Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
SIXTEEN, luke
❀ ✿ ❀ ✿
ASTER DIDN'T REMOVE HER hand once from the armrest on the flight back home. She thought that Zeus would realize any minute that Percy—the sea spawn himself—was in his domain and would shoot them down. Even without his master bolt, Zeus could probably get creative when it came to killing them.
Surprisingly, they landed without any problems, and Aster was glad to get out of the plane as fast as possible. They took a cab into the city, stopping right in front of the Empire State Building. It looked the same as when Aster had last seen it, exactly six months ago, with storm clouds surrounding the tip.
Percy wanted Aster, Annabeth, and Grover to stay behind, for unknown reasons. When they protested, Percy just kept insisting that they had to—that despite all that they had been through together for these past two weeks, he had to do this part alone. He returned Annabeth and Aster's necklaces to them, as well as Grover's tin can, which he enjoyed as a nervous snack. They eventually stopped arguing and allowed Percy to go alone, and he disappeared into the doors of the building. Percy wanted them to go back to Chiron and tell him everything, as if he wanted them to stay behind in case he didn't come back. But he did, returning to camp safe and sound, returning only with solemn words from his father and ominous words from Aster's mother. Aster had pressed him to tell her what her mother had told him, but he wouldn't say a word.
The good news was that Percy and Aster were no longer the center of a crazy new cult, but victims of an angry man who had stolen them away. Percy Jackson was no longer a delinquent on the run, or the kidnapper of poor Aster Reed. The Mist had manipulated their journey into a sob story of four adolescents kidnapped by a terrible biker, the part of a ring of kidnappers related to human trafficking—which sounded more terrifying than the actual story. Percy was twisted into this hero that had saved his friends he had made along the way after stealing a pistol from his kidnapper (which Aster knew he didn't mind one bit) and had a shoot-out with him until they could be rescued by the proper authorities. Apparently, poor little Aster had been with this crazy kidnapper since she was seven, abducted in Vermont coincidentally on the day her father was arrested. And finally, they were free.
Annabeth, Aster, Percy, and Grover just milked the story as much as they could. Aster cried into Percy's shoulder, but she didn't know how fake that part was. His arm around her shoulder was enough to make Aster blush, so she hid it with tears.
"All I want," Percy had said, choking back his tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew... somehow... we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number."
Percy had gotten his mother back through good fortune from Hades, and all was well. He had even told Aster that he wouldn't have to be worrying about his stepfather anymore.
