PERCY's brain hurt.

Honestly. He hadn't drank any water for two days. He hadn't eaten a thing for- how long had it been? Three days? Four? Besides that, he was dressed in rags, covered in dirt, and smelled like the garbage dump where he used to search for food. But seriously, Percy didn't have any energy to spare thinking about his headache now. He had to find some food in the corners of the crumbling hut he lived in, along with many other Poseidon children of Zeuopolis. The food wasn't for himself, of course. It was for his half-brother, Tyson.

"Percy?" Tyson said, his voice childish. He was a cyclops, large and oafish. The others didn't like him much; they found him loud and annoying. "Did you find food?"

Percy sighed miserably. "Not yet, Tyson. Maybe soon I'll find some."

Just as Percy crouched down low to check the cracks in the floorboards, he heard the shack door swing open.

"Get up, scum." Dylan, a burly man with a thick mustache and an unhealthy obsession with whips, barged in. Dylan was a servant of Zeus, and was in charge of Poseidon Slaves Holding Hut #8. He enjoyed dressing his best to annoy the imprisoned demigods, and often chewed pizza when he came. Fortunately, today he didn't.

"I SAID GET UP!" Dylan snapped, yanking a whip out of his belt and cracking it in the air. Percy's half-siblings got up off the floor. Percy did too, not wanting a lashing.

He glanced around him. Percy didn't often look over his cage shack, but when he did it simply depressed him. The room was small and incurably filthy, stinking with the stench of sweat. Eighteen others apart from him and Tyson crammed together, thin and dressed in rags. The youngest was an eleven-year-old girl with empty eyes, the oldest twenty-three. Percy, seventeen, was stuck in the middle. In other words, the bottom of the feeding loop.

"You!" Dylan said, and Percy jumped. Dylan's fat finger was pointed at his skinny chest.

"Me?" Percy quickly wondered what he could have done to earn Dylan's full attention.

"No, not you! The one next to you! Big guy! Get over here, now!"

Percy felt cold. Dylan meant Tyson.

"No." Percy said without thinking. "No, he can't go."

Dylan narrowed his eyes. "There's a guy out here who needs a good, strong slave. Now, one more word and I'll introduce my whip to your back."

Tyson looked at Percy. "I must go?"

"No!" Percy was crying now. He truly loved Tyson. The big guy couldn't be alone, he'd be sad. And Percy would miss him crazily.

Dylan snapped. "All right, both of ya up here!"

Tyson pulled Percy along. Dylan whistled, and a man came from outside with celestial bronze handcuffs.

"He's yours's, sir." Dylan said. The man snapped the cuffs over Tyson's hand, handed a wad of money to Dylan, and marched Tyson away.

Percy was in shock as Dylan pulled a whip out of his belt, so he didn't even realize what was happening until it was brought down. Pain flared along his back, and he yelled aloud.

Before Dylan could inflict more pain, a knock came on the door. He paused, dropped the whip, and went outside to talk with the newcomer.

Percy pressed a hand to his back. He was bleeding, but not severely. His half-siblings watched in silence, their eyes full of sympathy.

Dylan came back in, rubbing his palms together. "I have good news, filth." He told Percy. "You're being sold. Orders from the boss himself."

"Who, Zeus?" Percy asked, disbelieving.

Dylan slapped him suddenly. "Never speak his name without his title!" he screamed, spit flying from his mouth.

Percy remained silent.

A man in a suit came in and snapped handcuffs on Percy's wrists. Without any payment or any words, he nodded to Dylan and yanked Percy out of the house, to step on real earth for the first time in ten years.