I DO NOT OWN PERCY JACKSON RICK RIORDAN DOES! I only have rights to Atlanta and, just Atlanta. The stories are still in Percy's POV, with my oc added in.


Chapter four: Our Mother Teaches us Bullfighting

We tore through the night along the dark country roads.

Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how our mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to Atlanta hugging her knees to her chest, in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo- lanolin , like wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

All I could think to say was, "So, you and our mom…know each other?"

Grover's eyes flittered to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."

"Watching Percy?" Atlanta said, still fearful to what was going on.

"Keeping tabs on him. Making sure he was okay. But I wasn't faking being his friend," he added hastily. "I am his friend."

"Um…what are you, exactly?" Atlanta asked.

"That doesn't matter right now." Grover said.

"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"

I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

"Goat!" he cried.

"What?"

"I'm a goat from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter." Atlanta said.

"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"

Atlanta stuck her tongue out at Grover. Grover stuck his back at her. She relaxed a bit.

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like…Mr. Brunner's myths?"

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"

"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"

"Of course."

"Then why-"

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfect obvious. "We put Mist over the human' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindy One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you were."

"Who he-wait a minute, what do you mean?" Atlanta asked.

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Percy, Atlanta," our mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get Percy to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

Atlanta whimpered, hugging herself tighter again. I glared at him, keeping an eye on her from the corner of my eyes. Grover looked guilty for scaring my sister. He reached out, wanting to apologize.

"Grover!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster please?"

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew it wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.

Our mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

"Where are we going?" Atlanta asked.

"The summer camp I told you two about." Our mother's voice was tight; she was trying for our sake not to be scared.

"The place Percy's father wanted to send him."

"Wait, she's not related to him?" Grover muttered.

We ignored him. "The place you didn't want me to go?"

"Please, dear," our mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

Atlanta whimpered again, Grover placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Because some old ladies cut yarn."

"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to…when someone's about to die."

Atlanta was shaking worse, and I knew it wasn't from the cold.

"Whoa. You said 'you'."

"No I didn't. I said "someone'."

"You meant 'you.' As in me."

"I meant you like 'someone.' Not you, you."

"Guys!" Atlanta cried. "Boys!" our mom said.

She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"What was that?" Atlanta cried.

"We're almost there," our mother said, ignoring Atlanta's question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness0—the kind of empty countryside you get out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd change into the thing and pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner…and the sword he had thrown at me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said "Ow."

I heard Atlanta whimper and felt her shaking hard. She's terrified of storms.

"Percy, Atlanta!" our mom shouted.

"I'm okay…"

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's side doors were wedged in the mud. The road had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the back seat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"

He was slumped over, hugging Atlanta to him, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. Atlanta was shaking, frozen from the cold and shock as I begone to shake his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!

Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Percy," our mother said, "we have to…" Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering towards us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

I swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Percy, Atlanta," our mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

Our mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" our mother told us. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"What?"

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized one at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," our mother said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you and Atlanta are going too."

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" I shouted. You and Atlanta are coming with me. Help me with Grover."

"Food!" Grover moaned a little louder.

The man with the blanket on his head kept coming towards us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head…was his head. And the points that looked like horns…

"He doesn't want us," our mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, Atlanta and I can't cross the property line."

"But…"

"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."

I got mad, then-mad at our mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering towards us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.

I climbed across Grover and Atlanta and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."

"I told you-"

"Mom! I am not leaving you or Atlanta. Help me with Grover."

I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, fragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if our mom hadn't come to my aid.

Together we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass. Atlanta was holding on to my rain jacket, trying to keep up with us.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster.

He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-which would've looked funny, except that top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

I recognized the monster all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-"

"Pasiphae's son," Atlanta said.

:I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you," our mother said.

"But he's the Min-"

"Don't." Atlanta said.

"Atlanta's right. Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet way.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," Atlanta told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't see he us?"

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.

"Opps." Atlanta said, not sounding sorry at all.

"Percy, Atlanta," our mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?" Atlanta asked.

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping Percy near me."

"Keeping me near you? But-"

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

He'd smelled us.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.

The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

Our mother must've had been exhausted, but he shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy, Atlanta! Separate! Remember what I said."

I didn't want to split up, but I had a feeling she was right- it was our only chance. Atlanta and I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on us. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed at our chests.

The fear in my stomach made me want to pull Atlanta with me and bolt, but that wouldn't work. We could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I pushed Atlanta and jumped to the side.

The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not towards me and Atlanta, this time toward our mothers, who was sitting Grover down the grass.

We'd reach the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as our mother said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing our mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back towards the road, trying to lead the monster away Grover.

"Run, Percy!" She told me. "Atlanta and I can't go any farther. Run!"

But I just stood there, holding Atlanta's hand frozen in fear as the monster charged at her. She tried to sidestep, as she told us to do, but the monster learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

"Mom!" Atlanta yelled.

She caught our eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around our mother's neck, and she dissolved before our eyes, melting into light, shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply…gone.

"No!" Atlanta and I yelled.

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.

The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn't allow that.

I let go of Atlanta's hand and stripped off my red rain jacket.

"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"

"Raaaarrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking in meaty fists.

I had an idea-a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.

But it didn't happen like that.

The bull man-charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.

"Percy!" Atlanta yelled reaching out for me. Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.

How'd I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was now in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.

The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Atlanta had made her way to Grover who had started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bit my own tongue off.

"Food!" Grover moaned.

The bull-man wheeled towards him and Atlanta, pawing at the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought how he had squeezed the life out of our mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I saw an angry look on Atlanta's face, and I knew she felt the same as me. She tore off her jacket, her golden bracelet on her left arm was gone.

Atlanta ran up to me and the bull-man, grabbing onto one of his horns with her hands, I got both of my hands on the other horn and pulled back with all my might, while Atlanta pulled forward on hers, with all her might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-snap!

The bull-man screamed and flung me though the air, Atlanta and I landed flat on our backs. My head smacked against a rock, when I sat up, my vision was blurry, but Atlanta and I had horns in our hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling, Atlanta standing beside me. As the monster barreled past, Atlanta and I dove the broken horns straight into his sides, right up under his furry rib cage.

The bull-man roared in agony, He flailed, clawing at his chest, then begun to disintegrate-not like out mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chucks by wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

The monster was gone.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen our mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing our help, so Atlanta and I managed to haul him up, staggering down into the valley, towards the lights of the farmhouse. Atlanta and I were crying, calling for our mother, but we held on to Grover-I wasn't letting him go.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, with Atlanta landing beside me, looking up at the ceiling fan circling above us, moths fling around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blonde hair curled like a princess's. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be." "Silence, Annabeth," The man said. "They're still conscious. Bring them inside."