Annabeth's view of the Waterland: Thrill Ride O' Love scene.
Own nothing but her thoughts!

I still couldn't imagine why a god would give us this pesky little task rather than going there himself. Then again, it was Ares and he was probably paranoid or something.

Grover, Percy and I walked towards the abandoned water park in silence. When we finally got to it, the sun was setting and it was getting dark.

Okay, the word abandoned doesn't do the state of this water park justice. It looked more along the lines of a ruin. Many of the letters on the sign had fallen off or been smashed. It was now called WAT R A D. The main gate had a rusty padlock keeping it shut. I scanned up and saw the rusty barbed wire. There were faded, dry waterslides winding around every which way and old advertisements and tickets were strewn about the concrete ground. It looked rather creepy.

"If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date, I'd hate to see what she looks like," I heard Percy speak from off to my left.

I shook my head. "Percy, be more respectful."

He looked at me incredulously, "Why? I thought you hated Ares."

"He's still a god. And his girlfriend is very temperamental."

"You don't want to insult her looks," Grover added from my right.

"Who is she? Echidna?" Percy asked referring to the mother of monsters that we fought only a short while ago.

Grover and Percy started to talk and I tuned it out. I was trying to figure out the best way to get into the park without getting tetanus or falling to our death. It was a long way down from the top. Climbing seemed to be the only option. I turned around in time to see Grover shout "Maia" and float, rather clumsily, over the fence and to the opposite side.

"You guys coming?" he asked after dusting his jeans off.

I turned to Percy and rolled my eyes. We both climbed over and he held the barbed wire for me to climb through first. He climbed through after me and we made our way down.

The sun was getting lower in the horizon and I could tell it was getting pretty late. I thanked the gods that we still had daylight.

We passed through the entirety of the park unhitched. I was gripping my celestial bronze knife as hard as I could, but nothing. No monsters, no strange noises—absolutely nothing.

We eventually came across an abandoned souvenir shop. The park owners probably forgot to empty the shelves before they left. I took another look around the shop and saw various snow globes, stationary items, postcards, and racks of clothes. Fresh clothes.

Percy looked at me and I realized I had just said this aloud. "Yeah, but you can't just—"

I scoffed. "Watch me."

I immediately took almost the entire rack of clothes off the racks and headed for the changing room. Unfortunately, most of the stuff I grabbed wasn't in my size or my gender. It was also rather ugly looking, but no matter. They were clean clothes and I wasn't about to let that opportunity slip by.

I got dressed and put more clothes into a Waterland backpack that I had also stolen.

I came out of the changing room and saw Percy and Grover gaping at me. Grover shrugged. "What the heck."

At that, both boys went and changed. I had to resist the urge to bust out laughing at them.

We set out in search of the Tunnel of Love after we all became walking advertisements. We searched in silence for a while until Percy broke it. "So Ares and Aphrodite, they have a thing going?"

"That's old gossip, Percy. Three-thousand-year-old gossip." I scoffed patronizingly.

"What about Aphrodite's husband?"

Obviously this boy hadn't studied his mythology. "Well, you know. Hephaestus. The blacksmith. He was crippled when he was a baby, thrown off Mount Olympus by Zeus. So he isn't exactly handsome. Clever with his hands, and all, but Aphrodite isn't into brains and talent, you know?"

"She likes bikers."

He is literally the dumbest person I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. "Whatever."

"Hephaestus knows?"

Yep. Idiot. "Oh sure. He caught them together once. I mean, literally caught them. In a golden net, and invited all the gods to come and laugh at them. Hephaestus is always trying to embarrass them. That's why they meet in out-of-the-way places, like..." I trailed off after having seen it. It was huge. "Like that."

Around the rim, bronze painted cupid statues stood at the ready. The sign above read: THRILL RIDE O' LOVE: THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS' TUNNEL OF LOVE! At least, according to Grover who, having lived with dyslexic Demi-gods, had become accustomed to read things aloud.

I watched as Grover walked towards the edge. "Guys, look."

In the middle of the pool, there was a pink-and-white two-seater boat with a canopy over the top. Little hot-pink hearts were painted all over it. It was disgusting. In the left seat of the boat was a polished circle of silver gleaming in the light of the sunset; Ares's shield.

"This is too easy. So we just walk down there and get it?"

I walked away and sighed. He is so... Dumb.

Then I saw it. At the base of one of the statues, there was a Greek letter carved into it. Eta. Could this be a trap? But who would want to trap two gods? I wonder...

Apparently, I had been thinking aloud again as Percy promptly asked Grover if there were any monsters. I've got to stop that.

"Nothing," replied Grover.

"Nothing—like, in-the-arch-and-you-didn't-smell-Echidna nothing, or really nothing?"

Oh, that was low. Grover looked really hurt. "I told you, that was underground."

"Okay, I'm sorry. I'm going down there."

I scoffed internally; Always has to be the Hero, does he?

"I'll go with you." Grover obviously didn't want to go. I'm pretty sure he was just trying to make up for his failure at the Arch.

"No," Ok, maybe if I kept quiet, he won't ask me to go with him. It would be really awkward going into the Tunnel of Love with a guy. Especially A guy that I find a bit attractive.

Wait... Did I actually just think that? I felt my cheeks redden a bit and prayed to the gods that they couldn't see it. I mean, I liked Luke. Luke was perfect. We were a perfect family together. How could I like someone that wasn't even a part of our family?

I sighed as I remembered the first time I ever met Luke and Thalia. The day I got my knife; the day we became a family...

The sound of Percy saying my name broke me out of my reverie. "Annabeth, come with me—"

"Are you kidding?" he had to be kidding me. There was no way he actually thought that I would go inside the 'Thrill Ride of Love' with him.

"What's the problem now?" He sounded annoyed.

"Me, go with you to the... the 'Thrill Ride of Love'? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?" No way! I wouldn't!

"Who's going to see you?" He reasoned, his face going red too. He had a point. There was no one here that would see us. Luke didn't have to know.

I sighed. I think he took it the way I meant it. "Fine," he told me. "I'll do it myself."

He started off down into the pool, and I followed. How can boys be so stupid? They really don't understand anything.

When we reached the boat, I saw a pink, silk, scarf. It was obviously Aphrodite's. It probably had some kind of magic perfume on it. I looked at our surroundings carefully avoiding Percy's eyes. There were a whole bunch of mirrors facing the boat. Of course; Ares and Aphrodite would want to look at themselves while they—

I blushed shooing the thought away.

While my back was turned, Percy had picked up the scarf and was about to rub it against his face. He had a dream-like smile on his face. I was right, as always. Love potion. I snatched it away just in time. "Oh, no you don't. Stay away from that love magic."

"What?" he asked as I slipped it into my pocket.

I rolled my eyes. It was obvious, wasn't it? With that love potion, he would have fallen in love with the first person he saw—which would have been me. I could not have that happen. "Just get the shield, Seaweed Brain, and let's get out of here."

He reached for the shield and I went back to examining the area. On the side of the boat, there was another Eta. "Wait."

I heard Percy's voice but didn't register what he had said.

"There's another Greek letter on the side of the boat, another Eta. This is a trap."

At that precise moment, as if on cue, loud noises erupted from all angles. It sounded as though a million gears were grinding.

"Guys!" That was Grover. What was going on up there?

The statues I was looking at earlier turned and drew their bows. I almost yelled out for Percy to duck when I realized they were firing at each other. String-like cables trailed from the end of each arrow, arcing over the pool forming a net.

"We have to get out!"

He is such a dolt. "Duh!"

He grabbed the shield and started running up the steep slope; it wasn't as easy as it was coming down.

"Come one!" I heard Grover shout. I could see that he was trying to hold open the net for us but it kept wrapping his hands up.

Some of the miniature Cupids' heads popped open revealing video cameras. Spotlights came out of nowhere and a voice boomed: "Live to Olympus in one minute... Fifty-nine seconds, fifty-eight..."

"Hephaestus!" I realized, thinking aloud again. "I'm so stupid! Eta is 'H.' He made this trap to catch his wife with Ares. Now we're going to be broadcast live to Olympus and look like absolute fools!"

We kept running and almost made it to the top when the mirrors up top opened and thousands of tiny metallic bugs poured out. No... Not bugs...

"Spider! Sp—sp—aaah!" I screamed. This can't be happening. This can not be happening. They're coming for me. All of them! I have to hide! I have to get out! They're coming for me!

I fainted. I couldn't do anything other than scream. I couldn't make a comprehensible thought. I could only feel, and what I felt wasn't pleasant. I felt like the spiders were crawling all over my body.

I felt myself being dragged towards the boat. I climbed in, blindly. I knew that Percy would help me. My thoughts came back momentarily because I couldn't feel them on me anymore. I looked around and saw that we were in a sea of mechanical spiders. I fainted again.

When I came to, I found myself on the boat, fastened in. I felt my face and I was wet. Why was I wet? Then I remembered being splashed with water. The spiders were gone, thank the gods. Percy must've made the water flow out of the pipes.

Great. Now Percy and I were actually riding the thing.

Then I realized that we were riding it. And we weren't dying. Percy must have control over the boat. Nifty.

I could feel the spotlights on us and saw that the Cupid-cams were on. I resisted the urge to smile and wave patronizingly.

We were pulled sharply to the left, and I was glad that Percy had strapped me in. We swerved left, right, left again, right again, past a whole bunch of lovey-dovey junk. Had the ride been in working order and we weren't facing death, I probably would've been embarrassed.

"Unfasten your seat belt," Percy's voice broke into my thoughts.

"Are you crazy?"

"Unless you want to get smashed to death. We're going to have to jump for it." He strapped the shield to his arm.

I could see where he was going with it, but it was crazy. I grabbed his hand. We had to do this and get out alive. Grover was counting on us; the camp was counting on us.

He managed a confident smile. "On my mark."

"No! On my mark!" He would get us killed, the idiot.

"What?"

I sighed. "Simple physics! Force times the trajectory angle—"

"Fine!" he interrupted. "On your mark!"

I waited. Almost... There... "Now!"

I did it! We were thrown upwards. Unfortunately, it was just a bit too much. We started to fall towards the concrete. This is the end, isn't it?

"Ouch!" Something had grabbed me by the arm. I looked over and saw Grover. He was using his flying shoes to stop us midair. Yes! Go Grover!

"You're too heavy! We're going down!"

We plummeted. Hope, diminished.

We smashed into a photo-board. Percy and I kept rolling until we hit the ground. I stayed on the ground until I caught my breath and when I stood, I saw that the Cupid-cams were still rolling.

As if on cue, Percy shouted: "Shows over! Thank you! Good night!" and the cameras shut off leaving us in a dark, abandoned water park.

I sighed. I couldn't believe that a few minutes ago, I had been worrying about petty things like going into a 'Tunnel of Love' with Percy. I shook my head and looked at the two of them. Grover and I caught eyes, and we had a silent conversation:

You okay?

Yeah, you?

Mhmm...

I'm glad.

Me too.

Percy didn't notice the little exchange. He was obviously in deep thought. He looked pretty angry. I mean, so was I, but his was more like fury. "We need to have a little talk with Ares." He said.

Oh dear.

Yay! Another update! I have to admit, I kind of really liked writing this one :) It was really fun :)

Anyways, leave a review and let me know what you think! I love feedback!

Also, if you'd like to see another section from the books in her perspective, any section at all, tell me which book and which scene please, and I'd be happy to oblige! :)