𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐄; percy jackson

vi. honey glaze

CHAPTER SIX
━━honey glaze━━

                 PERCY DREAMED OF SPARTA. Blood everywhere, dead bodies, injured children, crawling on their knees, hiding behind crumbled temples and pillaged houses that turned to ash, burning his eyes.

              His stomach was cramping as he began whipping his head around as smoke lit up the fire engine red sky. It was almost like blood was raining down on him, choking him, burning u his esophagus. 

            It was like a loose thread. Percy felt it being pulled and all of his limbs ripped at the seams, his skin roaring. He was dead, he must have been. The hemorrhaging of his heart could not have been an effect of a plain-old demi-god dream. He was dead.

          But then he woke up.

         Sirens raced with the speed of his heart as his deep sea-green eyes as he looked around the infirmary. Annabeth sat next to him, holding a nectar glass while dabbing a wet washcloth on his forehead. Argus was standing guard in the back corner, stiff and rigid. Percy tilted his head to look at Belladonna, she was frowning at her hand, the same hand that was playing with the loose thread on the itchy quilt that was resting over her lap. She began to pull it as her frown deepened. Percy felt his blood thicken with each second she pulled at that stupid thread until it was finally laying limp in her palm.

         Belladonna looked up at him, her face a midsummers beat with the new color on her face. Her eyes a deep honey glaze as she studied him.

         "Nice to see that you're alive." Was that her trying to make a joke? Percy decided that he liked it. A lot.

          Percy looked down at his right hand, bandaged and wrapped tightly. "Yeah. . ."

           "You idiot," Annabeth interrupted him, clearly overjoyed to see him conscious, still acting indifferent to Belladonna's presence, who could care less whether Annabeth greeted her like a sacred Grecian text or not. "You were green and turning grey when we found you. If it weren'tfor Chiron's healing..."

          "Now, now," Chiron's voice said. "Percy's constitution deserves some of the credit."

            He was sitting near the foot of Percy's bed in human form, which was why hehadn't noticed him yet. His lower half was magically compacted into thewheelchair, his upper half dressed in a coat and tie. He smiled, but his facelooked weary and pale, the way it did when he'd been up all night grading Latinpapers.

          "How are you feeling?" he asked.

           "Kind of like I've died. Twice." Percy furrowed his eyebrows.

             Belladonna raised her eyes and pretended to hide a scoffing laugh. She was literally related to death, she shakes hands with the grim reaper on a daily basis, no wonder why she found that statement hilarious.

         "Apt, considering that was pit scorpion venom. Now you must tell me, if you can, exactly what happened."

           Between sips of nectar, Percy told them the story.

           The room was quiet for a long time.

           "Who the Hades is Luke?" Belladonna was the only one who wasn't sporting a somber facial expression. She seemed unimpressed by Luke's method of homicide, which earned her a glare from Annabeth.

         "I can't believe that..." Annabeth's voice faltered after practically lighting Belladonna on fire with her gaze. Her expression turned angry and sad. "Yes. Yes, I can believe it. May the gods curse him... He was never the same after his quest."