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chapter xvii. ( the lightning theif ) ❝ family luke ( you promised ) ❞
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WE LEFT PERCY ON THE SIDEWALK OF CENTRAL MANHATTAN. The flight back to New York had been stressful. All of us would keep on glancing outside, just waiting for Zeus to strike us out of the sky. But we landed back home with no scratch and no problems. We then took a cab back to the Empire State building and Percy exited the taxi by passing Annabeth and I our necklaces and Grover his tin can which he took a massive bite in, before shutting the door and walking down the sidewalk.
It had been his idea to head to Olympus alone, he wouldn't give a proper reason, but I guessed it was that if he didn't come out of this alive, we were his chance to tell Chiron everything that had happened.
But he had come back all in one piece, with the Lightning Bolt safely back in Zeus's hands and no longer was the world on the brink of a catastrophe. Percy and I were no longer delinquents on the run, creating their own cult ( as described by the lovely Barbara Walters ), but the Mist had manipulated our journey into a sob story where we were but victims of Ares's, a crazy kidnapper. Percy soon became a public hero who stood up against the 'madman' with a gun show off and saved all of his friends along the way, who were safely in police custody.
The reporters told us the story, and we just nodded and cried into each other's shoulders, ( which wasn't exactly hard ).
"All I want," Percy said, choking back tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew ... somehow ... we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number."
Percy got his mother back, and he also told me that his stepfather wouldn't be bothering them anytime soon.
We were the first half-bloods to return alive from a quest since Luke. When I returned back to the safety of cabin seven, all of my siblings joined together in giving me the largest hug I ever had. I snuggled right in their many shoulders, and I couldn't stop the tears that welled up in my eyes. I didn't understand why I was so emotional, but I think it was because for once, I felt like I made my cabin proud. That I proved to my father, but them most of all that I was a hero, that children of Apollo were something more.
Following camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honour, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we burned the burial shrouds our cabins made us in case we didn't come back.
