JAWBREAKER

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣

Annabeth volunteered to go after Luke alone since she had the cap of invisibility, but Percy and Warren convinced her it was too dangerous. Either they all went together, or nobody went.

"Nobody!" Tyson voted. "Please?"

But in the end he came along, nervously chewing on his huge fingernails. They stopped at their cabins long enough to gather their stuff, and Warren made sure Ravager was safely in her pocket.

Percy didn't want Tyson to carry everything, but he insisted, and Warren told him not to worry about it. Tyson could carry four full duffel bags over his shoulder as easily as any of them could carry a backpack.

They snuck through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs toward the admiralty suite. Annabeth scouted ahead invisibly. They hid whenever someone passed by, but most of the people they saw were just glassy-eyed zombie passengers.

As Warren came up the stairs to deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to be, Annabeth hissed, "Hide!" and roughly shoved her and Percy into a supply closet.

"You stepped on my foot!" Warren complained, but Annabeth clapped a hand over her mouth just as a pair of men walked past their hiding spot.

"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" one of them said.

The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome."

Warren definitely recognized one of those voices, but she couldn't place their name.

"I hear they got two more coming," the familiar voice said.

"They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man— no contest!"

The voices faded down the corridor.

"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth removed her hand from Warren's mouth. She took off her cap and became visible.

"Oh my gods, you're right!"

Chris was one of the undetermined campers who got stuck in the Hermes cabin because his Olympian parent never claimed him. Now that she thought about it, Warren realized she hadn't seen Chris at camp this summer.

"What's another half-blood doing here?" Percy asked.

Annabeth shook her head, clearly troubled.

They kept going down the corridor. Warren glanced out a glass wall that looked over the middle of the ship, and she stopped in her tracks.

"Guys," she said. "Look."

They stared down at the Promenade— a mall full of shops— but that's not what had caught Warren's attention. A group of monsters had assembled in front of the candy store: a dozen Laistrygonian giants like the ones who'd attacked Percy with dodgeballs, two hellhounds, and a few even stranger creatures— humanoid females with twin serpent tails instead of legs.