I'll be here forever

chapter 12

"Hey!" called a gruff voice, and I cursed. I think it was in another language, and I'm not exactly sure what I said, but I probably said it a lot.

Percy and I stood, him taking his pen out of his back pocket casually.

"What's up?" he asked, and again I was amazed at his ability to remain completely calm. To anyone else, he would just look like a regular guy leaning casually against the table, twirling a pen. I knew he was ready to jump into battle at any second, though.

"What do you think you're doing here?" the cyclops who called out first stood, the other ones standing behind them.

"Getting our food. If you don't mind, we'll take it to go," he said easily. I put a hand on my sheath.

"I don't think so. I smell demigod!" he roared, and the other cyclops nodded in agreement.

"Demigod?" I saw Percy's face twist in confusion, and his plan dawned on me.

"Uh, like, what's a demigod?" I asked, in my best ditsy blonde voice, hoping they'd buy it.

The cyclops exchanged confused glances.

"But I smell demigod," the leader said, a bit weaker this time. I slipped our backpack on my back slowly, trying not to make any sudden moves.

"Look, dude, we don't want any problems. Just let us take our food, and we'll be on our way," he replied smoothly, picking up the bag of chicken and reaching for his drink.

The cyclops face contorted his already ugly face in anger.

"I smell sea god!" he roared, and his buddies cheered with him.

Percy grabbed the next nearest drink to him (not his own, but our seat neighbors) and threw it at the cyclops. Brown, foamy root beer exploded over their table, blinding them.

"Run!" he yelped, shoving our food and drinks at me. I hesitated for just a second, but then ducked out of the way and ran when a chicken sandwich was thrown at me, running out of the way and dodging sticky sodas being thrown all over the restaurant. I didn't want to leave Percy, but he could handle himself.

The fight between Percy and the cyclops turned into a fight against Percy and every other monster in the restaurant, with frightened people who didn't understand what was going on running all over the place. They started crowding the door, and I couldn't have that, so I pushed people over and placed some hard, strategic kicks to the backs on their knees. People crumpled around me, and I sprinted out of the restaurant.

I stood in the parking lot, surrounded by cars, watching soda and chicken-covered people stream out of the Chik-fil-A. Screams and monster shrieks filled the air, and I started to panic. Where was he? I wouldn't know if he was hurt, or yelling my name, it was so loud.

Suddenly, I heard the roar of water and my heart stopped. What if the pipes had burst in the fight? What if he drowned in there? And I'd just left him.

But the doors to the restaurant exploded open, carrying with it a disturbing amount of gold dust and Percy, riding on top of the water with a huge grin on his face, perfectly dry. The water splashed over some cars and then subsided, leaving him standing in the middle of the parking lot full of speeding cars and screaming people. I stood stunned for a moment, before regaining my senses.

"Come on," I yelled at him, gesturing as best I could with my arms full of food, turning and starting to run. I hoped he was behind me.

When we'd made it easily a block away, I started wheezing. I heard him behind me, not sounding much better. We slowed down, walking along the road. I spotted a small coffee shop on the side of the road; Faire's Coffee. It didn't look to busy, so we jogged up to it and walked inside, the bell jingling, announcing our arrival.

I flopped down into the nearest booth, Percy dropping down across from me, both of us breathing hard, Percy with chicken in his hair. I set the bag of our food and our two drinks down on the table. We got a few strange looks from the other customers, that's for sure, but I didn't care.

"Okay, are you going to tell me what the fuck just happened?" I asked once I'd caught my breath, gesturing helplessly. Percy shook his head.

"Hell if I know," he laughed breathlessly. I huffed.

"Gee, thanks, that's helpful. Maybe start explaining how you just fucking surf-boarded out of a Chik-fil-A and you're still completely dry?" my voice raised an octave.

The lady at the table near us looked up over her book and shushed us.

"Sorry," Percy whispered loudly. The old lady glared at him and went back to her book.

"I don't- I don't know. There was this... weird feeling in my stomach, I guess. Almost like, uh, a tugging sensation. And then everything exploded," he shrugged, grabbing the bag of chicken, quickly taking out both his box of chicken nuggets and mine, sliding mine over to me. I was truly amazed at how unbothered he seemed by this.

"I'm starving," he murmured, opening his box of chicken.

"Me too," I decided to push our little incident into the back of my mind, but it still festered there, the question burning through my brain:

Who were we?