CHAPTER 10

Percy paused, pulled his shirt collar up to wipe his upper lip and forehead from sweat, then kept running.

His phone attempted to blast the soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings—but only the songs that sounded like orcs were after him—and that would have worked great, except for the fact that only half of the speakers worked on his headphones, and he wore running shoes that must have been at least six years old that kept coming untied. Still, as he kicked up gravel and rounded the corner on his second mile, he smiled.

He liked New York this way, liked seeing glimpses of it through the trees flashing by him around Central Park, liked the way it felt under his feet. People sat on benches or briefly ran past him, pushed strollers or got dragged by dogs. It reminded him why his scars were worth it, why his sleepless nights meant something. All these people—alive.

He turned the corner and got cussed out by two different people.

"Evening to you, too," Percy muttered under his breath.

New York really was beautiful.

Percy adjusted his working earbud. Isengard sounded a million miles away.

His mom had taken up running, and since she thought he worked too much she challenged him to do something for himself. She signed them all up for a 5K in upstate New York. Paul was doing it too. And Annabeth would be home just in time to join them on the trails. The four of them were going to do it together, and darn it, he wasn't going to be left in the dust by them.

Except the longer he ran, the more he felt the ache in his bones, the creaking of his knees, the pull of old scars and healing scabs. The old wound in his side from Janelle the antique clerk was complaining each time he took in a jostling breath. He tried to keep his shoulders relaxed, hyperconscious of the tight ball of muscles around the shoulder that had popped out of socket last month.

But it was almost spring.

And that meant that Annabeth was almost home.

He felt faster just thinking about it, the aches getting replaced by the butterflies that took flight in his stomach at the thought of being with her again. He'd take her to his favori—

Before his brain could process it, he was on the ground, staring up at the gray-blue sky.

For a moment, he felt nothing.

And there it was. Pain and nausea, old friends of his.

He threw up his lunch onto the Central Park path beside him, cursing between heaves, his body shuddering. He slapped a hand onto the side of his neck, felt a small dart lodged there, and cursed again. Darkness was already creeping into the edges of his vision, thickening as he fought to get his feet back underneath him. He managed to stand, rip the dart out of his neck. He tried to keep running—away this time, away from whoever was trying to knock him out…

His body couldn't coordinate itself and he stumbled, grabbing onto a bench for support before he pushed off and tried to keep moving. Keep moving.

Shit, if he wasn't so disoriented, he could draw Riptide and go on the offensive.

He could outlast his attackers. He could—

Percy hit the ground hard, his good earbud clattering next to him as his cheek crashed into the pavement and dragged stinging cuts down his forehead. His arms felt numb, legs useless. The ground was thawing underneath his warm body, soaking his running clothes.

"Gee, he okay?"

"I'll help him. Looks like buddy just got the wind knocked out of him."

The voices felt far away, floating above him in swirls as his brain melted in his skull.

A puff of breath at his ear. He couldn't turn to face them. "Y'know, there are plenty of folks out there who are willing to pay a shit ton for a demigod with your skills. For studies, for the military—but I'm sure you've heard all that before."

The voice was low, quite, and unfamiliar. Percy wanted to bite out some sort of retort, but found his lips had gone too numb to. Blackness was circling around him, waiting for him.

He wouldn't stop fighting, bucking against the effects of the tranquilizer and tilting his head to try and get a good look at the person standing above him.

"Never trusted demigods," the attacker mumbled.

A kick to the face crushed his nose, snapped his head back—


Percy's battle to consciousness was a long one.

He found himself slumped on his side in some unknown holding room, bound up in cables, blood clumping his hair together and making the left side of his face sticky and stiff. His left eye socket was tender and swollen almost completely shut, his nose crooked and twice the size it normally was where the boot connected with his face.

The disorientation lasts for another few minutes as he worked his way sluggishly into a seated position.

"Hey," Percy called out, then winced at the weak sound of his voice. "Whoever is out there, however much someone is paying you, I'm not worth it."

"Well look who's woken up," came the reply. Percy saw a tall man, head shaved, with Riptide in one hand and his phone in the other, watching something that lit the side of his face red and blue. Percy was tied onto some sort of heating and cooling pipe, it's metal ridges digging into his back and tender shoulders.

"I thought capturing a demigod would be more of a challenge," a different voice said from somewhere Percy couldn't see.

An angry flush rushed up Percy's face. "Cut my bindings and I'll show you a challenge."

"Sure you will."

Percy didn't like the sound of that. Especially as the man waggle Riptide between his fingers, still in ballpoint pen form. "I've heard of this one. What'dya call it, Ripper? Bet you feel pretty powerful with your shitty little sword."

"If you let me go now," Percy said between gritted teeth, "you won't have to find out just how powerful it is."

Riptide unfurled before him, and the blade slid toward him and tilted upwards, right below Percy's chin. One wrong move, a flinch from him or a tremor of his captor's hands, and the blade would slice straight through his throat.

Percy held his breath. Didn't move a muscle. Call it confidence or bravery or stupidity, his eyes met his captor's and held there, radiating as much defiance as he could. The challenge seemed to tighten around them as Percy's chest began to ache from lack of air—

"Enough, Jack," the person that Percy couldn't see spoke up. "Our instructions were clear. No toying with the goods."

The blade disappeared with a dismissive sniff. As Jack retracted it, his hand flicked upward ever so slightly—intentionally or unintentionally—so that the blade nicked Percy's chin.

Percy shut his eyes, but didn't cry out.

The two captors turned their backs to him, resuming their Youtube videos. Percy dabbed his chin against his chest, trying to mop up some of the blood bubbling there between his day-old stubble.

"Look," Percy started, wary but too full of questions to just sit there in silence. "You're not the NYPD. Who are you guys? Some sort of bounty hunters?"

Without even turning around, the captor Jack growled. "And who are you supposed to be here, some sort of low-quality demigod vigilante?"

Percy didn't take the bait. "Who hired you?"

"Better question—who is paying you off to keep running around New York and busting up low-level crimes and monsters? We've got a vested interest in that answer." This time, Jack did turn around.

"What, are you going to torture it out of me?" Percy scoffed. "C'mon, enough of this. Let me go, I'll hand you the last note I got from my mysterious benefactor, and you two can try and Nancy Drew things from there."

Percy had scooted close enough that he could see the Youtube video the guy was watching—how to pipe a missing catalytic converter. And the guy was using Percy's earbuds. Dang, Percy thought. Just… so unlucky all around.

Jack set the phone down with a snap, then before Percy could react, he slapped Percy hard across the face. Percy's already sore eye socket screamed in protest.

"You can make this a lot easier for yourself if you just told us who's paying you. Is it Artemis? Zeus?"

"I don't know who sends the checks!" Percy croaked. "They're anonymous. Why do you even want to know—?"

Another slap, but this time Percy was quicker, despite the last of the drugs flowing through his system. He pulled back just in time for the slap to miss his face, the momentum of Jack's hand grazing his left ear instead.

His bottom lip welled with blood, feeding the sluggish trail down his chin to meet up with the sword nick. He glared up at Jack's sneer.

"Who are you people?" Percy hissed.

Jack's Youtube video was replaced by a calling screen. An anonymous number. Jack picked up and walked away, phone to his ear, glancing over his shoulder at Percy just once to grin.

Percy tried to calm his racing heart.

A beat of silence. Then, Jack said: "We'll be right there."

The man hiding from his line of sight stepped in front of him, hands busily prepping a syringe.

Percy's body started to shiver involuntarily.

"You're holding back information. That's fine and all," the man said. His hand shot out to grab Percy's shirt front, pulling the fabric away from his neck. Despite Percy's desperate wriggling, the man held firm. "But we've got other business to attend to, so you're going to take a little nap for us now."

Percy strained backwards.

The needle plunged into his neck tendons. The tense muscles burned.

"Try to get some rest," the other captor said, sneering at Percy's screams. "You'll need it for when we get back. Unless you feel like talking?"

In response, Percy weakly banged a fist against the cell door. The sound still echoed around the tiny holding cell.

As soon as they were gone, Percy opened his eyes and smiled.

Felt his front pocket, where Riptide was now comfortably tucked away.

He made quick work of the cables, his swollen hands sore but not useless yet. He used the tip of his blade to coax the cables attaching him to the pipe, then slashed through the electronics of the locking mechanism keeping him in the room. He glanced once over his shoulder—his earbuds were gone, but his phone was sitting on the desk. He grabbed it, then kept walking.

The door complained as Percy swung it open, and he flinched when he heard noise. His limbs were all trembling, his body wanting to give in to the drugs. Just a little longer, he thought. A little longer.

Percy stumbled along the halls blindly, then out into the street. Totally unfamiliar street. Totally not New York street, he could tell even through his drug-induced haze. He needed somewhere to lay low. He didn't have money on him for a cab and didn't know if wherever he was even had cabs. He was too out in the open, too close to the warehouse he had just left and too close to the road.

The only place he could think of to hide was a small brown church a block away. Breaths unsteady, he launched his little momentum toward it, through the locked basement door, and into its small carpeted rooms and long winding hallways that connected seemingly in a randomized labyrinth. He found a kitchenette, then a room full of hymnals and stored records. He nearly fell into the narrow stairwell once he found it, crawling on hands and knees until he reached the top and crashed into a dark sanctuary.

The pews were unforgiving beneath his back, but Percy fell onto one anyway, his body giving up underneath him at last. Moonbeams of light tickled the edge of his line of sight, softly illuminating an altar covered in a white sheet. The near-darkness would hide him if necessary. He hoped it wouldn't be.

Focus. He needed to focus. The poison inside of him was already deep in his blood stream, yanking at his consciousness. Percy needed that drug out of him. Fast.

He relaxed his shoulders, chest, jaw, eyelids. Focused on the rush in his ears, then went deeper, searching each vein for the particles that didn't belong to him. He wasn't perfect—he didn't have time to be. Systematic sweeps for poisons were for practice runs at camp, not for real life scenarios.

He pushed the drug away from his heart, pushed it through him and out of him and felt something like lucidity returning to him as he forced everything out of him. He started to cold sweat, his bladder protested. He ignored it, refusing to surface from his semi-meditation until he was sure he was safe to stop.

Then a hand was on his shoulder.

And Percy surfaced so fast that his head was spinning and his vision was still a haze of light and dark and he was swinging for places that would mess up whoever had grabbed him—

A shout, then a groan. Different than the men before—so there were either more of them than he'd thought, or they'd brought back up. Percy shook his head, trying to clear the last of the fog, standing shakily and backing himself against the wall, away from his attacker dressed in a… a sweater… clutching a bloody nose.

"Don't come any closer," Percy said, his voice hoarse. He couldn't chase the fear away quick enough for it not to come through his voice.

The man on the ground blinked at him through teary eyes. "Couldn't pay me to after that right hook," he groaned.

Percy gripped the wall for support. "Where am I?"

"At the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Wildwood Crest. New Jersey. Earth? How specific do I need to be?"

"That's—that's good. Sorry. I'm-I'm—" Percy's brain couldn't keep up, still deep in fight or flight mode. "Sorry, I need to go."

"Can I ask how you got in here in the first place?"

"I'm really far from home—I-I don't really know how I got here, but there were two guys, and they tried to drug me, and I don't know why I'm telling you all this—?"

The man managed to stand up, and with his hands up came closer to Percy.

Percy sunk down the wall, wood pricking at his skin and making him shiver.

"Stay with me, son. Don't close your eyes. I need to call the police."

Percy grabbed for his arm. "I swear I didn't rob you. I didn't break anything, and the doors were open—I swear—"

In his head, visions of Annabeth finding out he was in jail swam and made it hard to breathe. She'd come home, and she wouldn't finish her semester, and then she wouldn't get the job she wanted, and then—

The man didn't flinch. "This is a house of prayer, son, but you look like prayer's the only thing holding you together. I'm calling for a first responder to look at your wounds, and get a description of those men who attacked you."

Percy wet his lips. "I'm-I'm not good with doctors."

He had one that he trusted, but he was a whole state away.

The pastor—father?—was looking over Percy's shoulder now. "Hold that thought—how many captors did you say there were? Can you give me descriptions of what they looked like? Because there are two men walking this way."

"Don't let them in."

"They'll find a way in if they want in no matter if I lock those old doors or leave 'em wide open. You'll need to hide—can you walk?"

Percy wasn't sure about that answer until he was already moving to the back of the chapel, one arm roped around the pastor, legs pumping despite the fatigue taking over his whole body.

"Do you have any water," Percy croaked. "I'm—"

"There's two back exits from here. If you can run, run."

Percy shook his head, his energy sapped from the short burst to the back room of the sanctuary. "I don't think I can get up. I just—if you had any water—"

"I need to call the cops," the man said, raking a hand over his face. "I didn't think to bring my phone."

Percy dug in his back pocket, pulled out his phone, slid open his lockscreen then paused. How had they found him here this fast, when there were hundreds of houses and backyards between him and the warehouse? He opened the back of his phone case, and out dropped a small white disc. The pastor and him shared a glance.

"Tracking device?" the man grimaced. Percy nodded numbly. "Well, now we know. We need to destroy that and make a new plan."

We. As if they were in this together, and Percy hadn't just stumbled into his church and bled on his pew and punched him in the face only ten minutes ago. He found it oddly comforting, that use of we when for so long now, it was just him.

"I can run. I-I just need water first."

They both heard the front doors rattle, then open in a symphony of old hinges. The pastor looked up, then looked at Percy.

"The kitchen is too far away." Then the man looked at the tiny spicket mounted in the wall, unassuming yet adorned in an elegant coat of some sort of shiny metal. "We'll go with the slightly more… unorthodox option."

He helped drag Percy over to the spicket, and helped him with the switch until the water flowed from some unseen source. Percy opened his mouth, let the glorious water coat his tongue and soothe his parched throat. He let it pour down his face, soak his hair and shirt and wash away some of the sticky blood that had dried on his face. The man took a handful of water as well, washing his face and hands as he winced.

Percy half-choked. "Oh shit—is this your holy water?"

"Keep your voice down. I can't tell if they're still in the building."

"Sorry, sorry." Percy squeezed his eyes tight against the water's slow, itching healing. They both strained to hear any telltale signs of men moving around, but Percy just slowly shook his head. As long as they weren't in the back rooms he planned to sneak out of, it didn't matter. The pastor would be safe as soon as he had disappeared back into the night.

Percy looked to the pastor. "I'm going to run. Thank you for everything—stay safe, all right?"

It was the man's turn to choke. "The bruising on your face… son, it's just gone."

Percy reached up and touched his tender jaw. He winced at his stupidity, and the lingering tenderness. He should have been more careful.

"…Would you believe me if I said that water heals me?" Percy squeaked.

"A miracle," the pastor breathed, "or are you telling me this has happened before? Son, we need to get you to a hospital, see if they can recreate what you can do to help those—"

Percy got up, cutting him off. "You're in danger as long as I'm here."

The pastor seemed to jolt out of his train of thought, and nodded once. He looked disappointed. Percy looked away, his gut churning.

Also, he still needed to pee.

That's when they both froze, hearing defined movement for the first time: the sound of heavy boots on linoleum floors. They were moving toward them fast. Percy had waited too long to run, and now he was too late.

The man's voice was barely more than a breath. "Were they armed?"

"Only with tranqs last time," Percy said. "But things could have changed."

"Then I'm going out there to give you time."

The man's dark brown skin, his close-shaved head, his charcoal eyes, his stupid little sweater now covered in his own blood—Percy looked at him and just shook his head. "You can't do that for me."

"I'm not going to let two violent men—"

"I'm suppose to be the one throwing themselves into danger," Percy hissed, "not the one running away from it."

The man shrugged. "Read 1st Samuel 21 when you make it out of this. I think you'll find a man there that you can relate to, maybe even take some comfort in."

"This feels like a bad time for a bedtime story."

"I feel like I'm allowed one little sermon, seeing as you drank from my holy water."

Fair.

The pastor put a hand on Percy's shoulder. "Be careful. Be safe. Run hard."

"Yessir," Percy croaked.

The pastor rolled his shoulders, then walked out of the room. Percy heard him make a greeting to the men, ask how he could help them.

Then Percy slipped out the back door, and ran like hell.


Mom and her 5K training routine is the only thing that's keeping me alive, Percy thought, breath coming in short puffs of condensation, his sweat cooling on his skin and making him feel sick.

He ran past the first bus stop, but stopped at the second as his heart threatened to beat out of his chest. Percy threw up everything he had in his stomach, wiped his mouth, then looked at the bus stop map. A direct route to the next train station.

He looked at his phone. His chin wobbled.

He called his mom.

"Hi, sweetheart! It's awful late. What are you doing up? Are you working?"

His heart clenched. He was crying before he could stop himself.

"I-j-just hada reall-y b-bad day," Percy sobbed into the phone. He pulled his shirt collar up to wipe his nose.

His mom talked with him until the bus arrived, then talked with him through the long drive back to New York City. At one point, Paul joined in. Percy would cry, then his tears would dry and he would laugh at the stories about his sister, then he'd think about how close he was to never seeing them again and he would get teary again. His head throbbed from it, his throat ached.

Gods, they could have injected him with anything, and he would have been gone. Just like that. No fighting, no swords clashing. Just a cold lump in a warehouse.

He needed to be more careful.

He needed to stop taking the jobs from the mysterious D that wrote him checks.

At one point, he could hear Paul calling his mom to bed. Percy told her to go, but she must have heard what he really wanted to say underneath: please, please don't hang up.

So she stayed. Because he had the best mom in the entire world.

It wasn't until he had stumbled from the bus to the train, from the train to the streets, and from the streets to his apartment door that she told him he needed rest—a lot of it, and that if he had a shift the next morning maybe he needed to call in sick.

"You're working yourself too hard. You need to let yourself relax. It isn't good for you. I'm worried."

He was worried too—about so many things it was making his head spin—but right then all he wanted was to get something cold on his jaw and to change out of his soaked workout clothes, to pull his blanket over his shivering body, and—

And he wanted his mom.

"Can I come over tomorrow?" Percy asked. "I think you're right. I could use a hug probably. And maybe some central heating."

His mom's laugh warmed him. "I'll make the house a sauna just for you!"

Damn, his eyes were stinging again. He was crying out all of that holy water and putting it all to waste.

"I love you, mom."

"I love you, Percy. Get some rest, okay? We'll meet you at the train station tomorrow."

Percy finished unlocking his door, let his bodyweight rest on the cool wood for a moment before stepping inside. Something crunched under his left foot.

He stooped, grabbed the thin letter with no return address that had been slid underneath his door at some point during the day, and tossed it into the kitchen without reading it. He locked the door behind him, then triple checked his window locks. He checked the bathroom, his flickering light going on and staying on after he left, the little illumination a small comfort.

He pulled on a t-shirt, shucked off his wet pants, and changed into a clean pair of boxers. He peeled off his socks, his feet white and wrinkly from marinating in his sweat all day. He knew he should shower.

He just couldn't find the will to.

His phone was nearly dead. He plugged it in and hoped the last percentage would hold on as he checked every news station he could think of for events happening in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey.

Nothing.

He should sleep. He should eat. He should stop feeling so damn guilty about leaving that priest behind to cover his tracks while he ran like a coward. If those shitty warehouse guys had done something to him…

There.

He'd refreshed his phone one last time, and there was an article about a local parishioner that had caught two notorious child traffickers in his pajamas.

"The authorities are baffled, " the article said. "Local parishioner has no previous experience in any self-defense or hand-to-hand combat, yet the 63 year old man successfully trapped and held two of New Jersey's worst illegal traffickers at bay until the police could arrive."

Percy's eyes bulged.

"'Everything I learned, I learned from summer camp as a child,' the parishioner said when asked about how he had apprehended the criminals."

Percy set the phone down and laughed.