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Okay, so maybe their quest was not off to the best start.
But it was good to know that there was someone to blame for this. When she was younger, Bronte only had herself to blame for all of the unusual things that happened. There was one time when she was playing a board game with her mother and brother. Monopoly. Bronte was losing really badly, which only meant that her anger was rising more and more.
She slammed her fists on the table, and a split second later they were in pitch black. The lights had gone out. When Maria went to go look outside, she saw that the whole block was out. Bronte had caused a power outage for the whole neighborhood. Her blue eyes held sparks, like there was electricity burning inside her.
Right now, Bronte knew exactly who to blame: the gods above who sent them on a treacherous quest, even though they knew they would fail.
The five were 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.
Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "The Kindly Ones. All three at once."
Cooper, who had his arms wrapped around his body for warmth, stepped closer to Grover, saying, "We'll be fine. We got away."
Annabeth kept pulling them along, saying: "Come on! The further away we get, the better."
"All of our money was back there," Percy reminded her. "Our food and clothes–"
"Everything," Bronte whispered, hugging her body close. She stared at the ground, the photograph from her sketchbook still fresh in her mind. She told herself that she would draw it as soon as she got back to camp.
"Well, maybe if you both hadn't decided to jump into the fight–"
"What did you want us to do?" Percy argued, cutting Annabeth off. "Let you get killed?"
"We would've been fine," Annabeth snapped.
"Sliced like sandwich bread," Cooper mumbled. "But fine."
"Shut up, goat boy."
Bronte glared at her. "Hey! Don't talk to him like that!" If there was one thing Bronte would do, it would be protecting her friends. She had done it for a long time at boarding schools, especially at Yancy. She would not let anyone talk badly about her friends.
"It's not like you're doing anything to help the situation!" Annabeth turned to her.
"I don't know if you noticed, but I took down Mrs. Dodds by myself perfectly fine!" Bronte snarled, stepping closer to the girl with blonde braids. Anger was radiating off of her body, but she didn't even try to control it.
"Oh, yeah," Annabeth scoffed. "Except for the part where you tripped and fell and could have died if it weren't for Cooper!"
"I don't see what the big deal is! We stopped the monster attack, so why won't you just get off my back!"
