I woke up the next morning to the sun shining through the window.

The rays of light filled the room, giving it a warm glow. I sat up slowly and lifted my arms above my head yawning. No sooner than I put my arms down I heard a soft tapping on the door.

"Come in." I answered it.

The door slid open slowly and Carrianne took a tentative step forward. "Hey." She said as she semi awkwardly walked over to the bench at the foot of the bed and sat down.

"Hi." I replied, chewing my lip.

She sat at an angle so that we were able to face each other and she crisscrossed her legs. Her brown hair was pulled on top of her head in a messy bun and her eyes showed signs of the crying she had done last night. It was the first time I'd ever seen her not look entirely perfect. She had on a pink fuzzy robe and she fidgeted with the belt on it in her lap. "I thought we should talk." She said looking down."

I looked down at my own hands in my lap and began to nervously pick at my nails. "Yeah, I guess we should."

Her perky attitude seemed to pick back up a little. "So, I'm not usually at a loss for words, but like right now, I don't even know where we should start."

I laughed a little. "I know what you mean...I guess we need to just try to start over. Let's just put the past behind us, and move forward."

"I think I'd like that." She said gently with a soft smile.

"Me too." I agreed with her. "So, Charles mentioned you painted these." I said pointing out the beautiful works around the room.

She beamed, tilting her head slightly. "Yes, I have always been in love with painting. Daddy still has some of my very first finger paintings up in his office."

"They're really good." I told her. "I always wished I could paint, I just could never get the hang of it. I do draw though." I added. "Mostly sketches and stuff like that. I'm best at people."

"I can't paint people." She said nodding her head. "I'm really the best at landscapes, like these ones. I try to do other things like portraits or still life, but I haven't had too much luck in that department. You should see the ones that some people in my art class can do. There is this guy, I don't remember his name, maybe like Josh or Jeremy, actually, I think it's Carter...Whatever, anyway, he can literally sit you down and paint you insanely perfectly in less than an hour. I'm talking like professional grade too. It's so insane. Too bad he's such a dork. He's is kind of sweet though."

I had to keep my face from giving away the fact that I was thinking of how Garrett has always said he has a hard time getting Carrianne to shut up. She is quite the motor mouth. "That's cool though. I didn't get a chance to sign up for art since the class was full."

"Oh, yeah because you started in the middle of the year." She said to herself. "Well, maybe next year." She smiled looking away. "So..." An awkward silence fell over us again. "Look, this is just really weird. I'm trying really hard to be nice and all, but I mean..."

"I know." I agreed with her. "Trust me, it's weird for me too."

"I bet." She whispered. "You really never knew you had any sort of power?" I shook my head and she leaned back on the bench, propping herself up with her elbows. "I can't even imagine." She told me. "I've been practicing mine for like, ever." A strange look came over her. "Daddy didn't mention how you figured it out." When I didn't answer right away she looked down quickly. "I guess Garret helped you?"

Life had really set the two of us up to be enemies, not sisters. I sighed. "Yeah...I figured out what he was...Well, I figured out he was something and then he explained it all to me. The day outside my house, when you were following me and trying to use you fire on me, but it didn't work, that's how he figured out that there was something special about me, too."

She nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that by the way."

"I'm sorry too." I said quickly. "I really am. Looking back I realize that it was super crappy of me to come here and start hanging out with your boyfriend behind your back. I don't have any excuse for that. I really am sorry."

Carrianne smiled at me, and for the first time I felt like it was a real one, not her fake one she douses out to everyone. She shot up from her seat and went to close the door then came to sit on the bed by my feet and faced me. "Can I tell you a secret and you swear on everything, and I mean everything, that you won't tell a single living soul?"

"Um, yeah?"

She looked around the room as if the walls were going to hear her. "I'm not really all that upset about the whole Garrett thing..." She paused dramatically and bit her lip, her eyes dancing with excitement. "I've known him so long, and like I really did like him, but I always knew he wasn't into me. We used to be kind of good friends before...Whatever, anyway, I kind of have a tiny crush on someone..."

I looked at her skeptically. "What do you mean you were friends 'before', and if you didn't care then why all the theatrics?"

She tilted her head and rolled her eyes. "You're missing the point here." She said annoyed. "I'm trying to talk boys with you right now."

I laughed at her seriousness. "Well, I forewarn you that I've never been very good at talking boys."

"What, like its hard? Just shut up and listen, then smile and nod and act really surprised when I tell you who. It's super easy." She glanced around again. "So you know how I told you I couldn't remember the name of that guy in my art class? Well, I was totally faking. I know his name. It's Carter Duvall, and he's a senior." She said the last part very dramatically.

I just stared at her, waiting for her to continue. When she didn't, I thought back to what she had just said. I widened my eyes in faux-shock and gasped. "No way?" I said.

"Now you're getting it." She praised me. "Anyway, so I've had a crush on him for like three years now. I'm pretty sure he's interested in me, like, who isn't? But I haven't ever encouraged it." She looked a little sad for a minute. "From what my daddy told me, I know you've had it way worse than me and blah blah blah, but my mom..." She trailed off. "My mom would have just had a cow if she knew that I was interested in a boy who wasn't a Potente. Also, she'd flip her lid if I was to ever let 'The McDuffie boy out of my grasp.'" She mocked her mother's tone with an eye roll. "All she freaking cares about is that I marry into the McDuffie's'. Like her sole mission in life is to make sure that I marry as high as humanly possible. I told her one time that I don't even like Garrett like that, and she slapped me across the face so hard and so fast you would have thought I'd just told her I had decided to drop out of school and become a prostitute." She cast her eyes down at the bed. "After that, I've tried very hard to keep up the pretenses that I care for Garrett. Which, don't get me wrong, I did learn to care for him. But always more as a friend. I couldn't ever let him know that though..." She lowered her voice even more. "My mom and his dad are really close, like too close, if you get where I'm going. It's a really good thing that Daddy sent her on this really nice cruise retreat thing for a month. If she'd been here when you and Garrett ran off away from Dalton together, she would have blamed me."

"I'm really sorry you have to deal with that."

"I'm sorry you had to deal with two fake parents that were mean to you, one dead mom, one dead brother, and finding out you were a freakishly powerful Potente who is in love with your half-sister's boyfriend." She actually laughed when she finished.

"Wow." I said. "When you put it like that..."

"I don't mean any offense." She smiled. "I think we have both been dealt some pretty crappy cards."

"Agreed." I told her. "So, tell me more about Carter." I said, thankful that the topic kept her mouth busy. She chattered on and on about him and how perfect he is. When she finished talking about him, she moved on to talking about all the pathetically lame girls he had dated, and that she couldn't wait to get back to school on Monday and finally put the moves on him. She threw her head back laughing when she joked that he wasn't going to know what hit him and that he'd probably faint dead on the spot. "You should come to the class with me just to watch his face!" She clapped her hands happily.

"I don't think I will be coming back to school this week." I told her shrugging my shoulders. "I do wish I could see that though. Wes sent in a doctor's note for me saying that I have mono."

"Oh, pooey." She said slumping her shoulders. "Whatever, I will just fill you in after."

She prattled on and on some more about all sorts of things. She did have a tendency to immediately follow up anything nice she said about someone, with a quick negative, but other than that she really wasn't all that bad. Was she the type of girl I'd want to be friends with? No. But she wasn't a totally evil witch either. I was realizing that she is really just misunderstood. Annabeth had put a lot of pressure on her young daughter to be absolutely perfect and to rise to heights that she hadn't been able to do herself. That had to be rough on a young girl, as if society doesn't try to force perfection on us enough.

We stayed in the bed talking, and surprisingly enough, laughing for two whole hours. We'd really lost it when Katy Perry came on the radio and Carrianne said, "Oh, Cade, it's your jam!" The only thing that stopped us was the doorbell.

We both looked to each other nervously. "Daddy went out." She whispered.

"Who would be coming by without calling?" I asked her, but she shrugged. "Well, should you go to the door?"

"I don't ever answer the door to strangers. It's creepy and weird. I just pretend that I'm not home."

I rolled my eyes at her. "I'm pretty sure you've got enough power to take care of yourself." I reminded her.

"Whatever." She quipped. We sat in silence for another moment as the doorbell rang throughout the house again. We both perked up as we heard the door open and shut. "Oh my god." Carrianne whispered.

We could hear the footsteps coming up the stairs and walking down the hall. They stopped outside of Carrianne's room for a minute, and then walked over to stop right outside of our door.

We were both holding our breath as the door pushed open soundlessly.