Thirty-Four: Maari

Last Minute camaraderie (or Parenting..?)

Merry was worrying. Merry was morally opposed to worrying. It was bad for one's health and bad as a prayer and offering to her Dad.

They rode through the clogged streets of Manhattan with the wind whipping against Sam Datta's windshield. She alternated between reviewing Sam's notes on how to use fundamental probability to track the trends in polio outbreaks in Syria and the Congo and updating Sam on their plan of action.

By now, Sam definitely preferred hearing about the jazzy-spazzy mythological side of things instead of his midterm. Merry would have wanted it the other way around because she thought Athena and studying where the sexist, jazziest-spazziest things in town.

"So this whole plan pivots on the assumption that Mr. Stoic, who has betrayed you before, won't betray you again, Poison Ivy, who's losing her mind, stays sane enough to help, and your spineless friend has enough of a spine to keep a stubborn sociopath and a well-meaning idiot from destroying some camp," Sam summed up her explanation of Axel, Euna, Kally, Alabaster, and Pax.

"Psychopath, honey. No need to be polite here," she hummed. She tapped her burgundy, music-playing jacket sleeve, absently flipping through various songs.

Merry still wondered exactly how Kally had "taken a fancy" to Alabaster, as Calex had warned. Pax made sense. Pax was a well-meaning bad boy that had a nasty combo of being gullible AND unlucky.

Alabaster, as far as Merry was concerned, was just a dick.

With the chill leaking in through the windows and Sam's heating system deciding to kick out at the same time, Merry wished she had her Teddy Bear here to keep her warm. Or Leo Valdez: the spiciest of space heaters. Calex might be offended by that one.

"And there's some punk kid up in a tower, threatening to kill someone's baby sister, Series of Unfortunate Events style? You know, I have a tire jack with a removable metal pole in the back. I could come upstairs with you and give him a proper greeting," Sam offered.

His excited, dark eyes glanced over to Merry with the same skepticism that Axel's had. Maybe seeing them in a big group made this life-and-death stuff all fun and fancy free. Seeing Merry by herself (all five foot ten inches of apparent helplessness) going up to chastise a kid younger than her half-brother ("Bad! Bad Pax baby! No more kidnapping!") for attempted infanticide… that seemed to inspire doubt in people. Through, from what Merry remembered of Hiro's tiny form, she could defeat him by sitting on him if he stayed still long enough.

Assuming he didn't shoot her or cut off Percy's little sister's fingers or send the baby on a 300 foot roller coast ride with an unfortunate, sudden stop.

"I would prefer you remain Sam Datta: the most Epic of Bystanders," she said. After a pause, she gave him a shaky smile. "But, call the cops if I'm not down in forty minutes, would you, honey? This girl plans to have summa cum laude written on her gravestone, and I can't do that until I've graduated university."

The closer they got and the more she recognized buildings, like the Greco-Roman columns and lion guardian statue outside the New York Public Library (where she had occasionally taken Nikhil to study when their mother decided to throw a raucous party on a weekday) the queasier her stomach felt.

Merry wanted to goad Sam into chatting with her in Tamil, a language she could understand with ease, but that sounded like a woodchipper coming from her unpracticed lips (much to her adopted appa's irritation, she and Nikhil tended to respond to he and Am'ma in English). Since no one could speak it at camp, she missed hearing it, but the thought of Am'ma's silky, buoyant voice made Merry miss her mother and worry that the social workers had already come to Am'ma's house.

That made her more nauseous. Yay!

"We can listen to a song for more than thirty seconds, you know," Sam said.

Merry lifted her finger off her parka. She didn't realize she had still been sifting through songs. "I wanted to assure you had a full comprehension and appreciation for jazz throughout the 20th and 21st centuries."

The statue of Atlas came into view on the next turn. Merry's stomach gave serious thought to emptying here. Then, it wouldn't have to go into the Cathedral.

"Music Theory 210: A Crash Course," Sam said. He pulled up next to the Cathedral, ignoring the blare of horns behind them. His energetic eyes examined her. "So, uh, you don't have any weapons."

"A clear and sharp mind is the most powerful weapon, honey," she said.

Her eyes fluttered to the icon Sam kept on his dashboard of Sarawati, a four-armed goddess playing a lute. Merry offered a quick prayer to this goddess of wisdom and knowledge and another one after to Athena. They were good ones to pray to, right? This was like a test, one where people died if you failed.

They needed Percy and Annabeth in the upcoming fight. She thought about the campers that might perish at camp, her friends, and her half-brother on the god-side. Realistically, Percy wouldn't be able to sit by and watch as people died. Percy would stand up to fight and Hiro would murder his little sister in response.

So, no pressure if she failed corralling Hiro.

Merry unclicked her seatbelt robotically. "Nanri," she said. [footnote 1]

"Parkkalaam," Sam said, [footnote 2] "I mean it. You come back down here in ten minutes, you hear?"

Merry paused to examine Sam. This might have been how it would feel to have responsible adults in her family, the kind of parenting she had missed out on. She never could explain to other kids how jealous she was when they got grounded. Getting grounded meant that your parents cared. It meant they were present in your life.

Sam seemed like someone that would ground a cousin if a parent wouldn't. Though, judging from his maniac interest in the world, you'd have to majorly mess up to get grounded.

She suddenly realized how helpless this boy—man several years her senior—felt.

"Shouldn't you be worrying about your biostats midterm instead of little ol' me?" she asked, batting her eyelashes as she opened the passenger door.

Sam smiled and gave her a shrug. "I already missed it. It was early this morning."

Merry hopped out of the car, shutting the door behind her without a word. As cheerfully as she could, Merry waved her hand at the taxi-van and forced a bounce into her step as she walked on the concrete sidewalk towards the Cathedral. That way, she hoped Sam wouldn't see that his kindness had broken her.

Merry choked back tears as she proceeded forward, alone, to stop one of the world's tiniest psychopath from mutilating and killing Percy's little sister.

Sorry I'm running late! I hope you guys enjoyed this quick chapter :D Tune in next week for Maari's chapter: Stairs: The Real Villain in This Series Part I.

Footnote:

1 Thank you.

2 See you. More leaning towards, "I better see you." Unless I have the wrong one. Someone yell at me if I have the wrong one!