/ thálassa | pjo \

/ chapter nine | another terrible reunion with the relatives \

edited.

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 After a bit of time of Percy and Annabeth arguing, we concluded that either everyone went together to venture deeper into the ship or nobody went at all.

Adorably, Tyson voted for the latter.

I comforted him by grabbing his hand and adding my two cents, saying we needed to stick together and not split up.

So together, we snuck back to our suites and packed back up.

While I was shoving some toothpaste and my toothbrush into my duffle, Annabeth asked, "Where did you get that bracelet?"

I blinked before remembering the bracelet from my penpal dangling from my wrist.

I smiled shyly, "It's from him." I expected her to tease me about it, but she was eyeing it in concern. My smile dipped, and I questioned, "What's wrong?"

"Is that flower a carnation?"

I looked at the charm–holding it up to the light before bobbing my head, "I think so, why?"

She shrugged–turning her back on me, "No reason."

She was lying.

I knew she was, and as much as I wanted to pester her until she told me, I let it go–more eager to get off this damned ship than I was to know why she was giving my bracelet the evil eye.

I followed Annabeth into the guys' cabin just as she murmured that Tyson should carry all the duffles as he was stronger than all of us combined. I looked up at my brother, who shrugged, holding his hand out to me. I hesitated–hating to use him as a pack mule–but I eventually passed it to him.

Meanwhile–Percy was arguing with Annabeth about the whole situation.

I gave him about fifteen more seconds before I snapped in a harsh voice, "I will literally leave your sorry ass here if you don't shut up and give Tyson the duffel bag."

My brother glared at me–probably about to channel his inner Mrs. Jackson and scold me for cussing–but he didn't and reluctantly gave his bag to Tyson in the end.

I waved everyone to follow me to the door, and after swinging my head from side to side, I led everyone from the cabin. I felt like I was shriveling from the inside out–my skin crawling like it was alive as we avoided people as much as we could. Annabeth had decided to scout out in front of us after about ten minutes of us wandering around–using her invisibility cap to her advantage.

We managed to get to deck thirteen (where the admiralty suite was supposed to be; our final destination, by the way) when Annabeth suddenly hissed, "HIDE!"

Not even getting a chance to react, we were promptly shoved into a supply closet just as a couple guys came down the hall.

"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" One of them asked.

The other laughed loudly. "Yeah, it's awesome."

The second voice sounded vaguely familiar, and when Annabeth tensed beside me, I had a feeling she knew who it was.

"I hear they got two more coming," The familiar voice exclaimed. "They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man—no contest!"

The voices continued but faded.

We gave it a few more minutes before we untangled ourselves from inside the closet and moved further down the hall.

"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth whispered as she took off her cap. Her gray eyes were enormous as she looked over her shoulder in the way the voices vanished. "You remember, Percy—from Cabin Eleven."