The Golden Amulet (PJO, Sequel to The Silver Ring)

Chapter 13

Even before Percy even started his plan, he found a roadblock: the door could only be opened from the outside. That meant Percy had to wait. And wait he did.

Which roughly translated into pacing around the room at inhumane speed, muttering to himself.

It was the only way Percy could temporarily cure his ADHD—and it was a solid way to get warmed up lest everything went sideways. Even if he could, the other options didn't seem too tempting; either to lay down on the scratchy, presumably flea-infested mattress, or sit on the cold, hard stone floor.

He froze as he heard a soft skittering coming from the corner, sounding exactly like an animal he did not want to come face to face with. 

That left standing up to be the only real alternative. And maybe some whimpers too.

After a good five minutes of this, the door slid open with a bang, matching cleanly with the annoyance on the guard's face. Apparently, the heavy metal door was not soundproof, since it was evident that she had heard every single one of his very manly whimpers.

"Will you stop whimpering?" she snarled, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword tight enough that her knuckles were white. Obviously, she had been trying to restrain herself.

Percy composed himself as best as he could, almost losing the inner battle as he heard a screech from the corner that was absolutely not natural in any way. "You must be mistaken. I'm not whimpering," he said defensively. "If you're hearing something, it might be coming from you."

The guard took a threatening step inside—or what she thought as menacing. With her shining armor, a bow slung on her back, and each of her hands on a sword and dagger respectively, ready to draw them on a moment's notice many prisoners would be alarmed at the thought of possibly getting gutted—but Percy wasn't one of them. He'd faced many monsters that were considerably stronger than a human and come up on top. This would be a fight he could win.

However, as his hand quietly crept into his pocket while he kept eye contact with the guard to distract her, he realized he couldn't risk fighting. Any rights he had would be immediately thrown out of the window—if he had any to begin with—and it would utterly and wholly ruin his plan to get out, silent and sneaky. The sound of swords clashing was not quiet; it was like a vacuum cleaner sounding louder and more impressive than what it actually could clean. Even if there weren't any other soldiers guarding his room, any warriors in the proximity of a quarter mile would easily hear that something was awry. 

No. This would call for a distraction takedown. And fortunately, Percy was a large distraction.

His source of inspiration was set when another alien sound echoed from the corner. The guard's grip on her weapon became so tight Percy was worried her tendon might snap and her breathing got a bit faster. "You don't like what's in the corner either," Percy noted.

The soldiers narrowed her eyes at him and did her best to gather what remained of her composure. "Watch your mouth. You don't know what you're saying."

"I was just an observation—" Percy stopped mid-sentence, dropping down to his knees like he had been possessed—something he immediately regretted when his bones almost shattered with the hard impact with the stone, but oh, well. In a deeper voice, with his eyes, closed, he continued, "The monster in the corner has spoken to me. Get out now, human, you have no idea what you're trying to compete with. Get out, before the monster appears to protect me."

At his sudden movement of dropping down to his knees, the woman had immediately drawn her sword. Now, that was proving to be difficult since her hand was trembling like a sapling in a hurricane. As the time went on, she became more and more unsteady, before, finally, the weapon clattered out of her hand.