𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 ― j. grace ² ✓

sixteen

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EIGHT LETTERS

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
[ P E R C Y ]

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PERCY WAS NOT feeling the love.

Bad enough he'd been run out of Atlanta by evil sea Gods. Then he had failed to stop a giant shrimp attack on the Argo II. Then the Ichthyocentaurs, Chiron's brothers, hadn't even wanted to meet him.

After all that, they had arrived at the Pillars of Hercules, and Percy had to stay aboard ship while Jason the Big Shot visited his half brother. Hercules, the most famous Demigod of all time, and Percy didn't get to meet him either.

Okay, sure, from what Piper and Natalia said afterward, Hercules was a jerk, but still . . . Percy was getting kind of tired of staying aboard ship and pacing the deck.

The open sea was supposed to be his territory. Percy was supposed to step up, take charge, and keep everybody safe. Instead, all the way across the Atlantic, he'd done pretty much nothing except make small talk with sharks and listen to Coach Hedge sing TV theme songs.

To make matters worse, Annabeth had been distant ever since they had left Charleston. She spent most of her time in her cabin, studying the bronze map she'd retrieved from Fort Sumter, or looking up information on Daedalus' laptop.

Whenever Percy stopped by to see her, she was so lost in thought that the conversation went something like this:

Percy: "Hey, how's it going?"

Annabeth: "Uh, no thanks."

Percy: "Okay . . . have you eaten anything today?"

Annabeth: "I think Leo is on duty. Ask him."

Percy: "So, my hair is on fire."

Annabeth: "Okay. In a while."

She got like this sometimes. It was one of the challenges of dating an Athena girl. Still, Percy wondered what he had to do to get her attention. He was worried about her after her encounter with the spiders at Fort Sumter, and he didn't know how to help her, especially if she shut him out. She wouldn't even talk to Natalia, which was a shock, because they told each other everything.

After leaving the Pillars of Hercules — unscathed except for a few coconuts lodged in the hull's bronze plating — the ship traveled by air for a few hundred miles.