The Path Of Glory (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

38. Guess Who's Waiting In Miami?

In the distance, the sun was setting behind a city skyline. Y/N could see a beachside highway with palm trees, storefronts glowing with red and blue neon, a harbor filled with sailboats and cruise ships.

"Annabeth, wake up." He shook her shoulder.

She opened her eyes and sat up. She finally seemed to have fully recovered.

"Where are we?" she asked sleepily.

"Miami, I think," he said.

"Our fishy friends are having a problem," Ethan said over the sound of the waves.

Sure enough, the hippocampi had slowed down and were whinnying and swimming in circles, sniffing the water. They didn't look happy. One of them sneezed.

"This is as far as they'll take us," Percy said. "Too many humans. Too much pollution. We'll have to swim to shore on our own."

None of them was very psyched about that, but they thanked Rainbow and his friends for the ride. Tyson cried a little. He unfastened the makeshift saddle pack he'd made, which contained his tool kit and a couple of other things he'd salvaged from the Birmingham wreck. He hugged Rainbow around the neck, gave him a soggy mango he'd picked up on Polyphemus's island, and said goodbye.

Once the hippocampi's white manes disappeared into the sea, they swam for shore—except Y/N, of course, who flew over the water. The waves pushed the others forward, and in no time they were all back in the mortal world. They wandered along the cruise line docks, pushing through the crowds of people arriving for vacation. Porters bustled around with carts of luggage. Taxi drivers yelled at each other in Spanish and tried to cut in line for customers. If anybody noticed them—five kids, four of them dripping wet, looking like they'd just had a fight with a monster—they didn't let on.

Now that they were back among mortals, Tyson's single eye had blurred from the Mist. Grover had put on his cap and sneakers. Ethan had stolen—"borrowed," was the word he used—jeans and shoes in a beach shop, and put on his banana sunhat. Even the Fleece had transformed from a sheepskin to a red-and-gold high school letter jacket with a large glittery Omega on the pocket.

Annabeth ran to the nearest newspaper box and checked the date on the Miami Herald. She cursed. "June eighteenth! We've been away from camp ten days!"

"That's impossible!" Clarisse said.

But Y/N knew it wasn't. Time traveled differently in monstrous places.

"Thalia's tree must be almost dead," Grover wailed. "We have to get the Fleece back tonight."

Clarisse slumped down on the pavement. "How are we supposed to do that?" Her voice trembled. "We're hundreds of miles away. No money. No ride. This is just like the Oracle said. It's your fault, L/N! If you hadn't interfered—"

"Y/N's fault?" Annabeth exploded. "Clarisse, how can you say that? You are the biggest—"

"Stop it!" he said.

Clarisse put her head in her hands. Annabeth stomped her foot in frustration.

He was frustrated, too, and he would've had things to say to Clarisse—an habit, now. But he knew they had to do something, and quick. They couldn't afford to argue.

"Clarisse," he said, "what did the Oracle tell you exactly?"

She looked up. He thought she was going to tell him off, but instead she took a deep breath and recited her prophecy:

"You shall sail the iron ship with warriors of bone,
You shall find what you seek and make it your own,
But despair for your life entombed within stone,
And fail without friends, to fly home alone."