VIDEO GAMES! (p. jackson) (#1)

- fifteen

COMPARED TO OLYMPUS, Manhattan was quiet.

It was the Friday before Christmas, but it was early in the morning, and hardly anyone was on Fifth Avenue. Argus, the many-eyed security chief, picked up Annabeth, Grover, Percy, and Rose at the Empire State Building and ferried them back to camp through a light snowstorm. The Long Island Expressway was almost deserted.

As they trudged back up Half-Blood Hill to the pine tree where the Golden Fleece glittered, Rose half expected to see Thalia there, waiting for them. But she wasn't. She was long gone with Artemis and the rest of the Hunters, off on their next adventure.

The first place Rose went (along with Percy) was the infirmary.

"What the fuck happened?" Lee demanded, seeing Rose limp in... with a torn sweater that revealed her bleeding side, several cuts, a broken ankle, and a multitude of bruises.

"Good question," Rose said, lying down on one of the cots.

Lee put his hand on her ankle. "Oblique non-displaced. You couldn't see this swelling? Why did you keep walking on it?"

"It was dark!"

"I can help you heal it. I'll put a boot on it so you can still walk, because I know how much you love crutches. I'm going to have to set it first."

"Lee."

"Or I can just cut off your leg. Saves me a lot of time."

"Fuck, fine, get it over with."

While he set it, Rose squeezed Percy's hand until his fingers turned purple. She wasn't sure she'd ever felt that much pain.

Lee put a boot on her and sent her out with ambrosia and mortal pain medications. The first person Rose looked for was Love.

She let out a dramatic gasp and ran a hand through Rose's hair. "Your hair!"

"Yeah," she said sheepishly, "Percy and I held up the world and it turned our hair gray."

"What? And why do you have a boot?"

"I broke my ankle."

"Rose."

She kissed Love's cheek and said, "I have to go, Chiron wants to talk at the Big House. I'll tell you everything later!"

Chiron greeted her at the Big House with hot chocolate and toasted cheese sandwiches. Grover went off with his satyr friends to spread the word about their strange encounter with the magic of Pan. Within an hour, the satyrs were all running around agitated, asking where the nearest espresso bar was.

Annabeth, Percy, and Rose sat with Chiron and some of the other senior campers—Beckendorf, Silena, and the Stoll brothers. Even Clarisse from the Ares cabin was there, back from her secretive scouting mission. Rose vaguely remembered Annabeth saying something about it before... everything, but she didn't remember what. She knew she must've had a difficult quest, because Clarisse didn't even try to pulverize Percy. She had a new scar on her chin, and her dark hair had been cut short and ragged, like someone had attacked it with a pair of safety scissors.

"I got news," she mumbled uneasily. "Bad news."

"I'll fill you in later," Chiron said with forced cheerfulness. "The important thing is you have prevailed. And you saved Annabeth!"

Annabeth smiled gratefully.

For some reason, Rose found herself thinking about Hoover Dam, and Rachel Elizabeth Dare. She didn't know why, but Rachel's annoying comments kept coming back to her.

Do you always kill people when they blow their nose?

"Luke is alive," Rose said. "Annabeth was right."