The first punch landed with a wet crunch of cartilage—too soft, too easy. Like hitting a sack of wet flour instead of the man who'd burned my life to ashes. Ezra barely rocked back on his heels, just grinned through the blood already dripping from his broken nose. That grin haunted me more than any ghost—the same one he'd worn when—
No.
I wouldn't think about that yet.
My second punch drove up under his ribs with enough force to lift him onto his toes. His breath exploded outward in a cloud of blood mist, but the hollow in my chest only yawned wider. This wasn't justice. Wasn't vengeance. Just mechanics—bone against meat, the physics of suffering.
Then came the third strike.
Something crystalline shattered behind my sternum. Years of dammed grief and fury surged through the cracks, flooding my limbs with liquid fire. My vision tunneled until all I saw was Ezra's face—his widening eyes reflecting my own monstrous transformation. His lips formed words—probably some clever quip—but I didn't let him finish.
My knuckles connected with his cheekbone, and the sound was pure catharsis—like dry branches snapping underfoot after a decade-long drought. Heat bloomed through my hand, radiating up my arm in electric waves. Not just the warmth of impact—something deeper. Something wrong.
I could feel him.
Every pulse of blood beneath his skin resonated through my clenched fist like a second heartbeat. The sluggish rhythm of his carotid. The stuttering flutter of capillaries bursting under pressure. His entire circulatory system mapped itself across my senses in vivid crimson detail.
"You think this makes you righteous?" Ezra spat a glob of blood and saliva onto the cracked asphalt between us. His grin was a crimson smear, teeth stained pink. "Look at you—playing god with my arteries." A wet chuckle bubbled up from his ruined throat. "How very Olympian of you."
The storm answered before I did.
Rain turned to horizontal sheets as I clenched my fist—not at Ezra, but at the storm itself. The downpour stuttered midair, droplets hanging suspended like crystal beads on some cosmic necklace. Then I twisted my wrist—and Ezra's body arched violently backward as his own blood rebelled against him.
Capillaries burst like fireworks across his sclera, painting his eyes red. Tendons stood out like cables along his neck as he fought the violation of his own veins. A choked scream tore from his throat as I forced his bloodstream backward—reversing its flow for one excruciating second before releasing him.
He collapsed onto all fours, coughing up thick ropes of half-coagulated blood. "Finally showing your true colors," he wheezed between convulsive gasps. His fingers dug grooves in the asphalt as he tried and failed to rise. "Took you long enough."
Every drop of water in the shattered pipes beneath us trembled in sync with my pulse. The storm wasn't just weather anymore—it was an extension of my unraveling control. Floodwaters rose in perfect concentric circles around us, obeying the tremors in my hands as obediently as trained hounds.
"My sister was seven," I said, and the words came out wrong—too deep, distorted by something primal uncoiling in my throat. The floodwaters turned sharp, forming needle-thin tendrils that lashed against Ezra's skin, leaving hairline cuts everywhere they touched. "She collected sea glass. Thought each piece was a gift from my father."
Memory superimposed over reality—small hands clutching cloudy green shards. A gap-toothed smile. Yellow rain boots splashing through tide pools. All ash now. All because of—
Ezra managed to get one knee under him. I forced him back down with a thought—his own blood turning traitor, weighing his limbs down like liquid lead.
"You're not special," he gasped. Blood dribbled from his nose in a steady stream. "Every hero breaks eventually. You're just proving—"
The rest dissolved into a wet scream as I clenched both fists. Blood erupted from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes in gruesome twin streams. I could feel every molecule separating—plasma from platelets, hemoglobin unraveling at my command like a spool of crimson thread. Some detached part of me recoiled at what I was doing, but that part was drowning under a tsunami of white-hot rage.
In my mind's eye: my mother's body half-buried in rubble. My sister's favorite yellow rain boots are sticking out from under the collapsed drywall. The way Ezra had smiled when I found them.
"You don't get to talk about breaking," I whispered.
The storm stilled abruptly. Even the rain froze midair—thousands of glittering droplets hanging motionless around us like some macabre art installation. In that suspended silence, I reached into Ezra's chest with my power and squeezed.
His heart stuttered.
For one terrible, exhilarating moment, I held his pulse in my hands like a live wire. His face went gray. His pupils blew wide. I could've stopped it—could've let go—but the part of me that still cared was buried too deep now.
His aorta tore.
The scream that followed wasn't entirely human. Ezra collapsed convulsing as his circulatory system imploded, blood forced outward through every available orifice. I watched dispassionately as crimson geysers erupted from his pores, painting the frozen raindrops in surreal scarlet suspension.
Somewhere distant, the rational part of my mind recoiled. This wasn't combat anymore—this was butchery. But the hollow place where my family used to be just kept whispering one truth:
He deserved worse.
When it ended, the frozen rain unfurled all at once—a scarlet deluge washing over the ruins. I stood motionless amid the carnage, watching diluted blood swirl around my ankles. The storm had quieted. My hands had stopped shaking.
And for the first time since finding their bodies, I felt nothing at all.
I don't know how long I stayed there.
The scent of blood still clung to my hands when the chains materialized—cold bronze snapping around my wrists and ankles with a metallic hiss. I barely had time to register the sudden weight before two Automatons emerged from nothingness, their hollow eyes gleaming as spearpoints pressed against my throat.
Golden light erupted around us. Olympus.
The throne room materialized in a dizzying rush—marble columns stretching impossibly high, the air thick with divine energy that made my teeth vibrate. And there they were: the Olympian Council arrayed on their thrones like a pantheon of living statues. Their stares burned into me.
Zeus rose first, his storm-blue eyes crackling with barely restrained lightning. "Perseus Jackson," his voice rolled like thunder, "Traitor of Olympus."
The accusation hit like a gut punch. "What—?"
"You murdered a demigod!" Zeus's roar shook the chamber. "Unleashed destruction upon mortals! Conspired against our rule!"
"That's bullshit!" I thrashed against the chains, feeling the Automaton spears dig deeper. "Ezra murdered my family! He was Coeus' spawn—mind-controlled everyone at camp!"
A flicker of movement—Apollo shifting on his throne. Artemis' silver eyes narrowing. But Zeus slammed his fist down, Master Bolt sparking. "Silence! Your lies poison this hall!"
"They're not lies!" My voice cracked. "He killed my mom—Annabeth—my sister—"
"Enough!" Lightning arced across the ceiling. "Council! We vote on his execution!"
The room erupted. Apollo shot upright. "Absolutely not—"
"We have no proof—" Athena's gray eyes flashed.
Hades materialized shadows around his throne. "The dead whisper contradictions."
Zeus bared his teeth. "Then vote!"
Hands raised—Ares surprisingly abstaining, Aphrodite's delicate fingers trembling. The tally split down the middle. Zeus's nostrils flared. "Fine. Alternative punishment: Banishment to Tartarus."
The word sucked the air from the room. Hestia's flame dimmed. "Brother—"
"Unjust!" Artemis snarled.
But Zeus's gaze locked onto Poseidon. My father hadn't spoken. Hadn't moved. The sea in his eyes had frozen solid.
"Father?" The word tasted like ash.
Poseidon stood. The oceans roared beyond Olympus' walls. "You were given every chance," he said, and his voice was the crushing depths of the Mariana Trench. "Yet you chose vengeance."
The chains rattled as I jerked forward. "He slaughtered them!"
"And you became what you fought!" Poseidon's trident flashed—and Riptide tore from my pocket. The celestial bronze dissolved midair, reforming at his throne. The severing felt like losing a limb. "The sea disowns you."
Something in my ribcage snapped. The Automatons' spears drew blood as I screamed—not from pain, but from the agony of that invisible tether ripping away. Saltwater poured from my eyes uncontrollably—the ocean mourning itself.
Zeus grinned. "Then it's settled." The Master Bolt ignited—white-hot energy scorching my vision. "To Tartarus with you."
Apollo lunged forward—too late. The Bolt struck.
Lightning unspooled my atoms. I screamed as Olympus dissolved into white fire—gods' shouts fading—Poseidon's face the last thing I saw before—
—rot filled my lungs.
Tartarus stretched before me: a living nightmare of pulsating flesh-ground and crimson sky. Empty. Weaponless. Alone.
I dug fingernails into my palms until blood dripped black. The grief would come later. For now? Only one thought burned through the hollow where my power once lived:
I'll crawl out of this hell.
Even if I have to become the monster they fear.