The breeze from the ocean tussled my hair and brought along the salty smell of the sea. The scent was comforting, as was the sight below me, but the frigid air that formed small puffs of smoke with each breath could be done without.
I stood at the top of Half-blood Hill looking down at the cabins. The sun had just barely started to peak the horizon, so I assumed the other questers would be arriving shortly. Annabeth was probably saying goodbye to all her cabinmates, while Zoë was telling her hunters all the new ways she'd come up with the torment me on the quest. A slight chuckle escaped my lips at the thought but my joy quickly faded as her words from earlier filled my head.
As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. We couldn't stay at each other's throats bickering the entire quest or it could turn out even worse than the prophecy foretold.
"You're here early," Annabeth's calm voice snapped me out of my thoughts and brought me back to reality. I shrugged but didn't say anything in response. "Zoë still isn't here yet? I thought she'd be the first one here." Again, I didn't say anything, but I did agree with her. It didn't seem like the huntress to be anything other than early. A thud behind us caused both Annabeth and I to jump a little in response.
"I was the first one here," came Zoë's voice. It sounded much kinder than the last time I heard her speak. Probably because she was technically speaking to Annabeth, "but when I saw this boy coming I climbed the tree so I wouldn't have to be alone in his insufferable presence." Ah, there was the venomous tone I was growing used to.
"And thank the gods you did," was my snarky reply. Annabeth glanced back and forth between us before scoffing and making her way down the hill, but not before throwing a snide remark of her own over her shoulder, "The sexual tension here is killing me already."
Zoë's head snapped in Annabeth's direction before glancing back at me in disgust. I simply laughed to further irk the huntress. I started off down the hill behind Zoë and a very unexpected thought came into my head. She was actually shockingly beautiful, and if she weren't giving me look like she wanted to kill me every two seconds I probably would've noticed that much sooner. The thoughts fled my head quickly when the memory of an arrow sticking out of my chest with her standing there holding the bow that did it resurfaced.
We all reached the bottom of the hill and prepared to pile into the van when a voice behind us called out, "Trying to leave without saying goodbye?" Chiron was trotting down the hill the way we just came holding a bag in his hands. He approached and extended the bag out in front of Annabeth. "Some gifts, from your mother Lady Athena and your cabin mates." Annabeth gasped in shock and hurriedly jerked the bag from Chiron's hand. She shot forward and gave him a quick hug before turning and running over to hop in the passenger seat of the van.
Chiron glanced back and forth between Zoë and I with a small smile. "Can I trust you two won't kill each other before completing the quest?"
Zoë scoffed at his question and turned her head up proudly before responding, "I'd never let a filthy male like this one come between me and ensuring Lady Artemis is safe." I simply rolled my eyes and flipped her off.
"In a way I actually agree with her, I want to make sure Artemis is safe... now Zoë on the other-hand..." Zoë looked about ready to rip my organs out while Chiron just shook his head at us. Just when I thought Zoë was actually going to gut me, she turned and walked calmly off to the driver's seat of the van. "I guess she's really not going to let me get in her way." Without even waiting to here Chiron's response I got in the backseat of the van and started to close the door.
"Be careful, Perseus." I paused with the door nearly close and stared out at Chiron. After a slow nod of my head I slammed the car door close and tuned into Zoë and Annabeth's conversation, which quickly proved to be much more boring than the passing scenery. Soon, that too started to bore me and I found myself drifting off to sleep.
My eyes fluttered open and a feeling of dread crept through my body. I was chained down again, this time the cold metal table I was on was underwater and a tube to breathe through was stuck in my mouth. Slowly the water drained from the tub I was in and the table tilted up so my body was out of the water in a more upright position. My body was groggy and unmoving even when a man approached from my left. He stuck a gloved hand out and grabbed my jaw tightly with it to hold my head in place while he made his way in front of me.
Here, in the light, I made out his face causing glimpses of him and the horrors he inflicted upon me to fly through my head. This man wasn't an ordinary human; he may have been mortal but he was a monster in every other aspect of the word.
"You continue to surprise me Project X." He smirked and released my face as he turned and looked at a small table next to me. His hand hovered over it for a second before he moved in a flash. When his quick movement was over with a giant gash was present on my arm and a bloody knife was apparent in his outstretched hand. He smirked and hurriedly shoved his fingers into the gash to keep it from healing too quickly. He dug deep into it, pulling the flesh back and ripping the wound open even further causing me to grunt in pain.
"Ah, here we go." I looked over in shock to see my glinting silver bone barely visible under the blood and flesh piled on it, "Your entire skeleton is now coated in adamantium, I honestly didn't think you'd survive it!" He let out a booming laugh and released my arm allowing the wound to start to heal itself. I wanted to ask what was going on, why he was doing this to me, but I couldn't control my body.
" When I... get out... I'm going to end you." The man's laugher slowed at my bloodthirsty tone and words. He stared at me with a smirk and shook his head, slowly stepping even closer so he was up in my face.
"Take a good long look Project X... when this is all over you won't even remember this face. You won't remember anything. You're going to be a puppet under our leader's control and boy do they have plans for you." His psychotic loud laughter filled my ears again as he walked away. So many thoughts rushed through my head. Who was their leader? What did he want with me? The thoughts fled my mind when the excruciating pain of being electrocuted filled my body.
I shot up in the backseat of the car. My heart was pounding and my throat raw from the unwarranted scream that just escaped it. Annabeth was turned around looking at me worriedly and I could see Zoë curiously glancing at me in the rearview mirror as she drove. Rather than say anything I slumped back against the seat and caught my breath. Annabeth stared a moment longer before turning around and facing the road again. I didn't feel like explaining anything to them. Hell, I didn't even understand it myself.
Thoughts swam through my head ranging from my mother, to the man, to their connection, until finally they moved on to the quest I was on.
"Hey guys," I finally spoke up, "where are we going anyways?" Zoë let out a short snort of amusement, but didn't respond beyond that. Annabeth took it upon herself to respond instead, "Well, in Zoë's dream Lady Artemis was last seen in Washington D.C. so we're going there first and hoping to get some idea on where to go from there." It sounded logical enough, so I slumped back against the chair to rest. Sleep would be impossible after what I just saw but it didn't mean I couldn't relax. I had a gut feeling we wouldn't be doing a lot of it soon.
Annabeth glanced back at me nervously like she had something she was afraid to say. I was about to tell her to just spit it out when she finally asked, "What did you see in your dream?" Before I could even open my mouth she hurriedly added on, "Sorry, I'm not trying to pry. It's just demigod dreams often have important information. If you can even have demigod dreams. I mean maybe everyone has these dreams and we just have a logical explanation since we know about the gods. Or maybe-"
"It wasn't a dream of the future... these things already happened." Annabeth stopped her rambling and stared at me a while longer until she realized I wasn't going to elaborate any further. Zoë, however, seemed like she had a lot more questions for me. Odd, considering she acted like she had no interest in me or anything going on in my life up until now.
The rest of the ride was silent and boring. Finally, we started to approach a cluster of museums. I had little interest in their contents, but the smell in the area made me tingle with adrenaline and excitement. We would find something to fight here; I was sure about that.
Zoë pulled the car to a stop in front of the National Air and Space Museum. We all quickly got out and stretched our aching bodies from the long ride. Zoë and Annabeth were not oblivious to the creaking sound of metal I made while stretching, but they didn't say anything about it. Probably smart enough to assume the rest of my skeleton was metal like my claws.
They started a conversation between themselves and made their way towards the museum, but not before making sure the van was securely locked behind them.
I started after them when a strange scent filled my nose. Something was very, very wrong, and it wasn't coming from the museum Zoë and Annabeth were heading into. I followed my nose knowing Annabeth and Zoë would be looking for me eventually, but not really caring. I had to figure out what was going on.
Finally, after sniffing around for what felt like an eternity I caught a strong whiff of the 'man' walking by and knew he was anything but a normal mortal. So I followed him until he stopped in front of a back entrance into the National Museum of Natural History. He glanced around for a second, his eyes lingering slightly on my hiding spot before he slipped into the building.
I crept up to the door and slowly cracked it open. The room was packed full of monsters, that much was obvious as soon as I opened the door. Once I slipped inside I noticed that I was standing in a short, dark hallway. At the end of which opened up into a giant room filled with old, covered up artifacts. It seemed they chose a closed exhibit to hide out in.
"We brought what you asked for, General." I walked up as close as I could to the room while staying hidden in the shadows. The bottom floor that I was on was crowded with monsters and demigods, none of which I recognized from camp. The top floor was a thin walkway going around the walls and had only two individuals on it, both of whom were too hidden in shadows to identify. One barely qualified as a man with his monstrous form while the other seemed like a normal enough demigod.
"Ah, perfect," spoke the monster man aka the 'General,' "with these soldiers those pesky questers won't make it out of the museum." My breath caught in my throat at his words. They knew we're here. I had to warn Annabeth and Zoë, but first I needed to see what soldiers he was talking about. I crept a little closer, bumping into a table along the wall I didn't notice. My heart pounded in my chest as a pencil on the other end slowly started to roll. It inched along until coming to a stop just at the other end.
I let out a sigh, and then watched at the pencil tipped over the end and fell to the ground. It thudded against the ground and I froze. In front of me, the closest group of monsters slowly turned and looked at it. I looked on in horror as their eyes slowly locked onto mine and growls began to emit from them. Soon everything in the room was looking at me.
The General leapt from the top floor and landed on a monsters back, crushing it to dust and causing cracks to appear on the floor from the pressure. We locked eyes and a shudder ran through my body.
"You got to be shitting me."