Her skin was darker, her eyes duller, her lips too full. Ethan wanted to slap himself for even thinking about it being Bianca. The woman in front of him said something but in his haze Ethan wasn't sure what it was.

She knelt beside him, carefully, awkwardly, and Ethan noticed the injuries on her. The shadow on her face had become a nasty looking bruise that spread from her temple to her mouth. The color was faded but it was still defined enough for Ethan to make out the hand print border of it. She was uneasy on her feet, bruises along her legs, shallow cuts on her arms, that were scabbing away. She wore a short dress, dark in color, like a brown that made her skin look paler. No shoes, no socks. 

She said something in Spanish.

Ethan squinted at her, and spoke in Greek, "Wha?" 

She frowned, "English it is then." Her voice was soft and quiet. There was an urgent undertone to it as if she had to make ever word count because this was the end of the world. Ethan did not like that. He didn't want it to be the end of the world just yet. He didn't get his IHOP pancakes, or to see Luke and Bianca again. "Listen, this is going to hurt. I'm sorry."

Ethan's mind tried to keep up with her, but he was still thinking about those pancakes. (Oh gods, he was so hungry!) In a swift movement the woman had moved and belated agony exploded out of his shoulder. 

"WHAT THE HELL WOMAN!" Ethan screamed trying to move out of her reach. Unfortunately, she was a lot closer, and he had forgotten he was tied up. His skin was on fire with the warmth of her touch and the closeness she worked, the dried blood from cuts on his arms ripped fresh but Ethan barely felt it over the horrific feeling in his shoulder.

"Shut up." She hissed in that tone, "Keep it down or they will take me out of here."

Ethan's stomach turned over and over. Sweat poured down his neck as he tried to keep from dry heaving. He turned his head as much as he dared to see what she was doing. Her fingers were a deep red now, shining in the dim lighting. She was moving something, a metal, a knife? No, Ethan crushed the second swell of panic as he recognized the needle.

She was sewing up the wound.

The pain must have made him delirious. He didn't remember saying anything but she glanced up at him with dark intense eyes, "Yes, I am. They don't want you to bleed out yet." 

She said it with a sadness to her voice. As if she thought him bleeding out now would be better than her trying to help him. Then Ethan realized she was right.

The "They" in question was notorious. Ethan had been on this track for as long as he'd been living his second life. He'd seen what had happened to the private detectives before him, he'd seen the remains, the half of the corpses that had been dug up, pulled from fires, washed up on the shores. They had been torn to pieces, but left just enough intact for identification. They were warnings. 

Warnings Ethan had bypassed. He'd already died, what was there to fear? When he started he had nothing, no one except two people who shared a room with him. Now he was teetering on the edge of becoming the next body in the morgue, and he realized he had everything to fear.

He knew Matt Sloan. He had studied the psychopath with such an intensity that he could probably recite the file front to back even with as much pain as he was in. The man who lead disguised massacres, who had torn the liver out of the last detective after him, who normally would have made play dough out Ethan's face....he'd gone incredibly easy on him.

There were only two reasons why. And Ethan didn't like either of them.

He grunted as the woman made a particularly sharp pull of the thread. His finger twitched and his wrists chafed the rope again. 

"lo siento." the woman whispered, "I wish I could give you pain killers."

"It's...fine..." Ethan gritted his teeth. He tried not to think at all, "Who are...you?"

She frowned at his wound, putting slightly more pressure on it. She somehow got bandages, thought with a nauseating realization, Ethan could remember her having them before. They were thoroughly soaked with blood. 

"They don't like my name here."

Ethan nodded distantly, "I did not... ask about... them." 

She looked at him. Her eyes were just like Bianca's again, only duller. Ethan bet that they could have been long lost sisters if this was any other story. Her mouth moved but it took her two tries to get her own name out. "Monica."

"Do you stitch up people often down here Monica?"

Even though he didn't mean it as a joke, she laughed. It was a breath humorous laugh, as short as it was relieving, but it was a laugh. She tightened the next stitch without answering. Ethan swore in Greek.

They were quiet for a couple of minutes. Ethan hadn't realized how much he hated the silence until then. Even with the pounding in his head, the agony in his limbs, and his tendency to think about Bianca when he really should not be, Ethan realized he hated the weight of no communication. It left far too much time to his brain.

"Yes," Monica whispered, "Though, none of them are ever this talkative."

Ethan gave a breathy smile, "Disappointed?"

"Pitying." She said, sadly. With those words, the humor Ethan might have felt evaporated. She inspected her stitching. Ethan hoped she was good. He could just see him taking another hit from Matt or his minions and pop, pop, pop! Whoops! Ethan bled out.

"I'm sorry," He said.

She snorted loudly, then looked frantically behind them. Her blood dipped hand raised to her neck, as if she was remembering a past pain. Her voice dropped again, to the point where Ethan was sure he was just hallucinating her talking. "It's...okay. It's almost charming."

Ethan coughed out a bit of blood. "Oh yes, that's what I go for. Charming."

"I said almost." She pointed out. there was a sloshing of water and Ethan felt her bring a cool towel on his neck. "I'm sure you've got a lot of young girls after you." She sounded sad again, her voice dripping with a broken tone. 

Ethan was the one with the knife wounds, tied to a chair, but for some reason he felt sorry for Monica. It had to be her looks. His brain was finding it harder and harder to separate her appearance from Bianca's. The flaws in the woman in front of her were getting more difficult to discern from Ethan's memory of the perfect daughter of Hades.

"Do you...?" Ethan asked, frowning when he couldn't come up with the word. "Have someone?"

Monica stiffened. Her arms grew goosebumps in the dim lighting. She looked away. "I'm done here." She said louder, intensely. She got up moving out of his line of vision. She picked something up --a tray? Maybe that's where she had gotten her supplies-- and Ethan heard her uneven footsteps receded. She was walking with a limp.

"Monica," Ethan said. 

The footsteps stopped.

"Thank you."

Ethan imagined she was looking at the ground. A sound bounced back to him too muffled for him to make it out. Ethan stared straight ahead, listening with all his might. He couldn't tell if his vision was going dark or if Matt thought it funny to slowly turn off the light. 

"Please, don't thank me." Monica whispered. For a second Ethan had no trouble believing she was as old as the gods themselves. "I only patch you up so they can tear you apart again."

Another sound burst forth. The son of Nemesis wasn't sure what it was until he realized he couldn't breath again. His throat made a gutted noise as his dry mouth tossed out an insane laugh. The sound was inhuman, so otherworldly it chilled even Ethan to his bones yet again. 

"They need me for something." Ethan laughed, "Something important. I think they are going to find it difficult to get it from me. I'll see you soon, Monica."

Monica didn't reply. Ethan assumed she left the same way she had come in: silently. Was it a well oiled door? Or was she some Demigod with the power to teleport? He closed his eyes and let the howling agony of his body take him over once again. 

When he drifted off into unconsciousness just minutes later, Ethan Nakamura dreamed of his mother.