The Manhattan streets were always havoc, but Percy thought that during this time of day, they were especially so.
Cars lined up behind one another, unable to even go forward another two inches. You had that, and then the occasional pedestrian running across the yellow-lined asphalt through the cracks between vehicles and every few bikes and motorcycles weaving theirselves between said spaces. The sun shined a bit too brightly, the air a little too hot, and before you knew it, everyone in the traffic was a raging mess.
Percy didn't know where Manhattan hid it's beauty. It wasn't in it's night skies, with air so polluted you couldn't see a single star. It also wasn't in the mornings, with the top canvas of the heavens gray and cloudy and, if especially unlucky, raining down on the people below it. The scene in front of him was proof that it wasn't in it's middays, but Percy knew it was somewhere.
"Detention?" Grover asked, when Percy wordlessly took a seat next to him on the fountain's edge. It wasn't anything special, just a pool of water in a shining marble case, the nozzle that's supposed to enable water to shoot upward apparently sealed off.
He shook his head, hand going into his lunch box and coming back with an apple. It was shiny and red, only the corners nursing a bit of green.
Percy's eyes found his best friend, who sat rather glumly beside him. The start of a beard mangled with his mouth, usually pulled into a nervous smile. His legs twitched every so often, cap pulled loosely on his head so that a few curly brown tufts protruded at the ends. He looked so crestfallen, Percy gave him the apple.
"Nah," he replied, somewhat cheering up as Grover took the apple gratefully. "Not from Brunner." He let the words sink in with a sigh. "I just wish he'd lay off of me sometimes. I mean-" he faltered. "I'm not a genius."
Grover hummed, biting down on his apple. Percy imagined the crunch could be heard all the way to his mom's apartment, deeper in the city. The thought gave him a bit more cheer, but he really hated field trips.
It wasn't long before Nancy came over with a group of friends. Percy looked up, sea-green eyes cautiously observing their visitors. Her freckled face was pulled into a devious grin, orange hair sprawling around her head and glowing gently in the setting sun's rays like some strange halo. It was almost ironic.
She proceeded to drop her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap, the other preppy girls behind her giggling like maniacs. The sound reverberated around Percy's head. "Oops," she chirped, displaying her crooked yellow teeth proudly.
Percy didn't know what it was. His ADHD made the world go fuzzy for a moment, ears supplying the sound off crackling thunder. His eyes faltered, blacking out temporarily as the fountain exploded into waves. He faintly felt water collide into him like a cool gust of air, the smell of lighting and fresh earth evading his nostrils. Everything stopped for a few moments, moments precious to time but blocked out.
When his vision came back, the fountain was gone. Percy was sprawled out on his back, Grover a few paces behind him. The only remains of the structure was a spurt of focused water and dusted marble. His eyes widened as he stood, taking up the full extent of the sight in front of him.
Deep running cracks were embedded into the cement, rich soil spilling out. A storm suddenly rumbled overhead, flashes of lightning whipping out across the gathering clouds. Percy stumbled to the wreckage, breath catching in his throat as he saw what remained of Nancy Bobofit.
They sat alone in an otherwise empty table, secluded from all the other kids. Percy couldn't really bring himself to care much when Grover was his best friend, but he also had more troubling matters on his mind.
It had been two weeks since his "dream," as everyone but him liked to call it. It went on even farther a stretch to say that Nancy Bobofit, a bully that he had know since joining Yancy Academy, was part of that hallucination- as well as Percy's killing her. He inwardly shuddered at the reminder of her burned corpse, placing the fork that had made it halfway to his mouth back on the tray.
Maybe it was better if those memories stayed a dream.
Grover watched him sympathetically. He was one of the only ones that actually tolerated Percy now, which was nice, but didn't do much for his self-esteem. He remembered when he had to explain why he had woken up half the school with feverish screaming, and the account of his dream only brought doubt to Mr Brunner's eyes. Nobody bought it, chalking it up to another long lists of his hallucinations, wisps of reality that weren't real.
He really was troubled; more troubled than he thought a dyslexic ADHD kid could be if said kid randomly remembered people no one else did. Or, for that matter, days. The trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art apparently never happened.
He sighed, picking up his fork and shoving it into his mouth. The cold equivalent of what the staff thought passed as mashed potatoes clashed distastefully on his tongue, leaving a bad aftertaste. Percy felt his nose scrunch up involuntarily.
Grove spoke, grabbing both of their trays. "Look at the bright side," he told Percy, dumping their food into the nearby trash can. "School ends in a week." He smiled; leave it to Grover to raise his spirits up for a moment.
"Yeah," he answered, just as the school bells began ringing through the Academy's halls, and that was that.
Percy was sitting on a slowly decaying seat on the bus, steadily rumbling towards the cab that would take him home. The inside had that leftover trace of cigarette smoke drifting in the air, the windows so covered in fingerprints and smudges that it was impossible to see through. He didn't necessarily know if that was a bad thing.
Grover sat beside him, the epitome of nervous. His hands kept anxiously tucking in escaping wisps of hair into his cap or fiddling with the end of his shirt, biting his bottom lip and kicking his feet back and forth so hard the seat in front of them shuddered. Percy was somewhat thankful that no one sat in front of them to be victim for his friend's sudden show of ADHD.
He himself was a bit nervous, but it was that exited kind of nervousness that left you half-pumped with adrenaline and an aching stomach. Grover looked like he was going to be sick.
"Looking for Kindly Ones?" He finally blurted. Grover's head whipped back to face him so fast it made Percy kind of dizzy.
"Wha- what do you mean?" Percy narrowed his eyes.
"You and Mr Brunner... I heard you guys. The night before the exam. Talking about me."
Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"
"Oh, not much." He turned to the blurred window. "What's the summer solstice deadline?"
He winced, something that Percy could feel on the chair that they shared. "Look, Percy," he took a deep breath, voice shaking. "I was just worried about you. I mean, weird super powers and-"
"Grover-"
He cut Percy off. "-And I was telling Mr Brunner that maybe you were over-stressed or something, because there was no such person as Nancy Bobofit, and..." He trailed off with a shrug.
Percy sighed, facing him. "Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."
He could see his best friend's ears turn bright pink under his hat. From his stained shirt pocket, he managed to fish out a grubby business card. He forced it in Percy's hands.
It was all in fancy script, taking Percy a few years to finally read what it said. "Grover, what's Half-Blood-"
He shrieked. "Don't say it out loud!" In a much calmer voice, he continued. "It's my, um, summer address." Something in the admittance made Percy's heart sink.
"Oh, okay," he replied, voice hollow. "So, like, if I wanted to come visit your mansion."
Grover nodded. "Or if you need me."
The next words came out harsher than he meant them to. "Why would I need you?" Grover's face flushed, and he looked down, twiddling with his thumbs.
"Look, Percy, the truth is," another deep breath. "I kind of have to protect you."
Percy raised his eyebrows at that, staring at his best friend with wide sea-green eyes. "Grover..." He paused, considering his next words. "What exactly are you protecting me from?"
As if on cue, a huge grinding noise sounded under their feet, the Greyhound shaking. The gentle scent of cigars turned sour, black smoke pouring from the dashboard as the driver steered the bus over to the sidewalk. After a few moments, everyone filed outside.
The bus had stopped at a barren stretch of country road, maple trees and patches of litter taking up long fields of grass. On the other side of the road was a stocked-up fruit stand.
It was filled with heaping boxes of blood red cherries and plumb apples, fresh apricot and walnuts, and jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub of ice. The smell wafted over to the bus's side of the road, along with the sound of needles clacking.
It came from the owners of the stand, three old ladies knitting giant socks. The scene was slightly hilarious; the ladies on the right and left knitted a pair of socks that could fit a giant while the woman in the middle held their electric-blue yarn. It also seemed kind of... familiar, three pairs of daunting old eyes staring right at him.
Percy turned to say something to Grover, faltering when he caught sight of his best friend. Grover looked terrified, the blood drained from his face.
"Grover?" His nose was twitching. "Hey, man-"
He was interrupted by Grover's quivering voice. "Tell me they're not looking at you." He turned his wide eyes to Percy. "They are, aren't they?"
"Yeah. Weird, huh?" He aimed a smile at his best friend. "Hey, you think those socks would fit me?" He joked.
Grover shot him a look. "Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."
The lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors; gold and silver, long bladed, shining in the sun. When she cut the hanging thread of yarn, the snip could be heard from miles, but Percy still made out her words. They were whispered, mouth barely moving, each not-quite-English letter sounding like she said them right next to his ear.
"I'll be waiting for you in Olympus, Perseus." He hardly registered Grover tugging at the doors of the Greyhound anxiously as the ladies packed up their yarn, fading into mist.