Hey Everyone, hope you enjoy this chapter…
Annabeth Chase
We're on the way
Everything was set; we were waiting at the bus stop, tickets in hand, about to board on to our vessel to London. The earlier rain's puddles scattered over the ground and I looked down at my watch again. We had another 25 minutes until the bus was due to leave then a two-hour bus journey. The time would pass with ease and yet I still felt uneasy; the journey would be quick, but would it be quick enough? The question rang in my ears. We stood alone at the bus stop so it was okay to talk.
I turned and looked at Nico, cuddled up on the seat hugging his knees to warm himself up and Grover, pacing rhythmically up and down the pavement. I dug the golden drachma out of my pocket and flicked it. It landed with a thud on the soaked pavement, the goddess Iris smiling up at us.
"Do you think we can risk a message to Jack and Dylan," I asked, not even sure what answer I was hoping for.
Grover and Nico both looked up, the faces painted white with anxiety and they nodded. We all nipped into the deserted bus station and set up our message.
"Goddess Iris, please accept out offering. Dylan Stone, London."
The image swirled round in a stream of colours before finally coming into focus on to boys sitting in a Starbucks. We all instantly recognised Dylan: his crutches leaning beside the chair, the familiar baseball hat at an angle on his head, and an uncharacteristic grave expression on his face.
He looked down at his table and caught sight of us, shining at him from the circular table surface. He made a quick sharp 'don't say anything' gesture to the boy sitting opposite him: Jack.
He had brilliant blue eyes and almost white blonde hair framing his face. I half-expected him to fall out of his seat when he saw our image but he sat still on his chair. A perfect act, meaning one thing: he knew.
Dylan nodded apologetically, reading our thoughts.
"I had to tell him; no choice."
I smiled, we all did. At this point it didn't matter. So far the quest couldn't have gone more wrongly. The fates were obviously against us on this one.
"We should be there soon, around two hours." Dylan's face suddenly turned green with fear. He was hiding something else.
"I thought your flight got in just now," he said, looking at his watch, then at us, pleading.
"Change of plan. It's a long story. Two hours is the best we can do. Is something wrong?" Are there monsters? I didn't dare ask the question. If people started to worry they made mistakes and we could not afford mistakes. Being Athena's daughter had taught me a few things at least.
Eventually, Dylan nodded thoughtfully and said,
"Okay but be a quick as you can we'll meet as planned."
We all nodded and Grover wiped through the screen cutting the connection and we ran back to the loading bus and caught three seats at the back.
The bus was pretty much empty and we set off on schedule. Grover grabbed my cap 'went to the bathroom' and checked for any monsters. He came back with a negative answer but there hadn't been any monsters on the plane when everything went downhill so the news didn't make me feel any better.
We sat on the back row together, ready for the next two hours that were sure to be agonizing. I leaned against the window staring down the aisle. My panic was overwhelming me and the slow proceeding of the bus wasn't helping. The oracles words were seeping deeper into my thoughts. You shall receive help from a long lost friend. The plane had crashed but we'd survived. The chances of that were so small so we must have been helped.
I sat thinking about it for a long time, completely still, shying away from my one answer, the only possibility. It had to be a good thing that it was certain; nothing else was capable of such a feat. The most likely people would be one of our parents, Hades or Athena, but again I had a feeling that they hadn't saved us. Zeus was the only other mild possibility, saving us so we would save his son. But he wouldn't dare help us when we were so deep into Poseidon's realm. That left only one other chance.
A long lost friend: Percy.
I felt a rush of warmth and security and the touch of a hand on my shoulder, I leant into yearning for his presence, the mere memory of his smile and laugh awakening butterflies in my stomach. I was right. But the happiness soon faded.
Knowing didn't make me feel any better. Not really. The hole left in my chest hadn't been filled. I grasped at my chest, a pointless effort to bring myself together, but a piece was gone. The hole was still gaping open, tearing more and more of me with it.
I couldn't understand what had happened, but I still knew that I was right. Percy might have just saved us, for his best friend Grover or maybe to help the quest succeed. He hadn't done it for me, or he wouldn't be refusing to talk to me.
Although, there had been that IM just before we left, the one where the connection had been broken, where he had contacted me. Just a cruel joke: Opening the hole again, refusing to allow me to heal.
Grover was sitting up alert next to me, sniffing the air nonchalantly and Nico was lying down beside him. Sleep was probably a good idea, but sleep meant dreams and nightmares. I knew it was the wise thing to do so I closed my eyes trying to clear my mind a slipped into an uneasy sleep…
The palace where I stood glowed with a turquoise aura and deep rare shells lined the walls. For a while I stood there in awe, admiring the architecture of the building until I heard a splash of water near me and turned to search for the cause of it.
I headed up the long passageway, each section mirroring the previous exactly, embedding me in an endless maze. The voice I followed was familiar, but it danced in front of me, always evading my grasp.
I knew the voice. I knew the dream. Even during it, I recognised the scene. I knew what was going to happen. I had been expecting it. I always did. The pain and emptiness would hit me just as hard though.
But the dream drifted from its course, I had escaped from the endless alleyway. A branch had taken of it and I followed the cloaked figure of the voice down into a circular chamber.
He knelt down beside a golden fountain of sea creatures and threw something that escaped my eyes, into the rainbow. Then he spoke again, when I was close, but not the normal words. He spoke my name, almost like a prayer or a wish.
The rainbow spiralled for a few moments, as his words echoed in my skull, and then at once a lightning streak appeared in the middle of the assortment of colours, breaking the screen as it did my heart.
The nightmare was different, but the pain was the same, exactly like it had been from the first day: the sudden intense pain bursting from the newly reopened gap in me; the sides spreading outwards, swinging helplessly around the edges; the sudden realisation that he's gone; the final snap of the cord that bound us together.
My body was shaking, and tears were running down my face when I reopened my eyes. I hung desperately to the difference, but at the same time it scared me, I couldn't understand it.
