"Percy. Percy! Come on, man, let's talk about this!"

Luke placed a hand on my shoulder, trying to get me to turn and face him, but I shrugged him off and continued angrily marching down the hall. "There's nothing to talk about," I said calmly. "I'm not doing it."

"But you have to!" Luke said desperately. "Or—or—"

"Or what?" I demanded, spinning to face him. "You gonna kill me?"

Luke winced, looking hurt. "What—"

"I overheard you and Kronos talking last night," I told him. His eyes widened, and I could see the shock behind them. Maybe because he knew he'd never convince me to go along with this. "He said if I don't pass this test, you'll have to kill me. Isn't that right?"

He pursed his lips. "Percy—"

"Well, that's fine," I said, whirling around and resuming my pace. "Because I'd rather die than become a murderer."

I meant it, too. Killing a mortal for no freaking reason? Had Luke completely lost it? That sounded exactly like something the gods would do, and we were supposed to be trying to prove ourselves better than them. I brought out my keycard from my pocket and held it against the lock on my door. It clicked, and I stormed into my room. Luke made to follow me, but I shoved him back angrily.

"Percy, the titan lord has trust issues," he said. "You would too if your own sons chopped you up into a million pieces and threw you into the land of eternal torture. He just needs to confirm that you have the resolve—"

"Sorry, I didn't realize I was getting initiated into some stupid street gang," I spat, and slammed the door in his face, locking it.

I leaned on the kitchen counter, my arms spread wide and clutching the sides so hard my knuckles turned white. I tried to sort through all of the thoughts and emotions rushing through my head, but it was hard with Luke calling my name and banging on the door every two seconds. After a brief moment, the noise died down, and I figured he'd given up and left, but then I heard some tinkering sounds on the handle. Before I could react, the door flew open, and I rolled my eyes. Leave it to a child of Hermes to break a state-of-the-art lock in seconds.

Luke entered, and when he saw me, his eyes narrowed, as if wary that I'd walk away again. "We're having a conversation about this," he said.

"No." I began raiding the kitchen, pulling out cans of food from the pantry and bottles of water from the fridge and placing them on the countertop.

"Lord Kronos said, 'a mortal of your choosing'. It could be literally anyone. A death-row convict, a murderer, one of those people that take up the whole aisle in grocery stores."

"I don't care." I moved to the bedroom, going through my strange assortment of chinos and button-downs and tossing whatever looked good into a backpack I found in the closet. I tried to get back into the kitchen, but Luke blocked the doorway.

"Isn't there anyone you can think of that deserves to die?" he asked. "Hell, I could probably name a few. Just turn on the news and I'm sure you'll find a worthy scumbag in minutes!"

I glared at him. "It's not about whether I think they deserve to die or not. That's not for me to decide. There's a whole judicial system in place that'll put them where they belong."

Luke raised an eyebrow. "And what if that system fails, and that asshole escapes justice?" I remained silent, waiting for him to get to the point. He sighed. "Percy, what is it that you think we're doing here? For millennia, the gods have refused to pay the price for their crimes. They've spread misery, and pain, and death, and now we have the opportunity to do something about it. Lord Kronos wants to see if you have the determination to make that happen. If you can't find it in you to bring justice to a mortal, how will you ever be able to do the same to a god?"

Luke paused to let his question sink in. I stared at him, chewing it over. There was just no way that was a fair comparison, it couldn't have been. Shouldn't gods be held to a higher standard than mortals?

"There's a difference between justice and murder," I decided, shoving my way underneath his arm.

I scooped the food supplies I had set out into my bag and zipped it shut. I slung it over my shoulder, gave Luke one last sideways glance, and made for the door.

"No. No, no no," Luke muttered, his voice increasing in volume as he followed me. "Don't you dare turn your back on me, Percy! I'm the only family you've got left, remember? You don't turn your back on family!"

I gritted my teeth as I walked down the hall. As if I needed to be reminded that my mom was gone. I pushed open the door that led to the side of the ship, feeling the crisp ocean breeze rush through my hair. Luke tried to grab me, but I shouldered him away. I climbed up onto the railing and looked down, feeling slightly nauseous. It wasn't nearly as big a drop as the Gateway Arch was, but still, I wasn't too good with heights.

I made the mistake of looking back at Luke. He stood stock still, his face a portrait of anger, betrayal, desperation, but most of all: fear. For a moment, I felt bad. He'd seemed so happy yesterday when I'd agreed to go with him. And now, here I was, leaving him all alone once more. I screwed my eyes shut and turned away.

"Goodbye, Luke," I said, a lump in my throat. Then I jumped.

Thankfully, it was storming in the city when I got there, so no one was around to see me emerge from the ocean with a fully-stocked backpack like an Atlantean on vacation. I landed in The Battery, down on the southern tip of Manhattan. I might have been able to see the Statue of Liberty behind me if it hadn't been raining so hard.

As I stared up at the skyscrapers before me, I started to question if coming here was a good idea. New York was home for me, so it just felt like the natural place to go. But the storm overhead seemed to be spiraling around the Empire State Building, and I was distinctly reminded that this was also the home of the gods. I wondered how many spies they had walking around the city.

The water raged behind me, slamming into the concrete barrier and spraying me with mist. Lightning touched down somewhere in the harbor and rattled the coastlines.

See, there was this Great Prophecy that I'd heard little bits about from Annabeth and Chiron that would supposedly determine the fate of Olympus. I didn't know what it said, but as near as I could figure, it involved me somehow. I knew from my Ancient Greek lessons just how controlling the gods were when it came to their future, so I was guessing they weren't too happy about my being unaccounted for at camp.

I decided it would probably be best to get out of view of the sky. I'd nearly been struck by lightning twice this summer, and I was not too keen on trying my luck a third time. I took cover in the alleyways between the highrises, where only a sliver of grey could be seen above me.

For the better part of the day, I wandered around aimlessly, just trying to get my head on straight. The longer I did, the more I realized just how deep a hole I'd dug myself into. I had a few changes of clothing and about a week's worth of food in my bag. No money. Nowhere to go. I saw visions of myself five years from now, living in a cardboard box on the side of the road, beard unkempt, performing little magic tricks with water for food.

The storm never let up. Water flowed in streams down the streets into storm drains. I'd never seen Manhattan flood before, but I was wondering if the sewers would be able to handle this much intake. Mortals stuck their heads out their windows and looked up at the sky, probably wondering why the storm hadn't passed yet. It was like the freak weather from the beginning of the summer had returned with a vengeance.

As I walked down a side road somewhere off of 72nd St., I began to hear voices from a nearby alleyway. My first thought was monsters, since most mortals with any sense would be inside right now. But when I turned the corner, I saw three drenched teenagers laughing their asses off at something further down the alley, their backs to me. As I got closer, I saw one of them pick up a piece of garbage and toss it at a cardboard box. His two friends guffawed.

While throwing trash at more trash in the rain wasn't exactly my idea of fun, I figured these guys weren't actually hurting anyone, and decided to leave them be. That was, at least, until the box started moving. One of the kids picked up a glass bottle and chucked it at the side where it bounced off and shattered on the ground. I heard a whimper from someone within the cardboard.

"Come on out, freak!" one of the guys said.

"Yeah, show us your retard strength!" said his buddy.

"Yeah!" said the third.

I felt my blood start to boil in my veins. I'd dealt with plenty of bullies throughout my seven years of education, and these guys were your textbook classroom cronies who only picked on people that wouldn't fight back. Unfortunately for them, they had unwittingly stumbled upon a very pissed off demigod who just completed months of hero training and had nothing to lose. I wondered what Kronos would think if I brought him three heads instead of one.

"Hey!" I called. The three of them spun, a momentary expression of shock on their faces, like they didn't expect anyone else to be out and about right now. "You think that's funny?" I asked.

From the looks of it, they were all a couple years older than me. The biggest looked like he was almost six feet tall, but then again, I'd killed an 8-foot tall half-ton Minotaur, so size wasn't everything. When they saw I was alone, their looks of surprise morphed into predatory grins.

"Yeah, I do," said the first guy matter-of-factly.

"It's freakin' hilarious!" said his buddy.

"Yeah!" said the third.

From behind them, I could see a head poking out of the box, staring at us inquisitively, but when we made eye contact, he ducked back into safety. I guessed I was on my own for this.

The bullies surrounded me. The big one stooped down and picked up a rotting apple core off the ground. My nose scrunched up as he held it out to me. "Here, you try."

I glared at the kid for a moment until his two goons shuffled a little closer. Reluctantly, I took the proffered apple, cringing at how slimy it felt. The bully grinned and stepped to the side, holding out his hand invitingly towards the box.

I stepped forward, took aim, and whipped it right into the side of the bully's head. He gasped in surprise, stumbled into the wall, and tripped into a pile of trash. The other two guys each grabbed one of my arms, but I headbutted the guy to my right and he let go, allowing me to punch the dude on my left in the gut.

They backed off for a second, clearly not used to their victims fighting back, but they recovered from their shock quickly enough. The three of them descended on me, punching and kicking and pulling on my shirt. I got a few good hits in, but there was just no way I could take on three of them at the same time.

Soon enough, I found myself being restrained by Uglies #2 and #3 while the big guy went to town on my face. I heard my nose crack. My lip split against my teeth, and I could feel something loosen in my jaw. I dared a glance toward the box. The guy's head was sticking out further this time, and I realized he was just a kid about my age, and it suddenly made sense why he was so frightened of these guys.

The blows kept coming. I didn't know why. I had already clearly lost. No backup was coming in the foreseeable future. And I knew at this rate, I'd be turned into a vegetable by the time these guys let up. I had to fall back to my last resort.

I felt a familiar tug in my gut, could hear the sound of the rain hitting the ground, the water flowing down the gutters of the buildings. With a cry, I swept the three bullies off their feet in a tidal wave of trash and street water. It may have been heavily polluted, but I could still feel it going to work on my injuries, closing them up and snapping my nose back into place.

My attackers were now sprawled out on the sidewalk, sputtering and gasping. One of them opened their mouth and spat out a soggy wad of chewed bubble gum that I was 99% sure he wasn't chewing before.

I stepped out of the alleyway and glowered at them. When they saw me, their eyes widened.

"A—another freak!"

"Let's get out of here!"

"Yeah!"

I was feeling pretty good about myself as I watched them scamper away, but then the full weight of what I had just done hit me. Those three kids were about to go screaming through the city about how some freak of nature had just blasted them with telekinetic water abilities. I figured I had about 10 minutes before every monster in Manhattan was after me. Or worse, the gods.

Not good. And there was also that kid in the cardboard box, too. Mortal or not, it wouldn't be safe for him to stay here with all the activity this place was about to get.

I turned to look back down the alleyway and blinked in surprise. The kid had come out of his box, and he was even bigger than the guy who'd just been whaling on me. He was kind of brutish looking, with a misshapen face and crooked teeth. I realized he must have seen me controlling the water, because he looked at me with an awed expression on his face.

"Oh, hey," I called out to him. "What you just saw there… it wasn't—"

"You are a son of Poseidon?"

I recoiled, eyes wide. How did he—

And then I looked at him. I mean really looked at him. When I focused on his eyes, his image shimmered, and I saw that there was really only one eye, smack dab in the middle of his face. He was a Cyclops, and by the looks of it, he must have been a baby.

I took a hesitant step forward. I had heard that Cyclopes were powerful, deceitful creatures that dined on human flesh, but this one seemed so innocent that I just couldn't be afraid of him.

I approached him slowly, not wanting to scare him off. "I'm Percy," I said. "What's your name?"

"I am Tyson." Tyson frowned, his one huge eyebrow furrowing. "But you are a son of Poseidon?" he asked again.

He spoke slowly, enunciating every syllable like he was unused to speaking. Or maybe he was still learning.

"Um… yeah, big guy. My father is Poseidon." My face involuntarily morphed into a scowl.

Tyson's, however, lit up with delight. "Then we are brothers!" He clapped his hands together so loudly I could hear it over the rolling thunder.

"B-brothers?" I stuttered. "Wait a minute. You mean—"

He giggled happily. You'd think the kid had just won the lottery. "Father Poseidon has sent me a brother!"

That was one of the things I had forgotten about Cyclopes. Most of them were children of Poseidon. Apparently, my dad had gotten all moony-eyed over a nature spirit, and Tyson had been the result.

My eyes drifted from Tyson's grimy size-twenty sneakers, tattered jeans, and hole-ridden flannel to his dilapidated cardboard box, which was beginning to collapse on itself from the rain. I wondered how often those teenagers picked on him, and just how many monsters he must've had to deal with living out on the streets. Here was another child of the gods, abandoned and left to fend for themselves in the gutter. Even if he technically was a monster, it was still a pretty cruel thing to do to your kid.

My eyes hardened. I cursed under my breath, knowing what I had to do. "Say, Tyson. How would you like to sleep in a real bed tonight?"

He looked at me in shock, his big eye glistening. "Really?" he asked. "Yes! Yes, please!"

I smiled at his giddiness. "Good, there's just one thing I need to do first. Follow me."

It was time to pay my step-father a visit.