🌷 "We're Greek, Percy. We're all born with tragedy in our blood."
The only thing Daphne could ever be sure of was that she was not meant to be alive. Whatever you wanted to call it - a gut feeling or just some serious anxiety, she couldn't shake th...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter XII
🪷 Don't get Daphne wrong - she was pretty annoyed about being tricked, teased, used and ridiculed by an all-powerful God. But she didn't think that her first instinct would be to ... you know, try and kill him.
She was wondering how they'd make it back to the shore before they drowned when a Coast Guard boat picked them up. Daphne had never been a strong swimmer, and Annabeth was helping to keep her above water. With some extreme luck (for them, at least), they were too busy to keep them for long, or to wonder how four kids in street clothes had gotten out into the middle of the bay. There was a disaster to mop up, radios jammed with distress calls.
They dropped them off at the Santa Monica Pier with towels around their shoulders and water bottles that said I'M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD! and sped off to save more people. Daphne hid her wrist as they were being rescued, but she got the impression that it wouldn't have mattered anyway. They were too busy to evaluate them, which she was too grateful for to risk it and ask for a cast, or something.
Their clothes were all sopping wet, even Percys. She supposed he had the power to will himself to be waterproof or not, and she was silently grateful that he'd taken one for the team. Pulling a kid from the ocean who was dry would've sounded some alarm bells. He was also barefoot, having given his shoes to Grover. Better the Coast Guard wonder why one of them was barefoot than wonder why one of them had hooves.
After reaching dry land, they stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise.
"I don't believe it," Annabeth breathed helplessly, frustrated with herself for not seeing through it. "We went all that way-"
"It was a trick," Percy agreed. "A strategy worthy of Athena."
Annabeth turned to him, murder flashing in her eyes. "Hey," she warned.
"You get it, don't you?" Percy said hastily.
Daphne placed her unharmed hand on Annabeth's shoulder as she dropped her eyes, her anger fading. "Yeah. I get it."
