GIRL IN SILVER

PERCY

Nico, Jason, and I bolted through the front doors to find our group gathered around a figure on the ground. I pushed my way passed Hazel and Leo and got a good look at the figure. My friend, Beckendorf, was quickly bleeding out from a wound to his abdomen. I kneeled down beside him, next to a sobbing Silena.

"Beckendorf, what happened?" I asked frantically. Silena interrupted me before he could answer.

"Will! Do something! Please!" Silena begged. Will just shook his head.

"I'm sorry but the wound is too deep. There's nothing I can do." Will said. Silena made a strangled noise and started crying harder.

"It's okay, Will. It's not your fault. You're an amazing doctor." Beckendorf said. Will's eyes began to tear up also. I looked my friend in the eye.

"Beckendorf, tell me who did this to you." I commanded. The life left my friend's eyes but not before he got out one crucial bit of information.

"Luke."

I stood over my friend's now lifeless body with a dark expression. I kept my back facing the group because I couldn't bear to see their expressions.

"This is now a manhunt." I told everyone. "I want Luke."

"I would love to cut off that guy's head." Jason said.

"No, I want him brought back here alive."

"Why, let's just take him out." Nico said.

"I want him here so I can skin him alive like the animal he is." I could faintly here Thalia crying over her former boyfriend. No one else made a sound. "I'm going out. Will, fix up Frank here. Grover and Juniper can show the rest of you around." Annabeth stepped in front of me.

"I know what he did was wrong but you can't kill him." Annabeth said. I looked her in the eyes.

"I'm sorry, Annabeth, but when I find Luke…" I said. "…I'm going to do a whole lot more than just kill him." Annabeth looked like she was about to cry. I walked out the front door. The last time I stormed out of the hotel I went to a special spot to calm down. A nice, peaceful place where I could just think. The American Museum of Natural History.

I sat down on the cool floor and laid my head back against the wall. I sat there for about an hour, just thinking, until I heard a scream. A girl's voice echoed for help throughout the museum. I ran towards the voice. When I turned a corner, I saw a girl in silver hunting clothes firing arrows into a crowed of zombies. The girl's arrows hit their target every time. She was a natural with the bow. She fired her last arrow and the final zombie fell. What she didn't notice was the zombie sneaking up behind her. I grabbed the closest thing I could find, which happened to be a dinosaur bone, and threw it at the zombie. It made contact and knocked the zombie backwards. The girl turned and impaled the zombie with an arrow which was lying on the ground. She then turned to face me. I walked over to her and helped her retrieve a few arrows. I handed the arrows to the girl which she accepted gratefully.

"Here you go." I said. "Bye the way, my name's Percy." She didn't respond but instead stared at the floor while cleaning blood off her arrows. "We have a safe place if you want to come with us." She now looked at me like she just realized I was there.

"Percy, I gratefully appreciate what you did for me. You saved my life, but I don't think it would be a good idea for me to stay with you." She said.

"Why is that?"

"I just don't play well with guys."

"There are girls there too." She threw her bow to the ground angrily.

"Why do you want me to come with you so badly? I'm a freak. You would never talk to someone like me before this."

"You've obviously never met me." I noticed that all the dead zombies were wearing the same clothing as the girl. "These are your friends?" I guessed. Her eyes began to tear up and she buried her face in my shirt.

"We were sleeping…and…and…one person got bitten…and then the rest…" Was all she could say before breaking down. I rubbed her back sympathetically.

"Why did you say that you were a freak?" I asked. She shook her head. I noticed that she was the same age as me and the others and was wearing a silver bandanna in her black hair.

"Not many guys find it attractive when a girl can shoot better than him." She said. I laughed.

"Nowadays that's exactly what people find attractive." She laughed and stepped out my embrace.

"My name's Zoe Nightshade."

"How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Sixteen." She replied.

"Well my group is staying at a hotel right now and literally everyone there is sixteen including me. I'm sure half the guys there would go crazy over you." That seemed to disappoint her for some reason. "So, Miss Nightshade, you in?" She smiled.

"Yes, I'm in." We walked out of the museum and talked as we headed back to the hotel. Zoe said that she lost her family like everyone else when the apocalypse started and that she was with a group of friends, all girls, who were good hunters. I guess they were all at a shooting range when it started. We walked into the hotel and found everyone silently sitting at the dining table. There were extra chairs pulled up for the new members. A girl that I had never seen before was sitting in my chair and leading everyone in a prayer.

"Lord, we pray that you watch over our dear friends Beckendorf and Silena…" I slammed the door and everyone stopped to look at me.

"What is going on?" I demanded in an icy tone. "What happened to Silena? Who is she?"

"Relax, I am Calypso." The girl said. "We are praying for the death of your friends."

"Silena's dead?" Everyone nodded sadly. I took a breath and tried to hold back tears. "Well, who are you praying to?" Calypso looked at me confused.

"God, of course" She said.

"How can you be so sure that there is a god?"

"Faith." She replied simply.

"Yea, well, you know what I had faith in?" I began. "I had faith that when I took in three random people off the streets that one of them wouldn't kill my best friend. I had faith that my friends and I would find a cure to all this. I had faith that, if there is a god, he wouldn't stand by and let the world in." I saw Zoe nod in agreement to what I was saying. "I don't have faith anymore. I'm going to protect my family, my friends, and I'm not going to rely on someone isn't even there." Calypso shook her head.

"Ye of little faith."

"Yea, that's no faith, actually. I guess you missed the whole rant." Zoe said. "The facts are that no one is going to save you except for yourself." Calypso stood up and walked past everyone and out the front door. We all watched as she stood in the middle of the street and called out to the surrounding zombies.

"I have faith that the lord will protect me. I have faith…" Was all she said before her screams cut her off. I closed the door so no one had to see her suffer. After a few seconds, the screaming stopped. I turned to address my friends who had been mostly quiet while the confrontation went down.

"We have to protect each other because no one else is going to do it." I said and left to take a shower. I stood under the hot water and fought back horrible memories which kept surfacing. My mom and dad dying in front of me, my brother screaming for help in the next room, not knowing where my twin brother and little sister might be. That's the worst part. Not knowing their fate or if they're still alive. I heard a knock on the door.

"Percy?" Grover called.

"What is it, Grover?" I called back.

"We need to talk."

"You're not breaking up with me are you?"

"This is serious, Percy. It's about Silena." I turned the water off and quickly changed, not bothering to dry my hair.

"Is it true? Was that psycho telling the truth?" I asked desperately. He nodded sadly.

"It's true."

"What happened?"

"As soon as you left, she ran up to the room. We wanted to give her some space, but when Annabeth went to check on her…" He trailed off.

"She killed herself." I said knowing that Silena might try something like that. Grover nodded. "I thought she might. She couldn't live without Beck."

"You knew and you didn't try to stop her?" Grover asked not angry but curiously.

"It's better this way. She would never be the same Silena we knew." Grover nodded in agreement.

"We buried her next to Beckendorf, out back."

"Good." We both stayed silent for a minute.

"Come on; let's go grab something to eat. It was a rough night and we need our leader right now. We need to regroup and plan our next move." I gave a humorless laugh.

"What next move Grover? What can we do?"

"I'm glad you asked. As it turns out, Leo is basically the scrawnier equivalent to Beck in the home improvement department. Also, the girl in silver downstairs thinks she knows where we can go to get a cure." For the first time in a long time, I felt that we might have a chance at surviving, finding a cure, and just living normally again.

"Okay, let's go regroup."