17 (Percy)

Leaving Annabeth a note would probably have been smart, but how do you put "Luke came in the middle of the night and tried to kill me I got rid of him but now I'm packing all our stuff and putting it in the car and once I'm ready I'm going to come grab you in your sleep and carry you away like a very light sack of potatoes so be ready in your sleep" into a note? You just don't.

Then I heard it. It was like hearing gun shots, only it was yells and crashes and slightly more Greek weapons. We're really not into guns. Fire, Hades yeah, but guns… nah. Too American.

I punched the stop button on the elevator and ran to the stairs, hoping there would be some door to a janitors closet or something that would have some access to something with control over pipes. There was a closet two floors up from me with access to a room of water heaters for the floors around it.

Perfect. Water. Time to blast out part of the building.

In seconds I was up through the floor-avoiding people, thank you very much, I just kind of have a sixth sense for that which hasn't failed me yet-and in our hotel room.

We have no destroyed two hotel rooms. Great.

And I came in on Luke attacking Annabeth, and his goons surrounding her. That's great, just great.

However my little diversion with the pipelines caused most of his goons, who were all monsters with slightly lesser IQs (just the way Luke likes it-he gets the be the superior one so that no one under him would even think of taking over), decided to watch me and the water, so most of them were gone in a few seconds of whacking at things with Riptide. That left Luke and one of his previous five goons. Luke screamed in Greek for his little sidekick-well, not so little, I think he was a Laistrygonian giant-to take Annabeth while he came at me. Thanks, Luke, you suck.

But hey, I got another chance to kill him. Well, not kill him, but incapacitate him so that we could keep running. How did he keep tracking us?

I wasn't about to take the time to find out.

I jumped at him, Riptide in hand, anger boiling and bubbling, feeling like a soldier running in to kill the leader of the opposing army-sad that he had to kill someone, not wanting to be in the war, but loving the feeling of being the one to end the enemy.

Another one bites the dust, I began to hum. Can you say cocky? Oh well. I guess that's the curse of fighting so long.

I lunged to cut Luke's head off and he expertly dodged. He jumped to stab under my ribcage but missed completely, and I came back around to graze his arm with my sword. Blood seeped from the cut in a crimson stream that was way to gratifying. I told myself that he had once been my friend, that I should never be happy to see another half blood bleeding, that he wasn't Kronos anymore, but I couldn't get the image of him trying to kiss Annabeth out of my head. It wouldn't go away. Something was wrong with my head, and now was not the time to deal with it. I just needed Luke out of the picture long enough to grab Annabeth and run.

Luke looked at the blood running down his arm and glared daggers at me. If looks could kill, I'd have somehow been found dead with a couple hundred bullets straight through my heart. Great. The last thing I needed was him that angry.

Maybe he had been already.

I jumped at him and pushed him out of the way, and his head crashed into the dresser. No blood, so hopefully that wouldn't be fatal… very painful, though. And he was out cold. It was disgusting to look at. He looked dead. I turned around to check on Annabeth and she was sitting on the bed watching.

"You could have helped," I joked.

"Well, I wanted you to deal with it yourself. You seemed to be thinking through everything too much. Something's bothering you. I was debating jumping in and helping, but I figured this was not a time to talk, so I let your instincts take over because they're different than mine. I can't stay in the moment-I have to think about the future. You're better at what's good for the moment. So I let you take the moment."

"Okay, somehow that made sense. Do you think-"Percy, we have to get out of here," she cut in. But I had to check. I looked around for a mirror or something and found one on the dresser.

I took the mirror, walked to Luke slumped down in front of the other end of the dresser, and held the mirror up near his face. The glass fogged up.

"Okay, he's alive. We can go now."

Annabeth just stared at me.

"I don't want to kill anyone," I told her.

"Thank you, Percy. You've solved your little psychological problem. You were afraid of becoming a killer, but you can control it. If you can say that, and even stay long enough to make sure he's alive, you won't kill him. Not even on accident. You will prevent it."

She began to walk closer, bringing her hand up to my face and cupping it in the palm of her hand.

"You're not a killer, Percy, and you will not become a killer," she said, looking straight into my eyes. "You don't have it in you," she laughed, and got on her tip toes to kiss me. I pulled her up around her waist so she could reach better, then picked her up the rest of the way and ran, carrying her out of the room, through the hole I'd blown in the wall, and running to our car.

"So, where to next?" I asked her like we were on a road trip. I decided we were. That was all this was. A road trip.

"Texas. Somewhere in Texas," she replied for no reason I could think of.

"Alright. Texas it is."