Chapter 19 - Shouldn't We At Least Try to Hide?

An absolute wave of terror crashed over me. I felt like I was drowning in the emotion. All of the bad memories in my life came crashing over me, wave after wave. Thalia dying on Half-Blood Hill while Luke pulled me away, screaming for her. I remembered beating on Luke's shoulders, trying to get him to drop me so I could run back and help Thalia. Another wave. Holding up the weight of the sky so that Luke could escape. The awful betrayal as he left me there to die. The pain and fear as I tried to hold up the world, knowing everyone I ever cared about would die if I didn't. Luke and Thalia fighting on Mount Tam. Seeing Thalia push him over the edge. Seeing Luke's broken body below me on Mount Tam.

I felt someone jump into me, and I fell to the floor with a thud. I heard a crack behind me, but it felt miles away. Like what was happening in that cave was the dream, and all the visions crashing over me was what was real.

"Eh, that wasn't fair!" I heard the Giant laugh.

"Annabeth, get up!" Piper begged me, trying to help me up. I flinched as a new vision washed over me - Percy, Grover, Tyson and I running from Kampe - a beast so terrifying even Luke would later regret letting her out of Tartarus. The vision shifted. It was Percy and I running together to fight Kampe, knowing it would be our last fight together. The moment she pinned us to the ground, growling above us, and I knew this was it. Percy wouldn't be the kid in the prophecy. He and I would die right then and there. I could feel someone pulling me somewhere, and I tried to make my feet move, but it was too hard.

"I'm here." I heard a voice say. I tried to focus on that voice. Was it Percy? I remembered when the Arai had made me think he had left me in Tartarus. The feeling that I had been abandoned again, that I was always going to be abandoned. I'd be alone forever. The fear and panic swamped over me, but I tried desperately to hold onto that one statement. "I'm here." It was such a powerful phrase, really.

"We will get out of this." The voice said again. Yes. That was all I wanted. To get out of this. I heard the Giant laugh and say something, but a new memory crashed over me. The god Janus, forcing me to make an impossible choice in the Labyrinth. Worrying that any choice I made would get my friends killed. Remembering that line, over and over - lose a love to worse than death.

"Annabeth, trust me." The voice said again.

"A - a plan." I managed. Yes. We needed a plan. "I go left, you go right. If we -"

"Annabeth, no plans." It was Piper, I realized. Not Percy.

"What?"

"No plans. Just follow me." I wanted to protest but the Giant swung his hammer at us and I followed Piper as we dodged it. Piper slashed at the Giant, wounding him, and then yanked me into the nearest tunnel. It was completely dark. Another memory enveloped me - the curse of Polyphemus that had blinded me in Tartarus. I wanted to sit down and cry. I was blind, again, and Bob wasn't here to heal me. I would live out the rest of the quest on the Argo II, completely blind and helpless, dependent on the other six to save me from everything.

"Keep moving. It's fine. Come on." Piper muttered. I could feel her holding my hand so tightly that I couldn't let go. I couldn't sit down and give up.

"Piper, it's like the House of Night." I told her. "We should close our eyes -"

"No." Piper interrupted me. "Keep them open. We can't try to hide." I wanted to protest that I could be very good at hiding when I wanted to. Shouldn't we at least try to hide?

"Lost forever, swallowed by the darkness." The Giant bellowed. I froze in my tracks, forcing Piper to stop or let me go. She chose stop.

"Why did we just plunge in?" I asked shakily. "We're lost. We - we did what he wanted us to do. We should have bided our time. Talked to the enemy. Figured out a plan. That always works."

"Annabeth, I never ignore your advice." Piper said in the darkness. I could tell she was trying to keep me calm, keep me from panicking. "But this time I have to. We can't defeat this place with reason. You can't think your way out of your emotions." I remembered what Piper had said to me above ground, on the hill. Let the emotions wash over you, then drain away. I tried to take a deep breath and let that happen.

"Despair, Annabeth Chase!" The Giant roared, and another memory lashed me. I was five years old, the spiders had found me for the first time. I screamed, desperate. My dad had come in, but he hadn't seen the spiders. He had told me it was in my head and ordered me back to bed.

"I am Mimas, born to slay Hephaestus. I am the breaker of plans, the destroyer of well-oiled machines. Nothing goes right in my presence. Maps are misread, devices break, data is lost. The finest minds turn to mush."

"I - I faced worse than you." I cried. It was true. But his presence was bringing all those worse things back to me. Another wave of fear lashed me. Percy and I in Mount St. Helens. The monsters coming at us. No where to run. And Percy, telling me to leave him behind. Just like Thalia. Leave him behind. The words of the prophecy ringing in my ears. Lose a love to worse than death. Would this be it? I'd turned and ran, once again leaving my best friend behind. Just like Thalia.

"Oh, I see!" The Giant roared. "Are you not afraid?"

"Never!" I lied.

"Of course we're afraid." Piper announced. I wasn't sure what her plan was. "Terrified."

Piper knocked me to one side of the room, and I heard the crash of the Giant's hammer right where we had been. Suddenly, we were back in the circular room we had started in. There was some light in the room from the three holes. I could see. That meant I wasn't blind after all. I started to shake in relief. Piper let go of my hand, ran forward, and stabbed the Giant in the thigh. The Giant screamed, letting go of his hammer. I ran behind the statue, finding that Piper had the same plan. It's heartbeat was steady - which meant it was probably the only steady heartbeat in the room. Mine felt like a hummingbird, ready to take off at any moment.

"You can not defeat me." The Giant said as he turned to us. "In the last war, it took two gods to bring me down. I was born to kill Hephaestus, and would've done so if Ares hadn't ganged up on me as well. You should have stayed paralized in your fear. Your death would have been quicker."

Piper, for reasons I still can not tell you, moved out from the safety of the statue and went to face the Giant.

"This temple… the Spartans didn't chain Ares because they wanted to spirit to stay in their city…" Piper said, clearly working something out aloud.

"You think not?" The Giant mused. He grabbed his hammer and yanked it from the floor. More memories lashed me. The two weeks we'd thought Percy had died and I'd been confined to Camp, my quest a failure. The weeks I'd begged Chiron to help me look for him, and he'd shaken his head at me in pity. He'd seen too many heroes die. The other campers stared at me in a mix of horror and pity. I'd been the one to leave him behind. I'd been the one to make the choice. None of them wanted to meet my eyes.

"The Spartans came here to prepare for battle." Piper went on, though her voice shook. "To face their fears. Ares was chained to remind them that war has consequences. His power, the spirits of battle, the Makhai, should never be unleashed unless you understood how terrible they are. Unless you've felt fear."

"A child of the love goddess lectures me about war!" The giant said with a laugh. "What do you know about the Makhai?"

Another memory slammed into me. The Williamsburg bridge. Everyone had left Percy and I to fight an army by ourselves. I felt a shot of fear course through me and knew Percy was in trouble. I stepped in front of him and took the blade meant for him. I felt the pain and fear, hoping Percy would let me die, knowing that he wouldn't. Begging him to leave me and save himself for a change.

When my eyes focussed on the scene, I realized Piper had run at the Giant. Mimas stumbled back, hitting his head on the ceiling. Dust fell around me.

"Piper, this place is unstable. If we don't leave -"

"Don't think about escape!" Piper called to me. Then she did the stupidest thing she had done all day - and that was saying something. She ran at the escape rope, jumped as high as she could, and cut the rope from the ceiling.

"Piper, have you lost your mind?" I called out to her.

"That hurt!" The Giant yelled, rubbing his head. "You realize you can not kill me without the help of a god? And Ares is not here. The next time I face that blustering idiot, I'm going to smash him to bits. I wouldn't have had to face him in the first place if that cowardly fool Damasen had done his job."

This time, when the memory swamped over me it didn't fill me with fear. The memory was Damasen, riding into battle to save me on the back of a drakon, announcing that he had decided to choose his own destiny. This time, the memory filled me with rage for the insult to my friend.

I screamed a feral, primal scream filled with every bit of fear I had felt down here. "Do not insult Damasen!"

I ran at the Giant, slashing with my sword. He barely managed to parry my strike. He tried to grab me, but Piper was there, slashing her sword across Mimas's face. He screamed, and I realized his hair and one of his ears fell to the floor. Gross.

"My ear!" The Giant wailed. I saw golden ichor flow down the side of his face. Before I could react, Piper grabbed my arm and dragged me into the other tunnel.

"I will bring down this chamber! The Earth Mother shall deliver me, but you shall be crushed!" The tunnel shook and I could hear breaking stone behind me. I wondered, if we were crushed in here, if Gaea would take my body to Athens, properly finish me off there.

"Piper! Stop!" I begged my friend. "How are you dealing with this? The fear? The anger?"

I flinched as yet another memory stabbed into my mind. The cyclops that had taken Thalia and Luke and used their voices. It was calling out to me. I was so small, and it was so big. All I had was my knife and I barely knew how to use it. I ran forward stabbing the cyclops in the foot. Then I ran to Thalia and untied her. Thalia could always make everything better. Where was she? I wanted her here with me.

"Don't try to control it." Piper was telling me, but her voice sounded muffled, far away. "That's what the temple is about. You have to accept the fear. Adapt to it. Ride it like the rapids on a river."

"How do you know that?" I asked her in a small voice.

"I don't know. I just feel it."

I heard a crash as another wall came down.

"You cut the rope." I said it with a sniff. "We're going to die down here."

I felt Piper's hands gently grab my face. She pulled me forward until our foreheads met. "Fear cannot be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They're like love. They're almost identical emotions. That's why Ares and Aphrodite like each other. Their twin sons, Fear and Panic, were spawned from both fear and love."

"But I don't - this doesn't make sense." I protested weakly. All I wanted to do was get out of here. Another memory shot through me. Watching Percy fall from the St. Louis arch. He had made Grover and I leave without him. It was the first time I thought he had died to protect me. The first, but not the last. Another - the crazy stuff in the Labyrinth. Not knowing where we were going. Knowing that I had asked each of these friends to come with me and each one might die because of it.

"No. Stop thinking about it. Just feel." Piper instructed me. Her forehead was still pressed against mine, trying to keep me anchored.

"I hate that!"

"I know. You can't plan for feelings. Like with Percy and your future. You can't control every contingency. You have to accept that. Let it scare you. Trust that it'll be ok anyway."

I shook my head, still pressed against Piper. "I don't know if I can."

Then another jolt - hanging from the Dare Enterprises helicopter, my bad shoulder not able to help me, watching Percy on the back of a pegasus as they spiralled towards the ground. The fear of being about to fall, or crash into a building, or -

"Then for right now, concentrate on revenge for Damasen. Revenge for Bob." Piper broke my thoughts. When she said the name a bolt of strength shot through me. I remembered Damasen asking me to tell him my story. I remembered him gently healing Percy when I thought all hope was lost. I remembered him handing me a drakon bone sword, the same sword that was in my hand. I tightened my grip on it. I felt the anger at the loss, the hatred of Gaea and Tartarus and all the Giants and gods who had put us in that position crash over me, pushing the fear to the back of my mind.

"I'm good now." I said to Piper, and I meant it. Anger had given me strength and courage.

"Great, because I need your help. We're going to run out there together."

"And then what?"

"I have no idea."

"Gods, I hate it when you lead." I told her. Piper just laughed. Piper took my hand and gave it a little squeeze, just like Percy had done to keep my hopes up in Tartarus. "Come on." We ran forward, and I hoped we wouldn't hit a wall. We ended up in the room with the shrine. Piper and I ran forward as one, each slashing one of the Giant's legs. He was brought to his knees. He bellowed in pain and rage, making more chunks of stone fall from the sky.

"Weak mortals! No plan of yours can defeat me!"

"That's good!" Piper announced. "Cause I don't have a plan! Annabeth, keep our friend occupied." Then she ran towards the statue of Ares.

I stabbed the Giant in the ribs. "Oh, he's occupied." I assured Piper as Mimas screamed. I yanked my sword out of the side of the giant and rolled away from his swipe. Then I slashed down his other side, cutting a gash in his arm. I tried not to think, just fight. Just slash and stab and duck and dodge. No thinking, just reacting. That was hard for me.

"My brothers!" I heard Piper call out. "Sons of Aphrodite! I give you a sacrifice." I wasn't sure what she meant, as I was busy dodging the Giant's attacks and occasionally stabbing or slicing him as well.

"I'm terrified." I heard Piper continue. "I hate doing this, but I accept that it's necessary."

"NO!" Mimas yelled. I stumbled back, away from his hammer. Flames engulfed Piper and emotions slammed into me, one after the other. Hatred, bloodlust, fear, and strangely, love. I watched as the red fire swirled around Piper like a flame tornado, then disappeared into her skin. The statue of Ares crumbled to dust.

"Foolish girl!" The giant yelled. He ran at Piper, me following him quickly. "The Makhai have abandoned you!"

"Or maybe they've abandoned you." Piper said pointedly. Mimas raised his hammer to make a Piper-pancake, but I stabbed him through the thigh. The Giant stumbled forward and Piper calmly stabbed him in the gut. Mimas's head slammed into the nearest doorway, and the stone face of Panic fell off the wall and smacked him in the head. He made a muffled scream that ended as quickly as it began. His body went still, then turned into a giant pile of ash.

I stared at my friend. "What just happened?"

"I'm not sure." Piper admitted.

"Piper, you were amazing, but those fiery spirits you released -"

"The Makhai."

"How does that help us find the cure we're looking for?"

"I don't know. They said I could summon them when the time comes. Maybe Artemis and Apollo can explain."

The wall next to me slid into the room, breaking apart as it came down, reminding me of a glacier calving. I stumbled forward, slipping on the ichor on the floor. Gross.

"We need to get out of here!"

"I'm working on it." Piper assured me.

"And, uh, I think this ear's a spoil of war." I informed her.

"Gross."

"It would make a lovely shield." I teased her. I was glad I was able to. The fear and panic has subsided to a low simmer in my mind, not the roar they had been.

"Shut up, Chase." Then she turned to the remaining doorway. "Thank you, brothers, for helping kill the Giant. I need one more favor, an escape. And believe me, I am properly terrified. I offer this, uh, lovely severed ear as a sacrifice."

I tried not to grin at that. Piper grabbed my hand. "We're going through that doorway. If this works, we might find ourselves back on the surface?"

"And if it doesn't?" I asked it, but I didn't really want to know.

"Let's find out." Piper said, pulling me into the darkness as the temple fell apart behind me.