::Percy::
I stared, gape mouthed, as my mother stood before me. There was no way; I had watched that Minotaur crush her into dust but…
"Percy." She whispered, I reached out towards her, but then the giant fiery beast took her away with a single slap of his hand. I felt just as alone as I did before, but that loneliness almost instantly became anger as a fire lit inside of me.
"Where is she?" I growled.
"If you ever want to see your mother alive again you will bring me to bolt!" The monster cried, the bonfire then exploded, sending me backwards from the sheer intensity of the heat, and the monster was gone. I was fuming as Chiron walked up to me.
"I have to go get her!" I told him.
"No, Percy we need to stick to the plan, go to Zeus, reason with him, and then once this crisis is averted we will do everything in our power to bring back your mother." I wanted to tell Chiron to take his dumbass plan and shove it, but I bit my tongue and stormed back to my cabin. I just started to pack for what seemed like forever when I could hear her walk up behind me.
"You can come out now Alex." I said softly.
"Percy…" She whispered. I didn't turn as she walked over and stood behind me.
"Save it. I don't need any of your stupid pity."
"I'm just trying to-"
"This is all your and Grover's fault!" I snapped. "If I had never met either of you two she'd still be with me and everything would be like it was supposed to and-" But when I saw Alex's face I stopped, she wasn't even listening to me, she was just looking out onto the lake and walked to the edge of the dock, sitting down with tears streaming down her face. I took in a deep breath, regretting what I said. I remembered Alex being willing to die so my mom could have a chance to escape. She would have laid down her life without the slightest hesitation, and I'd just yelled at her.
"…You're right." She finally whispered. She turned to me, her eyes rimmed with tears.
"Alex, I didn't mean-"
"Yes you did." Alex took in a sharp breath and started to cry. "I wasn't strong enough to save her Percy, this is all my fault. I should have never come back, they should have sent Annabeth to be your protector…not me."
"Alex." She looked over at me as I kneeled next to her and took her hand in mine. "You saved me from a harpy, you almost died just so my mom could have a chance to escape, everything you've ever done has been to help and protect me. That sounds like a damn good protector to me." Alex just looked at me for a long time before letting out a small sigh.
"I'm coming with you." She said.
"Huh?"
"I know you're going to leave to go get your mom back, I'm coming with you."
"Alex, I'm not going to-" But it was useless, Alex always knew when I was lying. "You're not coming with me."
"Percy, I couldn't save her once, don't make me do it again."
"Alex you're not coming."
"Why? Why can't I? She's like a mother to me too Percy, she took me in when we both know she didn't have to. I'm coming with you." There was a long pause before I finally sighed and told the truth.
"I don't want anything to happen to you." I admitted. Alex blushed for a moment, but then got this devilish grin.
"There's a lot you still don't know about me Percy, I can handle myself, and will probably end up saving your ass once or twice."
"Oh really, like what?" I challenged. Alex looked around for a while before pointing to a bonfire we could see burning on the other side of the lake.
"See that bonfire?" She asked.
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Just watch." She promised. She closed her eyes and got a look of pure concentration on her face. I looked back to the bonfire and watched as it quadrupled in size, sending over small squeals of surprise from across the lake. I watched, completely captivated as the fire slowly came off the ground and floated out to the middle of the lake, then exploded into fireworks of fire that rained down into the lake and went out. I looked over at Alex, who was just smiling.
"You can control fire?"
"Yes, when you think about it, the sun is just a giant orb of fire, right? That was the biggest thing they trained me with while I was here was how to control that."
"Can you, like, send fireballs at people?" I asked, awestruck.
"Not yet, for now it's mostly a defense, put up a wall of fire, things like that." She let out a small sigh. "I'm going to have to go sit in the sun for a while after that one." She muttered.
"Are you solar powered?" I joked. She grinned slightly.
"Just that, for everything else, no." She looked back at me, I was so tempted to take her glasses off and see her beautiful golden eyes again that I had to sit on my hands. "So, Mr. Jackson, am I now worthy of accompanying you on your quest?" She asked, completely serious. I sighed, as much as I didn't want to see Alex get hurt trying to protect me ever again I knew I needed her, and possibly her eyes, to help me.
"Fine." I walked over and grabbed my backpack. "Let's go get your things."
When Alex was packed we were both walking towards the main gate when I heard Grover's voice.
"Where are you two going?" He asked.
"For a walk." I lied.
"Alright, I'm coming with."
"No you're not." Alex and I replied.
"Oh yes I am, you're being followed." He teased as he jogged to catch up with us, his backpack already packed. On our way to the gate we passed Annabeth who ran up to me.
"I'm coming with you." She said. I let out a frustrated sigh.
"You too? Today you tried to kill me, now you want to help me?" I couldn't help but notice that Alex was seething at the sight of Annabeth, I wonder why?
"That was training." Annabeth answered. "That's all I've ever done is train and train and train. I've never been able to go on a real quest. Besides, you've won one battle, I've won hundreds, you're going to need my experience."
"You two really want to come?" Alex asked.
"YES!" Grover and Annabeth replied. I looked at Alex, who shrugged.
"Alright, who knows how to get to the Underworld?" Grover asked. We all let out a long sigh.
"Definitely didn't think of that one…" I admitted. After a long pause Alex sighed.
"I know someone who can help."
As we walked into Luke's tent the first thing I heard was machine gun fire. I looked inside and saw Luke playing Call of Duty on a giant screen, when he saw Alex he shot up and turned off the game.
"Alex what are you- " Then he looked back and saw the rest of us. "Oh."
"We need to get to the underworld." I said, putting myself between Alex and Luke.
"Well that's easy enough, Hercules did it, Persephone did it, my dad does it all the time. It's getting out, that's the tricky part." Luke bit his lip and walked over to a box and pulled out a map. "What you need are the pearls." He said.
"Pearls?"
I asked.
"Persephone's pearls." Alex answered, Luke smiled at her.
"That's right, Persephone loves to have…visitors come over, but they need a quick way out if something should happen, so she leaves her pearls for them all over the world. There are currently four in the U.S."
"How do they work?" Annabeth asked.
"Simple, you take the pearl, crush it under your foot, and imagine where you want to be and the pearl will take you there." Luke turned back and grabbed a giant shield and threw it to me. "For protection." He said, smiling. He bit his lip and went back into his closet. Muttering about cleaning up before he emerged with a dusty shoe box. "Here, I stole these from my dad, you'll probably use them more than I will." I looked to see two winged converse trying to fly out of the box before Luke closed it.
"Won't your dad get mad at you?' I asked. Luke chuckled.
"He has hundreds of these, he won't miss them, trust me."
"Thanks Luke."
"There is one catch, if you see my dad on the highway to Hell, kick his ass for me." I chuckled.
"Will do." As we turned to leave Luke called Alex back.
"Hey Alex, can I talk to you for a second?" She looked back at me, then looked at Luke.
"We're kind of in a hurry…" I interjected.
"It'll only take a second." Luke promised.
"I'll meet you at the gate." Alex promised. I nodded and dragged myself away, the farther and farther we got the angrier I felt. Why did Luke think he could just control Alex like that? I thought about earlier when he had grabbed Alex to keep her from lunging at Annabeth, but I had noticed the way he pulled her so closely to him and it had made me furious. I thought about what Alex said about him being crazy. I took a deep breath, I decided to ask Annabeth.
"Hey Annabeth."
"Yeah?" She answered.
"Did Alex and Luke have a thing or something?" Annabeth and Grover just kind of looked at each other.
"Not that she's told me. Why?" She asked.
"Curious."I bit my lip and patted my pockets.
"Guys, I forgot the map in Luke's tent." I lied. Grover sighed.
"Really man?" He said. "I'll go get it."
"No, I forgot it, I'll go get it." I had to keep from running at break neck speed back to Luke's tent I had to talk to Alex. But as I got close I stopped, what was I going to tell Luke to get back in? I grabbed the shoes out of my backpack, I would just ask him how to use them. As I opened the curtain, my mouth opening to speak, I stopped.
Luke had his hands cradling Alex's face, both their eyes closed, locked in a kiss. I felt like I was going to be sick. I backed out of the tent and fell to the ground, why did I feel so betrayed, Alex was just my friend, right?
She had never made me think she wanted to be anything else, but maybe I was just being an…
An oblivious idiot.
Her diary entries popped back into my head. As I heard them moving again I took off back towards the group, there was no way I was going to be able to face her. But why was she doing this to me?
What was happening to me?