DESTINY ↳ WILL SOLACE

14. I Blowtorch A Park

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I Blowtorch A Park

I don't own Percy Jackson.

Percy wasn't sure what she was expecting. Drowning was at the top of her list, for sure. Swept away by the current while drowning seemed the most likely.

Yet she sank, gently, to the river floor, where Riptide was sticking out of the mud. The fish in the river gave her curious looks, stunning her when she realized she could understand their thoughts. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage—beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags—swirled up all around her. She found herself becoming more and more of an environmentalist by the day.

She realized a few things at that moment. Firstly, the water was healing her. It wasn't quick, of course, but she couldn't feel the Chimera poison boiling in her veins anymore. She was alive, which she hadn't realized she loved being until she was staring death in the face.

Secondly, she wasn't wet. She could feel the coolness of the water, of course, the swift currents racing through her fingers and breezing through her hair, but when she touched her charred shirt, it felt perfectly dry, as did her hands.

Seeing an old cigarette lighter floating lazily past her, she snatched it, thinking, No way.

Yet she still flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi. The laugh Percy released could've been that of a madman. Taken by a sudden madness, she grabbed a soggy paper bag, which immediately turned dry at her touch. Hands trembling, she lit the bag with no problems. Yet, when she let it go, the flames spluttered out, and the bag became slimy and disgusting again.

Percy laughed again, and it only then occurred to her that she was laughing in relief.

The last thing she realized was that she was breathing.

She was fifty feet deep in water, and she was breathing normally.

Somehow, she found the strength to stand. Her hands were trembling. She should've been dead, and the fact she wasn't was a miracle. She imagined a woman's voice, one that sounded like her mother: Percy, what do you say?

"Um... thanks." Underwater, she sounded like she did on recordings, like a much older kid. "Thank you... Father."

It felt strange to call someone she never met Father, but she knew as well as he did that it was his influence, to some extent, that saved her. He didn't respond, but Percy hadn't expected him to. He had an entire kingdom to run, after all. Yet just seeing the dark drift of garbage downriver, the enormous catfish gliding by, the flash of sunset on the water's surface far above, turning everything the colour of butterscotch still hurt. She had expected him to respond, after all.

Why had Poseidon even saved her? The more she thought about it, the more ashamed she felt. She'd gotten lucky the first few times, but the first time she actually did have to face a monster by herself, she had failed so spectacularly it would've been one for the history books. What was the point of even going on this quest? Who thought it was a brilliant idea to send two twelve-year-olds and a goat on a death quest across the country? She had been so worried about them betraying her, but in the end, it was her dragging them down, not the other way around.

She was no hero, and she shouldn't have even made a play at being one. She should've just stayed down there and become one with the catfish.

Yet just as she thought that, she heard that woman's voice again: Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you.