𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐋 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 percy jackson

005. aunty em's killer food

IN SKYLAR'S RIGHTFUL opinion it was nice to know that there were greek gods out there, because you had somebody to blame when things went wrong, but something even better: just blaming percy jackson.

the daughter of apollo wasn't all for finger-pointing situations—but when a piece of glass is sticking out from your stomach, and your only option is to stumble, soaking wet, through the dark, scary woods—yeah, she was more than happy to put all the blame on percy.

annabeth handed skylar a piece of ambrosia she had stored in her pocket. the wound wasn't as bad once you wiped all the blood away, but it was definitely going to scar.

now there they were, skylar, annabeth, grover, and percy walking through the woods along the new jersey riverbank, the glow of new york city making the night sky yellow behind them, and the smell of the hudson reeking in their noses.

grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "three kindly ones. all three at once."

"i don't even know why i agreed to go on this stupid quest," skylar mumbled under her breath to annabeth, but percy had heard it.

he looked frustrated. "you got yourself into this, sunshine."

"yeah, now i want to get myself back out of it. the idea of me risking my life for you doesn't exactly make complete sense, seaweed brain."

"you're not risking your life for just me." the son of poseidon's sea-green eyes flashed through the darkness. "this is a group thing."

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

"what did you want me to do? let you get killed? you're already hurt enough."

"you didn't need to protect me—any of us, percy. we would've been fine."

"sliced like sandwich bread," grover put in, "but fine."

skylar rolled her eyes in the satyr's direction.

grover brayed mournfully. "tin cans...a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

they silently sloshed across mushy ground, and through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. the thunderstorm had finally let up. the city glow faded behind them, leaving the four in almost total darkness.

"annabeth?" skylar's voice called. percy couldn't make out anything of skylar except a glint of her bright blond hair.

the daughter of athena wordlessly grabbed the girl's hand. "it's oka—"

whatever words of encouragement she was about to say were interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured.

"hey, my reed pipes still work!" grover cried. "if i could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"

he puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like hilary duff.

"is hilary duff like the only thing you know?" skylar groaned.

a few more moments passed without any sort of sign of a path, although, percy (the one and only hero) slammed into a rather large tree.

the immediate reaction skylar had was doubling over in laughter. "gods, you're quite the genius, kelp face!"

percy tripped and cursed under his breath for another mile or so. finally the four started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. the smell food wavered in the air. fried, greasy, excellent food. they kept walking until they saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees.