Walk With the Shadows [ Percy Jackson OC ]

THIRTY-TWO | Alex

A LACK OF MONSTERS SHOULD'VE been a welcome sight. But Alex felt his skin crawl as he and the girls drank overpriced Mickey Mouse milk and chewed muffins in a corner of the A-Frame food court, the Contempo Café. They'd just spent the last few hours discussing the black market stockroom Kitty had found, the return address Trigon Utilidors, and what to do now. According to Kitty, who got the info from a cast member, the Utilidors were tunnels under the Magic Kingdom. A sort of walking subway system for employees.

As he nibbled another bite of his chocolate chip muffin, his stomach churned. Memories and dreams of the Labyrinth spiked his anxiety at the mention of a tunnel system under the Magic Kingdom. Was it possible these Utilidors connected to the Labyrinth? Alex scoffed at himself. Possible? More like, almost inevitable.

Aside from the Dracaenae patrolling the second floor, they'd seen no monsters. Alex didn't like it. This felt too easy. They'd seen Laistrygonian guards at every other Disney resort. But not this one? Not the one with illicit goods? It didn't make sense.

He flinched. His finger had pricked the edge of the final wing of the caduceus on his bracelet. Alex paused, looking down at it as they sat in silence. A pit formed in his stomach again. He could feel his churning emotions in every joint, muscle, organ of his body.

When that streak of lightning had split the sky and the Empousai had disintegrated from his arrow, he'd felt a lightness in his chest he hadn't felt in years. He forced back tears. His father hadn't abandoned him, not entirely. Luke said they were expendable to the gods. To Hermes.

But he remembered it now. So clearly. The way the bronze dagger had balanced in his little blood-covered, scraped up hands. The way the wind had shifted, smelling of incense and spices when he threw it. The way the cyclops exploded in golden particles from an impossibly well placed dagger.

He also remembered the cold nights every winter in the Hermes cabin, only Luke, Chris, Kitty and the Stoll brothers for company. He remembered counting spiders that spun little cobwebs in corners. He remembered keeping warm by running the training courses, splitting the straw dummies, sparring with Luke.

He remembered the face of their father standing between him and Zeus's thunderbolt. What he'd written off as stress from battle reminded him more and more of the stress he'd seen on the faces of his friends when looking upon their dying siblings. Fear, sadness. Human emotions. For the first time in his life, Alex had looked on the face of his father and seen a person, not a myth. But he hadn't seen that at the time.

He had seen the god who had sent Luke, the best of them, to get a golden apple in imitation of Hercules. Had he thought so little of the boy who spent day and night perfecting his form, his strength, his leadership? Alex's fist clenched around the carton of Mickey milk as he took a drink. Luke's scarred face left them all angry. Not just the man himself. Connor and Travis had each other. But Alex had Luke. And Luke had been wounded because of their father.