𝗚𝗢𝗟𝗗𝗜𝗘! 𝙥. 𝙟𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙨𝙤𝙣 ¹

Percy Is Impertinent

CHAPTER SEVEN: LYDIA

In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're limping away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.

So, there they were, Lydia, Percy, Annabeth and Grover, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind them, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in their noses.

Lydia was shivering, the adrenaline had worn off and the pain of her injury was coming in clutch. The burn on her thigh was throbbing and she could hardly think from the pain, wincing with every step.

Grover was braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

Percy was in shock himself. The explosion of bus windows still rang their ears. But Annabeth kept pulling them along, saying: "Come on! The farther 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—"

"Okay! Okay." Lydia bit out, interrupting their bickering and wrapping her arms around her trembling frame. "We get it, everything went wrong. The last thing we need is to be fighting right now."

"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?" Percy went on.

"You didn't need to protect us, Percy. We had it under control!" Annabeth shouted.

"Oh, yeah? What about that burn?" Percy retorted, pointing to Lydia "Is that what you call 'under control'?" He mimicked quotation marks.

"Ok, Percy, too much." Annabeth said.

Lydia looked just as hurt as she felt—which was a significant amount. She was only trying to protect Percy. He'd only been a demigod for like a week!

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

"Shut up, goat boy," said Annabeth.

They sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.

After a few minutes, Annabeth and Grover had fallen into conversation ahead of Percy and Lydia.

"Look, I..." His voice faltered. "I'm sorry, what I said was not cool."

"It's okay." She said. "What you did back there was really brave."

"We're a team, right?"

She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died... that would really suck, and we'd have to go home, and Annabeth doesn't want to go home...that's why she's being a little uptight."

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind them, leaving them in almost total darkness. Percy couldn't see anything of Lydia except a glint of her golden hair.

"A little?"

Lydia pursed her lips. "A lot."

A smile quirked up on his lips, he asked,  "Do you want to go home?"

"Um. . ." Lydia hesitated. "It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half Blood is my home." Lydia rushed her words, as if she wanted to quickly move on from the topic. "I didn't want to leave camp to begin with, but Annie asked me to come and I wanted to be here with her. With you."