Been a while huh? A super special thank you to Blurrwar on Instagram for this amazing fanart which makes me cry every time i see it because its just....so perfect. Please check them out if you have an insta!! Meanwhile, ill be here, attempting to figure out where i left off two years ago.

Sitting in a chair in front of Zoe Nightshade's desk with an Ice pack that freezing her fingers pressed against the back of her head, was not the way Bianca wanted to spend her night. She stared at mostly nothing but listened to every word that swam around the office. Luke and Zoe wrestled with more agents from more agencies that she could remember, but somehow they kept the lead in the investigation of the shooter. In the corner the TV playing a rerun of the day's activities including Bianca's kidnapping and footage of her being treated in an ambulance. She was silently glad that Camp Half Blood only turned on the TV every once in a blue moon. The last thing she need was to draw her brother after all four-- five-- of them now.

Bianca readjusted the ice pack, sinking lower in her seat as Luke and Zoe argued over the different ways the unknown and armed demigod could have breached their defense sweep. She felt useless, having spent the day knocked out and tied up. She didn't even know who the mystery demigod was, but he sure knew them.

He knew exactly what to say to get Bianca to stop struggling, even just for that second he took to knock her out. He knew what buttons to push to convince Zoe and Luke to sweep an entire building armed with just knives. He knew exactly what made the three of them tick. He also knew about Ethan.

In the nicest terms possible, Bianca wanted to kill him.

She wanted to throttle his smirk and send his soul down to her father because he refused to tell them outright what was going on. He was holding back information that they could use to find Ethan Nakamura and bring him home. The Undead Demigod told them they couldn't see the full picture, but played mind games like they weren't on a timer until Ethan's body was found verses finding him alive.

It was a rage that made her fingers prickle, and her glare intensify. The ice in her ice pack cracked in the pressure of her grip. Bianca stared at nothing but prayed to the mother of one of her best friends that when she found the undead demigod he got what was coming to him in full.

"Well why don't we just ask her!" Luke shouted finally.

Bianca blinked up at the two of them realizing that the back-and-forth that had been engaged in had come to the sudden rather explosive stop. Luke was leaning over Zoe's desk, arms locked straight and his blue eyes filled with a fire that she wasn't sure had been there before Zoe had started talking. Despite the stress and the weariness that Bianca could see had taken a toll on him, there was also a slight sense of ease that had come over him: Luke was standing here with a determined mind and a fierce expression because this is what he did. He took the problems as the world had thrown them at him and he was going to make his own solutions.

Consequences to Hades and all that.

Bianca was angry, she was scared, she was completely ordinary with no fancy magic powers to help her this time. But Luke--Luke was also angry, and scared, but he had spent so much time being all of these things, as a kid running the streets with nothing more than a supernatural ability to unlock doors, as a camper at Camp Half-Blood who's father acted jumpy when he was around and sent him on one single quest that he nearly died on, as a host of Kronos wavering between whether this was the right course of action or not. Luke was born on this feeling of danger, and he had learned to keep a level head.

It was strange that Luke and Zoe couldn't seem to get along. Bianca wondered if they knew how similar they really were. If Artemis hadn't found her all those centuries ago, Bianca had a feeling the Gods would not have been prepared for the rebellion Zoe might have raised.

Bianca wasn't sure what she would have done if it had been just her and Ethan in this mess. She'd probably be dead all over again. She wouldn't have the answers to any of this until Ethan joined her in the underworld again, and even then they might never see each other again.

Bianca squashed the nausea in her stomach at the thought. She was not about to start thinking like that. They were going to find Ethan again, because that was what they were going to do. There was no other choice.

Zoe gritted her teeth together in an obvious annoyance at Luke. Then she turned her stern gaze down at Bianca and the daughter of Hades immediately felt like she was in the Principals office at Westmoore all over again. (Not that she was a trouble maker. Trouble just...followed her and Nico around. It wasn't until recently that they learned it was because of their demigodly scent.)

"I'm sorry," She mumbled more out of habit than anything else. She pressed switched the icebag to her other hand and wiped the condensation from her fingertips on her jeans.

"Don't apologize." Zoe said tersely, which did not help Bianca's guilty feeling. 

"B," Luke started, stopping when Zoe shot him a look that should have killed him.

"You did what any untrained Hunter would have," Zoe said, "You did not use your head, Bianca. But you rushed to my aid which is something I cannot fault you for. Never apologize for wanting to help someone."

"This is the exact reason why everyone hates you," Luke said to the older huntress. "She was held hostage at gunpoint! Normal people don't have that done....ever! You can't always treat her like a soldier!"

"Don't you dare disgrace my hunter with your pity!" Zoe gnashed her teeth, "Bianca is--"

"She's not your hunter anymore!"

"She took an Oath!"

"She died! That oath is over!"

"She-"

"No Zoe!" Luke snarled, "The oath is over. She has not taken it again. She's a teenage girl, not part of your brainwashed lesbian army."

Zoe had never had the best temper, but even then Bianca was just barely fast enough to shoulder Luke out of the way. Zoe's fingers wrapped her bow and yanked it around the air where Luke's neck would have been. If he had been caught, Bianca didn't think Zoe would have hesitated in dragging handle back and turning her string in to a garrote. 

Bianca placed herself between Luke and Zoe.  "He didn't mean it!"

"Oh hell yes I did!" Luke hissed. "She can't--"

Bianca shoved her ice bag in his face, "He didn't mean any of it!" 

Luke made another noise and Bianca jabbed her elbow back at him. "Will you shut up."

When she turned back around Zoe unclenched her  jaw and rolled her wrist. Her bow circled the air for a dangerous second, in which Bianca got the distinct feeling the older girl was counting the ways she could get around Bianca to attack Luke for his unwarranted comment. 

"Look," Bianca said, softly, because the last thing they needed was another raised voice. "I'm not a hunter anymore, but that doesn't change the fact that I was one. I should have known better, yeah, but neither of you get to treat me like I'm a kid who doesn't know what she's doing."

Zoe's eyes softened just a bit. Luke went silent.

"I have no one but you two, okay? And Ethan has no one but us. So please stop fighting and help me find him! We don't---have the time," Bianca took a deep breath to steady herself. "I don't want to clean out his room."

"We're not going to clean out his room." Luke said quietly.

"Of course we're going to find him." Zoe tilted her chin up as if daring the gods to defy her. "As soon as we figure out who this shooter thinks he is. If he's as connected as I believe, he will lead us right to Nakamura."

"Which," Luke added, "Is why we need you to remember every single thing you can about him."

Bianca dropped her shoulders, rubbing the insider of her elbow. "I already told you everything I can remember."

"I know, I know," Luke said, "But I just want to try it one more time. Any detail, anything at all. It could be important."

"I...I don't know," She admitted, "I was shocked he knew my name. He couldn't have been much older than any of us. He wasn't...He wasn't trying to hurt people, not really-- the other guy in the black hoodie was chasing him."

Zoe's look soured, "Yes that male." She glared at a stack of papers on her desk, "After our kidnapper disappeared in the building, that one disappeared as well. I have no leads so far."

"Did you smell anything unusual?" Luke asked.

"No?" Bianca thought back to the incident, where he had pressed them so close together. She hadn't smelled anything on him, at least not something that was more potent than the smell of the smog, the backwater, the trash from the alley itself. 

"He was pretty short," Bianca said after a second. "For a guy at least."

"Told you," Luke grinned towards Zoe, stretching the scar on his cheek.

She huffed, "Everyone is short compared to you Castellan. This is not news."

"He was my height, if not shorter," Bianca remembered. "But he was strong. I could feel...." Bianca blushed because she couldn't believe she was actually saying these words, "I could feel the muscles under his sweatshirt."

Zoe waved off the comment and her blush with a flick of her hand. "We know he is someone from your--our-- past. Most likely someone who has died. Along with a hatred for Luke in particular though that does not diminish the list any."

"Hey!" Luke said halfheartedly. 

Zoe ignored him as she was very prone to do. She grabbed her jacket from her chair and started towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Luke demanded.

"I do not need your permission to do my job, nor am I required to tell you everything." Zoe snapped, "However, I want to check the reports offered by our techs analyzing the room. Their preliminary reports should be finished by now." 

"You think you missed something?" Bianca asked.

"We must have." Zoe clicked her tongue, "This adversary is smart enough to have escaped a completely surrounded building and leave no traces. When we talked on the phone he seemed to want to help us. I can't believe that someone, even a male such as this one, would go to all this trouble for no reason."

At the mention of the phone, Bianca shuddered. Why did it seem that every phone call recently was a threat? She knew rationally her phone was locked up somewhere safe and monitored, but she shoved her hands in her pocket anyway.

She froze.

"Bianca?" Luke asked.

Bianca bit back a curse. She wrapped her fingers around a piece of paper that she hadn't put in her pocket, and she brought it out into the open. Her hands were shaky, despite her willing herself to knock it off. 

"Zoe," Bianca croaked. "I think I found the missing something."

"Is that..." Luke trailed off.

In a second Zoe was across the room and right beside Bianca. She looked furious, "That heathen! How dare he touch--"

"What does it say?" Luke interrupted.

"It's for you," Bianca offered it to him. It felt flimsy in her hands, but the hand writing was clearly  calling out Luke in neat letters. Luke grabbed a tissue from a box on Zoe's desk and then took the paper from her.

"I don't think you'll get any fingerprints off it." Bianca said.

"You never know," Luke took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. 

Zoe tapped her foot twice, "Hurry up." 

"Shut up," Luke shot back, but he opened the folded paper. "Oh, well shit."

Zoe made a motion for his to share with the rest of them. Luke's face was ashen but he met their looks bravely as he turned the paper over for them to read. 

The place where you got me killed. Sunset.  Discretely. MY

"My?" Bianca repeated.

"Short, annoying, holds grudges, and a near perfect shot?" Luke said in a shaky tone. "It looks like were heading to the Williamsburg Bridge."

"We aren't moving a centimeter until you tell me who this is!" Zoe snapped. "Who did you kill?"

"I didn't kill him," Luke shot back. "Percy Jackson did. But it was my fault. I'm not surprised he hates me." He checked his watch, "The sun sets in twenty-ish minutes. He's not gonna wait." Luke grabbed his own jacket, "Trust me."

"Castellan!"

Luke motioned for them to hurry up. "Grab something casual, and make it quick."

"Luke!"

"Or I'll go by myself!"

Bianca tensed, and even though she knew it was an empty threat, she felt a bit of panic settle in her. She was well aware that this was not a situation where she should be involved: She was a civilian, where as Zoe and Luke's law enforcement positions gave them clearance to confront bad guys. If they told her not to come, they'd have the entire precinct and the government on their side. 

Bianca thought that she'd rather die than be regulated to some hotel room pacing with only her imagination to keep her company while her friends tried to figure out exactly what was going on. Somewhere still in her was that demigod instinct to fight, to be in the front lines, to bring Ethan back home herself.

She lunged forward and grabbed the keys from Luke's hand. "I'm driving!" She said, and before either Zoe or Luke could tell her she wasn't coming, she stormed out of the private office and towards the elevator.

"Bianca!" Luke yelled, and he was echoed by something in an ancient language that Bianca didn't instinctively know from Zoe. 

She was tired of being useless and scared and ordinary. 

She decided to be angry and determined instead.