xv. the truth
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ANNABETH, THE SELF-SACRIFICIAL GIRL, IMMEDIATELY THINKS THAT SHE WILL GO ALONE WITH HER INVISIBLE CAP. Over Thea's dead body, which she makes very clear. Either none of them go, or all of them go.
Tyson likes the idea of no one, but he eventually comes along when he realizes that everyone else is going. When they stop by the cabin to get their things, he insists on carrying all of the bags. It's easy for him, but the idea of someone else carrying her things is unsettling. But just in case something happens she pulls her jacket over her shoulders and puts her necklace around her neck. It's hard to obscure her sword, but Tyson manages to hide it behind himself as they walk. It just barely works.
Annabeth scouts ahead of them as they make their way through the halls, ducking for cover whenever glassy-eyed mortals pass by. Finally, they make it to the thirteenth deck, where the admiralty suite is supposed to be, but suddenly Annabeth is shoving them into a nearby closet. Thea nearly fights back against the invisible force until she hears Annabeth curse at her.
"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" someone says.
It takes Thea a second to realize that they meant Aethiopian, not Ethiopian.
"Yeah, it's awesome," another laughs.
Thea stills as Annabeth squeezes her arm. She knows that voice, she knows it, she's heard it before at camp. Someone familiar, it has to be—Chris Rodriguez, of course.
"I hear they got two more coming," Chris laughs. "They keep arriving at this rate, oh man—no contest!"
Their voices fade down the corridor.
"That was Chris, wasn't it?" Thea whispers as Annabeth takes off her cap. "The guy from my—from Hermes cabin who disappeared."
Chris is unclaimed, like many demigods, including Thea. They got along well, Chris usually helped her in the stables, but then he disappeared in the middle of the school year. Thea was one of the few who left camp to look for him in the surrounding areas, but there was nothing. It was like he vanished into thin air.
Probably because he did.
"What's another half-blood doing here?" Percy whispers.
"We—we can talk about that when we're not sneaking around this ship."
He doesn't seem comforted by Thea's answer, but they all leave the closet anyway. Cold settles along her skin even though it's hot outside, she can't think about what that means, she can't.
They reach a window that overlooks the deck and a lump forms in her throat. Dozens of monsters are in a circle around a demigod that's attacking a straw dummy, a straw dummy wearing the same orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt that she is.
Thea can only flinch and look away as he drives his sword upward, through the ribcage, and straw spills out. That could be her. That could be her any minute.
"Come on," Percy says, his voice strangely calm. "The sooner we find Luke the better."
At the end of the hallway are double oak doors and it makes her stomach churn. She knows from personal experience that fancy doors are not a good thing. When they're thirty feet away Tyson stops and promptly hands her her sword.
That is not a good sign.
"Voices inside."
"You can hear that far?" Percy asks.
YOU ARE READING
Wild Heart ⋆ Riordanverse¹
Fanfictionher heart was wild, but i didn't want to catch it, i wanted to run with it, to set mine free. THE LIGHTNING THIEF - THE SEA OF MONSTERS. BOOK I.
