/ thálassa | pjo \

/ chapter eighteen | chaos: short & sweet \

edited.

___________________________________________________________________________

 My brother's eyes never left me or Luke as he challenged, "One on one. What are you afraid of?"

Luke's arm tightened around me–his fingers pressing painfully into my shoulder as I swallowed thickly.

The anger radiating off the teenager was potent, making my stomach clench as I glanced back at a very pale Annabeth, Grover, and Tyson–all of them watching the scene playing out in front of them. I immediately started praying to whoever was watching and listening that they would keep them from doing anything stupid. It was too late for Percy as he had just challenged Luke to a freaking duel–but maybe he could back out.

No one was going to die for me.

I wouldn't let that happen.

Before anyone or I could say anything, Agrius burst from below deck, basically dragging out a thrashing black pegasus. I could hear his thoughts from over here, and they were wild–basically screaming. And man, those screams were littered with very not nice names that belonged to his captures.

I couldn't help but smirk at a couple of them–despite the blade pressed against my throat the moment.

"Sir!" Agrius shouted–struggling to keep the Pegasus from escaping. "Your steed is ready!"

"I told you last summer, Percy," Luke did not move, staring at my brother. He did not relinquish his hold on me for a second. "You can't bait me into a fight."

"And you keep avoiding one," Percy pointed out. He licked his chapped lips as he gestured around at the army around us. "Scared your warriors will see you get whipped?"

He had trapped him–pitching him against all of the members of the growing battalion.

And Luke knew it.

At the shifting of the army, Luke responded by pressing Backbiter into the skin of my throat–sending a hot, stinging sensation through my body. I hissed as blood dribbled down my chin, soaking into the neckline of my chiton. I dug my fingernails deeper into Luke's arm–trying to pull him away, but it made the tension worse–the blade threatening to pierce further into my throat.

"Luke–" Annabeth choked out as the blood streaming down my neck got a little too frequent for comfort.

Finally, Luke decided, "I'll kill you quickly." He grabbed my wrist and dragged me across the deck into Agrius's arm, "You will take her below deck, and you will keep her there. You got it? Do not repeat what your brother did."

"What about the pegasus?" Agrius was already struggling immensely with the thrashing creature.

"Figure it out." He gave me a burning look as he tightened his grip around my wrist and hissed at me, "I will kill every single one of them if you do not go willingly."

I glared up at him and snapped back, "If you hurt any of them, I'll cut your hands off and feed them to your pet drakon in the belly of this boat."

He smirked. "I guess we have a problem then, little Peter Pan." He pushed me over to Agrius–not giving me a chance to say a comeback–and gave him a withering look before sauntering away.

The second Agrius had his grip on me–I started to get motion sick from the jostling of the pegasus and bear-guy fighting. Agrius had started to drag us both back below deck–stopping me from being able to see what was going on beyond the wall of warriors.