"We're lost."
"No we're not! I know where we're going!"
"Of course you know where we're going… But do you know where we are?" Annabeth furrows her eyebrows. "We've passed this tree before."
"How can you tell? All these trees look the same!"
"Grover, you're a satyr. Aren't you supposed to have a special connection to the forest? Besides, I marked the tree." Annabeth points at some toilet paper wrapped around a low branch. "See?"
Grover scrunches his face. With no comeback readily available, he finally whines, "Fine! We're lost! Just you try keeping track of where we're going when a pack of hellhounds are chasing you!"
"It's okay," Luke intervenes. "I wasn't keeping track either."
Annabeth folds her arms stubbornly. "There's no point when the blind is leading the blind. At least, we should stop running in circles and run away from the hellhound pack in a straight line."
A week ago, and bunch of hellhounds began tracking them down. Luke and Thalia took out the first couple groups, but when the earth itself tore open and burped out a couple angry feather-shooting black ravens and a furious giant scorpion, even Luke didn't stick around to fight. They just ran. Grover even tried playing terrible music in an effort to chase them away.
If anything, it make Thalia knock him over the head in irritation a mile later as soon as they were safe—they jumped from a bridge onto a barge and hid underneath scrap metal until they were sure all the angry birds were gone. The feathers they shot weren't as sharp as knives, but they still hurt, like little rubber bullets.
"No doubt," Thalia had said then, as they curled underneath the hard metal surfaces. "Those monsters were from Hades. And Hades is probably not happy that Zeus broke the oath and popped out me."
"Hades wants to kill you?" Luke had hissed in anger. "You can't be serious. It's not like we don't already have angry monsters tailing us everywhere."
It was true. Before, they'd only kill monsters when their paths happened to cross. Now, though, the monsters have been actively hunting them down.
They'd hopped off the barge yesterday and have been wandering about the forest since. They all trusted their satyr guide, but after a full day of aimless meandering up and down a couple stony hills, Annabeth had had enough.
Thalia agrees with her. "Okay, goat guy," she smirks. "How 'bout we find a city? You can orient yourself there, and we'll head to Camp Half-Blood after that. Instead of wandering next to the river."
"I'm not wandering!" Grover insists. "I'm a guide! A recruiter. It's my job to find and protect demigods—"
"…With panpipes," Thalia snarks.
"I'm working on that," Grover grumbles.
"He's saved us before," Luke defends helpfully.
Grover nods. "And it's my job to guide you guys to Camp Half-Blood. That's the part where I study the geography of America, so I can make sure I get you there as quickly as possible."
"So remind me why we're lost," Thalia says flatly.
"We're not lost! Okay, we sort of are. No, what I'm saying is, I don't know where we are specifically, but I know that somewhere in all these hills, there's a valley that leads right in the direction of camp. If we could just find it, then we could walk in a straight line there."
"So your plan is to keep walking up and down these hills till you find your magic valley pass," Annabeth interjects.
"…Yeah."
"Okay, we're going to the city," Thalia decides.
"Oh my gods," Thalia breathes. "We're almost there."
They're 50 miles away from New York. So close to Long Island—where Camp Half-Blood is. After two years of wandering the countryside and following Grover—they're almost where the magical Camp Half-Blood. At this point, Thalia doesn't really care what will happen when she gets there; all she wants to do is keep her spear hidden in her pocket as a Mace canister and be able to take a nap with Luke and Annabeth, at the same time, without somebody on watch, ready to wake them at a moment's notice should another pack of monsters arrive.
She's tired. She's just so tired. Weeks of running, fighting, and running some more. Maybe a little bit of sleeping. Eating. There's not as much time to hunt for meat anymore, so they've been living off the veggies Grover pulls out of the ground with his magical panpipe music (and what if the plants that snake out of hiding want to strangle them to death? Food is food), as well as cheap junk food stowed in their packs.
Maybe it's the lack of meat that makes Thalia feel so tired all the time.
And suddenly, 50 miles doesn't seem so close anymore. Not when they're this tired. Not when they don't have any form of transportation there. No barge floating down the river, no money for the taxi to drive them there… maybe they could hitchhike, but Thalia's worried about Annabeth.
"Com'on, guys," Luke stands up and stretches, bouncing with energy. "We're almost there! We just need to—"
"Walk 50 miles?" Thalia deadpans. "How are we going to do that?"
"We don't need to," Luke grins, and in the distance, a train whistles.
Annabeth does not appreciate being tossed into a moving train car like a sack of potatoes, but she wasn't tall enough.
Thalia's in the car, ready to catch her, but when Luke heaves her in, he doesn't really aim for Thalia. As a result, Annabeth completely misses her friend and rolls across the wooden floor, gaining about a million splinters. "Ouch!"
Grover leaps lithely onto the metal railing, and a moment later, Luke swings up next to him. Not a second too soon, because, as soon as the train clears the corner and straightens out, it begins to speed up again.
"I'm sorry, Annabeth," Luke apologizes as they all pluck wooden slivers out of her arms. "I didn't know the floor was so spiky."
Annabeth pouts, but Luke just looks so sorry that she can't stay mad at him for long. "It's okay," she says finally, then squeals as Luke wraps a tanned arm around her body and squeezes her hard. "Luke! That hurts!"
"It's a hug," Luke smiles. "And only the best hugs hurt."
Was that a challenge? Annabeth responds by hugging him back as hard as she can—which is difficult because his body is so hard and there's not a lot of stuff she can squish. Luke pretends to gasp for air anyways, laughing—until Thalia joins on his other side and compresses his chest so hard that he really does lose his breath.
Brooklyn is every bit as noisy as Chicago was, Thalia recalls. Except there are TONS of people in Brooklyn. So many streets and sidewalks and alleyways, eventually Thalia gives up and just follows Grover around. Never mind that the satyr's gotten them lost a couple times; she figures that New York is the guy's home turf. They're in New York, on Long Island. Camp Half-Blood is only a couple of miles away.
Their journey is almost over.
They're browsing through a convenience store—Grover withdrew some golden drachmas from a special ATM machine the moment they entered New York, and they bought some new stuff at a special store for demigods: a new T-shirt for Luke, some larger shoes for Annabeth and Thalia. Now they're getting food from another one of those special stores, Grover says. Thalia's just floored that a place even recognizes that demigods exist.
"Thalia?" Luke calls. "Can you come over here?"
Thalia glances around the store, surprised; Luke had accompanied Grover for another errand, leaving the girls to pick out food. She's surprised they came back so fast. "Where are you? Did Grover really choose something that quickly?"
"I'm down the hallway. And no, Grover isn't here. I got a special deal with the store keeper. It's for you." Luke's voice is bright with excitement, and Thalia eagerly follows the sound down a short hallway. There's an open door leading into a dark room, which instantly puts Thalia on the alert. What's Luke doing in the storeroom of a store they've never been to? Now that she really thinks about it, there are so many things wrong with her current scenario. Luke would never ditch Grover—he's their satyr guide, and only he knows where Camp Half-Blood is. And Luke coming back and surprising her with a random gift is so improbable; they've never had the money to spend on things not related to immediate survival. Even Luke's voice didn't quite sound right—as if he had marbles in his mouth.
The awe at being in a large city again, plus the excitement at being so close to Camp Half-Blood, a heavenly safety, and her extreme tiredness—it all makes for one very stupid Thalia.
Too late, she realizes this. Before she can pull back and exhibit the right amount of caution, something shoots out of the dark storeroom and wraps around her ankle. She's standing too close to the door. She instantly reaches into her pocket, her hand pulling the Mace canister out—but before she activate it, the whip around her ankle yanks her into the room so suddenly, she collapses. Her head hits the floor hard and she's knocked unconscious instantly.
After waiting in line at the public restroom, Annabeth finally relieves herself and steps outside. It much be the lunch hour now; she'd waited in line for almost 20 minutes. She wonders if Thalia's bought all the food already.
She walks down the street to the convenience store that Grover showed them before running off with Luke. As she approaches it, she spots movement behind the store, where a delivery truck is parked in front of the loading dock. A huge man is shoving boxes into the back of the truck. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Delivery trucks bring stuff to the store.
The man turns around and Annabeth's heart stops. The man only has one eye—right in the middle of his forehead. A Cyclops.
Annabeth hides, her fingers clutching the bronze dagger in her pocket. After a couple scary minutes, though, she relaxes—and then tenses up again when the truck rumbles out from behind the store and onto the street.
The huge one-eyed man drives the car down the street. Frightened, Annabeth shrinks against the concrete wall as if trying to dissolve within, but she doesn't have to worry. The delivery truck, engraved with the company name "Monocle Motors", flashes past without pausing for her, and the Cyclops soon disappears around a corner.
A Cyclops. A real, huge, strong Cyclops. She has to warn Thalia—the store is run by Cyclops. Grover directed them to the wrong store. The stupid satyr—he got them lost in the countryside plenty of times, but this is his city! Shouldn't he know where everything is, especially stores owned by monsters that want to kill them?
Annabeth darts into the store, screaming Thalia's name. So what if there's another Cyclops running the cashier in the store—it doesn't matter, they need to get out of here as soon as possible. Seconds later, though, she realizes that the store is completely empty. No cashier at the counter, all the lights have been turned off—though the room's still illuminated by sunlight streaming in through the windows. A flash of gold catches her eye.
Annabeth leans down and picks up the small Mace container. There's no way that Thalia would drop it without knowing about it; it's her weapon. Only she can activate it, and it shrinks back into its compact form whenever she wills it… or if she's separated from it by more than a hundred feet.
Thalia's weapon would never be isolated from her. Not unless somebody took it forcibly away from her. But Annabeth found it on the ground… which means that somebody forcibly took Thalia away from her weapon.
The Cyclops.
Annabeth backs up until she hits a wall before she allows her legs to collapse. She slides down onto the ground, her mind whirling with possibilities. Killed? No. Please no. Annabeth wills her eight-year old mind not to enter panic mode as she glances around the store. No signs of a scuffle or blood. Maybe the Cyclops surprised her and grabbed her before she could pull out her spear.
Kidnapped then? That Cyclops had been loading things into the truck. Maybe he wanted to take Thalia to another place where there were fewer witnesses. Annabeth's noticed that monsters attack them all the time when they're in the countryside; not so much in the cities. The Mist usually hides things from mortals, but monsters still prefer to hunt outside of civilization.
With the blessed guidance of her mother, Annabeth steps outside, Thalia's deactivated spear held tight in her palm. Athena will show her the way. Athena brought her all the way to Ohio from California, and Athena brought Luke and Thalia to her. Now, Thalia's been kidnapped and Luke and Grover are nowhere to be seen… but Annabeth knows that they will be brought back together again. They have to. They're all going to reach Camp Half-Blood safely.
Otherwise, what was the point of bringing them together in the first place?
Mount Olympus is in a state of chaos. Athena is stuck in the middle of it all—the goddess of wisdom and strategy, she must decide how to maneuver her inexperienced daughter out of this complicated situation.
Luke, son of Hermes—possible enemy of the gods, for the Oracle had predicted a dark fate for him. Thalia, daughter of Zeus—after Zeus swore an oath with his two brothers, Hades and Poseidon, not to sire demigod children. After all, the Oracle had predicted that one of their half-blooded children would cause the demise or the salvation of Mount Olympus.
And now Zeus has betrayed his brothers by conceiving not one but two children. Hera knew instantly, and hid away the youngest child; but Hades only discovered Thalia three weeks ago, when she called on the power of lightning during a fight with empousae. The powerful energy rippled throughout the entire Earth, notifying both Hades and Poseidon of Zeus' demigod. Hades, enraged at Zeus' deceit, now seeks to kill the girl in repayment of Zeus' attempt to kill his own children—Nico and Bianca—fifty years ago.
Despite the controversy surrounding Luke, son of Hermes, and Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Athena cannot deny that those two children were amongst the strongest demigods alive on the planet—and the children closest to and most likely to protect her youngest, most vulnerable daughter. Luke especially, with his compassion at heart and desire for a familial sort of love; and Thalia, with a tough and rough exterior but a similar desire to form a familial bonds. Providing a caring, protective family for Annabeth would be the wisest course of action. But their presence around Annabeth was also her greatest danger—because one day, those two children would bear burdens beyond their capacity to handle.
Now, with Annabeth so close Camp Half-Blood, Athena does nothing when the Cyclops lures Thalia and Luke into a trap by mimicking the other's voice: imitating Luke to call Thalia into a dark storeroom, and imitating Thalia to lure Luke down a deserted alleyway. The foolish young satyr accompanies Luke cluelessly and is captured as well. Annabeth has now been given the chance to create her own path, to proceed onward without a bleak future to hinder her. Strategically, allowing both Luke and Thalia to die would eliminate future threats.
That is all Athena can do. If she intervenes, her child will not learn anything. Her child will not be able to bear future burdens, gain experience from pain, and strategize later in her life. Athena will let Annabeth make her own decision—proceed to Camp Half-Blood, or pursue her friends and their deadly futures.
Author's Rant: This chapter assumes that warriors must train properly before they are able to psychically recall their weapons. Thus Thalia wasn't able to recall her spear after her kidnapping. Plus I just needed something to alert Annabeth to the situation.