A/N: Did you like that cliffie? You guys must've hated me for keeping you waiting so long, especially with such a disturbing image. This one will definitely live up to your speculations, I think. Is it bad that I'm feeling extremely creeped out, and I'm the one writing it? As always, reviews are greatly appreciated, even if you call me the most messed up psycho ever. Seriously.

Double Cross

VI Percy

December 15

"We're going to start off slow, okay?" Katherine said with a sneer on her face, her voice sickeningly sweet.

Percy glared. Why was he putting up with this? He could easily escape her, he thought. They were alone, and she was tiny.

"That's disgusting, you know." His voice was nonchalant as he nodded his head towards the blood tank. While it wasn't as big as he had originally thought, it was still repulsively large—at least the size of a Smart Car.

She turned to look up at the tank, her smile growing even wider. Good, he thought, she's distracted. He took a quiet step or two in her direction.

"It's only partially human blood. We had to supplement it with animals. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to collect blood from someone who's dying?" He kept inching closer. Only two feet separated them.

"Hard, I bet. How many people did it take?" He was revolted by his own words, but it was essential that they remain on a topic she would find interesting.

"Oh, around—"

Her words cut off sharply as Percy grabbed her wrists and clenched his other arm around her throat, making breathing impossible for her.

He didn't waste time bragging. "Where's the closest exit?"

Katherine stayed silent, trying and failing to break free. He twisted her wrists painfully and pushed his arm harder across her airway.

She let out a strangled gasp. "Two rights, then straight."

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"Don't—telling truth—" she choked.

"You better be," he growled, and slammed her head against the nearest hard object he could find. She shrieked, and he released her, sprinting for the door—

"Katadesmos!"

A blinding pain hit Percy and he crumpled to the floor convulsing. He wasn't sure if he screamed or not; he was too much in shock to register anything.

Katherine muttered something, and the burning stopped. He lay on the ground, gasping for breath as he recovered. She slowly walked over to him with an ugly grimace on her face and an equally nasty bruise forming on her pale forehead. He held his breath and concentrated on the sound of her combat boots on the dirt floor.

"You idiot," she snarled, landing a kick in his ribcage. It didn't hurt him, but it was still degrading. She leaned down to whisper in his ear. "You've only made it worse for yourself."

He tried to kick her legs out from under her, but his limbs felt like they were encased in wet cement. Whatever magic she was using made any movement impossible. So much for his brilliant plan. Annabeth would be so—oh, gods. Annabeth. She'd be freaking out. How many days had he been down here? Two, he thought. It felt like so much longer…

His thoughts were abruptly cut off when Katherine dragged him over to the blood tank—he tried to make it as difficult for her as possible, but he couldn't do much without moving—and forced him to kneel with his head right over the blood. The stench hit him strongly, and it might have been one of the most disgusting things he'd ever smelled in his life. He gagged at the thought of how many people must have died to produce this much gore.

Without warning, Katherine shoved his head down into the crimson liquid, breaking the sticky film on the surface. He couldn't help it; he gasped and the blood gushed into his mouth and up his nose. It was like the Styx all over again, because he couldn't breathe, except that this was a lot more repulsive. He choked and tried to forget the horrible fact that he was submerged in blood. He tried to struggle, but found that he still couldn't move. His mouth opened in a silent, horrified scream, and he barely noticed that even more blood entered his mouth.

Finally, finally, Katherine pulled him out by his hair and held him so that his head was arched back to look at her. He gasped and shuddered as blood ran down his throat, making him want to gag again, and poured down his chest and back in little streams.

"Did you like that?" she asked with that horribly familiar grin on her face.

"Has anyone ever told you," he panted, his voice coming out thick and croaky, "that you're psychotic?"

His head splashed back down into the tank, spraying Katherine with tiny droplets of gore. Not that she would care, anyway. She probably had blood with her cereal instead of milk.

He tried to focus on anything other than what was happening. If he closed his mouth and held his breath, he could almost pretend that this was red Kool-aid. He thought about his mom's blue cookies, the last basketball game he saw, even the burning of his lungs as they screamed for oxygen. His dream from last night kept running through his head, and he latched onto it desperately.

Annabeth was standing at the head of the rec room's ping pong table, some kind of enormous map spread out in front of her. Looking over her shoulder, he saw hundreds of tiny stars and X's scattered over North America. Most of the X's were in the Northeast, he noticed.

"Grover, you said you had some satyrs looking in Quebec, the Midwest, and… sorry, where else?"

Percy looked up from the map and realized for the first time that all the cabin leaders, minus himself, were also gathered around the table. Katie Gardner and Clarisse looked like they were arguing about something, but he couldn't hear—

He felt stale air blow across the wet, sticky liquid covering him and gasped wildly, drawing in an enormous breath while he could. Everything seemed a little blurred, or maybe it was because of the blood dripping in his eyes. His head pounded, and he couldn't hear what Katherine said. All he knew was that suddenly he was moving, and his head, neck and shoulders were once again submerged in gore.

"Most of the East coast cities. If they don't find him there, though, I told them to start looking in more remote areas," Grover said, pointing out different places on the map.

Annabeth nodded. "Has anyone heard anything yet? Any clues?"

"Nothing," Connor Stoll sighed. "Besides, if he's gonna contact anyone, it'll be you."

She rested her elbows on the table, massaging her temples with her eyes squeezed shut. "I know. And the Hunters haven't found anything either. I talked to Thalia this morning."

Katherine yanked his head out of the tank again. He choked and spluttered as blood trickled down into his mouth. His head was spinning. He didn't bother to open his eyes this time.

"Nothing to say, Percy?" She cackled when a groan slipped from his blood-coated lips. "Back in we go, then."

He saw Drew, the new Aphrodite counselor, nudge Katie and whisper, "This is so tragic. It's adorable."

Katie fixed her with a glare and turned back to consider the map.

"What about Triton, Poseidon's heir? Have they met?" Pollux suggested. Annabeth looked at him with a thoughtful expression.

"It's definitely a possibility. Percy"—she said his name with effort and moved on hastily—"said something about it the week before the last battle, I think. Although I don't think Poseidon would like it very much if his sons started kidnapping each other."

He wanted to scream at them all. No! he thought, I'm right here. It's Gaea! But they wouldn't hear him, of course. He wasn't there, physically anyway.

His head broke the surface again, and he gasped and shuddered. He may have gagged, or even choked up some blood. He was barely conscious anymore. As soon as he plunged back into the tank, he plunged back into last night's dream, where he could pretend that he was with everyone back at camp. Except for the fact that they were searching for him.

"Oceanus, maybe?" said Clarisse. "He could want revenge for losing the war against Poseidon."

Grover nodded. "Those are both good suggestions… except that we have no way of acting on them. Percy's the only one who could ever survive those kinds of conditions to rescue someone. And since he's the one missing…"

Will Solace sighed and tilted back in his chair. "Percy has way too many enemies to even consider all of them. Hades, he's probably ticked off every single immortal that's ever existed."

Annabeth tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace. "I know, and that's half the problem." She sighed and glanced up at the clock. "You guys should get some sleep. We'll continue this in the morning. Same time as today."

It took him a while to realize that he wasn't in the tank anymore. He coughed some of the blood out of his lungs, but they still burned. His eyes slowly opened, and everything was blurry and tinged with red.

"I wish I could keep going." Katherine's voice was nonchalant, like she hadn't just been dunking someone in a giant vat of human blood. The sound echoed in his ears dizzily. "But Gaea wouldn't be happy if you died. At least I get you tomorrow, though. I've got something special planned…"

He lay on the floor, relishing the feeling of oxygen moving in and out of his airways again. The door of the torture chamber opened with a grinding noise, and someone—no, two people picked him up by the arms. He vaguely noticed them half-dragging him back to his cell, which meant safety, ironically. He tried to move his feet a little, but ended up just stumbling.

It was almost a relief to collapse on the thin blankets on the floor of the tiny prison cell. Violent shudders rocked through his body. He could feel himself slipping into unconsciousness, and he welcomed it. As everything faded to black, the last part of his dream ran through his head.

Grover sat down next to Annabeth, who was hunched over on the front steps of the Big House. The night was dark and still; only the two of them were awake.

"You okay?" Grover asked quietly, resting a hand lightly on Annabeth's shoulder. She jumped a little and quickly wiped at her eyes.

"Yeah. I just— I'm— I don't know—"

"It's okay. I'm scared, too. We're going to find him, though. I promise. We'll be able to tell if something… serious happens, thanks to my empathy link, and everyone is searching for him, thanks to your brilliant planning."

She gave him a shaky smile. Percy noticed how worn down she looked. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her shoulders were slumped.

"I know we'll find him," she murmured. "We have to."