❦𝓕𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓲𝓶𝓮❦ - 𝓟𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓬𝓴𝓼𝓸𝓷

𝒳. 𝒜𝓊𝓃𝓉𝓎 𝐸𝓂'𝓈 𝒢𝒶𝓇𝒹𝑒𝓃 𝒢𝓃𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝐸𝓂𝓅𝑜𝓇𝒾𝓊𝓂

𝒯𝒽𝑒𝓎 were walking away from the blown up bus and it was pouring. Wandering through woods along the New Jersey river bank, The glow and the smell of the Hudson river wreaking in their noses. Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turn slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

Zoe was still in shock herself, but she was used to the ringing from the explosion due to working in the lab with her dad.

Annabeth pulled them along, saying: "Come on! The further away we get, the better."

"All our money was back there," Percy reminded her. "Our food and clothes. Everything."

"Well maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight-" Annabeth snapped.

"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?" Percy shot back.

"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would have been fine." She grumbled.

"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine."

"Shut up goat boy." Annabeth said.

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans... A perfectly good bag of tin cans."

Zoe stayed silent, glaring at the mushy ground as they sloshed across it. They walked past twisted trees and the air smelled like sour laundry.

After a few minutes Annabeth fell in line with Percy and Zoe fell in line with Grover.

"I'm sorry." She whispered. "I know how much this means to you and you almost got hurt and I couldn't help and-"

"No! Zoe, it's not your fault."

"Feels like it is."

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind them, leaving them in total darkness except for the glint of Annabeth's hair and Zoe's hair clip.

"It's no one's fault. Not you, not Annabeth, and not Percy's. If anything it's Hades' fault."

"Oh that was something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh? What about it?"

"I noticed that the Kindly Ones said it. Not him. What does that mean? What are we missing?"

"I'm not sure." Grover furrowed his eyebrows as he got out his reed pipes.

As he played, they let out a shrill toot toot toot! It sounded like an owl being tortured. Zoe covered her ears as she shied away from the noise.

"Hey! My reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"

Grover puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff. Instead of finding a path, Percy immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice-size knot on his head.

"Oops." Grover looked sheepish and Zoe couldn't contain her laughter. Percy glared at her and she laughed harder.

After tripping and cursing, and generally feeling miserable for the next mile or so, they started to see a light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. Zoe could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food.

The last time Zoe had a cheeseburger was with her dad the night before she left for camp. It was tradition. Every year, the night before she left, her dad would clear his schedule, or come out of the lab, and they would get cheeseburgers (and fries of course) and watch movies. This year had been a Harry Potter marathon. Her dad hated the movies because there was no logic there. She agreed but she loved the wizarding world, so she watched them anyway.