I do not own Percy Jackson, it's characters and world are not mine, but Chloe is my OC.


Grover ran to the bathroom as soon as we got to the bus terminal. Once he was out of sight Percy and I grabbed the nearest taxi and headed for our mom's apartment.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

That was where Percy and I lived with our mother, Sally Jackson, and evil step-dad, Gabe Ugliano.

Our mother is the best person on the planet and I always missed her so much whenever we were sent way for school. She always had a way about her that lights up a room and can make everything feel okay again. Something I really needed. I couldn't wait to see her again. She is also the smartest person I've ever meet, and her dreams were to be a novelist. I once told her that if she wrote her stories that she always tells Percy and me and got them published we would be able to get rid of Gabe and live a better life. She just smiled and told me that one day I would understand why Gabe was around. I was only nine at the time so I didn't understand what she was talking about but I had always hoped that I would.

The closer we got to the apartment the more I dreaded seeing our step-father. Gabe was the world's #1 jerk. And that was putting him nicely. All he would ever do was play poker (effectively gambling away all our money), drink cheap beer, boss us around, and very rarely went to work. I always wonder how Gabe never got fried from work but after a while I started to think that he had bullied his boss into keep sending him paychecks, even though he never showed up.

When we got home Gabe was in the middle of a poker game with his buddies with ESPN blaring in the back ground. Just like always chips and beer litter the floor. As if the smell of cheap stale beer weren't nauseous enough the air was filled with cigar smoke mixed with moldy garlic pizza and old sweaty gym shorts. The last two was Gabe's natural smells. That is why Percy and I always called Gabe—Smelly Gabe.

I hated it here.

Leaving Percy in the living room with Gabe, who asked if he had any money, and went to Percy and I's 'room'. The room consisted of a twin size bed in the corner, a small desk, and a small dresser against the wall. Littered around the room was Gabe's nasty stinky boots and old car magazine. Gabe called it his 'study' while we are gone at school but that was just an excuse to mess up the room.

I heard Gabe shout, "Yours and your sister's report cards came in! I wouldn't act so snooty!" A second later Percy walked in slamming the door behind him. Percy sat on the bed, deep in thought. Ignoring his brooding session, I got to work cleaning up the room like always.

I didn't stop until I heard my mom's voice. "Percy? Chloe?"

The second she opened our bedroom door and I rushed to hug her. "Mom," I muttered hugging her tight, my face into her shoulder.

"Oh, Chloe," She hugged me just as tight. She opened her other arm and said, "Come here Percy." Not one to miss out on a hug from mom, Percy jumped off the bed and joined the hug. "Your both have grown since Christmas! Now tell me everything you didn't put in your letters."

Our hug session was interrupted when Gabe shouted from the other room, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"

We ignored him.

Percy and I attacked the "free samples" mom had gotten from work at the candy shop in Grand Central, and told her about our last days Yancey. Over all I truly did like Yancy Academy, it was different than any other school we been too. That was because our teacher turned into a monster, that shouldn't exist. I so badly wanted to tell her that and about the Greek Mythology stuff but I was scared to. Even though my mom has always had a way of making unnatural things seem normal, the thought of it actually being real scared me into staying quite.

Like all moms she knew I was hiding something but I was glad when she didn't push it.

"I have a surprise for you two," she said. "We're going to the beach."

"Montauk?" Percy asked wide eyed.

"Three nights—same cabin."

"When?" Percy and I asked simultaneously, smiling widely.

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

For the past two summers we hadn't been to Montauk, the place where mom met Percy and I's dad, because Gabe claimed there wasn't enough money. If he wouldn't spend all our money on his stupid poker games we would have enough to take trips to Montauk but of course Gabe would kill over before he stopped playing poker. So for us to go on a trip to Montauk was exciting but at the same time I was worried Gabe would stop us.

The bedroom door slammed open, with Gabe standing in the door way. He growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes narrowed. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

My heart dropped. I should have known better then to get my hopes up that he would let us go.

"I knew it," Percy muttered glaring at the floor. "He won't let us go."

"Of course he will," my mom said calmly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

I brighten up a bit. Mom used the saying the way to a man's heart is through his stomach constantly with Gabe. But in our case it wasn't his heart it was his money.

Gabe softened a bit at the thought of the food. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey," mom said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kids apologize for interrupting my poker game."

Sure, I thought, just after I drown you in the Huston River.

"I'm sorry," Percy muttered, "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."

Gabe's eyes narrowed at us. "Yeah, whatever," he grunted leaving to go back to his poker game.

"Thank you, Percy, Chloe," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment anxiety shown in her eyes—the same fear I saw in Grover's eyes during the bus ride. But as soon as the anxiety came it was hidden when her smile returned. Percy and I shared a look before backing a small bag for the weekend. It took mom an hour to make Gabe's seven-layer dip and to pack her clothes. Gabe kept complaining about not having his '78 Camaro and missing mom's cooking for the whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, brats," he warned Percy and me as we loaded the bags into the car. "Not one little scratch." He made it sound like we will be the ones driving. We were only twelve. There was no way Percy and I could drive.

I got in the Camaro wanting to leave already. Mom got in the driver seat and we waited for Percy. I watched as Percy made this weird hand gesture that Grover made on the bus. It was looked like a clawed hand over his heart then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.

I laughed. Percy jumped in the car next to me and told mom to step on it.

She just shook her head and drove off.

Our rental cabin was way out at the tip of Long Island on the south shore. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets (which I made Percy kill), and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

It was the best place in the world.

As we got closer to Montauk all years of worry and stress from work would disappeared from mom's face, making her look younger. Her eyes also turned sea green—like Percy and I's.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. When we were done we'd walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought home from work.

Several years ago Gabe once told mom that there was no such thing as blue food. They argued about it and from that moment on mom would go out of her way to make blue food. Blue pancakes, cookies, we even had blue eggs for breakfast once.

When the sun was completely set we made a fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told us stories of when she was a kid and about the books she wanted to write someday. Eventually Percy asked mom about our father. Every time we come to Montauk that topic comes up at some point. Every time it does, Mom got teary eyed. I figured she would tell us the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them. I knew Percy never got tired of hearing it either.

"He was kind, Chloe, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You both have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes." Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you both. He would be so proud."

I suspected that wasn't true. Percy and I were nothing but two dyslexic, hyperactive twins with a D+ report card, who got kicked out of every school we step a foot into. What kind of father would be proud of that?

"How old were we?" Percy asked. "I mean ... when he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But... he knew us as a baby."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, at the time we didn't know it were twins, but he never saw you both. He had to leave before you were born."

I had always imagined he knew us as babies because I seemed to remember his smile; A warm glow of a smile. Now to be told that he never knew us… to be told that memory was nothing but an imagination…

I was angry.

Our father had appended us. He left mom as a single mother of twins, making below minimal wage, and no high school diploma. He should have married her, paid for her night classes, and college but no, he left, and we were stuck being dirt floor poor with Gabe.

"Are you going to send us away again? To another boarding school?" I asked looking for a blue jelly bean out of the candy bag.

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire. "I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want us around?"

"Percy!" I shouted in shock.

Our mom's eyes welled with tears. She took Percy hand, squeezed it tightly. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I have to, honey. It's for both of your own good. I have to send you both away."

Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for us to leave Yancy.

"Because we're not normal," I said.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Chloe. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe from what?" Percy asked.

I knew in that moment I should have told her about Mrs. Dodds turning into a Fury at the art museum, the ladies from the fruit stand cutting those strings. But I couldn't. She was already upset enough as is.

"I've tried to keep you both as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Chloe, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?" Percy asked

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."

A summer camp?

Our father left knowing mom was expecting but still manage to talk to mom about a summer camp? What kind of man did that?

"I'm sorry," mom said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send either of you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..." I tailed off seeing the look on mom's face. I knew that if I pushed the subject she would start to cry, and I didn't want that to happen. Percy and I dropped the topic and switched to a different one. Although none of us were putting much effort into that one.

Later that night I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.

The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

Not too far away from where I stood, was Percy trying to run towards them, but he seemed to be moving in slow motion. I try to run towards Percy, trying to stop him from getting into the fight, knowing if he did he could die, but I too was moving to slow.

The eagle dived down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes.

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, I flinched and mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and gasped, "Hurricane."

Long Island had never sees hurricanes that early in the summer. But the weather had been acting very weird lately, so I wasn't surprised there was a hurricane. I was just surprised no one set out warnings. Hurricanes are predictable while tornados where not. But yet this one seemed to suddenly spin up like a twister does.

Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end. Then there was a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock. Grover stood soaked in the pouring down rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at Percy and I in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Percy, Chloe" she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" Grover yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

I stared in shock. Grover had just cured in Ancient Greek and I understood him perfectly. Percy stared at Grover his moth hanging open. I didn't care how he had gotten here in the middle of night all I cared about was why Grover has no pants on and where his legs should be… No this shouldn't be possible.

My mom looked at Percy and I sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Chloe. Tell me now!"

Somehow I manage to tell her a short version of Mrs. Dodds and the old ladies at the fruit stands. Mom stared at me, deathly pale. She grabbed her purse, tossed Percy and I our rain jackets, and said, "Get to the car. All of you. Go!"

Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves. Grover was a satyr.


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