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chapter eleven. ☄︎. *. ⋆
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WE ARRIVED AT 'WAT R A D' just as the sun began to sink behind the mountains. The sign, obviously once labeled WATERLAND, had had a few minor alterations (probably due to the fact that this place looked as old as the gods), like the small detail that the E, L, and N had been knocked off and probably stolen.
"If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date," Percy said, peering through the metal fence to see inside, "I'd hate to see what she looks like."
"Percy," Annabeth warned. "Be more respectful."
"What? I thought you hates Ares."
"He's still a god," she reasoned. "And his girlfriend is very temperamental."
"You really don't want to insult her looks." I nodded vigorously. Once, I had made an offhand comment about how the goddess of love was obsessed with her looks, or something stupid like that. Within an hour, my crush rejected me, I grew a huge pimple that took two weeks to go away, and my hair had zero volume until I apologized to Aphrodite. It was possibly the worst two weeks of my life.
"Who is she?" Percy asked. "Echidna?"
"Aphrodite," said Grover, a little dreamily. "Goddess of looooove."
"I thought she was married to Hephaestus," said Percy.
"What's your point?" Annabeth asked, as I nudged Grover with my elbow to snap him out of his daze.
"Nevermind," Percy said flatly. "So, how do we get in?"
"Maia!" Grover's shoes sprouted wings. He flew over the fence, though overshot it by a tad and ended up doing a somersault in the air before landing harshly on the ground. He dusted himself off, then stood like he had planned the whole thing. "You guys coming?"
Percy and Annabeth began scaling the fence, cramming their feet into the small octogonal holes that were clearly not made for people to climb. When they got to the top, they held down the barbed wire for each other to crawl over, then hopped down on the other side. The three of them looked to me expectantly.
I raised my eyebrows. "Yeah, no way in Tartarus," I said, then walked over to the gate. I picked up a decently big rock (praying, of course, that it was not the home of a snake) and swung it at the padlock on the gate. The lock broke easily.
"Or you could do it that way," Annabeth said, shrugging.
We explored the amusement park for a few minutes, on edge and alert for any monsters that may have been placed as a trap from Ares, but nothing came to get us. It was eerily quiet. Eventually, we found an old souvenir shop that had been left open. Merchandise was still out; bobbleheads, sunglasses, snow globes, and most importantly—
