A Son Love & Doves

Chapter 11 (28) Camp See's Me Livid

Y/n POV

Safe to say as soon as I could I got off the hippocampi.

"Yeah you're definetly scared of water." Clarisse said and I hit her arm.

'No I am not!' I sign angrily.

"Well you sure as Hades' don't like it." Clarisse responded.

'I can't swim!' I sign.

Percy had taken a nap so while Annabeth woke him, Clarisse started to talk to me.

"You don't take any lessons to learn either." Clarisse said with smirk.

I silently huff and turn away from her and she laughs.

From what I could tell we were in Miami. The others had to swim to shore while my hippocampi carried me. I could have taken my bird form and flew, but it insisted.

Tyson had cried a little at the parting, but took his makeshift saddle pack he'd made, which contained a tool kit and a couple other things he'd salvaged from the Birmingham wreck.

We wandered along the cruise line docks, pushing through crowds of people arriving for vacations. 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 the - five kids dripping wet and looking like they'd just had a fight with a monster - they didn't let on. Then their was me, still in my outfit Astolfo put me in. Mortals probably would have assumed I was a cosplayer or something.

Now that we were back among mortals, Tyson's single eye had blurred from the Mist. Grover had put on his cap and sneakers. 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 I knew it wasn't. Time travelled 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, Jackson! If you hadn't interfered -"

"Percy's fault?!" Annabeth exploded. "Clarisse, how can you say that? You are the biggest -"

"Stop it!" Percy said.

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

The thing was: they'd almost forgotten this quest was supposed to be Clarisse's.

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

She looked up. I 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 and one dove,
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 with one."

"Ouch," Grover mumbled.

"No," Percy said. "No ... wait a minute. I've got it."

Percy searched his pockets for money, and found nothing but a golden drachma. "Does anybody have any cash?"

Annabeth and Grover shook their heads morosely. Clarisse pulled a wet Confederate dollar from her pocket and sighed.

I got an idea and pulled the horn out and they all looked at me.