To Be the Hero || Book 1 ▪️On Hold ▪️

Chapter 11: The "EM" is for Medusa

Chapter eleven: The "EM" is for Medusa

Y/N POV: Did you know that blowing up buses might lead to bad karma? There we were, Annabeth, Grover, Percy and I—walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses, a damp unpleasant smell.

Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

Annabeth (if not for her I we would be have collapsed and died right there and now) kept pulling us along, saying "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."

"All our money was back there," Percy said to her. "Our food and clothes. Everything."

"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight—"

"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?"

"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine." I broke up their fight by interrupting "Hey guys, if you haven't noticed—which I doubt you did—I still have my backpack which still contains some stuff." The others sighed with relief before worrying yet again.

"Did you have some extra tin cans?," Grover asked.

"Do you have enough food for a week?," Percy questioned.

"Please tell me you brang at least one of my architecture books?," Annabeth pleaded. I sighed in defeat. "No, no and...no. Sorry to disappoint but I only brought a few water bottles, ambrosia, and only a bit of food with some medical supplies.

The quartet kept walking—moping dramaticly along the way. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."  Grover brayed mournfully.

We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. After a few minutes, Annabeth—after what felt like weeks—finally decided to apologize to Percy. "Look, I..." Her voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave."

"We're a team, right?," She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died ... aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world." The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Annabeth except a glint of her blond hair and I couldn't see Percy at all.

"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" He asked her. "No ... only short field trips. My dad—"

"The history professor." Percy remembered! Maybe his memory wasn't as hopeless as mine after all.

"Yeah. Itdidn'tworkoutformelivingathome. I mean, CampHalf-Bloodismyhome." She was rushing
her words out now, as if she were afraid somebody might try to stop her. "At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learnwhether you're any good or not."

If I didn't know better, I could've sworn I heard doubt in her voice.

"You're pretty good with that knife," Percy flirted. 

"You think so?"

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me." Although I wasn't looking, I thought she might've smiled.

"You know," she said, "maybe I should tell you ... Something funny back on the bus ..."
Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured.