My body has become a bright, pulsing, burning thing.
Or maybe the pulsing is just my head.
But my body is definitely burning. I wonder if it's the virus, burning away the human part of me. Destroying the ecosystem, so that it can take root in the ashes and become something entirely new.
"Annabeth."
The pulsing is my head for sure now. And it's not helped by the fact that someone is shaking me.
"Percy, we have to go."
"No, Thalia, she's still breathing. Annabeth, c'mon."
"Percy, it bit her."
But he's stubborn. My…
"Percy?"
"Annabeth. Thank God," he says. "Can you walk?"
I want to say yes, I want to tell him to leave me. I know what happened. But my body is too busy burning for me to respond. The hands on my arms move, cradling and lifting me. His body is cool compared to mine.
"Gods, Percy. She's burning up."
"Get in the boat."
"But—"
"Get in the boat, Thalia."
The boat motor starts up. The noise rips through my brain. I think this must be what a migraine feels like. I cringe, trying to burrow into Percy, hoping that will muffle the sound. I should be embarrassed, but I think my pride is burning away with the rest of me.
It's a short ride to the boat, but already, I can feel the fire becoming part of me. It begins to feel natural. Or it's just the cool air that's waking my body up. Whatever it is, my muscles finally start listening to me.
"I can walk," I say when we reach the Trident. Percy still has to help me stay upright, but I don't feel as weak.
Pounding feet echo like cannonballs in my ears. Percy rocks to the side and I look down to see Tyson wrapped around his big brother. He's babbling too fast for my brain to keep up. I catch my name. He's looking up at me.
I smile. "I promised." My voice doesn't sound like me anymore. It sounds like a bullfrog.
"Jason, get this thing fired up. We're leaving," Percy says.
I expect Jason to argue, but he just casts a strange look at me.
"Valdez, you're with me," he says, then pushes to the crowd of teenagers to the pilothouse. Leo looks more than happy to be leaving the mess that's about to happen.
"What happened out there, Jackson?" Clarisse asks.
"Annabeth got hurt. That's all."
Clarisse crosses her arms, blocking the stairway to the upper deck.
"That looks like a bite to me, Jackson."
"We'll see," he says.
"If she's bitten, she goes Jackson."
Percy's fingers dig into my side. He's holding me so tightly his hipbone presses, sharp, into my side. His ribs expand into my arm.
Thalia tries again. "Percy…"
"Nobody touches her." He's shouting. The sound is an arrow, in one ear and out the other. The deck heaves. My fingers dig into his t-shirt; it feels like everything is sliding from underneath my feet. Percy puts his other arm around me. My head falls back onto his shoulder, it's so heavy.
"She needs to lie down." Percy leans down, so he's looking in my eyes. "We're going to take care of you."
"They're right," I say. My mouth is dry.
"No."
It's quieter this time, but it still plays havoc with my questionable equilibrium. Percy helps me to the nearest deck chair. There's a crease between his eyebrows. Gods, it's adorable.
"No," he says again. "I'm not losing anyone else."
"I'm already lost," I say.
He has both of my hot hands between his cool ones. Behind him, Thalia and Grover crowd in, standing guard. Thalia looks like she might cry. Grover looks like he's trying hard not to throw-up. Juniper kneels next to me, pulling the shirt away from my shoulder. She pulls in a sharp breath.
"It's a bite," she says.
"I knew it," Clarisse says.
There's the scrape of metal against leather. I blink. When my eyes open, Percy's gone from kneeling in front of me to standing. Anaklusmos extends between him and Clarisse. Chris Rodriguez steps in behind her, crossing his arms.
"She's still alive," he says. "What do you want to do? Throw her overboard? Leave her behind? That's a death sentence."
If looks could kill, Percy would be dead.
"She's a goner, Jackson. A liability. Will you be the one to take care of her when she turns?"
"What if she doesn't, LaRue? For all we know, it's possible to survive a bite."
"We can't take that risk," I whisper. Juniper has her arms around my shoulders, which makes the bite feel hotter. She's sobbing.
Percy doesn't look at me. He keeps his eyes on Clarisse and her beefy boyfriend.
"Name one virus that's 100% effective, Annabeth."
"What?"
"Tell me there's a virus that wiped out an entire population."
"The Plague…"
"Even that left people behind," he says.
It's true.
"And what if you're wrong?" I ask.
Percy finally turns to look at me.
"And what if you have a chance?"
The heat is turning to ice now. I can see the edges of my vision blurring.
"Could you do it, Jackson? Could you do it?" Clarisse's voice is like a screechy violin. Everything throbs.
It's too dark around the edges for me to see Clarisse. She's too far from me. It's just Percy as he looks at me, his shoulders sagging. I want to tell him to do it. Do it now. Before I turn into something that's not me. Before the heat and the cold break me into a million pieces and I crumble away until nothing is left but a meat sack.
"Yes," he says, his voice cracking. "I could."
The world tilts. The last thing I see is Percy growing larger and larger.
# # #
I wake staring at the slats of a top bunk. I'm still burning. But I'm shivering too.
A rustle to my left. I look over to find Percy in one of the ornate chairs from the salon, his feet propped up on the end of my bed. When he sees that I'm awake, he sits up and quickly moves to the edge of my bed.
"Hey," he says.
I try to hey back, but my vocal chords might be glued together. Percy leans away from me and then there's a straw pressing against my lips. They latch onto it before I even can register that it's there and I drink. The water almost hurts going down, it's that cold. He puts the glass away.
"How ya feel?"
"Like I'm lighting a solar system."
His hand presses against my forehead. It's not cold like the water. It's soft and cool. Also unlike the water, this feels good.
"You are burning up," he mutters.
I can't fight the grin.
"You're cute when you're worried," I say. "Your eyebrows get all scrunched together."
Oh gods, my body has definitely been taken over by a zombie virus. It's just so hard to think about what I'm saying with the constant pounding of my head.
If possible, his eyebrows get closer together.
"You are not going to die while I owe you a favor," he says.
"I am dying, Percy," I say.
He pulls away. He stays on my bunk, but he won't look at me.
"Why did you do it?"
I reach out for his hand. He takes mine, watching it as he brushes his thumb over each of my fingers. Why couldn't he be like this when I was lucid? Did I want him to be like this when I was lucid?
I could give him a million answers. Because you're my friend. Because I promised your brother. Because I thought I had that zombie. They'd all be true and they'd all be a lie.
I knew the real reason. But it'd be cruel to tell him now.
In all my fantasies and worst dreams, it never occurred to me that I'd be the one to leave.
"You would have done the same for me." It's as close to the truth as I can some without saying the words. Percy turns back to me and I can see that he's crying. He leans over me again, brushing sweaty hair away from my cheek.
"You saved me," he says. "Thanks."
"So you owe me." I manage a weak smile. "What else is new?" My free hand grasps at his sleeve. Which I belatedly realize is braced next to my right side. Oh, the girls in school that would have killed to be in my position. "Percy, what…"
"We've worked out a schedule so someone will always be watching you." He swallows. "We'll know…"
"When I turn," I whisper.
"If you turn."
"Okay." I don't try to correct him. Let him hold onto this for as long as it lasts. I don't think it'll be much longer. There's only so much of me left for the virus to burn up. Gods, my brain. My mind that I was so proud of. All that I am is going to be gone soon.
"Get some rest, Wise Girl," he says. And I swear it's the fever, but the way he says it makes me feel like he's the only one who has ever called me that name. He says something else, but it's lost as my brain takes his permission to rest and runs with it, pulling me away from what will probably be my last waking moments.
Goodbye, Seaweed Brain.
# # #
I fall in and out of dreams.
Strange dreams. There are monsters. Where my mom is actually a Greek god. I can't grasp onto more than strands of the dreams.
And then I'm hanging over the blackest darkness I've ever seen.
I hurt everywhere. Something around my ankle pulls me towards the darkness. I think that's where most of the pain in coming from. Below me I hear a voice that I know belongs to the kind of creature that haunts my worst nightmares.
The only thing keeping me from falling into the darkness is a hand desperately gripping mine.
It's Percy.
He's hanging from a small ledge. He can't pull us up.
"Percy, let me go," I say. "You can't pull me up."
"Never," he says. He looks at the circle of sky above us. When he looks back down, I can't see his face, but I know the look in his eyes. I can feel it, even if I can't see it. I remember it from the last time I saw him. "We're staying together. You're not getting away from me. Never again."
No, real me screams. I don't want this. Some ridiculous Romeo and Juliet scenario. I took that bite because I wanted him to live. Because—Because I'm falling for Percy Jackson.
I wonder how I'm going to explain that one to my mom in the afterlife.
But the me in the dream—the me that is hanging above blackness—doesn't agree. She seems to have some ridiculous idea that together, she and Percy are unstoppable.
"As long as we're together," she says.
And then Percy lets go.
I fade in and out after that. Thalia comes in. And I think Piper. Juniper. Grover. They're all there in my dream. Or am I awake? I start to differentiate between waking and dreaming by whether or not I'm falling. Sometimes when I'm "awake" Percy is there. He's always there when I'm dreaming.
There's a splash and I'm no longer falling. Now I'm swimming. But Percy isn't. He's sinking. I grab him, shaking him. Trying to get him to swim. That's rich, me keeping Percy Jackson—champion swimmer—from drowning. I swim towards the shore, Percy floating. It's like I'm swimming through quick sand. Every stroke saps my strength. But I refuse to give up. I have to get Percy to the shore.
I won't let him go down with me.
Finally, we're on the shore, pulling each other onto dry land. But the land is hot. It burns. And the water behind us begins to burn. And where the water is touching me, I don't burn. I scoop handfuls of the water, which is no longer water.
I drink liquid fire. And the fire consumes me.
And then, I wake up.
# # #
"Water."
It's the first thought in my mind when I wake up. I seem to be coated in it, but there's none to keep my tongue from sticking to the roof of my mouth.
"Here," a voice says.
Someone holds my head up and presses a straw to my lips. It's a he. I can tell that from his voice, but it's not Percy. I don't know this voice. I drink. And the water feels good. Almost like it's getting soaked up by the lining of my mouth and esophagus before it can even reach my stomach. But that's silly.
I finish drinking and am allowed to lie back on my sweaty pillow. I blink.
That can't be right.
"Jason?"
"Hey," he says. "How do you feel?"
"Um, confused." I swallow and it feels wonderful. "I didn't think you were that big of a fan."
Jason shrugs.
"I figure that saving Percy's life makes up for you making my sister cry." He stands up and reaches for the top bunk. "Hey, Pipes. Get up. She's awake."
Piper doesn't even bother to use the ladder. She hits the floor with a thump. I flinch, but surprisingly, there is no shooting pain in my head. She leans over me, one of her braids thwacking me on the nose. I sneeze.
Pipes?
"Wow," she says. "I guess the fever did break." She pulls a patch of gauze away from my shoulder. I'm back in just my black tank top again. "Looks good, the swellings down and it isn't as red." She stands back up, rubbing at her eyes. "You should get your cousin."
Jason nods.
When did they become friends?
"Piper, how long have I been out?"
"Five days."