Riptide by Annabeth Chase

Chapter Four: Luke's Family

(The Last Olympian pg 151-152 & 223-226)

We probably would have been alright if we hadn't gotten attacked again while we were traveling. A few of those fire breathing snakes I had finally been able to identify as Basilisks, found us about two thirds of the way to Westport. We dispatched most of them to Tartarus and the one that we didn't kill backed off. We didn't know if it would try again later so Thalia kept Aegis out just in case. She still wasn't in any condition to help fight but she could limp along on her own and her shield was good at keeping enemies from trying anything.

"Just a little further!" Luke promised which was good because I was exhausted. We had only stopped for a few quick breaks over the past day and a half. We were making extremely slow progress and with the monsters and injuries we didn't feel comfortable setting up camp to sleep.

Luke grabbed my hand to keep me from falling over. It sucked that even though I was the only one in our group that wasn't injured, I was still struggling to keep up with them. Normally when I was stumbling along this badly one of them would carry me but neither of them would be able to do that today.

As we got to the edge of the woods, we saw a large colonial house in a meadow. It looked old and I wondered if it had a history or who had designed it before I told my brain to focus on the problems we were currently facing. 

"All right, I'll just sneak in and grab some food and medicine," Luke said, and he looked miserable just thinking about it. "Wait here!"

"Luke, are you sure?" Thalia asked him, concern laced her words. "You swore you'd never come back here. If she catches you –"

"We don't have a choice!" Luke growled. The misery had dissolved, replaced by something harsher.

"This is your house?" I asked, realizing why we were here.

"It was my house," Luke said in a low tone. "Believe me, if it wasn't an emergency—"

"Is your mom really horrible?" I asked, getting excited to learn more about Luke. He'd told me so little about his family and I always wanted to know more. "Can we see her?"

"NO!" Luke snapped. I backed away from him, I had never seen Luke look so angry. But just as quickly as it had come the anger evaporated and he just looked tired as he said, "I—I'm sorry, just wait here. I promise everything will be okay. Nothing's going to hurt you. I'll be back—"

As he had started to move towards the house he was cut off by a brilliant flash of light and a voice so loud I had to cover my ears said, "You should not have come home!"

I was cowering next to Thalia as the light and sound died down to a tolerable level. She had placed herself slightly in front of me. She was guarding me from the man that had appeared before us. He looked kind of like Luke but older and the anger in his eyes seemed to make Luke wilt. I could tell Luke wanted to run but even if he did, Thalia and I wouldn't be able to follow.

"Dad?" Luke said after a minute, and I realized he was right, the man was Hermes. He wore a blue tracksuit and his shoes had tiny wings that seemed to be trying to fly. He was holding his Caduceus in his hand, and I wondered if he was going to use it to vaporize us.

"Why did you come here?" the god asked.

"We—we didn't have any other options," Luke said, and his anger seemed to give him confidence.

Hermes looked at Luke carefully and turned his gaze to Thalia and me, studying the scene.

"I suppose you didn't, but you still should not have come," Hermes said.

"Maybe if you had ever helped out, I wouldn't have needed to," Luke said. "Now are you going to let me get help for my friends or not?"

Hermes sighed, his staff shrank into a cell phone. I wanted to ask him a hundred questions, but Luke and Thalia both looked more terrified than I'd ever seen, so I decided it would probably be best to keep my mouth shut.