Just Add Water

in the eyes of the moon

Unfortunately, it turned out to be worse than she'd imagined.

The next incident occurred a year later—in fact—exactly a year later, on the blistering month of June.

But before that, Percy had stayed as normal as always. She prayed to the only god who could give her answers, only for her voice to tumble into the void of nothingness. And after doing research that lead to nothing, she pretty much gave up on finding the cause of Percy's newfound connection. It didn't matter much, anyway. She saw how her son seemed perfectly fine, nothing out of the ordinary. So much so that she'd almost forgotten about Percy's strange behavior that day of the full moon.

Almost.

Sally had recently married Gabriel Ugliano—about a month ago, really. Even with Percy being a seemingly regular child, monsters lingered around the edges of his life, just like Poseidon had predicted. They had many close calls before she'd realized that the monsters only ever left them alone when that equally disturbing man followed her and Percy home.

Every time she was on her shift at the candy shop, he'd be there, waiting. Her coworkers noticed it first, and soon enough, she did, too. So Sally did the hard thing—the crazy thing—and played along to his little games.

It wasn't long until he'd given her a ring and a new name.

Sally Ugliano. He'd pronounced it with a smirk, the sound music to his hairy ears.

At least on the second part, she'd refused. And vehemently.

He could use her like a marionette all he wanted for the sake of her son. She could pretend to love him even, to give him her sweetest smiles and most delicious food no matter how undeserving he was of it. To share her bed and clean up his mess and put up with his gods-awful smell.

All of it, she'd do for Percy without batting an eyelash.

But she would not fall completely into his abyss. Sally Jackson was her name, one of the last surviving traces of her family. Something she had to cherish forever. And she damned well couldn't loose it to some bastard like him.

Gabe didn't like it, not one bit. But he'd still agreed on the plans of marriage.

So long as Percy carried Gabriel's scent, he'd be safe. So long as Gabriel stayed away from home as much as possible, he'd also be safe.

These musings danced around her head like sweet lullabies as she prepared dinner.

It reassured her, that her choice to marry him had been a good one, in the end. Her financial struggles weren't as bad as before; she'd almost had enough saved for online classes now, and...

Percy is safe and that's all that matters.

He doesn't need to train, and that's all that—

There was a splash, then the sound of something hitting the ground, hard.

A scream echoed from down the hall.

She dashed toward the noise, dropping the knife she'd been using to cut the chicken breast.

Percy, Percy in the bathroom.

"Honey?" she cried, breathing hard and knocking on the door. "What's wrong?"

Silence.

She called out to him again, but all she heard was running water and a bit of splashing. No response.

What if he'd fallen and hit his head?

She frantically tried the door handle and sighed in relief when she realized that it was unlocked. Slamming it open and hitting the wall in the process, she already pictured the worst.