a story as endless as the ocean . pjo / allie jackson

sea of monsters . prologue

sometime in march, the grammys

The vibrations of my phone took my eyes off of the mirror in front of me, where I had been inspecting my appearance. My makeup artists had, as always, done an impeccable job at making my skin look flawless and adding depth and dimension to my eyes.

The text came from Luke. A group photo of all of my friends and the rest of Camp Half-Blood sitting by the camp fire where they'd rolled up a projector to be able to watch my performance and cheer me on as I (hopefully) won some awards for my new album, illegally legal.

You've got this, Angel! Send a pic, I wanna see how gorgeous you look before I see you on the screen

I rolled my eyes at the comment, but sent a picture of myself in the mirror, only from my chest up, showing off the top of my custom Dior dress, a dark green A-line with a slit up my thigh. The top was off-the-shoulder and covered in intricately placed hand-made flowers with detailing gems running over the empty spaces. It had gotten paired with a pair of dark green Louboutins and my makeup artists had given me a matching dark green eyeshadow look and wine-red lip.

It wasn't the outfit I'd walked down the carpet of the Grammys in— that was actually a black and white Dior dress with a more vintage look to it, black heels, and a smokey eye— but it was the one I'd be performing in. The dress itself was gorgeous, but it only made me worry more that I wouldn't leave the night without ruining it. I'd barely agreed to even attend the Grammys, much less actually perform at it, but Danny had convinced me after many weeks of telling me I was practically a shoe-in for the categories I was nominated in and it would be a bad look to not agree to performing. My new single, making the bed, had gone number one on practically every chart ever and had stayed number one from its release in August to sometime in early February.

I was eternally grateful at how much the world loved it, but it didn't make me feel any better now that I was sitting in a backstage dressing room, ready to get on stage and perform, hoping and praying to every god in existence that my parentage didn't get me attacked on one of the biggest nights in music.

I got up from chair, ignoring Luke's reply back of Good gods, Allie, it's unfair how fucking hot you are. Even Luke's charms could no longer distract me from my unyielding anxiety.

"You need to stop pacing," Danny chided from the doorway he'd just walked through, looking at where I was wearing a hole into the floor.

I turned my glare on him. "I don't need to do anything." I paused and sighed. "I'm just... worried."

"Worried?" Danny repeated. "At this point in your life you've done how many performances? And only now you're getting scared? You've literally already performed at the Grammys. You have four of them."

"I didn't say scared," I snapped moodily. "I said worried. There's a difference."

Danny stood, fixing a strand of my hair that must have fallen out of place. "What of? You've practiced this performance thousands of times. You've got nothing to be worried about."

"'Nothing'?" I scoffed, jerking away from him to continue my pacing. "Nothing. Not anything at all? What about a horde of monsters bursting into the room in the middle of my performance? Or while I'm sitting in my seat. Or while I'm talking to any of my friends. What do I do then? I can't defend myself. My career would basically be over. What would the mortals even see? Or gods forbid one of them sends something to do their bidding to kill me. It's not like they wouldn't know, news of my performance today has been all over social media for the last two weeks now. And—"

Danny grabbed my hands and forced me to sit on the couch he was previously occupying, mindful of my dress and making sure it didn't crease.

"Calm down," he tried soothing me, ignoring me when I glared at him once more. "You're only making things harder on yourself the more you stress. Breathe, Allie."